Awkwardly Ever After (20 page)

“S
o . . . Tim's thinking of moving the band to Portland.”

I half expected Mackenzie to leap out of her chair and cheer when I told her the news about Tim, the hearing of everyone in the cafeteria be damned. I hoped she wouldn't try to hug me, because knowing Mackenzie, she would probably trip herself over one of the chair legs and then slide across the table toward me, knocking over trays of food in the process.

“
Seriously?
That's
awesome!
” Mackenzie beamed at me. “That would be so great for you guys! And we could all get together. On a regular basis. And actually
do
things.” A thoughtful gleam entered her eyes. “I might even be able to collaborate on another song with them. Maybe. Do not mention that to Tim, though, or he will never give it up. Then again . . . I'm willing to say whatever it takes to convince them to move here.”

I cracked up. Mackenzie's enthusiasm was infectious, which was kind of why I'd waited to tell her in person. If anyone could convince me that the drama was all in my head, it was Mackenzie and Jane.

Not that
anyone
would tell me this was bad news.

Because who in their right mind wouldn't be thrilled to have their rock star boyfriend uproot his life just so that the relationship could stop being long-distance?

“Yeah, well, it gets better—”

Mackenzie's smile quirked up. “Yes, it really does.”

“Focus, Mackenzie. Tim is going to prom. With . . . uh, us.” I had no idea what our prom plans were now. Before Tim had decided to crash the event, I'd assumed that I would chip in for a limo and ride there with Mackenzie, Logan, Jane and her boyfriend, Scott, and whoever else felt like joining in. I'd thought it would be a stress-free evening, because I didn't need to impress anyone there.

Now I would probably spend most of the night trying to come up with ways to leave Darryl in the lurch.

Mackenzie squirmed happily in her seat. “You're going to prom together? That makes it official. This is going to be the best night ever! Bar none.”

Logan grinned down at her. “You sure about that, Mack? I have some pretty fond memories from last Thursday. . . .”

She flushed and I looked aside and fought the urge to start whistling to myself.

“Okay, so it'll be the best night that I can talk about in public, then,” Mackenzie amended sheepishly. “My point is that it'll be great.”

I rolled my eyes. “C'mon, this is high school we're talking about—there's no way you can put all the upperclassmen in a room and expect everything to work out perfectly. Speaking of which”—I winked at her—“have you practiced your shocked expression when you're nominated prom queen?”

“Don't even joke about that!” Mackenzie hissed. Then she pitched her voice louder.
“I'm not going to be prom queen!”

Logan laughed. “Mack is convinced she'd trip in front of everyone.”

I had no trouble picturing that at all.

She jabbed her boyfriend in the arm. “I will happily dance with you before and after your crowning moment. But if you, in any way, try to get me up on that stage with you, Thursday will become a distant memory, Logan.”

“I seriously doubt that, Mack.”

“A very distant memory.”

I laughed and surveyed the cafeteria, hoping to see Jane's familiar red mop of hair somewhere. Ever since she had taken on creating a fiction paper for the school, most of her lunches were spent staring at a computer screen fiddling with layout issues. There was no sign of her and since I didn't see a certain green-eyed camera-wielding menace, I assumed Scott was working on it with her.

But my sweep of the cafeteria did bring something else to my attention.

“Is that
Isobel Peters?
” I said in disbelief as I pointed to the Notable table. The one that was usually reserved for Fake and Bake and the rest of that ilk. “Please tell me it's not opposite day. That's the only explanation I can think of at the moment.”

Mackenzie shot me a mock glare. “C'mon, Corey. No need to be snarky.”

I nearly choked on a sip of my soda. “You're kidding me, right? I love the girl, but she is
not
Notable material any more than you or I—holy crap! Spencer is sitting down next to her. I repeat,
Spencer King is sitting next to Isobel!
”

“Thanks for the play-by-play,” Logan said dryly. “We do have eyes.”

“Okay, then does one of you want to explain this to me?” I rose out of my seat, only to hesitate. “Does she need rescuing, do you think?”

I watched as Spencer stole one of Isobel's fries. She smiled up at him as her hand darted out and she nabbed two of his. I sat back down. Well, that answered one of my questions . . . more or less.

