Starkissed (13 page)

Something has to give.

Chapter Twenty

Grant returns to West Plane on Friday, just for the one night before he heads to London the next day. He shows up at my door at five wearing a more casual outfit than I’m used to seeing him in, a pair of dark jeans and a grey Henley, the top buttons undone. Over that he has on an old army surplus jacket – or more likely a new, made to look old, army surplus jacket.

After careful consultation with my parents, which is buoyed by the fact that Grant brings my dad a basketball signed by Kobe Bryant, we head into Albuquerque for a typical date of dinner and a movie.

We eat at a little bistro downtown. It’s easier for Grant to blend in when we’re in the city, but that doesn’t stop a handful of teenage girls from recognizing him while we eat desert. Then we head for the movies, a formulaic romantic comedy. I find myself laughing more at Grant’s commentary – he’s worked with both the stars and has more than enough absurd stories about them to share – than the actual film.

It’s nice here, in the dark, hidden from view. There are only a few other people in the theater with us and none of them even look in our direction. Grant seems more at ease, happier.

I’m starting to feel more comfortable with him. Maybe because the rest of my life is uncomfortable these days, that being with him seems like a break. When I’m with him I don’t have to listen to everyone talk about him.

When the credits start to roll, we head out of the theater and into the lobby. It’s not very busy, only a handful of people are milling around. That’s how I spot them so easily. Ava’s long blonde hair seems to glow under the fluorescent lights and I would recognize the back of Colin’s head anywhere.

Whether I want it to or not, my body suddenly freezes. Grant, not noticing I’ve stopped walking, collides with my side. I topple to the right, but Grant reaches out and steadies me before I can fall over. Sensing the commotion, Ava’s head snaps up and veers in our direction. Colin’s gaze follows.

I step to the side, unhooking my arm from Grant’s grasp and putting a foot of space between us. I do it quickly, without even thinking. Colin doesn’t seem to notice, nor does Grant, but I catch Ava watching me with a curious stare.

“Isn’t that your sister?” Grant notices them and pokes my shoulder.

“Yeah. Ava.”

Oblivious to my rigid apprehension, Grant starts walking toward them. I follow behind.

“Hello again Ava,” he smiles at her warmly. She returns the smile and nods her own hello.

“Hi guys,” I wave.

Colin’s gaze sweeps over me, then lands on Grant. “Hi there.”

“Oh right,” I cough. “Grant this is Colin, Colin this is Grant.”

“It’s great to meet you,” Grant reaches out and clasps his hand around Colin’s. They shake once, twice, and then release. Colin retracts his hand, trailing it up the side of his thigh, before sliding it into his front pocket.

I’m trying my hardest not to look, but I can’t stop staring at him. One of his curls has burst forth and is falling in his eye. Every nerve in my body is screaming at me to reach over and push it aside. I keep my hands balled into tight fists behind my back.

I try to look away, but his eyes catch mine. I feel a hot burst of red creeping up my neck and into my cheeks. I turn my head down and wait for the blood to dissipate before anyone notices, but when I look up again Ava is watching me closely.

“So you guys are here to see a movie I guess?” Colin asks, breaking the awkward silence.

“Just saw it, actually,” Grant nods.

“Oh. Right. We’re just going in now.”

“And we should get in there,” Ava says brightly, reaching out and firmly wrapping her hand around Colin’s. She gives me a stern, pointed look as she does this. “Or we’ll miss the previews. You guys have fun.”

“Sure thing.” Grant nods.

“Goodbye,” Colin says as Ava tugs his arm and drags him off toward their theater.

“Bye,” I whisper.

Grant reaches for my hand and I let him take it. We head for the exit, and just as Grant pulls the door open for me, I twist my neck and glance behind me. Colin is standing at the podium, holding his ticket out to the usher. The usher takes it, rips it, then tries to hand it back, but Colin doesn’t notice because he’s looking back at me.

