He's the One (15 page)

She went around spreading rumours that Brooke had only got the role because of who her parents were, and because her stepdad made such generous donations to the school, and had even started a Facebook campaign against her. It had all got very nasty and Taylor came close to being suspended. Since then she’d restricted herself to looking daggers at Brooke, and Brooke did her very best to ignore her.

‘Shit! What’s
she
doing with him?’ Brooke hissed at Kelly.

‘Just go over and act natural,’ her friend told her.

It was easier said than done as Brooke was dying to know what Taylor and Christian were talking about. Taylor was doing her best flirtatious routine: gazing into his eyes, leaning forward so she could show off her cleavage, twirling a lock of her blonde hair round one finger … Brooke knew exactly what she was up to, because those were just the kind of techniques she herself had used on Christian, very effectively. And she knew how susceptible he was to pretty girls …

‘Hey,’ she said, smiling warmly at him as she approached and completely blanking Taylor.

‘Hey yourself,’ Christian answered. He was sprawled back in his seat and made no effort to get up and kiss Brooke. Okay, she was used to this, he didn’t do displays of affection when they were at school. But a little kiss on the cheek wouldn’t have hurt. She wasn’t just any girl; she was his girlfriend, for Christ’s sake!

‘Hi, Brooke,’ Taylor said. ‘How are you? Christian told me that you’ve had to study
all
week. Bummer.’

When did he tell her? Just now or had they met up last night? Brooke was itching to ask but didn’t want to be thrown on the back foot in front of Taylor.

‘Yeah, well, I had some papers to finish, but I’ve done them now.’

‘That’s lucky, ’cos I’m guessing you wouldn’t have wanted to miss Christian’s party. It sounds awesome.’

Shit! He had asked her.

‘Yeah, I was just telling Taylor that we’re going to have a marquee and my band’s going to play. It’s going to be
fucking
awesome!’

‘Yeah, rock on Hell Dogs!’ Taylor exclaimed excitedly. ‘And Christian was telling me about one of his new songs – “Rip Out my Heart”. It sounded so totally in the zone.’

Creep, Brooke thought, guessing that Taylor most
likely loathed thrash metal every bit as much as she herself did …

‘So what are you wearing, Brooke?’ Taylor asked, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth and that she and Brooke always had these girly chats together, which they’d had precisely never.

‘It’s an incredible outfit,’ Kelly broke in. ‘She looks amazing in it – like a runway model. But you want it to be a surprise for Christian, don’t you, Brooke?’

‘That’s right.’ She managed to flash him an adoring smile. And finally he put his arm round her and said, ‘You always look incredible, Brooke.’ She felt like high-fiving Kelly when she saw the look of jealousy flare up in Taylor’s eyes. Clearly she’d decided she wasn’t going to hang around and watch any more PDAs between Brooke and Christian. She abruptly stood up and muttered something about seeing one of her tutors, stalking off and wiggling her tiny denim-clad butt for all it was worth.
Tragic
, thought Brooke.

‘Sorry I didn’t call you back last night, babe. I was at baseball practice, and then we went to Bryan’s and crashed. His parents are away and it turned into a bit of a late one,’ Christian said, thankfully not staring at Taylor’s ass.

Brooke wanted to say, Well, what stopped you after practice? But didn’t want to come across as needy, so instead she shrugged and said, ‘No problem. I was really busy.’

Christian smiled. ‘You are my kind of girlfriend, Brooke. I can’t stand girls being on my case. It does my head in when they want to know where I am all the time. When I’ve got something to say, I’ll call you, but I don’t have to check in every five minutes, like I’m on some kind of parole. I swear my ex would have electronically tagged me if she could.’

So it had paid off … but Brooke realised she had probably painted herself into a corner because now Christian would think she didn’t have a problem with him not calling her back, and she
really
did have a problem with that. She glanced at Kelly, who smiled sympathetically.

‘So come on, tell me about the party,’ Brooke asked. And while he chatted away about the guest list and the DJ he’d chosen, and how his mom and dad were buying him a new jeep, Brooke allowed herself to relax slightly. She shouldn’t get so tense. Christian was into her; he just had his own unique way of showing it.

‘So a group of us are going over to Bryan’s house after class, d’you want to come?’