“Oh, she
definitely
needs a big, strong man like you to save her from the guy stealing her french fries,” Mackenzie said sarcastically. “The scoundrel!”

“I'm not exactly puny,” I pointed out. Not that Mackenzie was listening.

“The knave!”

Logan grinned. “The rascal?”

Mackenzie burst out laughing. “Yes! I love it. Spencer King: The Rascal.” She spread her hands as if she were envisioning the words on a billboard.

“Okay, I get your point. I just didn't realize they were, y'know,
together.
”

I barely managed to refrain from pointing out that nobody at Smith High School would have expected the two of them to pair up. Then again, I was starting to think that prom was messing with everyone's minds. Maybe that explained why my boyfriend was willing to suddenly throw away the life he had built for himself in the City of Angels . . . for me.

Logan shrugged. “I'm not sure they're official yet.”

I was on my feet in an instant. “If he's messing with her, I'm going to—”

Mackenzie cut me off, which was probably for the best because I had no idea how to finish that statement. Beat him up? Unlikely. I'm not exactly the strongest guy at school. Jane could probably take me in a fight, thanks to all her self-defense classes. So attacking a hockey player was an idea destined for failure.

But I couldn't sit back and watch Smith High School crush someone else simply because they were a little bit different. Not after countless days of being shoved against lockers after P.E. simply for trying to change my clothes.

And okay, I didn't think Spencer would physically hurt Isobel. But if he didn't care about her—if he was simply using the geek as a bit of entertainment—that would ache a whole lot worse than any bruise.

I would know. I'd been on the receiving end of both kinds of hazing ever since I came out of the closet my freshman year. Then again, I wasn't sure if it really counted as “coming out” if someone else yells that you're gay during the busiest lunch peak in the cafeteria.

I'd never forgiven Alex for that, but I doubted it kept him up at night.

“Chill. He's not going to hurt her.”

I raised a skeptical eyebrow. “And you know this how, exactly?”

“Because I saw the way he looked at her when they came over to my house a week ago. Trust me, he wasn't trying to make her the punch line for a joke.”

Logan glanced up at that. “Uh, speaking of that day . . . did you happen to notice anything else?”

Mackenzie smiled sneakily. “You mean the fact that Melanie is now dating my little brother? Yeah, I picked up on that.” She elbowed Logan in the stomach. “Thanks for the heads-up on that one, by the way!”

“Hey, I have no interest in getting involved with your brother's love life. Zero. Nada. None.”

Mackenzie nodded. “I'm just glad he has something else to focus on besides . . . it's good he's keeping busy right now.”

It hurt to hear Mackenzie's voice change the moment she thought about her father. There was a hesitant, uncertain quality to it, as if she was completely lost and trying to decide whether or not to stop a stranger to ask for directions.

The last time I had seen her this confused, she was thrust into Internet fame as America's Most Awkward Girl. In some ways, I wondered if that had been easier. At least she had known that her fifteen minutes of fame wouldn't last forever, but this . . . yeah, she was always going to be stuck with her dad.

The real question was whether or not she wanted him to be a part of her life.

“You okay, Mackenzie?” I asked quietly. “You know that if you need to talk about any of this—”

I trailed off, leaving the
you can always call me
part unspoken when she smiled at me and shook her head, as if trying to rouse herself. “I'm fine. Really. It's weird having him around, asking questions about my life, that sort of thing. I don't know what his endgame is yet.”

“Does there have to be an endgame?” Logan asked.

Mackenzie and I stared at him in disbelief. “If he shows up after almost a decade of being parental non grata, then yeah, there has to be an endgame,” I answered for her.

“Maybe he wants to make up for it now.”

“Maybe he's trying to cash in now that he thinks his daughter is rolling in money.”

“But I'm not!” Mackenzie protested. “I didn't post that stupid video, so it's not like I'm reaping any of the profits.”

“Yeah, but that doesn't stop people from believing you're flush now.” Logan shrugged. “Plus, you got a nice chunk of change from the song you did with ReadySet.”

“Which means that I might be able to pay for a year of a private liberal arts college if I get a
phenomenal
scholarship. I'm in no position to start giving my estranged father a handout.”

