In Real Life (15 page)

“Make a funny face, I guess.” I put my hands on the sides of my face and push all the skin forward. Then I purse my lips. Nick squints, wrinkles his nose, and sticks out his tongue. But he pulls me closer again with his arm, and we both dissolve into giggles as the countdown ends, and I'm leaning my head on his shoulder when the flash goes off.

For picture two, I turn to him, hands raised in an attack position, and make a scary face. He puts his hands up to his cheeks and opens his mouth like he's screaming. Picture three, I snatch his glasses from his face and put them on, and we both put our hands under our chins and stare stone-faced at the camera.

“Last one,” I say, handing his glasses back. Much of the weirdness we'd brought into the booth with us is gone now, and we're having fun, the way I'd always hoped we would when we met for real. “What now?”

I watch him in the screen as various poses run through my head. Finger guns, normal faces, peace signs. I wave my hands around in panic as the countdown gets smaller. He stares back at me via the screen, and the silliness of previous moments is gone. He looks serious now, which takes me by surprise.

Right when the countdown hits one, he curves his arm around my head gently, pushing on my ear so my head leans in close. The heat of his breath tickles my neck, and he softly whispers in my ear, “God, Ghost. You're even more beautiful in real life,” right as the flash goes off and the booth snaps our final photo.

It's the only picture where I'm smiling.

 

CHAPTER

15

I don't want to leave the photo booth. The screen loops back to its welcome message, and I know it'll be less than a minute before our pictures pop out. We can't stay in here forever.

But I want to.

I had a glimpse of My Nick when I first said hi to him. When I hugged him and buried my face in his jacket. Then when we had coffee and he put his hand over mine. And I got it again just now, when he pulled my head into his and he whispered in my ear.

Tapping into that Nick is key. That Nick, who wouldn't get all weird; and that Nick, who would never lie to me; and that Nick, who would make me feel better about this incredibly bizarre situation we've found ourselves in.

But after he lets go of my head and leaves the photo booth, I realize that Nick has gone into hiding again.

I climb out of the booth and he's waiting by the slot for our strips to come out. When they do, he hands me mine, then takes a few seconds to stare at his.

“Our first picture together.” He doesn't look at me, but he gives the strip a small smile. “I always wondered if we'd ever get one.”

“Pretty fitting we look like weirdos in all of them, huh?” I try to joke because I'm still feeling the pressure of his hand on the side of my face and the lightness of his whisper in my ear and the weirdness of this whole encounter.

He finally looks at me. “Not in the last one.”

Of course, that's when Frankie bounds up to us. “Boyfriend!” she calls again, making me recoil like I've been hit. Is she
trying
to be that obnoxious, or does it come naturally for her? “Your brother called Jordy and invited him along. He's going to meet us here in, like, twenty. Want to Skee-Ball with me while we wait?” She notices the photo strip in his hand. “Look at this adorableness. You two are the cutest pair of friends in the world.” She smiles at me. No, she beams at me. She's absolutely freaking thrilled that I am Nick's friend and that I'm here. “What is he saying to you in this last picture?”

“That I was glad she came out to surprise me.” Nick's eyes lock with mine, and he squints the tiniest bit behind his glasses. Is that what he does when he's lying?

“Aww,” Frankie says.

“Did Alex seriously invite Jordy?” The question feels completely out of the blue, and the lightness in Nick's voice drops away. Before either Frankie or I have a chance to say anything, Nick yells for his brother and stomps off, looking for him, leaving the two of us alone.

“Those two. I swear. It's always something with them. I get it, though. I have a twin brother, and he drives me bonkers.” Frankie crinkles up her nose at Nick's back as he walks away in search of Alex. “Anyway. Wanna Skee-Ball with me, Hannah? We've hardly had a chance to talk.”

Spending quality time with Frankie is literally the last thing I want to do right now, especially after what Nick said in the photo booth. I want to find Lo and go back to the room and girl-talk out this whole evening. It's bad enough we got dragged on this buddy-buddy tour of Vegas without a chance to debrief, but she also had to go pair up with Oscar and run off to who knows where in this arcade, leaving me alone to get pounced on by Frankie. But I look around and I don't even see Lo. Or Grace.

