Generations 2.7 kindle (20 page)

Chapter Thirteen ……

G
randma Gigi had given Kat a T-shirt last year. At the time, Kat thought it was kinda goofy, so she never wore it. But she’d been wearing it to sleep the past week, because it mirrored how she felt about life. The shirt had this simple little smiley face. And a simple little saying: Life is good.

Yep. Way good. She was dating Ben Wilder after all.

Kay. So not technically dating him. But not really “just friends” with him either. Something in between.

She had sorta been thinking that they were dating. They had seen each other every day since the end of the filming, with the exception of Sundays. And they’d kissed every one of those days. It felt like they were dating. But then ….

Last week, they’d been driving to the corporate offices to preview the video and out of the blue, Ben had said, “We need to slow down.”

Kat had thought that he was talking about his driving. She’d learned not to criticize his driving. So rather than saying “Thank you! 100 is terrifying on the parkway!” she had asked, “Did your radar detector go off?”

Ben had given her his dimple-smile and said, “Not the car, silly. Us.”

Her heart felt like it had just gotten a paper cut. Which was concerning. Because paper shouldn’t be anywhere inside her chest cavity.
Her face must have reflected that pain, because within seconds he had parked on the shoulder of the road. He reached up his hand and twirled her hair. “Don’t freak out, Kat. It’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s not because I want to slow things down between us. I just have to.”

She had wanted to ask why. Was it Paul? Was it her parents? Had they—oh horror!—figured out who Kat had been spending so much time with and told him off?

Before she could say anything, Ben had continued, “Things are going to get crazy once the video is released. You’re going to be famous. It will be your fifteen minutes of fame thing. Your life will really be different for a while. I don’t think you need to add being Ben Wilder’s girlfriend into the mix.”

Whoa. Confusing. She had felt like she was trying to digest an entire Webster’s Dictionary in one sitting. There was a lot of info in those few sentences. The video was going to make her famous? But not for long? And she
was
Ben Wilder’s girlfriend? But she’s not anymore?

 
“Kat,” Ben had said. His voice was concerned. “You’re not blinking.” He also sounded a little amused. Then he leaned across the car and kissed her. Which was even more confusing.

She’d made progress in regards to her body not melting from Ben’s kisses. Her bones no longer liquefied like Jell-O. But they still went all rubbery, like a deflated bike tire. She could function—almost normally. Which was relieving, because she was really worried after that first kiss. It had taken two whole days before her insides recovered: she’d begun to wonder if she’d have to get a bone transplant.

When Ben had pulled back from this kiss, he pressed his forehead against hers and moaned. “This is going to be so hard,” he whispered.

Kay, still confused. But she couldn’t speak. She didn’t know what her face looked like—she hadn’t been able to muster a fake smile or any expression of impassiveness. Then Ben laughed at her and said, with his voice all low and tender, “Oh, Kat, I’m not breaking up with you. I still feel the same about you. But I need to protect you from the media frenzy that will happen if everyone knows that we’re dating. We don’t need that kind of mayhem right now. It will ruin everything. So we have to say that we’re just friends. And we have to look the part.”

Well why didn’t he just say that from the start? Now she had that pesky little paper cut. And those take so long to heal—and always snag on sweaters and stuff. “Kay,” she had said. But it sounded half-hearted. She’d thought that they’d done a pretty good job keeping their relationship secret thus far. No one at school knew that Kat was still in contact with Ben. She’d still been using a pass from the studio that got her out of school anytime she needed. No one had bothered to ask if the filming was done, and she hadn’t bothered to tell. So Ben always picked her up from school fifteen minutes before the mass exodus. Everyone was clueless that Ben Wilder was driving into the student parking lot every day.

Even her parents didn’t know that she was seeing Ben every day. They knew that she went out with him occasionally, but they obviously didn’t know that she’d been skipping dance a couple times a week so she could spend more time with him. But she couldn’t that keep up much longer. Ms. Stella was starting to get irritated with Kat’s lack of interest.

“So we just need to scale back a little? Not see each other …
every
day?” she had asked, hopeful almost. Not that she didn’t want to see him every day. Because she would totally choose him over any of that other stuff: school, dance,
 
… life in general. But she couldn’t do that. She had to exhibit some responsibility.

“Right,” Ben had said. “And not kiss in public,” he added.

“Like on the side of a busy parkway?” she had teased. Somehow that included an invitation for him to kiss her again, because he did.

He had moaned again, and said, “Car kisses are the best. I’m really, really going to miss that.”

Yeah. Ben had a serious case of Autotism. So of course that was his favorite place to kiss. But … he drove so many different cars. And he often wore disguises. So really, no one would ever know that it was Ben she was kissing, would they? It should be perfectly safe to car kiss, shouldn’t it? Besides, if they couldn’t car kiss … where would they kiss? This was disappointing news indeed.

“We just need to be cautious, Kat,” he said, answering her unspoken questions. “We’ll have to make sure that we’re not being watched. And if we know that it’s safe … well then,” he gave her another small peck, “we’ll be free to kiss as much as we want,” he said with a mischievous smile.
  

She was finally able to smile a little, although it was partially fake. She wasn’t entirely reassured. It sounded like their kissing days were over. Which would mean they really would be just friends. Ick.