I couldn't resist rolling my eyes. “Perception, Mackenzie. It's all about perception.”

She should have learned that by now. After all, she was the one who had been taken in by the idea of dating Patrick Bradford, only to realize that the reality of the guy did
not
live up to her vision of him.

He was almost as bad as Alex, in my opinion. And, no, he didn't intentionally knock into me in hallways, but he also didn't say a word while he watched it happen. Alex was a homophobe and a bully, no question about it. And he wasn't subtle about his prejudices.

Patrick, on the other hand, was the kind of person who would weigh the possible outcome of taking action before he would so much as lift a finger. He knew that telling Alex to knock it off was the right thing to do—but that if he spoke up, he might get teased about being my boyfriend.

In Patrick's mind, that provided enough of an incentive to keep his mouth shut.

“My perception of the situation is that if my dad is looking for a pay day, he'll find out soon enough that there isn't one coming and he'll leave.”

“And you're okay with that?” I didn't believe it for a second. Mackenzie could talk a good game about being fine without her dad, but it had to sting like hell.

She bit her lip. “No, I'm not even remotely okay with it, but it's not within my control. If that's what happens . . . I'll deal.” Mackenzie smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. “It won't be the first time he has disappeared on me.”

Logan rested his hand on her knee and I felt a wave of jealousy rush through me at the gesture. It was such a small display of solidarity and yet it spoke volumes.

Or maybe what spoke volumes was that I couldn't picture my boyfriend doing the same.

“I'm not going anywhere, Mack.”

It would have been such a sweet moment—if Alex Thompson hadn't chosen that instant to make a guest appearance.

“W
ell, if it isn't The Gay Who Stole Prom. Ruin any other traditions lately?”

I knew that whatever Alex said would be dripping with disdain and contempt, but I hadn't expected it to be so cryptic. The majority of his insults were straightforward. I'd grown accustomed to hearing him say that any guy who showed interest in me would be disappointed to discover that I wasn't a girl.

I'd hoped that the threat of having my parents press charges of harassment if he didn't leave me alone would force him to back off. It wouldn't stop him entirely, of course. There would still be whispers, dark looks, and snide comments in the boy's locker room. I'd still be avoiding the school bathroom just to make sure nobody decided to assert his manliness by shoving me around.

But I had thought he might at least stop harassing me in the cafeteria.

I was wrong.

Logan and Mackenzie were both on their feet before Alex had even finished his sentence. I wasn't sure what they thought they were going to do; fight him, maybe? Kind of ironic considering that they had looked at me as if I were nuts when I'd stood up only moments before.

There was no point getting riled around Alex. He wanted the attention, and if there was something—or someone—he feared, I hadn't seen any sign of it.

“Want to get to the point, Alex?” I pretended to yawn. “Or do you want to keep misquoting Doctor Seuss at me?”

“Shut it, freak. Thanks to you and your little boyfriend, prom might not even be on anymore.”

“Right.” I snapped my fingers. “I nearly forgot; I'm going to be getting my gay germs all over the school dance! Which means you're going to be stuck lusting after me from afar. That's got to be rough for you.”

Alex lunged forward, but Logan stepped between us. “You should reconsider, man.”

“Yeah? Well, your little fairy friend should have reconsidered before inviting his boyfriend to the prom and making us a national laughingstock.”

“You can taunt me in a box. You can taunt me with a fox. You can taunt me here or there . . .” I singsonged.

“And you can go straight to hell. But first you should tell the crowd outside that you're not going to prom!” Alex snarled. “Tell the school board while you're at it. Otherwise, they're going to cancel it entirely, just to be politically correct.”

“Oh, man, there's nothing worse than being politically correct,” Mackenzie said sarcastically. “The next thing you know bullies like you will actually have to face consequences for their actions.” I could tell that Mackenzie wanted to say a whole lot more, but Jane's entrance cut her off at the pass.

“Corey, good, you're here. You need to go to Principal Taylor's office.” Jane barely spared anybody else a glance. “I'll go with you.”

I rubbed my eyes tiredly and tried to imagine how life had been only a few months ago. Before I started dating a rock star. Before my friends were famous. Before . . . any of it.

