The Secret Life of a Dream Girl (Creative HeArts) (7 page)

I can tell by the way his eyes darken, the way the look on his face goes from contemplative to quizzical to concerned in just a few seconds.

“Hey,” he says, laying a hand on my knee. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

I shake my head, give him a full-wattage smile that I’m far from feeling. “You didn’t pry. I asked you first.”

“Still, I’m sorry—”

“No apologies.” I reach for the strawberries and this time I’m the one who pops one in his mouth. He shuts up, as I meant for him to, and just kind of blinks at me in surprise. “My mom died when I was ten, and my dad and I aren’t close. We haven’t been for a long time.”

He’s done with the strawberry, and I can tell from the look on his face what he’s going to say before he even says it. So I slap my palm over his mouth and reiterate, “
No
apologies.”

He nods, and I pull my hand away slowly, pretending—even to myself—that I don’t notice how soft his lips are. How warm his breath is.

“So.” I clear my throat and stare longingly at the cupcakes, wondering if shoveling down all twelve would send me into a sugar coma. At this point, it’s pretty much the best I can hope for. “It’s probably time to talk about Operation Dream Girl, before we have to head back.”

Keegan looks like he wants to protest, but in the end, he just settles back on his elbows with a nod. “Okay. Wow me with your brilliant plan.”

“I already told you it was a work in progress, more than an actual plan.”

“All right, then wow me with your brilliant work in progress.”

He’s smirking at me, and it takes every ounce of willpower I have not to be charmed all over again. If the boy only knew how smooth he was, I’d be completely superfluous in this whole situation.

I almost tell him that, almost suggest that he just be himself with this girl and she—and her panties—would probably both fall at his feet. Something holds me back, though, and I work really hard to convince myself that I’m just being cautious. That there’s no reason to get his hopes up. Not yet, anyway.

“Well, I’ve got a couple of different ideas,” I finally say. “First of all, what track is she in? What does she like? What does she do for fun?”

“She’s in the music track. She’s funny and smart and cool in a not-trying-too-hard kind of way. I don’t know what she does for fun—I’m trying to figure that out.”

“You should totally work on that, because knowing what she’s interested in will really help with the wooing.”

He laughs, low and long, and the sound is way more infectious than it should be. Then again, it could be the way his eyes sparkle and his whole face lights up that’s so appealing. Not that it matters to me, when the whole point of this lunch is to make him appealing to someone else.

“What’s so funny?” I ask when he’s finally stopped laughing.

“Nothing. Just…wooing.”

“Seriously?” I roll my eyes at him. “Are you still going on about my word choice?”

“No, no. It’s not that. It’s just I spent some time looking up wooing last night. It turns out a lot of people use the word.”

“I told you!”

“And you were right. I totally bow to your expertise.” He picks up the cupcake tray I was staring at earlier, pops the top, and then holds it out to me. “So what’s the first step? Talking to her about what she likes?”

I select a caramel-looking one, because caramel is the food of the gods, not ambrosia. Obviously. Also because it’s the cupcake with the prettiest frosting swirl on the top, and that’s important.

“I guess. If you want to be really low-key about it, that could work.”

“Let’s say I don’t want to be low-key. Let’s say I want to punch it up a notch. What should I do?”

“Bring her a present. Nothing big, certainly nothing that screams
I want to throw you in a pit in my basement and make a suit out of your skin
—”

“Hold on.” He sits up abruptly. “There are actual presents that scream that? I mean, besides shackles and Rohypnol?”

“Yes, there are,” I tell him after I stop laughing. “You have to start off small. Sure, girls love presents, but you don’t want to give her anything that might seem weird or inappropriate.”

“Damn. And here I was planning on doing my best Christian Grey impression.”

“You know what? I’m not going to help you if you keep making fun of me! I’m trying to be serious here!” I mock-glare at him.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He holds up his hands in surrender, and even manages to bite back a smirk. But his eyes are all but dancing with amusement, so it’s pretty hard to buy his obviously fake remorse. “I know you’re trying to help and I swear, I’m paying attention. Get her a small present, nothing too flashy, nothing that screams stalker. Just something that says I’ve been paying attention to her. That I know—and care—what she’s interested in. Right?”

“Right,” I grudgingly admit. “And—”

“Just to be clear,” he interrupts. “We’re talking absolutely no ball gags, right? No blindfolds, no whips, no—”

“I’m leaving now.” I give him a dirty look as I get to my feet.

“No, don’t! Please! I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”

“No, you’re not.” I dust the grass and dirt off my butt and slide my feet back into my shoes.

“I am! I swear.” He grabs me around the waist and tugs me back down. Only I land in his lap instead of on the ground and suddenly he’s all around me. His lean, hard chest pressed to my back. His strong arms wrapped around my waist. His breath warm against my ear.