Her heart sank. She would far rather have gone to the beach with him so they could spend some time on their own. But she was trying to be the perfect girlfriend, and so the perfect girlfriend replied, ‘Yes. Love to.’

The rest of her day in school was actually pretty good. Mr Wilson, her psychology tutor, looked as if he was going to have a heart attack when she handed him her paper as she was notorious for getting work in late. Drama was as compelling as ever – they were working on
Romeo and Juliet
and she had to deliver Juliet’s famous balcony speech. Her performance received much praise from Miss Rose, the drama teacher. She held Brooke back after class to say she had brought great sensitivity and depth to the part. Hearing that, Brooke broke into a smile like it was her birthday.

All in all she was in a brilliant mood as she drove up to Beverly Hills with the roof of her car down. Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Stronger’ was blasting out of the stereo but she switched it off as soon as she reached the
gates leading up to Bryan’s dad’s mansion, mindful that Christian always poked fun at her for liking such mainstream pop.

Bryan’s dad was a movie producer and a multimillionaire. He had recently remarried for the fourth time, to a model turned actress who Bryan didn’t get on with at all. But his parents were supposed to be away, and when they were, that was when Bryan partied. Hard, by the look of his living room – he had his own wing in the house and seemed to have banned the cleaners from going in to tidy up. Brooke picked her way through empty cans of Bud and bottles of Bacardi, past take-out boxes of fried chicken and pizza, and took a seat on the leather sofa. It felt sticky against her bare legs and she didn’t like to think about what might have been spilled on it.

She’d hoped Christian might sit next to her, but he sat on the floor by the large glass coffee table and immediately started laying out his gear to make a spliff. Okay, apart from his terrible taste in music, this was the one thing she didn’t really like about Christian. He was a bit of a dope head. Brooke had tried dope in the past but didn’t like it; it just gave her a pounding headache and the munchies. And her mom was really hardline when it came to drugs. A friend’s brother had died of a drug overdose when Liberty was sixteen and it had had a profound effect on her. A year ago she had caught Brooke and Kelly smoking a joint, and had hit the roof.

Brooke’s good mood began to fade. She felt insecure and self-conscious. She didn’t know Bryan very well or his friends – there were two other guys here along with two girls she vaguely knew from school. They were all eyeing up the spliffs appreciatively and Brooke realised she might be in a minority when it came to
disliking dope. Oh, well, she supposed one or two drags wouldn’t matter. She didn’t want to seem like an uptight killjoy, and hopefully her mom would be out by the time Brooke got home and she’d be able to shower and wash her hair. Liberty had a very acute sense of smell and always knew when Zac had been smoking, a habit which she hated. As weed had a far stronger smell, she would instantly be able to detect it. Really her mom was wasted on TV, she should have been working for the DEA sniffing out illegal drugs at airports.

Christian lit the joint and inhaled deeply. ‘Man, that’s good stuff,’ he exclaimed, passing it on to Bryan. Brooke fidgeted on the sofa, wondering how much longer they would have to stay here and whether she could suggest that she and Christian slipped away to the beach. Bryan passed the spliff to her and she took a drag. Instantly her throat burned from the smoke, causing her to cough and her eyes to water. the girl with dyed black hair raised her eyebrows as if to say, What a baby.

The conversation was all about a gig they had recently been to and Brooke hadn’t. And thank God for that, it sounded
so
not her kind of thing – Death Head something or other had been playing.

‘What was the last gig you went to, Brooke?’ the second girl asked. She had dip-dyed hair, brown at the roots, pink at the ends, which looked atrocious. She must have done it herself. Brooke couldn’t help touching her own hair, to reassure herself that it was still there in all its glossy, blonde glory.

‘Um, my stepdad got tickets for Rihanna,’ she replied, hating herself for sounding apologetic because at least Rihanna could sing and put on a brilliant show, and Brooke had loved it. She would take her any time
over some skanky group who looked as if they needed scrubbing down with disinfectant, and who were borderline tone deaf.

Bad dip-dye actually sniggered. Not wanting a confrontation, Brooke pretended she hadn’t heard and got out her phone to check her messages. There was one from Kelly.
How’s it going? Am at home by the pool if u want to come over later. Mom says stay for dinner if u want. xx

That sounded so tempting … Brooke was about to reply when the door to the living room was flung open and Bryan’s dad Wyatt and stepmom Lydia marched in.