And there's some saying about keeping your enemies close or something, so I should probably play nice with Frankie, even though I sort of want to drop-kick her across the arcade.

“Fine,” I say. “Let's play.” What else am I supposed to say?

Frankie has a pocket full of quarters, so she drops some into each of our Skee-Ball aisles, and the balls release along the side and slam down by my leg. I'm not big on these games, and I can't help wondering how many gross, sticky fingers have touched those balls. I wipe my hand on my shirt, like that'll help, and pick up the first ball.

I toss it up the ramp as I struggle to think of something to say. How do you start casual conversation with the secret girlfriend of the guy you think you're in love with? Luckily, silence doesn't last long with Frankie, and I don't have to come up with anything. “Well, the good thing about Jordy showing up is that it'll even up our numbers.” She raises an eyebrow at me. “He's single, you know. Jordy.”

“Oh, um.” I'm at a loss for how to respond to this information. “I don't know if he's my type.”

“Jordy is everyone's type. Trust me.”

From the stories Nick's told me about Jordy's long list of girlfriends, I don't doubt that. “Yeah, the guy can sing,” Nick told me once, “but he's only in the band to get chicks. And it works.”

I pick up another ball, toss it up the ramp again, and it drops into
10.
I watch Frankie, and she lands the
100
without even trying.

“Nice shot,” I say. “I think I'm pretty bad at this.” I add Skee-Ball to my long mental list of things I plan on never doing again in my life.

Frankie laughs—at either my comment or my Skee-Ball score, I'm not sure. “Six years of softball,” she says. “I have good hand–eye coordination. Comes in handy every now and then.”

I figure getting her talking about her blog will be a good way to keep us from drifting into uncomfortable silence, so I open my mouth to ask her about it. But before I get a chance to say anything, I hear a squeal from behind us. “Oh my God! Frankie!”

We both turn around, and there's a couple standing there. They look to be about our age, and the girl jumps up and down while the guy looks bored and mildly annoyed. “I thought that was you!” the girl squeals again. “I told him, I said, ‘Oh my God, I think that's Frankie over there, from
Underage Vegas.
' And he said it probably wasn't. But I knew it was.” She turns to her boyfriend and pushes him playfully on the arm as he rolls his eyes. “I told you it was her!”

Frankie's face explodes with the biggest grin I've seen on her all night. “You read my blog?” she says in this “What? Me? Really?” voice. She told me she has thousands of followers and she's already been recognized twice in the couple of hours I've been with her. There's no way this is surprising to her every time it happens.

The girl, who introduces herself as Ashley, gushes to Frankie about her love for the blog, and how she was at the flash mob in the Barnes & Noble parking lot last month, while her boyfriend, Reese, a buff guy in a flannel, plays on his cell phone. Frankie beams some more, hugs Ashley, and then turns to me, holding out her phone.

“Hannah, would you mind taking a picture of me and Ashley? I want to put it on the blog.”

I nod, and Ashley's eyes widen like she got dealt a royal flush. “You're going to put me on the blog? Are you serious? Did you hear that, Reese? I'm going to be on the blog!”

Reese shrugs and doesn't look up from his phone.

Frankie wraps her arm around Ashley's waist and smiles while I snap a picture; then she gives her fan a huge hug. I watch Ashley and Reese as they walk away, thinking about what a bizarre life Frankie leads, but she goes back to the Skee-Ball game like absolutely nothing happened.

She throws a ball, then turns to face me. “So, Hannah. Nick talks about you a lot, you know, so I'm glad we get to hang out. What's up with you?”

I find it odd she can transition so quickly back to normal conversation, but I go with it. “Well, what has Nick said?”

“Let's see.… You're his best friend. You live in Orange County. You have an older sister named Grace who once met Alex at a show, and that's how you and Nick met. You talk all the time. You're the smartest, funniest, and most driven person he knows. You're going to UCLA next year.” She counts each fun fact off on her fingers. “Oh, and I've now learned you hate roller coasters and you're terrible at Skee-Ball.”

