He's the One (17 page)

She threw herself on the bed, and punched her pillow in frustration. She had got dressed up in her black lace dress and Louboutins and made it as far as the hallway before her mom caught her and sent her upstairs. Usually Brooke would have tried to brazen it
out but Liberty had seized her purse and taken out her wallet, cellphone and car keys. Brooke wasn’t going to get very far without any money, and the Louboutins were hardly made for walking the seven miles to Christian’s house.

There had been no alternative but to run upstairs to her room and slam the door shut, a habit that she knew drove her mom and stepdad crazy – which was no consolation at all. She reached for her laptop and logged on to Facebook.

I’m not going to be able to make it tonight, my bitch of a mom has grounded me
, she quickly messaged Christian.
Wish I could be with you. Will see you tomorrow to give you your present. xxx
She pressed send and wondered if Christian would even get it. He would be caught up with saying hi to his guests, with generally being the life and soul of his eighteenth birthday party. She was supposed to be at his side. She could just imagine the look on that slut Taylor’s face when she realised that Christian was on his own. And yes, she, Brooke, was his girlfriend and he claimed to be into her, but she didn’t know if she could trust him, especially not on his birthday of all nights, surrounded by so many temptations, drink, drugs and Taylor, with her big tits and bad reputation …

Brooke clicked through her pictures on Facebook, settling on the ones of her with Christian. He was so good-looking, with that bad boy swagger she loved. She toyed with the idea of sending him a picture of her topless in the teeny-tiny black lace briefs she had bought ’specially from Victoria’s Secret, then thought again. A year ago her then boyfriend had taken a picture of her topless that he had posted up online when they split. Liberty hadn’t been too pleased about that either.

There was a knock at the door.

‘Go away!’ Brooke shouted. ‘I don’t want to talk to you!’

Typically Liberty ignored her and walked in. It crossed Brooke’s mind that her mom looked terrible. She was too pale with dark shadows under her eyes, when usually she was an absolute knock out, sensationally beautiful, and lusted after by all the boys in Brooke’s school – something that really pissed her off. No one wanted a mother who was hotter than them.

‘What do you want?’ she muttered sulkily, picking at her python-print manicure, which had taken the girl at the nail bar two hours to do. What did it matter what her nails looked like now?

‘You know how I feel about drugs. You’ve always known, so I’m sorry if you think I’m being unfair but this is the second time you’ve been caught and you have to learn a lesson.’

Shit, she had hoped that her mom would have forgotten about that other time. She might have known that she wouldn’t.

Brooke rolled her eyes, another habit which she knew drove Liberty crazy.

‘Well, thanks to you, Christian is probably going to dump me! And I love him. You’re ruining my life!’ Actually she didn’t love him, but it sounded more dramatic than ‘And I really, really like him’.

In the past she had always been able to wrap her mom around her finger, but not now apparently. Liberty shrugged. ‘I don’t think he’s good enough for you. He’s a spoiled little rich boy with no idea about life. And by the way, you don’t love him.’

Brooke sat up, outraged by her mom’s casual attitude. ‘You don’t know anything!’

Liberty winced at her tone, ‘Well, I know more than you think. I was a teenager once too and I only want you to …’

Brooke cut across her. ‘Make a success of my life and not end up a single parent like you did. Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ She had heard her mom say this so many freaking times, but the fact was that Liberty seemed to have made a great success of her life. She was a leading actress, she lived in a massive house and she had plenty of money. Brooke mentally skated over the fact that she knew her mom’s marriage to Zac was less than happy, and that the rows between them had become even more bitter lately.

‘I was going to order in some Thai food for us. I thought maybe we could watch a movie together? Your choice?’ Her mom sounded so pathetically hopeful it set Brooke’s teeth on edge. That was supposed to be her consolation prize for missing Christian’s party?

‘I’m not hungry and I’m not in the mood for a movie – unless it’s about how much it sucks having you as a mother.’

She expected Liberty to blow up at her for that. Instead she said wearily,

‘Okay, well, if you change your mind I’ll be downstairs. And here, you can have your phone.’

Brooke snatched it from her without a word of thanks.

The moment her mom was out of the room she selected Christian’s number. Typically it went straight to his voicemail. She almost cried with frustration as she threw it on the bed.