***

The silence between us is thick. I’m not sure if Grant notices, or even realizes...but I’m more than aware. It makes me itchy and uncomfortable. I want to say something, but my lips are clamped firmly shut. Every time my eyelids slide closed for more than half a second, I see Colin there with Ava, and then he’s staring at me as I leave.

Nothing. It means nothing. Colin is a fantasy. A wish. But Grant, he’s real. And he’s here. I just need to forget.

I pull my gaze to the road and watch the concrete, illuminated by the glow of the headlights and the swollen moon, pass by us by. Instead of having a driver ferry us around, Grant rented a car and is driving us himself. In the distance I see something, caught under the light of the moon, shimmer.

“Slow down,” I say, just loud enough for Grant to hear me.

“What?”

“Slow down,” I repeat. He glances over at me with confusion, but eases his foot off the gas.

When we get close enough, I smile. I see the sign I’m looking for, worn and barely legible, pop out of the darkness. It’s on the edge of a small lane that veers off into the desert.

“Turn here,” I tell Grant.

He shakes his head, but adheres to my request and pulls off the highway and onto the road. Soon the paved lane gives way to hard packed dirt and rock. The only sign we’re on a road at all is the impression of tires prints before us.

“Where are we going?” Grant asks, gripping the steering wheel tightly as the SUV tips and jerks over the rough surface beneath the tires.

“Just wait,” I lean into the dashboard and watch for what I’m waiting for.

After fifteen minutes I spot the marker. A big rock with words painted in faded black on its face.

“Stop here,” I tell Grant.

He pulls the SUV off the road and parks on a smooth of sand, almost catching a plot of low desert bushes in his tires. As soon as he cuts the engine, I unlock my seatbelt and push my door open. My feet hit the ground and I smile. I may live just inches from the desert on a daily basis, but I barely drift out of civilization any more to enjoy it. When we were young, Dad would drag all of us out to hike and camp. I used to love it. Cooking over hand built fires and sleeping beneath the stars.

I walk over to Grant’s door and yank it open.

“Come on,” I pull at Grant’s hand. He undoes his belt, then slides out of the seat and lands beside me.

“Why are we here?”

I grab his hand and drag him away from the vehicle. He keeps his eyes on me the entire time. “You’re dad wants you home in an hour.”

“Forget about him,” I laugh. “Just enjoy it.”

“Enjoy what?”

“This,” I say. I reach out and curl my fingers beneath his chin. With a subtle push I tip his head back so his face is parallel with the sky. I’m not sure there’s any sight more breathtaking than the desert sky at night. Away from the saturation of city lights and pollution, its untouched beauty is unprecedented. You’re lucky, standing downtown West Plane or Albuquerque, to see a smattering of stars. But out here, it’s hard to find a patch of sky unmarked by their twinkling light.

“I bet you don’t have stars like this in L.A or New York.”

Grant brings his gaze down and smiles at me. “No. Just the vapid, self consumed kind. Nothing so beautiful as these.”

We both tip our heads back again and stare. It’s mesmerizing. I could spend the whole night here, watching the stars, away from everything and everyone else.

“So how long have Ava and Colin been together,” Grant asks. I blink. I don’t want to answer this question. I don’t want to talk about them at all. So instead, driven inside by some strange impulse, I bring my hands up and rest them against the hard planes of his chest. I breathe in sharply. What am I doing? Beneath the thin fabric of his shirt, I can feel the taught outline of his muscles. The ones that inspire a million teenage screams every time he takes his shirt off. I lean forward and push myself up to the tips of my toes and brush my lips against his.

At first it’s a gentle kiss, slow and delicate. Briefly my mind empties, but then images of Colin flicker behind my eyelids. No. I need him to go away, so I push myself deeper into Grant. Our bodies press against each other and I lock my arms tightly around his neck. For a brief second, we stumble as one, backward, until Grant’s shoulders collide with the side of the SUV. He barely notices the impact. With the careful teasing of his tongue, he pries my lips apart and I feel something inside of me slip...no melt. It feels good. A light tingling sensation creeps over my neck.

