Falling for the Girl Next Door

  “Truman, what is it?” She reached out and pushed his hair out of his eyes. “What weighs so heavy on your heart?”

  He didn’t want to answer. Didn’t want to tell her, didn’t want to share that dark part of him.

  But she said it so softly, so quietly, so full of love, that he found himself saying, “I drink.”

  Her reaction was immediate and totally predictable. Eyes wide, shocked gasp, hand to the chest.

  “I…” He scrubbed his hands through his hair again. “I drink a lot.”

  She blinked at him several times before asking, “Are you… Do you… Is it… How bad is it?”

  He gave her a twisted half-smile. “Pretty bad.”

  She stared at him for a long time, so long that he thought maybe she’d gone into shock. Maybe he would need to call 9-1-1 and get her checked into an insane asylum. If he had to guess, he’d say she was racing through all the possible reactions his father would have.

  None of them would be good.

  But when she finally spoke, it wasn’t about his father. “I’ll ask my therapist for a referral. We will find you the best program in the city.”

  He had so many reactions at once. Shock at her supportive response. Surprise to learn that she saw a therapist. Relief that she was standing at his side instead of running away.

  He didn’t know how to respond. Saying thanks didn’t seem quite right.

  “You will get through this, Truman.” She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him.

  He had been taller than her since sixth grade, but when she squeezed him tight he still felt like the little boy who thought she was the moon and stars.

  He hugged her back.

  “Your father can never find out,” she whispered.

  He huffed out a humorless laugh. “I know.”

  With that, she released him. She nodded, as if everything was settled, and then headed out of the room.

  In some ways it was terrifying to have told her. But in others…it felt good to let that secret off his chest. It felt good to know that she was on his side.

  He still felt like the victim of a drive-by steamroller.

  One glance at his bed made him want to fall back in, pull the covers over his head, and never face the world again.

  But there was Sloane. She would be waiting for him at the car in—he checked the time on his phone—less than five minutes, which meant he had four minutes to splash water on his face, brush his teeth, and throw on some clean clothes.

  He made it with thirty seconds to spare.

  …

  I have a whole library full of novels and short story collections spread out over one end of the table and am starting to lay out my notes on the other half when Jenna arrives.

  “Modern Lit?” she guesses.

  I give her a wry smile. “How’d you know?”

  “Because those are all the books we’ve read in Modern Lit this year.”

  Leave it to Jenna to be literally too literal.

  She takes everything so seriously that it’s actually adorable.

  I am so glad that my first impression of her turned out to be wrong. And that I gave her a chance despite what the duplicitous Aimeigh wanted me to believe. If my pseudo-friendship with Aimeigh taught me anything, it’s that my instincts about people aren’t always spot on.

  Jenna has been a good friend to me. I mean, she’s no Tash—there is an only-one-in-the-world certificate guarantee when it comes to my best friend—but I’m glad to have her.

  “I could send you my notes,” she offers. “They’re all typed up and indexed according to author, theme, and school of literature.”

  “Really?” I ask, floored by the offer. “That would be great.”

  She already helped me a ton with Trig and Chemistry. If I manage to pull off decent grades in either of those classes, it’s thanks to her.

  She pulls out her smartphone, speed-types a few things, and then announces, “All done. I sent it to your email account. As both a Word document and a PDF.”

  “You’re a lifesaver,” I say, meaning it.

  She just smiles and pulls out her lunch box.

  She is kind of amazing.

  “I thought I was your lifesaver.” Tru stamps a boot next to me on the bench and rests his elbow on his knee.

  It’s on the tip of my tongue to say, You were.

  But I catch myself before the thoughtless words spill out. Making Tru feel bad won’t help him get better.

  I force a grin. “In everything but academics.”

  Appeased, he drops onto the bench and digs in on the epic mountain of fries he got from the cafeteria.

