In Real Life (16 page)

“I'll be right back,” I mumble to Nick.

“Wait,” he says, his voice cracking. “Ghost, I need to—”

“I need to talk to Lo and Grace.” He has a girlfriend. I don't care what he needs to do.

“Emergency meeting. Now.” I take Lo and Grace each by an elbow and pull them away from their flirting.

“Hey,” Grace says, “we were planning the rest of the night.”

“Do it later,” I say through clenched teeth. “I'm having a crisis and I would love a minute of my older sister's and best friend's time, if that's not too much to ask.”

I guess my voice or my harried expression is desperate enough, because they both stop looking longingly at the guys and follow me to the other side of the bridge. We have to weave through aggressive club promoters and step over a guy with a guitar singing a terrible version of a Bruno Mars song to get far enough away.

“First of all,” I say as soon as we are out of earshot of the rest of the group, “I am calling BS on the two of you right now. How dare you ditch me in my hour of need in favor of hot boys? You've broken every single girl code there is.”

Lo looks down at her feet as Grace mumbles sorry, but I don't give them much of a chance to grovel. “I don't want to hear it. You two left me alone with the girlfriend of the guy who I think I may be in love with. Like it's no big deal. You left me there to talk to her. What the hell, you guys?”

Grace shrugs. “You seemed like you were getting along. We wanted to give you some time to talk to Nick—”

“Yes, we're getting along because she is the nicest person on the face of the freaking planet. I need someone to help me hate her. You guys need to step it up with the smack talking.”

They both lean in and wrap me in a group hug. “Sorry, girl,” Lo says. “We were blinded by the shiny. We'll be by your side. I promise.”

“Well, Lo will, anyway,” Grace says, looking at her boots. “Ummm … don't be mad, but I think Alex and I are taking off.”

“What?” Lo and I say it at the same time, as if we planned it or something.

“Look, I'll stay if you need me to. But we're in Vegas, and Alex and I are both over twenty-one. No offense, but we don't want to hang out at arcades all night.”

“We have fake IDs,” Lo says.

“I know, but…” She pulls off her beanie and runs her fingers through her hair, then shoves it back on again. “Look, you girls'll be good on your own, right?”

I stare at my sister with my mouth hanging open. After all I did to help her shake off her Gabe funk, I can't believe she's going to ditch me.

“Don't look at me like that,” she says, absently playing with her necklace. “You know I need some time to have some fun. And, look, I'll get the scoop on this chick from Alex for you, okay? And Nick will chill out if I get Alex out of his hair.”

Lo reaches over and grabs my hand, giving my fingers a firm squeeze.
Let her go,
she mouths.

“Fine,” I say. “But if you two take off together, you better get some intel.”

“I will. I promise.”

“Before you go”—I reach out for her arm—“can you let me know if I'm doing the right thing here? Please?”

I fill them in on everything that happened, but Grace ends up being no help at all. Mainly because she disagrees with me. She is convinced I need more of a plan than “Go back to the hotel and deal with it later,” and since she has the “older and wiser” thing going for her, I hear her out.

“You need to go after him,” she says. “Make it clear how you feel. Throw your hat in the ring.”

“But—Frankie,” I say, my voice quiet. “And—”

Grace doesn't wait to hear the rest of what I have to say, though, because Alex calls for her and she motions for us to follow as she trots back over to him.

“I just want to leave,” I whisper to Lo as we make our way back to the group. “I don't want to do this anymore.”

Lo stops and grabs my shoulders, squaring me toward her. “Is that really what you want to do? Because if you want to ditch everyone here, I'm totally cool with that.”

“Are you serious?” I'm so happy to hear this that I reach over and hug her. “All I want is to go back to the hotel and order some room service or something.” I'm exhausted from pretending I don't care about all this, and from trying to figure Nick out. It's too much. “Grace can come back when she's done with Alex. Or not. I don't even care at this point.”

“No problem,” she says, patting my back. “Let's go.”

I pull out of our hug. “What about Oscar?”

She shakes her head. “He's cute and all, but he's just a dude. No big deal when my best friend is in crisis.”

