The Secret Life of a Dream Girl (Creative HeArts) (2 page)

I shoot him an incredulous look. “And what exactly would be normal about that? Considering you’re just the
son
of someone famous and paparazzi are pretty much camped out on the school steps twenty-four-seven.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that and you know it.”

“Maybe, but are you telling me that
Cherry
filing for emancipation from her manager father and going to high school isn’t news?”

“So what?”

“
So what?
How am I supposed to have a normal life here if everyone knows who I am? I’ve already had three or four close calls with the paps since
you
got here.” I try to keep the bitterness out of my tone. After all, it’s not his fault his mom is famous.

He whirls me around again, even dips me a little. And even though we’re talking about serious stuff here, I have to take a moment and say that I’m impressed. I’ve known Finn for four years and had no idea he could dance like this.

“You think what you’re doing is normal?” he asks. “Hiding in the background? Refusing to talk to anyone but me?”

“I talk to people.”

He pulls back a little, shoots me a look. “I’m talking about more than giving a teacher an answer in class when he or she calls on you.”

Okay, fine. If he’s going to be picky, then no. I don’t talk to anyone unless I absolutely have to. Is it optimal? No. But it makes hiding in plain sight so much easier, and right now, that’s a lot more important to me than making friends I’ll probably never see again after this year.

I sigh and start to try to explain my reasoning to Finn. But I can tell from the look on his face that I don’t have to. He already knows.

“That’s not going to give you the experience you’re looking for,” he says after a second. “You’re here in the singer/songwriter track, which is supposed to be all about real life. All about the human condition and experience. How do you think you’re going to pull that off if you spend the next year locked inside yourself, terrified of making a connection with anyone?”

“I’m making a connection with you, Trouble.”

He rolls his eyes at the old nickname. “I don’t count.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m as fake as you are.”

And then the song is ending and he’s dipping me, down, down, down. I hold tight to him, half terrified he’s going to drop me and half terrified that he won’t and I’ll actually have to answer his allegations when he pulls me back up.

But in the end, neither happens. As Lana morphs into Beyoncé, he escorts me off the dance floor with a hand to my lower back. Then he drops a brotherly kiss on the top of my head before disappearing back into the crowd, and I’m left staring after him as his words play on repeat in my head.

Chapter Two

He couldn’t take his eyes off of her.

Not that that was exactly a surprise—he’d had that same problem for weeks now. Keegan didn’t know what it was about her that he found so captivating, but he’d fallen hard for Dahlia Greene the day he’d walked into senior seminar and found her laughing, her whole face lit up like the sky on the Fourth of July. Sure, the whole class had been laughing at something their teacher, Oliver, had said, but in that moment he’d only had eyes for her.

Six weeks later and nothing had changed. In fact, his crush—or whatever he was supposed to call this weird feeling he got every time he so much as thought about her—had only gotten worse. And tonight…tonight she was all he could think about. All he could see.

It was ridiculous considering how tiny she was—barely five feet when she didn’t have her heels on. She should have gotten lost in the sea of people milling around the gym, but there was something about her that commanded attention. A natural charisma that all but screamed
look at me, look at me
.

Or maybe that was just how he saw her. But who could blame him? She was beautiful in the white halter dress that showed off her curvy body and the pixie haircut that highlighted her super-high cheekbones. Most of the other girls were dressed in bright colors tonight, their long hair flowing around their shoulders or in fancy hairdos—all of which made Dahlia’s simple beauty stand out even more in the crowded tent. Add in the way her smile lit up her whole face and the way she always asked the most interesting and thoughtful questions in class, and he was a goner.

He’d noticed she was here alone about ten seconds after she walked into the dance, and since he was with a group of friends instead of a date, it had seemed like fate was finally smiling down on him. Like the universe had finally given him the chance he’d been waiting for.

Still, he hadn’t headed right over to her. He’d wanted to take his time, give her a few minutes to settle in, not seem too eager. And if he was being completely honest, it had taken him a while to work up the nerve to ask her to dance—another first for him, as he was usually pretty confident with girls. But there was just something about Dahlia that made him awkward and clumsy and nervous. So nervous.

Of course, it was probably his lack of urgency that had made the universe decide to kick him in the teeth just when he’d finally sacked up and started across the gym to talk to her. He’d planned on opening with a joke, making her laugh. Then he’d strike up a conversation before finally asking her to dance.