  The strains of a guitar float across the quad. I look up and see Dahlia and Keegan at a picnic table at the other end of the lawn. Keegan has a guitar on his knee, strumming out chords, while Dahlia is singing along. I can’t hear the words from this far away, but I can see the emotion in her face. I can tell, just from her expression, that it’s a beautiful song.

  I can’t wait to hear it.

  The delicate melody is broken by the sound of several loud voices. I look up and see several students from Senior Seminar walking out of building D. Finn is in the group.

  Tru must see him at the same time as I do, because he turns to me and raises his eyebrows. “You ready to do this?”

  I fill my lungs and nod.

  Jenna looks confused as we leave our things at the table and head across the lawn toward Finn. Toward my would-be fake boyfriend.

  The twisted knot in my stomach tells me I’m still not sure this is a good idea. But since I haven’t come up with a better one, this is it.

  “Yo, Finn, wait up,” Tru calls out as the group starts for the cafeteria.

  Finn says something to the others, and then breaks off. As he walks toward us, my heart rate is speeding up. Faster and faster with every step.

  This reaction is stupid. I’m not actually asking him to be my boyfriend. It’s not like I’m afraid he’s going to turn me down for prom.

  But still…

  “What’s up?” Finn asks as he reaches us.

  Tru slides his hands into his pockets. “Sloane is in kind of a tight spot, and we were hoping you could help her out.”

  Finn’s grey eyes scan over me, like he’s trying to imagine what kind of tight spot I might have gotten myself into. Or how he can help get me out of it.

  “Due to a series of random and unexpected events,” Tru explains, “she finds herself in need of a boyfriend for Christmas Eve dinner with her family.”

  Finn’s eyes narrow. “Isn’t that where you would usually come in?”

  “Usually, yes,” Tru agrees. “But as it turns out, I’m not available.”

  Tilting his head slightly, Finn looks at me. He doesn’t ask the question out loud, but I hear it just the same.

  “It’s complicated,” I tell him. “My dad thinks I’m bringing my boyfriend to dinner, but…”

  I glance helplessly at Tru.

  “He’s otherwise unavailable,” Finn finishes.

  “What do you think?” Tru asks him. “Are you game?”

  “That depends on two things.”

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  “First, what does this role entail?”

  “One dinner,” I tell him. “Nothing more.”

  “What level of involvement am I expected to portray? How…” He searches for the word. “Intimate?”

  Tru clears his throat. Loudly.

  “Hand-holding only,” I hurry to clarify. “Act like a perfect gentleman.”

  “Who happens to be wild about you?” Finn guesses.

  I smile. “Exactly.”

  “My second question is,” Finn continues, “what’s in it for me?”

  “Besides a night of excitement with the Whitaker family?” I offer.

  “Yeah,” he says. “Besides that.”

  “We’re not going to pay you, McCain,” Tru says, his voice a little more tense than it had been a moment ago.
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  Finn rolls his eyes. “I don’t need your money.”

  I’m at a loss. What would a guy like Finn McCain, son of one of the most popular actresses in the world, want that I could give him?

  At that exact moment, a loud peal of laughter echoes across the quad. We all turn to see Willa, Mariely, and Cabot laughing at what must be the funniest thing they’ve ever heard.

  I turn back to Finn, ready to continue our negotiation, and find him staring at the laughing trio.

  That’s when I know.

  “I’ll help you make Willa jealous.”

  Finn’s head spins around so fast I think he might get whiplash. “What?”

  “If you agree to be my stand-in boyfriend on Christmas Eve,” I explain, gaining more confidence with every word, “I’ll pretend like we’re actually interested in each other, actually flirting, until break.”

  “That’s only a few days,” Finn counters.

  “A few days,” I reply, “in exchange for one night.”

  “Seems fair,” Tru adds.

  Another round of laughter reaches us. Finn’s eyes narrow.

  “Okay,” he says. “You have a deal.”

  “Great,” I say.