I kiss him harder, pushing myself to the edge. I lace my fingers through his hair then drop them to his waist and toy with the edges of his T-shirt. He responds by wrapping his arms more firmly around me, pulling me in so close that I can feel him on every inch of my body. Warmth spreads through me, over me. My skin seems to sing with heat. I knead my fingers against the muscles of his stomach, then slowly drag them to his sides, then his lower back. Everywhere skin touches skin, it’s like fire. A gasp catches in the back of my throat. I kiss him until the rest of the world disappears, until I forget about Colin and Ava, about the photographers and the movies. We kiss until there’s nothing left but the blaze of Grant’s touch and the stars above us.

Chapter Twenty-One

We climb up onto the hood of the SUV, and sit against the windshield, like I’ve seen them do in the movies a million times, but have never tried myself. It’s not as romantic as it might seem. The hood of the car isn’t smooth, but designed with ridges and cliffs that I can’t seem to steady myself on. The windshield is awkwardly sloped and holds my back at an odd angle. And I’ve got a windshield wiper poking me in the butt.

Grant seems to be having more luck than me getting comfortable. He leans back and folds his hands behind his head. I find a spot that isn’t too intrusive and still myself. Grant looks over and pulls his left hand from behind his head. He reaches for my right hand and holds it loosely, gently trailing his thumb across my palm. After a few minutes he lets go and I’m sorry. He raises his back and slides his forearms beneath him so their holding him up. He’s squinting up at the sky, but I can’t stop looking at him. Just visible beneath the sleeve of his t-shirt, his biceps are bulging from the pressure of holding him up. My throat gets sort of dry. I can see why every girl on this planet is in love with him. I close my eyes.

“Thank you,” he says.

“For what?” I blink.

“For I guess, being you. It’s so great being around someone who doesn’t care about the whole Hollywood thing. I think you’re the first girl I’ve met in years that has actually liked me for...well me. Not the fame, not the money.”

“Oh.” What am I supposed to say to that? He thinks I’m someone I’m not. I didn’t agree to go out with him because I wanted him, I did it for stupid, selfish, poor-me, Colin doesn’t like me reasons. I’m just as bad as those other girls, maybe worse. But I don’t want to be.

“Tell me something about yourself,” he says.

“What?”

“Anything. I don’t know. I just want to know you. Is that cheesy?”

“No” I cough. “It’s nice.”

He grins, pulls his arms out from beneath him, and rests his back against the windshield again. His upper arm brushes against mine and I feel a shiver rush down my spine.

I wrack my brain, trying to find something witty or exciting to divulge, but I come up with nothing. My life has been rather sheltered. Adventures only in the form of trips to Disneyworld and shopping in New York by myself. Nothing grand, nothing exciting, nothing really about who I am at all. I finally settle on a less than perfect memory...something I’d rather forget, but something that’s more me than anything.

“When I was thirteen I tried to dye my hair blonde with this peroxide stuff my mom had. I almost completely destroyed my hair. The stuff discolored my scalp for weeks. Once Mom had me cleaned up, it became this huge family anecdote to tell at parties. It was mortifying. And no one ever bothered to ask why I did it.”

“Why did you?”

“Well that would take us back a year. I went away to summer camp for a couple weeks. It was right around the time Arianna, one of my older sisters, was running in the Miss West Plane Pageant. While I was gone the town newspaper came to the house to do this article on our family, and it came out the day after I got back from camp. They titled it “The Golden Girls of Kane” and went on and on about my sisters, but never mentioned me once. I don’t know if the reporter just left me out, or if my family forgot to mention me, I never had the guts to ask, but for ages the entire town thought my parents only had five kids. People would recognize my family from the article and assume I was a friend or a cousin.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah. I had to fight to make people believe I belonged in my own family.”

We remain in silence for a few seconds. I sit up and cross my legs. Grant sits up too, and leans toward me.