“I'm totally failing you on this Girls Gone Wild thing.”

“We can go wild at the pool tomorrow. That bikini top of yours is coming off, my friend.”

“Only after I pour an entire bottle of vodka down your throat.” We walk back to the group, and I immediately feel lighter. I can go back to the hotel room with Lo and deal with all of this tomorrow. Or never. It's not like Nick will even notice.

We're almost back to the group, who have all joined in a sing-along with the guitar guy, when Frankie comes up behind me and grabs my arm.

“Hannah. Can you do me a huge favor?”

It's easy to be nice to her, since I don't need to deal with her and Nick for much longer. “What's up?”

“I have to sneak off for a minute to talk to a guy over at MGM for the blog.”

“What? Now? It's like ten
P.M.
”

She tilts her head and replies to me in this way that makes me feel like a redneck from BFE. “Oh, honey, this is Vegas. He's just getting to work.”

“Okay,” I say. “Whatever. What do you need me for?”

“Nick's going to be totally pissed at me for leaving. He gets kinda weird when I just spring things on him, and it was my idea to show you guys around and now I'm taking off. I'll be back, though! Soon!”

I narrow my eyes at her. “Okaaaay.”

“He's so super happy you're here and all. So if you could tell him for me? That I'm going to be gone for, like, an hour? He'll be so stoked to be able to hang out with you for a while, just the two of you. And then, you know, keep him company until I get back.”

“Oh, Frankie, I don't know—”

“Sure she will, Frankie,” Lo jumps in.

I shoot her a death look. What the hell? I continue to glare at her, but she's smiling at Frankie like Lo and I didn't just make a date for some room service and hotel movies.

“Awesome. Thanks, Hannah.” She squeezes my arm and gives me this super-warm, genuine smile I want to smack right off her face. “I know you're the only person who can keep Nick from getting all annoyed with me right now. I owe you one.”

I mumble, “You don't have to owe me,” but she's already gone, walking across the bridge to the MGM Grand faster than it seems her little legs should be able to take her.

“Dude,” I say to Lo as soon as Frankie is gone, “what was that?”

Her hands are already up in surrender. “Hear me out, okay?”

“I'm listening.”

“I know you want to go back to the room, and I respect that. But I also think Grace is right. And this is a perfect situation: You have the chance to be alone with Nick and talk without Frankie interrupting you. Grace is going off with Alex, and I can get Oscar to do something else. You said Nick's more like the guy you're used to when it's just the two of you, right? Here you go—gift-wrapped alone time. With a sparkly bow on top.”

When she puts it that way, it doesn't sound like such a bad idea. “I guess this will work.” Frankie-free alone time with Nick? It probably beats pouting in the hotel room.

And Grace
is
right—I do need to tell him how I feel. I can't handle this uncertainty, this arm around my shoulder one minute and joking with Frankie the next. It will mean admitting I lied to him, but I have to do it regardless. I need to let him know.

I shake my head at her, then reach around and smack her butt. “This is why I love you.”

“I know,” she says. “I'm the best.”

We finish our walk back to the group, who are all reluctantly posing for pictures Grace is taking with her phone, probably to prove to her editor she was here talking to an actual Vegas band. “Okay, everyone,” Lo says. “It looks like we have a little change of plans.”

“Where's Frankie?” Alex asks.

I rub my hands down the front of my jeans. “Well, she, uh, had to run and do something for the blog really quick.” Nick makes a face I can't quite figure out, and I try my best to give him a comforting smile. “But she'll be back in a bit.”

“So, Hannah was telling me”—Lo turns to me and gives me a look that clearly says I told her nothing at all like what she's about to say, but I better play along anyway—“that she has been dying to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower.”

Yuck. Of all the things she could pick. I don't hate heights the way I hate the idea of roller coasters, but I wouldn't say I
love
teetering so far above solid ground. I smile anyway. She evidently has a plan here.

“Dude. No.” Oscar shakes his head violently, and I suddenly get what Lo is doing, that brilliant friend of mine. “I'm, uh, not going to go up there. There's no way.”

I decide to play along. “Please, you guys? It's on my Vegas bucket list.”