  But on the inside, I’m wondering what exactly I’ve gotten myself into. What do I know about pretending to be into a guy that I’m not at all into? What do I even know about flirting or making someone jealous?

  Not much. But I guess I’m about to learn.

  Chapter Eight

  My first task when I get home from school is to work on my state-of-the-project assignment for Senior Seminar. After seeing Dahlia and Keegan working on the song at lunch, I got a new idea and I need to get started on it. We’re not presenting until Friday, but if I don’t get a rough draft done today I won’t have time to get some artistic distance from it before I have to turn it in.

  I always like to have a few days to step away before I have to give a final look.

  I scour the school website and finally find a picture of Dahlia. There aren’t any pictures of Keegan, so I will just have to make do without him. I save the picture and then import it into Photoshop.

  Time to work.

  I start blasting an energizing playlist on my Bluetooth speaker and then sink into the zone. First I position Dahlia’s picture within the square art board. I tilt and crop it to be the most dynamic image it can be before I start applying filters and adjustment layers.

  This is my Zen spot. With an end focus in mind, I lose myself in the process of turning text and images into art. I add layers of lens flares and light burst. Tweak a color here, a contrast there. Choose a font that fits the feel of the web series and what little I know about the song. I can always change it up later.

  It’s almost like I’m on creation autopilot.

  I have just decided that I need to step back from the cover art design for a few minutes to get a bit of perspective—it’s so easy to get stuck so deep inside something that you can’t see it objectively anymore—when a chat window pops up on my screen.

  Tashinator wants to chat

  I click accept.

  artbySloane: hi!!!!!!

  Tashinator: hey sistah!

  Tashinator: how goes?

  artbySloane: it goes

  Tashinator: sorry if I was a B the other day

  Tashinator: recital was super stress

  artbySloane: no worries, I shldn’t have even asked. I kno u wldn’t tell

  Tashinator: any more emails?

  artbySloane: no

  artbySloane: not yet

  Sure, Engineering Boy hasn’t given me his demands yet, but I know they have to be coming. No one would send a dramatic email like that, threatening to expose me as the creator of Graphic Grrl, and set up a whole countdown website and then just let it all go.

  Maybe tormenting me is part of his evil plan.

  Tasinator: what r u going 2 do?

  artbySloane: *shrugs*

  artbySloane: we’ll see when it happens

  Tashinator: better go, I’m on dinner duty 2nite

  artbySloane: miss u, luv u

  Tashinator: miss u more, luv u more

  artbySloane: xoxoxoxo

  I’m glad things are better with Tash and that she’s not still mad about my accusation. Even though I’m half a country away, she’s still my bestie.

  I click out of the chat and back into Photoshop.

  As soon as I look at the cover art, I can see a spot where I have two lines of text too close together. I quickly nudge my lines apart.

  I fix a couple of other nit-picky things—seriously, who besides a graphic designer would notice the difference between a 70% opacity drop shadow and a 65% one?

  Then, when I think it’s as good as my eyes can make it, I save a copy as DKalbum_v1.png, so I have a record of what the first draft looks like, and make sure I’ve saved the master file before quitting Photoshop. That way it will be all ready for the second round later this week.

  I hope everyone thinks it fits the song.

  “Sloane?” Mom’s voice echoes up from the base of the stairs. “Dinner!”

  I push back from my desk. “Coming!”

  This is just the break I need. After dinner I can dig into my last minute cramming for the Modern Lit exam.

  Plus, I’m starving.

  When I’m designing, I tend to get so lost in the process that sometimes I forget to even snack. It’s not until I pull myself out of the zone that my stomach reminds me that I need to eat.

  Tonight it’s reminding me that I was too busy studying—and stressing about asking Finn to be my fake boyfriend—to eat at lunch. All I’ve had since breakfast is a granola bar and the bowl of Cheez-Its I grabbed on my way to my room after school. Now, I’m extra hungry.

  I thunder down the stairs.

  “What’s cooking?” I ask as I race into the kitchen.