Taylor could hardly keep the smirk off her face on Monday morning when Brooke saw her in the cafeteria.

‘Whatever she says to you, don’t rise to it,’ Kelly
muttered under her breath as Taylor made a bee-line for them, no doubt intent on rubbing it in that Brooke hadn’t been at Christian’s birthday.

Taylor stood in front of them both, twirling a strand of long blonde hair between her fingers. ‘You missed such a great party at the weekend, Brooke. It was awesome. I don’t think I got home until after five. It was easily one of the best I’ve ever been to.’

‘Yeah, well, I had a fever and was too sick to go. I’m planning to celebrate with Christian at the weekend. Just the two of us. It’ll be way more intimate than some big party. He told me he can’t wait.’ It was a blatant lie as Brooke had only received one text from Christian, saying that he was so hungover he couldn’t see her yesterday. And he wasn’t in school today either.

The smirk on Taylor’s face turned into a smile. ‘Seriously? That’s the best you can come up with? ’Cos I heard from a reliable source that you couldn’t come because your mommy had grounded you after the drug incident at Bryan’s. That is so second-grade! My mom lets me do whatever I want. She says that now I’m eighteen, I’m an adult and free to make my own choices. I mean, imagine getting so wound up about a tiny bit of blow! I smoke it at home, all the time.’ She actually giggled.

Kelly touched Brooke’s arm lightly, as if warning her not to retaliate, but Brooke couldn’t stop herself. ‘That’s because your mom’s too busy screwing the gardener to realise what the fuck you’re doing. Everyone knows.’

Taylor’s face turned an unattractive puce, clashing with her tight pink polo-shirt, as she said angrily, ‘Bitch! You think you know everything? Why don’t you ask Christian what we got up to in his bedroom? He got a very special birthday gift from me.’ She licked
her lips suggestively. ‘He said it was the best he’d ever had.’

Brooke felt sick. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to see her yesterday.

‘You’ve had enough practice, let’s face it,’ Kelly spoke up. ‘Most of the soccer team have enjoyed your services, haven’t they? And you might have sucked Christian’s dick, but he won’t respect you for it. He was probably so wasted he won’t even remember it happening.’

That was Kelly, you could always rely on her for a killer putdown.

Taylor was temporarily speechless and, before she could come up with a reply, Kelly took Brooke’s arm and practically dragged her out of the cafeteria.

‘She’s bound to be lying about Christian,’ Kelly said reassuringly, once they were safely out of earshot and sitting on the grass, leaning against the trunk of an oak tree. ‘She wants to get back at you because you’re going out with him and she’s jealous as hell.’

Brooke just looked at her friend. It was nice of Kelly to say it, but neither of them really believed it. Humiliation, anger and hurt were all vying inside her. ‘It’s all my mom’s fault,’ Brooke finally burst out. ‘If she hadn’t grounded me none of this would have happened! I should have been at the party.’ Even as she said it she was aware of how ridiculous it sounded – she could hardly blame her mom for what Christian had got up to with Taylor.

Wisely, Kelly chose not to answer that. ‘How about we go shopping after school?’ she suggested instead. ‘You don’t have to be back until six, do you? I saw this divine dress in Bloomingdales. I need your opinion on it.’

Brooke shrugged. ‘Sure.’ She probably had a bit of
credit left on her cards and it wasn’t as if she had any other plans. It had to be better than going home and seeing her mom and obsessing about Christian.

She checked her phone. Still nothing from him. Why didn’t he call? Or text? Didn’t he care about her at all?

‘If
Taylor was telling the truth, do you think it counts as Christian cheating?’ Brooke couldn’t believe she was really asking this. She had always been strong when it came to boys, and felt that she kept the upper hand. She didn’t feel like that with Christian. But then, she had never been so into someone before.

‘If
Taylor was telling the truth,’ Kelly said carefully, ‘I think, yeah, it does count as cheating.’

‘People do forgive their partners for cheating though, don’t they? We can get over this, can’t we? I mean, he was probably drunk and it was his birthday. Things aren’t always black and white, are they? He probably regrets it.’ God, she sounded so desperate; she just couldn’t help it.