‘What the hell is going on in here?’ Wyatt roared. ‘I warned you about smoking weed in the house … or anywhere else!’ He was red in the face with rage and Brooke guessed this was not the first time they’d had this row.

Lydia folded her arms and glared at everyone. She was twenty-five at the most, with platinum-blonde hair and a pretty heart-shaped face that was ruined by an unbelievably sulky expression – though that was possibly caused by the fillers in her pumped-up lips.

‘And this place is, like, filthy!’ she exclaimed, kicking at one of the fast-food boxes, and looking disgusted. ‘The housekeeper just told us you wouldn’t let the cleaners in. What is wrong with you, Bryan? I would never have dreamed of letting my room get in such a state when I was your age.’ She glanced at Wyatt to back her up. ‘You are spoiled and selfish and rude, and your dad and I think it’s high time you were taught a lesson if you want to carry on living in this house.’

Brooke was actually starting to feel quite sorry for Bryan, being publicly humiliated in this way. It must be tough having a stepmom like that.

But Bryan wasn’t going to take the attack lying down. ‘It’s none of your fucking business what I do in my rooms! I’ll keep them how I want! Just because you control my dad, doesn’t mean that you can control me! I’ve still got my balls, you gold-digging bitch! We all know
exactly
why you married my dad. And one day the scales are going to fall from his eyes, and you’ll be out on your ass, just like all the other hos he’s been with.’

Okay, he had just overstepped the line big time. Brooke looked over at Christian, who smirked and shook his head, like it was all a big joke.

Lydia’s violet eyes bugged out of her head in fury as she jabbed Wyatt’s arm. ‘Are you going to let him speak to me like that? He is totally out of control!’

Wyatt stepped forward, clenching his fists, and for a moment Brooke was concerned he might throw a punch at Bryan, then he seemed to gather himself. ‘You ever speak to Lydia like that again, and
you
will be the one out on your ass. This is
my
house,
my
rules, and it’s high time you realised that. And just to make sure that there is no repetition of your little dope parties, I am now going to phone up each of your friends’ parents and let them know exactly what you’ve all been up to.’

‘What the fuck!’ Bryan screeched. ‘You can’t do that!’

‘You’ve had enough warnings. You need to know I’m serious.’

Wyatt threw a black garbage bag in Bryan’s direction as he and Lydia left. ‘And clear up this shit, it’s a disgrace.’

For a moment the group looked at each other in stunned disbelief, then they all started complaining at once, talking over each other. This was going to freak out their parents and cause major grief for them …
and why the fuck didn’t Bryan know that his folks were coming back?

Only Brooke and Christian stayed silent; Brooke because she was terrified of what Liberty’s reaction was going to be, and Christian because he was nonchalantly gathering together all his smoking paraphernalia as if it had always been his plan to leave now. He glanced over at Brooke. ‘Shall we split to the beach then?’

‘Sure,’ she replied, though she wondered if it might be better to go home and face her mom’s wrath and get it over and done with. But then again, she hadn’t spent any time alone with Christian for ages. She would go to the beach. Maybe her mom would have calmed down by the time she got home. She could say that it was only one tiny puff, and that Bryan’s parents were over-reacting. And her mom was pleased that she had caught up with her schoolwork. Yeah, it would be okay, Brooke told herself. It was no biggie.

It was after ten p.m. when she let herself quietly into the house. She had ignored all six calls her mom had made to her and not read any of the texts she had sent. For a moment, as she tiptoed across the hallway, she hoped that her parents were out again. But just as she was about to go upstairs, her mom called out her name.

‘Brooke, I’m in the living room, will you please come and see me now?’ Liberty sounded as if she meant business – her voice was quiet and controlled, which was always a hundred times scarier than if she was ranting and shouting at her daughter.

Brooke turned round and reluctantly made her way into the living room. Her mom was sitting on the sofa in near darkness. There was only one lamp on in the room, but there was enough light for Brooke to see
that Liberty had been crying. She stood in front of her and folded her arms, waiting for the onslaught.