“Well if you ask me, I like the brown hair.”

“You do?”

“I do. You’re amazing Sydney.”

After years of self deprecating behavior, I’ve never learned how to properly take a compliment. A part of me wants to argue with him, to tell him there’s nothing special about me. But I force myself to stay quiet, and merely mutter. “Thanks.”

It’s my turn now, to ask the question.

“So how did you get there, Hollywood? What drove you to start acting?”

“My dad,” he smiles just a little, but the line of his jaw tenses and his eyes become hooded.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, when I was eleven we did this school play and I loved it. Up until then I’d been playing sports – hockey, basketball, baseball, football. While I liked them, I never really got into it. But I did this play and my Dad saw it, he knew. So he got me an agent and a few months later I booked my first big commercial. We lived in Oregon at the time, so we were all set to fly to California for a week. We were even thinking about moving there.”

“Eleven? I didn’t think you started acting until you were thirteen. At least that’s what Caroline told me.”

“I didn’t,” he presses his palms against the hood of the car and stares off into the distance. “A few days before we were supposed to leave there was an accident, a drunk driver hit my dad’s car. He died almost instantly.”

“I’m so sorry,” my mouth hangs open. I wasn’t expecting that.

“It’s funny,” he looks at me, “you’re the first person I’ve told about his death in years that didn’t already know.”

“Oh. Sorry. I guess, maybe I should read some more tabloids or something.”

“No. I like you this way. I’d rather you get to know me through me, not through other people’s versions of me.”

“So what happened with the commercial you booked?”

“We didn’t go. Everything just kind of fell apart. Mom kind of turned inward, she didn’t do well. Neither did I. I started getting bad grades at school, getting into trouble with other kids. My sister Kelsey is the only one who held it together.

“Then a couple years later, I got into this really big fight and was almost expelled from school. I had this councilor who used to know my dad and he asked me if I was happy.

Obviously I wasn’t. And then he asked me when the last time I actually felt happy was, and I remembered that day we found out I got the commercial. My dad was so excited, so happy for me. He wanted nothing more than for all of my dreams to come true. And I realized that he still wanted that, wherever he was. He was the kind of guy that put everyone else first, and I’d been ruining his memory. So I talked to my mom and my sister and we all decided we needed a change. Two weeks later we moved to Manhattan Beach. I booked my first job a month later.”

“Wow.”

He sighs. “I haven’t talked about that in a really long time. I mean I get asked about my dad once in awhile, but I’ve never really told anyone about the rest... he pushes his turned down lips into a forced smile and looks at me. “Enough of my sob story. Things have worked out and for the most part, I’m happy. So it’s okay. Now it’s your turn. Tell me something else.”

“Grant…”

“Come on.”

I breathe out and look at him. It’s so silent, so peaceful. It’s unnerving. “I feel like we need music or something,” I tell him.

“Music?”

I nod.

“Alright,” he slides off the hood of the car and walks over to the driver’s side door. He pulls it open, shoves the keys into the ignition, and turns. Through the windshield I can see the lights of the front console illuminate. He starts poking around at knobs on the radio, searching for a station that comes in static free. He finally gives up and grabs his iPhone out of his pocket. He uses a cord to plug it in, then scrolls through his playlist. He pushes a button and the opening bars of a song I don’t recognize fills the air.

“What is this?” I ask when he climbs back out of the car.

“It’s a band from Canada,” he shrugs. “I went to one of their shows while I was up there filming
Deader than Night
. They’re called Marianna’s Trench.”

It’s a slow song and I find myself lightly swaying to each note.

“Come down here,” Grant motions for me. “Let’s dance.”

I laugh. “No way in hell.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t dance. I have absolutely no sense of rhythm. At all. I injure people. It’s not good.”

“Come on,” he waves at me again. I shake my head, but grudgingly slide off the hood and land with a thump on the ground, my feet kicking up a dusty cloud on impact. “You don’t want to do this.”