Kelly looked as if she couldn’t believe her ears. ‘Babe, who cares that it was his birthday? Does that entitle him to get blown by that slut? You’ve only been going out with him for three weeks. If he does this after such a short time, what does it say about his feelings for you? I know you really like him, but you can’t let him treat you this badly. And you know you’d say exactly the same to me if I was in your position. He has to respect you, and you have to respect yourself! Come on, girl! This isn’t like you at all.’

Brooke put her face in her hands. ‘I know. Everything’s such a mess.’

The afternoon dragged by painfully slowly. She couldn’t concentrate in class, too taken up with
thoughts of Christian and what she should do. She completely messed up her speeches in drama, even though she had been working hard on them, and could tell that her teacher was disappointed by her performance.

‘Is everything okay, Brooke?’ Miss Rose asked her afterwards. ‘You seem very distracted.’

‘I’m fine. I’m sorry … it’s just a bad day for no particular reason.’ Brooke couldn’t tell her that it was too cruel to be playing Juliet and exclaiming about your great love, when in real life your boyfriend had cheated on you; Romeo would never have treated his Juliet like that.

As soon as she and Kelly hit the shops she felt slightly more hopeful. She would flex some plastic, buy a new outfit and then call by on Christian on the way back and find out what had happened. Maybe Taylor had lied. Brooke wouldn’t put it past her. Yeah, that was possible. She couldn’t believe that Christian could have cheated on her after just three weeks … No, there had to be another explanation.

She found the cutest little blue pleated skirt in Abercrombie & Fitch, which she liked so much that she bought the pink one and the white one too, along with a sexy white vest top. She changed into the skirt and vest there and then. Then they popped into Mac and Brooke bought a couple of new lipsticks, a blusher and a foundation – even though her mom was always saying that she had perfect skin and really didn’t need to wear foundation. They stopped off at a nail bar and she had a manicure because she had wrecked her last one, and a pedicure because she always liked fingernails and toe nails to match. She emerged an hour later with perfect sweet sugar-pink nails.

Four hundred dollars later – oops, she hadn’t intended to spend quite so much – she dropped Kelly home and headed over to Christian’s house which was close to Santa Monica beach. She checked her watch. Shit, she only had an hour before she was due back. She had texted her mom to say that she might be late as she had a drama rehearsal. She felt bad about lying, but not that bad.

The Mexican housemaid who opened the door to her told her that Christian was in his bedroom. There was no sign that a party had ever taken place in the Italian villa-style mansion and it was as pristine as ever. She imagined that the Mexican housemaid and a team of other staff must have been working round the clock to get it back to this state. Brooke quickly ran up the wide mahogany staircase and along the landing to Christian’s room. He was sitting at his desk, hunched over his laptop, when she walked in after knocking. Was it her imagination or did he look guilty as he closed the lid of his MacBook, preventing her from seeing the screen?

‘Hey, I didn’t know you were coming over.’ He leaned back in his seat, legs sprawled wide, arms folded, and made no attempt to get up and greet her. His too-cool-for-school style had always been part of the attraction for her. Now she felt annoyed that he made zero effort. He looked rough, but still sexy in jeans and a baggy vest that showed off his biceps.

‘I thought I’d surprise you,’ Brooke replied, sitting on the edge of his bed and trying not to imagine him lying there while Taylor did what she did best apparently. ‘I’m really sorry I couldn’t be at your party.’

‘Yep, you missed a good one. Bummer about your mom being so strict. She really needs to loosen up, I mean, you’re nearly eighteen, for Christ’s sake.’

She missed a good one? What about him saying that he had missed
her?

‘So did you have a good time?’

Again there was that evasive look in his eyes as he replied, ‘I did, from what I can remember.
Way
too much alcohol and weed. Yesterday I didn’t get up, except to puke.’

And they said romance was dead …

‘So did you miss me?’ She had to ask.

‘Of course I did, babe.
Badly
. Wasn’t the same without you.’

But he didn’t meet her gaze.

‘Did you really?’ Oh, to hell with it, she had to ask. ‘You weren’t too busy hanging out with Taylor?’

‘Taylor? Fuck, no. What makes you say that?’ Now he got up and sat next to Brooke, draping his arm round her shoulder, giving her his brown-eyed intense look.