It was at this point in the conversation that Ben had looked out the back window and saw that a State Trooper had just pulled in behind them. Ben swore. “Open the glove box,” he ordered. He had her pull out a blonde wig. He’d just gotten it adjusted on his head when the trooper got out of his car and began his approach.

Ben rolled down the window and the trooper asked if they were having an emergency. Because the shoulder was to be used for emergencies only. The trooper gestured to the sign not more than ten feet in front of them.
 

“Uh,” Ben began.

But apparently Kat’s brain worked quicker than Ben’s (which was a first) and she interjected, “Yes. I was choking. On a throat lozenge.”

She saw Ben’s eyebrow rise slightly. She couldn’t gauge the trooper’s response. But she thought she better make it realistic. So she gave a little cough and then cleared her throat. But it backfired. She actually choked as she tried to swallow. Her throat must have still been tight from Ben’s near break up. Her saliva got stuck somewhere. So she gave a few good—real—coughs to try to clear it.

Ben looked concerned. Or astonished. She couldn’t really tell which. She coughed some more. Not that she wanted to—she just couldn’t stop. “But, I think,” cough, cough, “it’s gone down,” she gestured to the area around her sternum. “It’s not,” cough, cough, cough, “up here anymore,” then she gestured to her throat, where the lozenge had supposedly been stuck.

The trooper took off his dark glasses. “Are you alright? I can dispatch an ambulance.”

“No!” she said a little too forcefully. He squinted at her. “That would be,” cough, “totally embarrassing. To have to go in an ambulance,” uh-oh, all the talking wasn’t helping. Major cough attack. Cough … cough … and finally one of those big, nasty-sounding hacks. “I’m okay,” she said, her voice cracking. “I think it just went the rest of the way down.”

“Do you have something for her to drink?” the trooper had asked Ben.

Ben had glanced around the car and responded, “No, I don’t think so.”

The trooper ran … seriously … he
ran
back to his car. Like this was a true emergency. Ben looked bewildered. “Are you … okay?”

“I just choked … on … my … spit,” she had replied. She was so embarrassed that she had just said the word “spit” to Ben that all she could do was laugh. And laughing made her choke some more.

“Here he comes,” Ben had muttered as he reached behind Kat to give her a few spurious pounds on her back.

The trooper handed her a bottle of water, which she promptly guzzled. She cleared her throat a few times. “Thank you.” Her voice sounded better. “I think it’s dissolving.”

“Your coloring is better. But I still think you should go get checked out.” The trooper had then instructed Ben to take her to the nearest ER.

“This is so embarrassing,” Kat said, and then coughed again. Really, she was dying of humiliation. It was horrifying to have this happen in front of Ben.

“Don’t let embarrassment stop you from getting proper medical care,” the trooper said. “You really need a doctor to look at you. If you don’t go to the ER, you should go to the closest Urgent Care. Would you like me to help you find one?”

“I can use my GPS,” Ben had said. He started typing it in on the touch screen.

“Alright. Good luck.” The trooper stepped away from the car, but then turned back, almost as an afterthought and tapped on the roof of the Shelby. “But I’m not giving you permission to speed.”
 
They were driving on the parkway again. And they were both having fits of laughter. The more they would laugh, the more Kat would choke. And that would make them laugh more.

“That was quite the performance,” Ben had said. “I didn’t know you could lie like that,” he was still laughing.

Kat wanted to stop laughing. But she let out a fake laugh so he wouldn’t read what she was thinking. What was she thinking? Crap. That whole Jackson lie thing. Ben was going to think that she was a chronic liar. She had to lie a few more times to keep her cover about her and Jackson. Especially that night of the party. Ben had wanted to know how Taylor was Kat’s full sister. So she’d said that their parents had gotten back together. And Ben had said, “Who’s parents? Yours, or Jackson’s?”

And regrettably, she’d replied that they both had. Which caused him look at her skeptically, like he didn’t believe her. She had to think quickly. So she’d said that their parents had swapped spouses. It was just a temporary thing. Only lasted about a year. And then they all realized their mistake and swapped back. Yeah, it was lame. But it explained everything. And he’d bought it. Jackson was furious when she told him about it … but what could she do? She couldn’t take her words back. And she couldn’t let Ben find out that she really was that good of a liar.

By the time they had reached the office building, she was still coughing, but only slightly. But she coughed as they passed the receptionist, who then offered Kat a throat lozenge. Which made her and Ben start laughing again. Which brought back more coughs. So she took the lozenge, at which Ben warned her not to choke on it.

She guzzled another bottle of water, also a contribution from the receptionist, and they took the elevator up to the fourth floor. Ben gave her a tight squeeze. And then, since they were in private, he kissed her once for good measure. Elevator kisses proved to be as good as car kisses. Except for the kiss had to come to an abrupt end when Kat coughed again.

“You crack me up,” Ben had said as they were leaving the elevator. And then he held her hand, even though they were no longer alone. Ben had held her hand like it was a trophy or something, not being a bit worried about the twelve other people in the conference room. Including Jackson.
And
Paul. She wished she had Ben’s guts.

That was a week ago. And being “just friends” had not been a downer in any way, like she had expected it would be. This past week had been … A. Maze. Ing.

Since Kat couldn’t see Ben as much as she had in the prior weeks, she was able to get back to a normal schedule. No skipping things. No little lies. She didn’t realize that little bricks of burden had been placed on her shoulders those past few weeks, but she definitely noticed it when they were gone. She felt lighter.