Undercover with the Hottie (Investigating the Hottie) (10 page)

“It's not so bad,” I said, turning away so she wouldn't see me wincing.

“Turn the tables,” Nic suggested as he navigated through traffic. “Give him a nickname.”

“I should,” she said.

“We can help spread it around,” Leah offered. “Then he'll never escape.”

“What about Will?” Daphne asked. “Won't he tell?”

“No,” I said, searching for what a twin would say. “If he does, we'll just give him a nickname instead.”

“My lips are sealed,” Will said. “Scout's honor.”

“Is he a scout?” Leah asked.

“No,” I said, even though he was.

“What are you going to call him? West, I mean,” Nic asked.

“Good question,” Daphne said. “It has to be bad.”

“There's a fine line,” Nic interjected. “If it's too mean, you guys may end up as bullies.”

“I'm really okay with that, Mr. Parker,” Daphne said. “I wish we could call him Shaggy, but it doesn't really fit.”

“We could call him Mystery Machine.” Will wiggled his eyebrows at us.

“Uh, no,” Leah said.

“Scrappy?” I suggested.

Nic glanced at us in the rear view mirror. “The easiest thing would be just to call him Velma every time he calls you Scooby Snack.”  

“Poor Velma,” Sidney said. “She always gets kicked around.”

“I love it, Mr. Parker,” Daphne said. She focused on her phone for a minute and then held it up for us to see. “What West and Velma's baby would look like.”

“Ewww,” Will said. “What would West and Daphne's baby look like?”

“Don't be disgusting, Will.”  Daphne looked down at her phone. “I am so going to have fun with this.”

“You guys get along so much better than me and Logan,” Leah said when we pulled up to the curb. “It's almost like you don't hate each other.”

As I followed her out of the back seat, I made eye contact with Nic. He may as well have screamed his thoughts because I heard them loud and clear. “Don't get along so well with your brother.”

Will clued in too because after helping Daphne out of the car, he walked off without offering me a hand. I could have used some help too since I had this short skirt to worry about. “Boys,” I grumbled.

I don't know who Matt Daley's parents had killed to get an apartment this big in the city, but the place was enormous with four levels. “This is his mother's gallery space,” Leah said. “The first two floors. The top two are the living quarters.”

“She lets him have parties in her gallery?”  

“Not usually, but she does if she's between shows. The art in here is all hers, and Matt would murder anybody who hurt it.”

Loud screeching came from the far side of the gallery where a band was set up. They were tuning their instruments, and the sound wasn't pretty.

“They probably have cameras everywhere too, huh?” I asked.

“Yeah, but Matt turns them off for the parties. Freshman year he had a party and somebody got hold of some of the video. It ended up on YouTube and the girl had to transfer to a different school.”

Yikes. “So he decided to turn them off?”

“He kind of had to. Nobody would come to the parties if he didn't.”

Good point. I wouldn't have to worry about cameras when I moved through the house. That was good to know.

The screeching noises continued, and I glanced around at the crowd. There were a lot of people in here. More than twenty teens, girls in heels I could never walk in and guys in jeans and khakis. These kids didn't shop at WalMart. These were expensive clothes, colognes worth their weight in gold, salon perfect hair and nails.

They stood in groups and talked, flirted, and joked. The twinkling lights around the columns and doorways added to the festive atmosphere. I'd already lost sight of Will, but Leah and Sidney stood halfway to the stage.

“C'mon,” Leah beckoned. “Stephen's band is about to play. They are so good.”

I was glad she wasn't chasing after Will. Although, where was Daphne?

Focus, Amanda. You aren't here on a date with Will. You are here on a mission for GASI. Lives are at stake. Get your head in the game, Woman!

After forcing my feet to carry me toward Leah, I decided on a plan of action. Watch the band for about fifteen minutes, and then go in search of a bathroom. That would give me a chance to spread some chargers around.

The band finally acknowledged us. The lead singer stood at the mic and said, “Hey everybody. Thanks for coming out tonight. We are Stephen's Band.”

Oh. The name was Stephen's Band. I wondered which one was named Stephen.

“Isn't he adorable?” Sidney said into my ear. “He's one of the three Stephens in the band.”