“Actually I do,” he reaches for me and pulls me into an embrace, locking his arms around my waist. I reach up and lightly rest my hands against his shoulders. We start swaying, tipping from side to side with the beat of the song.

“Look at that, you’re dancing already.” He grins.

“This isn’t dancing.”

“It is in my book.”

“Well your book is obviously not well written.”

***

“Did he ask you?” Caroline demands while chasing after me into Starbucks the next morning.

“Ask me what?”

She puts her right hand on her hip and narrows her eyes at me. I know what she’s talking about, but I like to watch her squirm.

“Sydney!”

“What?”

“Did he ask you to the premiere for
Deader than Night
– it’s next week.”

“I know.”

“Sydney!”

“Fine. Yes. He asked me.” I slide into line behind a guy wearing a horrible leather vest and stare at the menu, trying to decide between a latte or a mocha. Caroline stands beside me.

You’d think, by the expression on her face, that he’d asked her. Her eyes are all blinky and bright, and her lips are stretched into a smile so wide I can practically see every tooth in her mouth. “Oh. My. God.”

“Calm down Caroline. I don’t even know if I can go yet.”

“What? Why wouldn’t you be able to go?”

“It’s in New York. I haven’t asked my parents and I’m sure my dad would be less than enthralled to ship me off to the other side of the country with a boy he can barely bring himself to trust.”

“I thought your dad liked him, they bonded over sports or something.”

“That doesn’t mean he trusts him. He’s more worried about my virginity than I am. You think he really thinks you’d give it up after only three dates?”

At this the guy in the leather vest cranes his neck around to get a look at us. I feel my face flush red and lower my voice to just above a whisper. “I don’t know what he thinks. And I don’t really want to know. The last thing I need to have is a heart to heart with my dad about sex, whether I’m planning to have it or not.”

“Oh my god, are you planning to have it?”

“What? No! Who do you think you’re talking to here? Ava?”

“Well maybe Angelina...”

“Hardly. She’s a virgin.”

“She is? But all those guys...”

“Several of whom she’s dumped for pressuring her.”

“But all those rumors.”

“Are just rumors.”

“So she and Liam never?”

“No.”

If possible, the glee already painted on Caroline’s face intensifies. Liam, Liam, Liam. Ugh. If he could just graduate and get the hell out of this town already, she would be so much better off.

Leather vest guy places his order, then steps to the side. I step forward and smile at the girl behind the counter. The name tag pinned to her green apron says Mandy. I’ve never met a Mandy in my life, but that doesn’t stop her from greeting me like we’re old friends.

“Hi Sydney, what can I get for you?”

***

“I told you dating Grant has perks,” Caroline skips along beside me as we stroll down Main street, steaming cups of coffee clutched in our hands.

“Oh whatever.”

“She totally only charged you for a Tall and you got a Grande!”

“Maybe it was a mistake.”

“Or maybe it was because she recognized you and wants to be your best friend.”

“Well she’s too late, Michelle’s already called dibs.” I say dryly.

“It wouldn’t hurt to at least consider Michelle...she may be a bit awful...”

“
May be
? Caroline come on. She’s a nightmare. And she doesn’t really want to be my friend. She just wants to get close to Grant and steal him from me. Which, I’m guessing, is why she got Angelina to invite her over for a sleepover tonight.”

“She’s coming over?”

“Of course. Grant’s going to be there after all.”

“He is? You can’t let her Michelle meet him before me.”

“Calm down. He’s not really coming over. Do you really think I’d let Michelle anywhere near him? He left for London this morning and if Michelle wasn’t so obsessed with meeting him and actually did her homework, she’d realize he’s not even going to be in the country. I just made it sound like he was going to be around to taunt her a bit. She and Angelina will spend the entire night on their toes waiting for him and when he doesn’t show, I’ll laugh.”

“That’s very diabolical of you, in a marshmallow sort of way.”

“Well I try.”