Maybe I'd been this exhausted back then, but that sure wasn't the way I remembered it now. Okay, so Alex Thompson had always been in my face—that wasn't exactly new. Still, at least before my life had gone all supernova, it was contained to the two of us.

Now all of my friends had been dragged into this mess.

“I'm not going anywhere,” I said stubbornly, even as Jane rolled her eyes and muttered something about being stuck with guys who were too freaking thickheaded for their own good.

“Look, I'm betting your parents will be here any minute, which means you can either talk to them here—in front of everyone—or you can wait in Principal Taylor's office. That seems way more convenient to me. Especially if your dad threatens him with a lawsuit. . . .”

Both of my parents were lawyers. My mom focused on contract law and my dad filed malpractice suits, but they were never too busy to firmly discuss legalities with anyone they thought was in the wrong. They would never admit to threatening or intimidating others with the threat of a court date, but that didn't stop them from utilizing everything in their arsenal when it came to me.

Parents first, lawyers second.

If they were superheroes, that probably would have been the slogan they adopted.

There were times that seriously came in handy, and other times when I needed them to back off and let me handle things on my own. I'm pretty sure they still saw me as a five-year-old in train pajamas, or maybe it went further back to the “It's a Boy!” announcement they sent out to everyone they'd ever met.

Either way, as soon as they showed up, I would be whisked out of here and taken home where I would be safe. Except it was hard to feel safe with a whole bunch of photographers camped out on my lawn, ready to scream questions at me. Ready to do almost anything if it would get them a reaction they could splash across the front page of a gossip magazine.

And this time the article wouldn't be lying. I was hitting rock freaking bottom all on my own.

“I think I'll save them the drive,” I told Jane as I calmly collected my stuff and tossed the leftovers from my lunch into the trash. Food didn't sound appetizing anymore. “Catch you guys later.”

It was almost alarming how easy it was for me to pretend to be fine.

My boyfriend was the rock star, but I was the one most likely to get an Oscar for Best Dramatic Performance. Hopefully, for a brilliant portrayal of James Dean, since that was usually whom I tried to channel when Alex Thompson got in my face.

James wouldn't flinch in the face of a bully.

So I sauntered out of the cafeteria, past all the gaping faces of my fellow students, and headed straight to the parking lot. My friends weren't going to let me deal with whatever they thought might be waiting for me alone. All of them were way too protective of me to be content simply watching my retreat.

“I'm fine,” I insisted as Jane and Mackenzie moved to flank me. I guess it could have been worse: I could have been stuck with Darryl watching my every move.

On the off chance that whatever I was about to face made me crumble, I wanted it to be around people I could trust.

“Sure, you are.” Mackenzie nodded, but I could tell she was only trying to pacify me. “I was just about to tell Jane your good news.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but Mackenzie didn't wait for me to ask.

“Tim invited him to prom.”

The forced cheerfulness in Mackenzie's voice made me want to gag. Only minutes earlier she had genuinely been happy for me. Now she was just trying to keep me distracted.

“I sort of knew that already,” Jane said. “It's all over the Internet.”

That shouldn't have come as a shock—everything else about my life was out there for the public to see. But there was still something about having it confirmed, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that a good chunk of the world was talking about my stupid high school dance . . . it gnawed at me.

Or maybe it was the fact that everyone thought Tim had asked me to the dance, but instead of getting an extra-large fortune cookie invitation or even waiting for
me
to extend the invite, he had decided to inform me of his plans as an afterthought.

Sure, he was a world-famous lead singer of a chart-topping rock band.

That didn't mean he couldn't have
asked
instead of assuming that my answer went without saying. The really scary part, the thought that made my stomach tighten and twist, was that I wasn't sure what I would have said if he'd given me the option.

Hey, love. Do you think we could skip my school dance and hole up somewhere alone? We could play dirty Scrabble together. And then maybe we could do something else for a few hours....

The truth was that I didn't much care what we did as long as it was private.

It didn't look like I'd be getting anything that even remotely resembled privacy for a long time, though—if ever. As I rounded the corner and began walking along the concrete sidewalk that provided a straight shot to the parking lot, I could dimly hear Mackenzie and Jane discussing me, but most of my attention was claimed by the effort of putting one foot in front of the other.

