Geekerella

“It is not cool,” she stresses as I hang up my costume under the nametag FREEMAN, D. “You don’t know who she could be.”

“She’s funny, and nice, and caring.” I unclasp the mandarin collar of my shirt and begin to unbutton it, tugging the tails out of my pants as I think about the girl on the other end of the messages. “And she’s honest. Actually, I think I know her pretty well.”

“Do you two talk about…?” Gail waves a hand around us.

“The costume trailer?” When she gives me a stony look, I grin. “I’m joking. I know what you mean, and no, not really. I mean, she doesn’t know I’m me, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“So you’re lying to her?”

“I’m not lying,” I say quickly. Except now I wonder if that’s true. “She just…she just assumed I was, I don’t know, normal, and I didn’t want to correct her. Don’t give me that look.”

But she’s giving me the eye of disapproval anyway—like she’s my mom or something. Not that I’ve seen my actual mom act like that. I just assume. I shrug out of my shirt, my arm muscles aching from the day’s swordplay. “I will tell her. I mean, someday. I just sort of wanted someone to treat me like a normal person for a while.”

“Oh woe is you being the famous abs-insured actor who wants to be normal.” Gail rolls her eyes. “You’re really in deep, Dare.”

“I’ll tell her,” I assure her. “When it comes up, you know…in natural conversation.”

“No,” Gail says. “You have to end it.”

“End it?” Alarmed, I almost drop my shirt. “Why? That’s not fair!”

“I don’t care if it’s fair. It’s for your own good and you know it.” She looks back at me, her gaze almost entirely steady.

“What are you, my mom? You can’t just tell me who my friends are.”

Gail’s mouth quivers. “If I don’t, Mark will. Dare”—her voice cracks—“I just don’t want any more trouble, you know? No more photos. No more—”

“I know,” I say. “I know, I know.”

I feel horrible, making Gail play the authoritarian. She doesn’t like it and can barely pull it off. On the one hand, I know she’s right, that what I’m doing is stupid and dangerous and can’t last anyway.

But on the other hand…there’s Elle.

“Good,” she murmurs, more to herself than to me, and checks her phone again. “So Lonny’ll be here to pick you up at the front gate. Don’t stand him up.”

“Yeah yeah, roger that—wait, pick me up? What about you?”

Gail squirms, blushing. “Well, I…I’m going, ah, out, and—”

“You’ve got a date!” I accuse. “You’ve got a date and you’re ditching me!”

“Shhhhh!” She slaps a hand over my mouth to muffle the rest of my words. If Mark found out that she was dating while I was on a job, he would flip. Not to say that she can’t, but she shouldn’t during principal photography. “Don’t say it so loud!”

I pull her hand away, grinning. “It’s that gaffer, isn’t it?” When she turns beet red, I laugh. “It’s the gaffer! You traitor!”

“Shush you! Not a word or I’ll—”

“How about this,” I fish my phone out of my jacket pocket and hold it up. “I won’t tell Mark if you won’t?”

I wiggle my eyebrows encouragingly and Gail chews her lip, clearly caught between her loyalties. But apparently whoever this gaffer guy is must be worth it, because eventually she wilts. “This is a bad idea.” She sighs. “But okay.”

After making sure that I’ve got my marching orders for the night, Gail takes off, informing Nicky that I’m in the trailer. Gail, you traitor.

Before I know it, Nicky has zipped over to grab the shirt out of my hands. “You don’t just hang these up!” he screeches—guy’s got a really high voice considering how burly he is. “And where’s your coat? You didn’t get it dirty, did you?”

He snatches the coat out of my hands and holds it at arm’s length. The loose button catches his eye and his mustache twitches. “Putting on weight, are you?”

“No,” I say, stepping out of my pants as defensively as I can. “I mean, if I was, could you blame me? All that protein’s adding up.”