I shiver despite myself.

“Are you cold?” he asks, wrapping himself even more tightly around me.

“A little.” I make a show of looking at my phone. This isn’t about you, I remind myself. It’s about his super serious, super focused Dream Girl—whoever that may be since he still hasn’t spilled the beans. “We should probably head back anyway. The first bell rings in fifteen minutes.”

“Yeah, okay. But first—” He reaches for the half of the baguette we didn’t eat. “Wanna feed the ducks?”

I follow his finger and see the small parade of ducks swimming around on the other side of the pond. “I do,” I tell him as I scramble off his lap. “I really do.”

“Then come on.” Once again, he puts a hand on the small of my back as he guides me quickly around the pond. It only takes a minute or so, and then we’re right there, only a few feet from the ducks.

He rips off a hunk of bread and hands it to me. I take it greedily, then immediately start ripping tiny pieces off and throwing them into the water. The ducks go nuts for the bread, quacking and honking at one another as they dive for the small pieces.

When I finish with what he gave me, Keegan hands me the rest. And that’s when I realize that he hasn’t thrown any bread to the ducks at all.

“Don’t you want to…” I ask, trying to hand the baguette back to him.

He shakes his head. “You look like you’re having fun. Besides, this is my spot. I can come here anytime and feed them.”

What’s left unsaid is that this is a onetime thing for me. For us. He brought me here today so we could talk, but he doesn’t plan on bringing me back again. Which is fine. I don’t need him to want to bring me back here. Hell, if I want to, I can come by myself anytime I want.

After all, my apartment is less than fifteen minutes away from here.

The realization should make me happy, the idea that if I’m careful and come at off times, I can just show up here without worrying about schedules or paparazzi or any of the other things that kept me trapped in hotel room after hotel room, stage after stage. And yet the thought of coming here alone—without Keegan—fills me with disquiet. With discontent.

I don’t let him see it, though. Instead, I laugh and continue throwing the bread out to the ducks. Continue marveling at the way they compete for each and every piece.

But inside I’m thinking about what it would be like if this were my life for real. What it would be like if I were just a normal teenage girl, going to a cool school, dating a great guy, spending my lunch period having a picnic and looking at art and feeding the ducks.

What it would be like if the girl Keegan knows could be the real me, just for a little while.

Chapter Nine

We make it back to school just as the bell rings signaling the end of lunch. I scoop my backpack out of the backseat and the two of us hightail it to class, sliding into our seats just as the bell rings—which is a good thing because while Oliver is pretty lenient, I’m not sure even his coolness would extend to being tardy two days in a row.

Still, it feels a little weird, too. How abruptly our idyllic little slice of heaven just ended. One second we’re feeding the ducks and oohing over some turtles sunning themselves on a rock and the next we’re back here, sitting on opposite ends of the classroom—Keegan surrounded by his friends and me sitting in the back corner, pretty much alone.

I know it’s by choice—that I’ve kept my head down and not spent a lot of time talking to people because I don’t want to be recognized—but still, it’s lonely. I didn’t realize just how lonely until I started hanging out with Keegan.

When I’m Cherry, I’m surrounded by people all the time. Stylists, assistants, interviewers, my dad, my manager, tour people, label people, paparazzi. But there are very few friends in that group, very few people I can actually connect with. Even when I’m hanging out with other people for “fun,” it’s rarely just for fun. Someone has always called a photographer or wants a favor.

It’s always been like that, from the time I was young and got my first part on a Disney show. My dad liked it like that, and through the years managed to convince me that I liked it, too.

But now that I’m here, now that I see the way Mariely and Willa are together or Keegan and Jacen, I want it. I want that friendship, that ability to just truly be myself with someone. It sounds lame, but I want to make a connection. A real connection.

I start paying attention just as Oliver is calling for us to get out our notes on the project we have due at the end of the week—a detailed synopsis and plan of each of our individualized roles in our senior project. I’ve barely gotten started on mine, mostly because this whole singer/songwriter thing is harder than I thought it would be. So far I’ve been concentrating on writing songs instead of singing them—which is a good thing because I haven’t quite figured out how to rough up my singing voice to make my sound just a little different. I know that won’t last forever, but for now it’s kept me out of the spotlight and off the stage.

But that just puts more pressure on me to write songs—and not just any songs, but really
good
songs.

When I was Cherry, stuck singing the songs that the label and my dad thought would best advance my career instead of the songs I really wanted to sing, I had a million different ideas. Music and lyrics crowding my head at all hours of the day and night, so many rushing at me that sometimes I thought I’d go crazy under the weight of them all. But now that I’m free, now that I have a year to take a break and try out the whole songwriter thing, it’s like everything has dried up.