“What did you read online?” Mackenzie asked curiously.

Jane shrugged next to me. “Something about how everyone at Smith High School is looking forward to an unforgettable prom with ReadySet headlining the event. They also speculated on whether or not the school was ready to handle hosting an event on this scale.”

I forced myself to remain calm. “They managed it last year just fine.”

“Sure, but that was before . . . well, look, ReadySet has a pretty, uh, intense fanbase. The local chapter will definitely try to crash. And last year there wasn't a crowd of screaming, crying tweenage girls who would do just about anything to get an autograph from any of the guys.”

It was strange thinking that once upon a time I hadn't been all that different from them.

I had wanted Timothy Goff because he was hot and talented and because I had this image of him in my head. There was no doubt in my mind that we would hit it off if he ever got to know the real me. Even when he was in the closet, I was convinced that our personalities would mesh well. That we could hang out in his Hollywood mansion for hours without it ever getting weird between us.

We could laugh together about how everyone else put him up on a pedestal, but he'd know that I'd never do that to him.

Except maybe I'd been just like everyone else—falling in love with the image on magazine covers instead of the real man.

“I bet Lisa Anne fed them part of the story,” Jane snarled. “I feel the urge to write a strong opinion piece coming on. Maybe something about the morality of leaking conjecture about the private lives of students under the guise of ‘news.' ”

I couldn't stop myself from smiling. There was just something about seeing the petite redhead ready to take on the world for me that made everything a little bit better. My life was still a royal mess, but the one thing I didn't have to wonder was whether or not my friends were really in my corner.

“Um . . . I don't think one article is going to do it,” Mackenzie murmured in horror as we drew close enough to the cars to see the crowd that had amassed ever since those pop culture pieces had been posted online. The local news station was present with their pathetic excuse for journalists, holding microphones, ready to shove people aside to get a sound bite.

There were onlookers who had paused in the hope of seeing some kind of spectacle firsthand. I could understand the impulse. It was like slowing to check out a car accident on the side of the road. It wasn't like Forest Grove, Oregon, was a thrilling place to live. If you were hoping to find excitement, you usually had to make it yourself. The journalists were annoying, and the strangers snapping photos on their phones of me weren't much better, but I could deal with them. I could force myself to smile as I climbed into my car. Worst-case scenario, I could call the cops to make sure none of the paparazzi attempted to barricade the parking lot until I gave them more of a reaction.

The people who twisted my stomach were the ones holding enormous signs.

GOD HATES GAYS!

HOMO SEX IS SIN.

HOMO IS A THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY!

ADAM AND EVE—NOT ADAM AND STEVE.

HOMO GO HOME!

Some of the signs quoted Bible verses on the back, and some just had flames licking the words just in case I hadn't already picked up on the threat of an eternity in hell for being myself. And even though I knew that for every line forbidding homosexuality in the Bible, I could pull out an equally ridiculous rule about stoning women to death, and wearing garments from two different types of material, and eating a shrimp cocktail—hell, even
cheeseburgers
were technically against the rules—that didn't make it any less personal.

It didn't make me feel any less sick inside.

Oh sure, it was easy to laugh some of it off when I could see George Takei taking on the homophobes online. But there were so many of them. So many signs. So many hallways filled with whispers and cutting words that I was legally obligated to walk while I pretended to be deaf to the insults.

And even though everyone kept promising that it would get better once I graduated from Smith High School and left small-town Oregon behind in my rearview mirror, it was hard to believe. Especially when I saw middle-aged men holding signs that said they thought I'd be better off dead. That my very existence was a scourge to the earth.

Jane instinctively stepped in front of me.

I'm not sure what she thought that would accomplish, considering that she's a solid foot shorter than I am. Maybe her self-defense classes would be enough if she was in a one-on-one scuffle with a single cameraman, but not against a full-fledged
mob
.

“Go wait for your parents, Corey,” she hissed. “Mackenzie and I can call the cops and keep them at bay here.”

But it was too late for that—the paparazzi had already seen me.