Grace catches on. “Alex and I are about to take off. But, Hannah, you were talking the whole way here about how much you wanted to go up there. You shouldn't miss it.”

“Oh. Well,” Nick says, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and back again, “why don't I go with Hannah to the Eiffel Tower? Grace and Alex, you two go get drunk or whatever, and Lo and Oscar, you guys go, um, hang out somewhere that's not hundreds of feet above the ground, and we'll call you when we're done. How does that sound?”

I'm so relieved Nick is going along with it and how well everything is finally working out. Sweet. Time alone to talk, just the two of us.

Then I hear a voice from behind us. “But what about me?”

Ugh. I totally forgot about Jordy. It looks like our night is about to take a turn for the douche.

 

CHAPTER

17

Jordy slaps hands with all the guys, including Nick, and apologizes for being late. Something about helping Drew get the equipment home and some hot girls at House of Blues or something. I'm not listening, because I'm trying to figure out how his arrival is going to affect my plan. There's only a small window of alone time with Nick before Frankie gets back, and I want to use it.

I know enough about Jordy to know I don't care about knowing more. Sure, he's the lead singer and songwriter for Automatic Friday and he's hot, but he also knows how hot he is, which makes him way less attractive overall. I know Nick hardly talks about him, so I assume they aren't on BFF-necklace level. And Nick got visibly annoyed tonight when Alex invited Jordy out.

Jordy's changed clothes since the show earlier. Now he's in almost the same uniform as the other guys—jeans, a black T-shirt, and a hoodie—but he wears it differently. Clothes look different on people who walk the other side of the line between confidence and cockiness.

“Hey, girls,” he says in this way that seems to imply our night up until now had just been killing time until he could join us.

Nick jumps in with this bizarre forced and too-formal voice before I can introduce myself. “Jordy, this is Hannah.” He rests his hand on my shoulder as he says it, and my shoulder lights on fire. It feels like he's claiming me—and, I'm not gonna lie, I might be forced to turn in my feminism card with this admission, but I kinda love it. “Hannah is, uh, my best friend. From California.”

“Hannah, huh?” Jordy moves closer in toward me and stretches out his hand. “Well, it's nice to meet you, Hannah. I can't believe Nick's never mentioned such a beautiful friend before.”

“Maybe there's a reason for that,” Nick mumbles, and I don't know if I should be flattered or annoyed or if I was even supposed to hear that.

“Hi.” I shake Jordy's hand because he stuck it out to me like he's someone's dad or something. It feels like a washed-up piece of seaweed, limp and soggy.

“And this is her sister, Grace, and her friend Lo.” Nick finishes off the introductions in his stiff voice and then shifts around on his feet again.

I look at him and we make eye contact, and then something weird happens: He raises his eyebrows at me, and I know exactly what this look of his means. He's annoyed with Jordy and the group and he wants to get away. I get it. Unlike his mystery look when Frankie left earlier, this time I can totally read his face.

I give a little nod back. “Well, I'm glad we got to meet you before we ran over to the Eiffel Tower. I, uh, have to pick up something from my hotel and I need Nick's help, so we're going to go, but we're going to call you all in a bit when we're done and meet up. Okay? We'll call you. Okay, bye!” I whip around before anyone has a chance to say anything and so does Nick and then we're walking full speed across the bridge. I'm giddy with relief that we managed to get away and so is he, it seems, and we are off on our own, just me and Nick, leaving the group and the weirdness behind us.

Nick was right. The Paris hotel didn't look all that far away from where we'd stood on the bridge, but now that we're faced with walking all the way there, the distance seems a little daunting. “Those are not walking shoes,” Nick says, looking down at my wedges. “Let's go through MGM and get a cab.”

MGM Grand is one of the largest hotels on the Strip, and for someone who claims he doesn't come out to this part of Vegas all that often, Nick sure seems to know a lot about it. “I heard there are so many rooms here,” he tells me as he navigates the casino floor, weaving us in and out of blackjack, roulette, and craps tables, “that if you stayed in a different room every night, it would take you over five years to stay in all of them. Can you believe that?”