I laughed, but then I realized she wasn't kidding. I guess that made picking a name pretty easy, but what about the other two guys in the band. Hmmm. If I ever had a band, I wasn't naming it that way.

Despite the name, they weren't half bad. They played covers of Imagine Dragons, Foo Fighters, and a Miley Cyrus song that sounded interesting from a male vocalist. By the time I pulled myself out of the live-music fog and paid attention to what was happening around me, the number of teens in the room had doubled. I tapped Sidney and mouthed to her that I was going to the bathroom. I knew she couldn't hear me, but she'd probably figure out what I was saying.

She nodded, and I backed away and started making my way through the crowd. Time to move on to another room. I bumped into a guy who was drinking from a flask. I kept moving. The adjoining room was also large, and the music from the band was every bit as loud in here. There were some people dancing, and I could actually see that some art hung on the walls in here. I spotted a giant trash can full of ice and stocked with canned sodas. I reached for a can of Diet Coke and opened it as I made my way to wide staircase.

On the way up, I pulled a charger out of my purse and held it up to a girl. “Did you drop this? I found it on the stairs.”

“I'll take it,” the guy next to her said.

When I reached the second floor, I saw Will, Daphne, and a couple of the girls from today sitting on the sleek black leather benches that formed a seating area. Good grief. They were seriously stalking him. I made a face in their direction.

“My thoughts exactly,” Logan said, suddenly standing in front of me.

“Oh, hey! Um, what?”

“I saw you making a face at your brother and the girls.”

“Oh, no. I didn't... Okay, yeah, I was making a face. You'd think he was the only boy in the whole city.”

Logan smiled, bringing a twinkle to his eyes, and reminding me that he was no slacker in the looks department. “He's fresh meat. I guess they can't help themselves.”

I grinned back at him. “Your sisters are pretty cool. They're downstairs listening to the band. Beats stalking my brother.”

“Leah doesn't chase guys. And Sidney's way too shy to even talk to the new kid.”

I glanced over at Will again.

“So if they're down there, what are you doing up here?”

“Huh?”

“You didn't like the band?” he asked.

“Oh, no. They were actually pretty good.”  I decided not to go with the bathroom story. Instead, I told a half-truth. “I really wanted to look around. Leah says it's an art gallery?”

“Pretty cool, isn't it? I can show you around if you want. Matt's mom has a couple of pieces on the third floor.”

Normally I wouldn't wander off with a stranger, but Logan was Leah's brother and our neighbor. Plus, I could take him down if I needed to. “Sure. Thanks.”

He led the way through some more people who were standing around the benches. The staircase to the third floor was tucked behind a large post, I guess to keep it private from the gallery goers. The stairs were narrow, and we were barely able to walk side-by-side.

“Are there people up here too?” I asked, starting to doubt my decision to leave the crowd with him.

“Oh, yeah. All the food is up here.”

I felt safer. The upper floors would be plenty packed if the food was there.

We stepped into a living room and kitchen combo on the third floor. The gallery below had been largely white, but the living space was filled with warm, vibrant colors. He hadn't lied. There were a few guys standing around the kitchen counter, munching on some chips and dip. West and Ethan were there, and two guys I didn't know.

“Hey,” Logan said. “Look who I found.”

“Hey, Amanda,” West said with what I was finding to be his ever present leer. “Nice dress.”

“Have you met Matt? It's his party. And this is Nathan.”

“Nice place,” I said. “Nice to meet you guys.”

“She wanted to see some of your mom's art. I'm going to show her the roof.”

The roof? He hadn't said anything about a roof. I raised my eyebrows at him.

“It's totally worth it, and we won't stay long enough to turn you into a Popsicle.”

“Then we won't be staying long at all,” I said, tugging self-consciously at my skirt.

We took another staircase to the fourth floor. No wonder so many New Yorkers were skinny, between the walking and the stairs, they'd have to eat constantly to keep the weight on. “Are there people in this city who live on, like six or seven floors?”

Logan laughed. “Stairs getting to you already?”

“No. I was just thinking what a pain that would be.”