It surprises me how much Nick has told her, like I'm an actual part of his life he wants people to know about. I share him with people in my world on a need-to-know basis only, and aside from my family and Lo, no one needs to know. It has never been much of a challenge to keep our friendship hidden from everyone else, and I like it better that way. I've justified the secrecy by saying he is too hard to explain to my friends, but the truth is, my friendship with Nick is different from the friendships I have at school. More real. And I think that's what I have trouble explaining, even to myself, so I don't share him

Ghost is his name for me, but it turns out he's more of a ghost in my life than I am in his. As much as I'm feeling like he's a different person on the phone, at least he considers me a part of his life.

“That about covers it. I'm not very exciting. No band or famous blog or anything.” I look around the arcade for everyone else. Lo and Oscar are giggling over some claw game, and Grace plays pinball while Alex and Nick talk off to the side. Alex's arms are crossed over his chest while Nick's flap around like he's trying to fly.

I jerk my head over to them. “So, what do you think that's all about?”

Frankie shrugs. “Who knows what it is this time. Last week, they were playing basketball in their driveway and it got so heated, I thought it was going to turn into an MMA fight or something.”

I'm about to abandon the Skee-Ball game—since it's not like I'm going to beat Frankie or get anything out of it at this point—and go sneak closer to Nick and Alex to see if I can hear what they're arguing about, when Frankie grabs my arm.

“Look, Hannah, I hope this doesn't sound weird, but I'm so glad to meet you. Don't laugh, but when I first started hanging out with Nick, I was a little threatened by you. It's never easy when your new boyfriend has this gorgeous best friend, you know? But he promised me there was nothing going on between you two, that you're, like, not even a girl to him. And I trust him. But it's so great to meet you and see how cool you are. It makes me feel like such a crazy weirdo for freaking out about it so much.” She gives me the biggest grin in the world and then pulls me into a hug.

I try to hug her back, but her words are bouncing around in my head.
“You're, like, not even a girl to him. Nothing going on between you two.”

I can't believe I ruined things so much. I told him I didn't think about him like that and I never would. I told him he wasn't even like a guy to me. I waited too long, I ignored all the signs, and now he's stolen my line and he's moved on.

I came out here for someone who has absolutely no feelings for me anymore.

 

CHAPTER

16

We wait for Jordy outside the casino, on the bridge over the Strip that connects New York–New York with MGM Grand. It's sort of surreal, standing on a bridge with cars going under us, a replica of the entire Manhattan skyline on one side, and a ginormous golden lion on the other. But my entire time in Vegas so far has been surreal, so the scene is fitting.

Down the Strip, away from Mandalay Bay and the pyramid of the Luxor, I see the bridge in front of New York–New York on my left and the Eiffel Tower at Paris Las Vegas, a giant Coca-Cola bottle, and Planet Hollywood on my right. The rest of the casinos spread down the street, one bright blur of lights I can't separate from each other.

“Impressive, huh?” Nick joins me in looking out at the lights. “It's weird. It sorta seems like it goes on forever, but it also feels like they're close enough, you could walk there.” He shakes his head. “But trust me. They aren't as close as they look.”

I don't say anything. I focus on the lights, my fingers wrapped around the metal fencing that probably keeps people from jumping into the street after a huge gambling loss, and I try to figure out what to say to him, where I want this friendship of ours to go. He isn't the person I thought he was, and I don't know what I still want, especially with Frankie in the picture.

“Locals don't really come out to the Strip much,” he says with a pained sigh. “But I've been here a lot lately.”

“Frankie?” I ask. I turn around and lean my back against the railing, facing out toward Mandalay Bay.

“Yeah.” He stares at his hand as he picks at his thumbnail. “She's always blogging stuff going on out here, and she drags me along.”

Frankie stands a few feet from us, phone balancing between her ear and her shoulder, yapping away while she taps on her tablet. Then off the other way on the bridge, Grace and Alex and Lo and Oscar are doing their couple thing. I've hardly talked to my sister and my best friend since they paired off with dudes the minute we got here. I need them. I need them to help me figure this out, and they've ditched me for guys in my time of need.