  “Spaghetti and meatballs,” Mom says. At my absolutely horrified look, she amends, “Vegetarian meatballs.”

  I give her a relieved smile. “Awesome.”

  After several years of cluelessness, Mom finally figured out that I’m a vegetarian—if by figuring out you mean I told her straight up—when we were having dinner at the Dorseys’ right after we moved here. She’s been super supportive ever since, really making an effort to make great vegetarian meals and stocking snacks that I can eat.

  Sometimes I think she’s trying too hard to make up for the fact that she didn’t know, but I’m not going to argue.

  She isn’t always successful. The nut loaf she tried to make was particularly disgusting. Some things are just better off left to the experts—and to the wide array of meat alternatives that are available at literally every grocery store in Austin.

  But she’s trying. And I’m grateful for that.

  “Smells delicious,” I tell her.

  She smiles as she serves a pile of noodles into matching pasta bowls and then swirls a heaping spoonful of marinara sauce on top.

  I grab the tongs and start adding faux meatballs to the bowls, making sure we each get exactly half.

  We carry our bowls to the table and settle in for a comfortable meal. As we do, I let my mind drift into a hazy Never Never Land of no thoughts in particular.

  After everything I’ve been asking my brain to do lately, I think it needs the break.

  “Earth to Sloane,” Mom says.

  I blink into focus and realize that she’s waving her fork in front of my face. She looks amused, like she’s been trying to get my attention for a while and I’ve only just now noticed.

  “Where’d you go?” she asks.

  “Sorry,” I say, shrugging off my thoughts. “I was just really hungry. Forgot to eat lunch.”

  She frowns. “That’s not like you.”

  “I have a big Modern Lit exam tomorrow,” I tell her. “I am so ready for break. I could use some holiday cheer.”

  She bites her lips in a gesture that I’ve learned means she’s trying not to say something s
he thinks I won’t want to hear.

  “I’ve been thinking about Christmas Eve dinner,” she finally says.

  I lift a meatball to my mouth and say, “Yeah?” before biting half of it off the fork.

  “I’m not sure I’m up for cooking. How do you feel about going out?”

  I set my bowl down on the table with a smack. “Going out?”

  She frowns. “A lot of families eat out on Christmas Eve.”

  “We don’t,” I argue. “Christmas Eve is, like, the one night a year we always eat at home. We always eat together. Even Dad.”

  “I know.” She gets a sad look on her face, and I almost feel bad for jumping down her throat. “It’s just that I haven’t seen your brother in months. I’d rather do something fun with him than spend all day making dinner.”

  Now I feel really bad for jumping down her throat. How can I begrudge her wanting to spend time on Christmas Eve with her son? Especially when I’m the reason she hasn’t seen him in so long.

  But eating out will ruin my whole plan. I want Christmas Eve dinner to be so perfect that Dad can’t help but want to move to Austin so we can all be together again. I want him to miss our family. I want him to remember what home is like when we’re all together. Spending the night in a restaurant isn’t exactly going to give him the warm fuzzies.

  Before I know what I’m going to say, I’m blurting out, “I’ll make it.”

  “What?” She blinks several times, like she can’t believe I just said that.

  Yeah, me neither.

  But now that the idea is out there, I don’t hate it.

  “I’ll make Christmas Eve dinner,” I say again, more certain.

  Her grin is almost as good as getting the new Wacom tablet from Santa.

  “That sounds like a wonderful idea,” she says.

  I can tell she is beyond proud of my volunteering. Maybe this will earn me I’m-off-the-delinquency-spiral points, too.

  “Then it’s settled,” I reply. As the certainty hits me, so does the panic. I’ve barely made meals for me and Dylan in the past. I’ve never made a full, multi-course family dinner. This could be very bad. “But you have to help me. If I have questions or something.”

  She holds out her hand. “Deal.”

  As we shake on it, I only hope I don’t come to regret this.