“Hmph.” He sniffs, eyeing me one more time—the muscular slab of meat that I am—and turns promptly on his heels, presumably back to his sewing desk where he’ll fix my busted coat. I pull on my civilian uniform—gym shorts, a LOOK. AIM. IGNITE. T-shirt, hoodie—and leave before he notices the muddied hem at the bottom of my pants leg.

Outside, the girls call my name again, but I flip up my hoodie and head toward the front gate, where a small gathering of fans still loiters with posters and T-shirts with I HEART DARIEN on their boobs.

As I wait for Lonny to pick me up, I take my phone out of my gym shorts pocket. Elle’s messages illuminate the night around me. Her last message was sent three hours ago. She must be absolutely mortified. I pull up the keyboard and try to come up with something witty to say.

Think of me in the shower a lot, do you?

No, can’t say that. I hit backspace.

I assure you, Carmindor would be jealous of ME in the shower.

Ugh, definitely not. My thumb jabs on the backspace button as I head to the edge of the lot. A few other responses flit through my head—some of them involving her in the shower. Which is silly because I don’t have the slightest clue what she looks like, or how old she is, or where she’s from. I don’t even know how to picture her. I guess I’ve always just thought of Princess Amara.

Finally, by the time I reach the gate, my brain throws together some words and I manage to type something that I won’t regret in the morning.

11:13 PM

—I’m flattered that you think of me.

It’s lame and boring, but it’s something. And perfect timing too, because as soon as I look up, Lonny’s tank-sized SUV is looming outside the gates.

“Boss,” he says with a nod as I slide in.

“Hey,” I reply. It’s quiet except for the soft murmuring of an NPR show. No sooner have I shoved my phone into my gym shorts than the soft sound of Elle’s reply dings above the murmur of the radio. She’s still awake?

“Girlfriend?”

I look up, surprised. Lonny’s face is unreadable as always, like he’s been specifically trained to avoid emoting. I don’t really know what to say, so I pull my phone out, its screen illuminating my face.

Elle 11:13 PM

—I think of you a lot, actually

I click the phone locked again. I must look embarrassed or flustered or something, because in the rearview mirror Lonny’s eyebrow raises.

“Thought so.” He straightens in the driver’s seat. “She the real deal?”

For some reason I can’t lie to him. “Yeah. She is.”

He nods. “Don’t worry, boss. Secret’s safe.”

We lumber off into the night and I read Elle’s text a second time. A cold shower might not be such a bad idea.

OVER THE PAST SEVEN DAYS, I’VE gotten extremely good at sneaking back into the house. Tonight, it’s close to nine—cutting it close to curfew, but sewing the shoulder seams is tricky, and Sage kept making me try on the jacket so she could pin and repin and get the curves to lie right. Plus, okay, we might have gotten a little distracted watching Starfield. But we still have a week—if I don’t get in any more trouble, anyway.

Catherine shoots me a look from the couch as soon as I slip in the door, and her dark eyes follow me the length of the hallway as I head for the stairs. Vogue Weddings is splayed out on her lap, a glass of wine in her hand.

“Where have you been?” comes her cool voice, just as I’m almost across the hall. “I had the girls clean the attic because you were gone.”

“I was washing out the truck, like yesterday.” I glance up the stairs. Just get to my room. That’s all I have to do.

“Still?”

“Yes, ma’am. We’re going to need to do more tomorrow.” I pile on lies like a buffet. “You know, to keep everything sanitary.”

She sips her wine. “I told you the truck was a horrible place to work. At the country club, you wouldn’t have to do those nasty things.”

I pull a fake smile across my lips. “I don’t mind.” I hurry up the stairs.

As I pass the twins’ closed door, it opens.

“Hey, weirdo, can we use your help for a minute?”

It’s Chloe, smiling ever so pleasantly. Like how a cat would smile at a canary.

“No, we’re fine!” Cal shouts from somewhere in their room. She sounds strange. “We don’t need help!”

“Shut it,” Chloe snaps at her sister, then turns back to me. “Because you didn’t do it, I thought we’d never get done cleaning the attic, but it turned out to be so worth it. And now we finally have something for that stupid contest.”