Any lyrics I think of are ridiculous. Any music I try to put together sounds off. I know it’s only been a couple of months, but it’s making me nervous. Making me wonder if being an ex-Disney channel pop princess is all I’ll ever be good at. Making me afraid that deep inside I really am nothing more than a mechanized doll who goes where she’s directed and does what she’s told.

It’s a terrifying thought, and a disheartening one.

For a second, tears blur my eyes. I blink them back, refusing to let them fall. Self-pity is so overrated… And so is fear. My whole life I’ve refused to be afraid, refused to tell myself there was something I couldn’t do, something I couldn’t achieve. And I’m not going to start now just because I’m lonely. Just because I don’t know how to fit in with a bunch of kids my own age when I don’t have Cherry’s public persona to fall back on.

This year is all I’ve got to do this. Once school ends in May, I’ve got to get back into the studio to record my next album—and if I haven’t written the songs for it, then I’ll be stuck peddling more vacuous pop princess songs about falling for the boy next door. And while I don’t mind singing love songs, I want them to be more. I want them to be raw, fresh…real.

Because Keegan pops into my mind at the thought of writing a love song, I pull out a pen and start working on the lyrics for the theme song for our Web series. I don’t get past writing—and then scratching out—two lines before my phone vibrates with a text. I tell myself it’s probably my father or my manager or my assistant, but that doesn’t keep my breath from catching in my throat. Doesn’t keep my hands from trembling just a little as I reach into my pocket and fish out my phone.

And it sure as hell doesn’t stop the extra-hard pounding of my heart when I see that the text is from Keegan. Keegan who, even now, is sitting with a bunch of people and talking animatedly about how we want to market the
Lizzie Borden Diaries
.

I pull up his text and grin like a crazy person when I see that it’s another song. This time it’s Jay Z’s “Most Kingz,” which might seem an odd choice except I totally get it. The song is Jay-Z’s tribute to Jean-Michel Basquiat, who just happens to be one of my favorite painters—it’s totally an allusion to the way we spent our lunch break.

I think about texting him an art song back—maybe even going way old school with “Vincent” by Don Maclean, but then inspiration strikes and I go onto YouTube and find a version of the teddy bear picnic song. I send him the link then wait to see what happens.

Even though I’m deliberately not looking at Keegan, I can tell when he follows the link because his laugh—warm and deep and just a little too loud—carries through the classroom. For a second, just a second, I can feel his eyes on me. I force myself to keep working, or at least pretending to work. There’s no reason for him to know just how happy it makes me that I can make him laugh.

Soon, conversations are flowing all around me, people talking to each other about the project and a million other small things—music, movies, the dance, life. I let it all wash over me as I play with a bunch of different lyrics that I’ve come up with. Some of them are good, some of them are crap, but until I can figure out some semblance of order for the song, some kind of vision for what I want it to be, I’m not going to know what to use or how to put it together.

It’s driving me a little crazy, especially when everyone else seems to be working just fine. I have to get this done so I can move on to the song for the first episode—the last thing I want is to be the one holding things up when they’re ready to film.

I’m about to give up in disgust when a chair plops down right next to me. It’s facing the other direction so I don’t pay any attention to it—at least not until Finn straddles it backward and leans over until his face is only a couple inches from mine.

I bat him away before he can figure out just how badly I’m messing up the lyrics. I must not be fast enough, though, because he grimaces as he says, “It’s going that well, huh?”

“You have no idea how bad it is,” I answer with a groan. Then I bend over and pretend to hit my head against his shoulder a few times. “I can’t believe the crap I’m coming up with.”

He wraps a comforting arm around my shoulder. “It can’t be that bad. I’m sure you can
cherry
-pick a few of the lyrics—”

He breaks off when I smack him in the stomach, hard. “Are you kidding me with that?”

“Sorry. I tried to resist, but it was too good.”

“Yeah, well, try harder.”

I glance around as casually as I can manage, just checking to make sure no one heard. Not that they would think anything of it, necessarily, but if Finn keeps making Cherry jokes, it won’t be long before someone puts it together.

As I check out the classroom, I realize a couple things at once. First, a bunch of people are looking at us, but I guess that’s to be expected considering Finn made a point of coming over to sit with me. I barely resist banging my head again—and on the desk, this time. Because, seriously, for a girl who’s trying to keep a low profile, I am totally hanging out with the wrong two guys.

And secondly, Keegan is no longer sitting in his spot across the room. Instead, he’s standing a couple desks behind me, talking to Himesh. And while he seems totally absorbed in their conversation, something tells me he’s paying a lot more attention to Finn and me than he’s letting on.

I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me feel a little warm inside. At least until I remember that he likes somebody else. That’s what our whole friendship is based on, in fact. Me helping him get Dream Girl. I wonder if there’s a way to pound that into my head so I stop forgetting it.