It had seemed like a good plan, a solid plan—right up until Finn fucking McCain swooped in and grabbed her up from practically right in front of him.

Normally, he liked Finn—even considered him a casual friend, as they sat next to each other in three classes. But considering the way he was currently holding Dahlia on the dance floor, his hand on her lower back, his body wrapped around hers, it was becoming harder and harder to remember that he was a decent guy.

Turning away from his own group of friends, most of whom were huddled together trying to work out where to go for the after-party, he ducked under the half-open edge of the tent and went looking for a bathroom. Or any other place he could be by himself for a few minutes. And if there happened to be a tree nearby for him to beat his head against, so much the better.

It was just his luck that his friend Jacen followed him, clapping him on the back as they wandered through the venue’s elaborate grounds.

“What’s up?” Jacen asked as he pulled a black flask with a skull and crossbones out of his inside jacket pocket and offered it to him. Keegan thought about taking a drink—God knew he could use it right about now—but in the end, he just shook his head. This was a school function, and the last thing he needed was to get caught with alcohol on his breath. His mom had enough to deal with right now without him adding a suspension into the mix.

Jacen shrugged, then twisted off the cap and took a long swallow before shoving the flask back into his pocket. He didn’t say anything for a little while, and neither did Keegan. Instead, they just listened to the music leaking out from the tent, and the occasional whoop or cheer that punctuated the otherwise still garden air.

But eventually, Keegan couldn’t stand the silence anymore. Too much time to think about how easily Finn had moved in on Dahlia. Too much time to wonder how he was supposed to compete with the son of a freaking movie star.

“So, did you guys decide where the after-party’s going to be?”

“Finn volunteered. Said we could take it back to his and Willa’s place as long as we keep it small.” Jacen grinned, obviously excited. “What do you think the odds are we’ll get to meet Mia McCain?”

Finn’s house? Seriously? The universe was screwing with him. It had to be. There was no other reasonable explanation. Because why else would Finn be throwing the after-party? “You know, maybe I’ll skip out. Go home early.”

“
Go home early?
What are you talking about?” Jacen stared at him like he’d lost his mind. “This is senior year!
Senior
year! And with everything he’s got in that huge house, this is guaranteed to be the best after-party ever! I bet there will even be karaoke. And
Mia McCain
!” he said again, like the possibility of meeting her couldn’t be overestimated.

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t hold your breath about that. I’m pretty sure she’s got something better to do than hang around a high school party.” He shrugged. “Besides, I’m just not really feeling it, you know?”

“What’s not to feel?” But when he saw the look on Keegan’s face, he got serious pretty quickly. “Hey, you okay? What’s going on?”

Keegan just shook his head. This whole senior year thing wasn’t turning out quite like he’d expected it to. When summer had started, he’d felt like he had the world on a string, like this bright future was right there in front of him, just waiting for him to snatch it up. Now, though? Now he was just praying to make it through the next few months with his world intact.

All of a sudden, Jacen cursed under his breath. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t think to ask. Is everything all right with your dad?”

“Yeah, he’s good. He’s okay. He’s fine. He’s…fine.” He didn’t know who he was trying to convince with his babbling non-answer—Jacen or himself. Ever since they found out a few months ago that his dad had stage-three lung cancer despite never having been a smoker, things had been all screwed up at home. He was undergoing chemotherapy for it right now, but things weren’t looking that great.

Not that his parents had told him that. No, they were all sunshine and optimism. But he knew how to Google, and once he fed in the terms his dad’s doctor had used to describe his cancer, it didn’t take an oncologist to figure out that things were bad. Really bad.

He must have sounded like as big an idiot as he thought, because Jacen didn’t say anything else. Just kind of clapped him on the back in silent solidarity. It was pretty stupid, but it did make him feel better.

“I could probably make it to the party,” he said after a minute. “At least for a little while.”

Jacen let out a whoop. “Now that’s what I’m talking about! Nothing like hanging out with your friends and hooking up with someone to make everything look a little better.”

Keegan shot him a glance. “Because it worked so well for you at Cabot’s party.”

Jacen flushed a little—but that could have been the alcohol as much as embarrassment. “Hey. It turned out okay.”