“If there are, I'm sure they have an elevator. If they could afford that many floors, they could afford to ride in style.”

“Makes sense,” I said.

The top floor was a hallway with rooms leading off to either side.

“Bedrooms,” he said. “I think there are four, and there are at least three bathrooms.”  He stopped in front of a large canvas on the wall between the rooms. “This is the one I like. It's one of her older works.”

I liked it too. The painting depicted Broadway in an almost cartoon-like manner. The lines and colors were reminiscent of crayons, but the result was anything but childlike. “It's great.”

“Have you been there yet? Broadway? The theater district?”

“No, but I've seen it on TV.”

“You are going to love living in the city.”

I met his gaze. His eyes held excitement. “You love it here?”

“Oh yeah. I've already been accepted at NYU for the Fall.”

“Congratulations,” I said.

His excitement showed in his smile and made him seem younger than eighteen.

“You're a nice guy, aren't you?”

He winked. “Don't tell anybody.”

“I won't.”  Had I actually managed to flirt? Go me!

“You don't sound like somebody from Chicago.”

What? “We haven't always lived there.”  I hoped he wouldn't pry further.

“Ready to see the roof?”

“Yes!”

He led me to the end of the hall where a door opened onto a balcony. A row of coats hung on hooks by the door. He lifted one from the hook. “Here. This will keep you warm for a minute or two.”

I slipped my arms in just before he opened the door. The arctic blast nearly knocked me over. I braced myself. “Maybe you should go first,” I said.

He gave me the chin nod thing that guys sometimes do when they get all cocky. Then he went out the door and up the steps to my left. I closed the door behind me and followed. I held on to the railing and didn't look down. I should have thought about the fear of heights thing before I'd decided to come up here. When I stepped up to roof level, the force of the wind increased. Logan reached out and I gladly took his hand.

We were too low to see much of a city view. The buildings on two sides were higher, and I wondered how bad the windchill would be if they weren't blocking some of the wind. In front of me, a garden stretched out across the roof. Evergreen trees of all shapes and sizes were strung with clear lights. We walked further in toward the center of the roof. “It's beautiful,” I said. “Magical.”  I hadn't expected to see something living and growing on the rooftop.

“I thought you'd like it. Matt will probably have to lock the door before too long so people don't wander out here and stay too long.”

“Yeah, I guess you don't want somebody up here who has been drinking.”

“You already saw somebody drinking?” he asked as if surprised. “We usually don't have problems this early in the night.”

“Some guy with a flask downstairs.”

“Matt has strict rules. No drinking allowed. That's why he only serves canned drinks too, so nobody gets roofied.”

“That's pretty cool of him,” I said. It was unusual, and I suspected there was a reason. Most likely a sad reason. I didn't ask. I'd find out soon enough, and I didn't want to ruin these moments with Logan. I didn't like him as a boyfriend. I was totally into Will. But I had a feeling that Logan could be my first real guy friend. Well, he could if we were actually moving here.

“We should walk the whole roof while we're up here. That way you can see everything and then we can go get warm.”

We walked the perimeter, along a path lined with lights. “I think I would come up here every day. Even if I did freeze half to death.”

“In the spring, there are flowers, and in the summer, they turn on the irrigation system and lay out in the sun.”

Irrigation system. At home, we use sprinklers. And we call them sprinklers.

When we made our way back to the stairs, I turned back for one last look. I bet it looked even more like a winter wonderland after a snow.

I shivered violently, unable to stop myself. If I ever moved to NYC for real, I'd have to have GASI design a coat with a built-in heater.

Logan put an arm around me. “Sorry, Amanda, we stayed up here too long.”

“Y-y-you aren't cold?”

“Not really. I would be before too much longer though.”

He let me take the inside of the staircase and positioned himself next to me as if to help block some of the wind. My teeth chattered like crazy, and I couldn't help but feel embarrassed.

“Guess they don't grow them as tough in Chicago as they do in NYC,” he said with a laugh.

Sorry Chicago. I didn't mean to make you out to be a bunch of wusses.
I couldn't even answer what with my teeth chattering.

I turned the handle on the door and rushed into the hall, jumping up and down in an effort to get warm. I'd never had chills like these.