For the first time, I wonder if she’s in senior seminar with us. And if she is, if he’s following my advice and trying to show her that she might have a little competition. Which is fine. I mean, it’s good even. Because the sooner he gets together with Dream Girl, the sooner I can stop thinking about how warm his hand is when he puts it on the small of my back. Or the way his eyes dance a little when he’s happy. Or how he smells all sexy and comforting at the same time, like the bergamot orange candles I like to burn during late-night recording sessions.

I’m still staring at Keegan when he turns to look at me and our eyes meet. I smile at him and he smiles back. But even as his lips curve, something feels off. His eyes are dark and somber, about as far as they can get from the laughing electric green gaze he wore throughout lunch.

I frown at him, then shrug in a kind of
what’s going on
way. He makes a face and shakes his head, like nothing’s wrong. I’m not sure I buy it, though, and I think about getting up and going to talk to him. But I don’t want to interrupt if he’s hoping to attract Dream Girl’s attention, either. Maybe he’s waiting for her to make a move or something.

I start to text him, already wondering what emojis I can use to ask what I want to know, but that’s when it registers that Finn is taking advantage of my distraction to read all of my ridiculously awful lyric attempts.

“Hey!” I slam a hand down on the notebook to cover the most heinous of the lyrics. “What are you doing?”

He just pushes my hand out of the way and goes back to what he’s doing—which is when I see that he’s crossed out a few of the phrases and circled some of the others. He’s even put numbers next to a couple of them, like he’s putting them in order.

“I didn’t know you write songs,” I tell him.

“I don’t.” But he ducks his head, even blushes a little. “I listen to a lot of music, though, and I have a feeling for what works together, lyrics-wise and story-wise.” He points at one of the lines that I actually like. The rhythm is off but the sentiment is good—the whole feeling like a misfit thing, feeling like you don’t belong wherever you’re at. I wrote it because I imagine it’s how Lizzie feels most of the time, but there’s a part of me that feels the same way. And as I look into Finn’s eyes, I realize he does, too.

Damien picks that moment to laugh really loudly. I look over and realize it’s because he’s pulled Willa down into his lap. She looks embarrassed and she’s fighting him a little, but she looks pleased, too. Like she’s actually happy about all the attention he’s showering on her.

I make a disgusted sound in the back of my throat. That guy is
such
a douche.

“Yeah, that pretty much covers it,” Finn agrees and I realize he’s watching them, too. And the look in his eyes is very distinctly non-stepbrotherly.

“So that’s how it is, huh?” I ask softly, so no one else can hear.

He glares at me. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’m not blind, you know. I can see how you feel about her.”

“Maybe, but I’m not stupid enough to wait around for a girl who falls for a guy like that.”

“Maybe not normally. But none of this is normal, is it?”

For long seconds, he doesn’t answer. Instead he starts doodling on my lyrics page, drawing basketballs and stars and what looks like a giant black hole sucking a stick figure into it. Yeah, the guy isn’t gone over Willa at all… I can’t help thinking it must be rough, especially for someone like Finn who has had such a weird home life. It’s not jacked up in the way mine is, but with flighty Mia as a mom, it’s a long way from normal. And now, here he is falling for a totally regular girl. And not just any girl, but one who is going to be his stepsister soon. And who already has a boyfriend.

Is it any wonder Finn’s face looks like a particularly virulent thundercloud?

“She’s normal.”

His words echo my thoughts so closely that it takes a few seconds for me to register that he actually said them out loud, that I didn’t just think them. “Yeah, she is,” I agree.

“She’s normal and nice and has a regular life that is totally getting turned upside down by my mother. The last thing she needs is a guy as screwed up as me to make things any harder for her.”

I want to tell him he’s wrong, but he’s not. Willa would be better off with a normal guy—not Damien obviously, because he’s an ass—but a regular guy who won’t draw her into his drama. Just like Keegan will be so much better off with Dream Girl than he would be with me.

The thought stings, even though it shouldn’t.

Even though I’m totally in this to help him get that other girl.

Even though we’ve only been friends for a couple days.

“So, I’ve got to go to L.A. next weekend,” Finn says suddenly. “Want to come with me?”

“For what?”

“Matt Bingham,” he answers, naming one of the brightest stars in the young Hollywood crowd. “It should be fun. It’s his twenty-second birthday and he’s doing it up huge. We can fly out Friday night and come back Sunday evening. You won’t even have to miss any class.”

It does sound like fun. And I actually got an invite to the party, too, as I know Matt pretty well. Because I’m doing the high school student thing in Austin, I told him that I couldn’t come. But Finn makes it sound so simple, and maybe that’s what I need. To get away from here for a couple days and clear my head. I can totally come up with something to disguise my hair and if I wear some of my regular Cherry clothes, no one would think to connect Cherry and Dahlia. No one but Finn, I mean.