“After you nearly gave your girlfriend a stroke—and you pretty much got outed in front of the whole school… But yeah, I saw you dancing with Himesh earlier. How’s that going?”

Jacen shrugged, and this time it was obvious he really was blushing. “Good, I guess. I mean, yeah. It’s good.”

“Awesome.” Keegan held up his hand for a fist bump. He’d always suspected his best friend was gay, so it hadn’t shocked him when he finally came out. He was just glad that things were going smoothly for him and Himesh, despite how different they were.

“We should probably—”

“How about you? Any particular girl you’re thinking of tonight?”

And just like that, his mind was back on Dahlia. Dammit.

“Oh, hey!” Jacen’s face lit up. “There is one. Who is she?”

“No one. Just…yeah. Uhh—” This time he was the one blushing—he could actually feel the heat creeping up his neck.

“Wow. It must be serious. You never get tongue-tied.”

He shot Jacen an insulted look. He was captain of the school’s debate team. “I don’t get tongue-tied.”

“Yeah, that’s what I would have said two minutes ago, too, until you did your best impression of
The King’s Speech
.” Jacen grinned. “So, who is she?”

“I told you. There’s nobody.”

“Yeah, because it makes perfect sense that ‘nobody’ has the great Keegan Matthews in a tizzy.”

“Seriously? First I’m tongue-tied, then I’m in a tizzy? What is with you tonight?”

“Ummm, I’m pretty sure you should be asking yourself that. I just call them like I see them.” He waited a few seconds. “And the way I see it, it sounds like you’re interested in more than a hookup. Most girls like that, so what’s the problem?”

“There’s no problem.” Unless you counted the multimillion-dollar son of a movie star who seemed really friendly with Dahlia. And the fact that she’d never said more than two words to him, no matter how many times he’d tried to get her attention. Then maybe there might be a problem. “It’s just, I barely know her. We’ve got a couple classes together, but we’ve hardly said more than five words to each other all year.”

“So?” Jacen looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “Why don’t you change that?”

“You make it sound so easy. This girl isn’t the casual conversation type. She’s so serious, so focused, that I doubt she even knows my name.”

“Umm, you’re Keegan fucking Matthews. You’ve got, like, the whole school eating out of the palm of your hand. I think you can bring one girl around, no matter who she is.” He paused, thought it over. “It’s not Audrey, right? Because she’s a lot. I mean, I like a day at the spa as much as the next guy, but she’s
super
high-maintenance and—”

“It’s not Audrey!” he snarled, annoyed at just the thought of NextGen’s answer to
Mean Girls
. “What kind of an idiot do you think I am?”

Jacen gave an over-exaggerated shudder of relief. It was all Keegan could do not to roll his eyes. Drama majors, man. Drama majors.

“As long as it’s not Audrey or one of her minions-in-waiting, I don’t see what the problem is.”

“Of course you don’t. You’ve totally landed the guy of your dreams, so it seems easy to you—”

“Easy? Sure, it’s easy to be with Himesh because he’s the right guy for me. But nothing about getting together with him was easy, as you mentioned earlier. It took me forever to come out of the closet and now that I have, it’s senior year. We’ve got nine or ten months before we go off to separate colleges, and all I can think about is that I wish I’d made a move sooner. I wish I hadn’t been so afraid.” He narrowed his eyes. “So stop being such a wuss and get your ass back in there. Make the move. Get the girl.”

He wiggled his eyebrows at Keegan for emphasis and then—with his words of wisdom still hanging in the air between them—he disappeared back into the tent.

Keegan watched him go, wondering if it really was that easy. He’d never had trouble asking a girl out before—at least not since Marcie Bates back in middle school. So why was he freaking out so much about Dahlia? The worst thing she could do was say no.

And so what if she did? He wasn’t a total tool. He could handle rejection. Yeah, it would hurt because he really liked her, but was it any worse than standing out here brooding when he could be inside having a good time?

Absolutely not. He was going to go in there and—

“He’s right, you know.”

Keegan froze at the familiar voice for one second, two. Then he spun toward where the husky words had come from, searching the darkness for its owner.

It didn’t take long. He’d barely spotted the dark silhouette against the tent before she was stepping forward to join him in the small pool of light cast by the twinkle lights in the tree above him. And then he was staring down into dark, coffee-brown eyes. Dahlia’s eyes.

Shit. She’d heard the whole thing.