Steve came back out of the store and handed me a bottled water, a muffin, a yogurt, and a plastic spoon. “It was the healthiest thing I could find.”
I looked at him, but my mind stayed back on my father’s conversation. How much of his anger was because he thought of me as a child? How thin was the line between a really good idea and a nervous breakdown?
“You haven’t had dinner,” Steve said. “You need to eat something.”
I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but I wasn’t hungry. When I still didn’t move, he added, “I’m not starting the car again until I see food going into your mouth.”
Which as far as threats went, was pretty effective. I opened the yogurt and took a spoonful. He gave me a satisfied look and went to pump the gas.
As I ate I watched him put the gas nozzle into the tank. Pumping gas was such an ordinary thing to do, it was hard to believe famous people ever did it. While the gas ran, he took a squeegee and wiped off the front window.
I glanced at the cars around us, wondering if any of them had noticed him. Everyone seemed oblivious except for one gray car. A man stood pumping gas, but his gaze kept returning to Steve.
I had seen that gray car behind us in the thick of traffic. I peered closer at the man, and my stomach clenched. I’d seen him at the restaurant too. He’d been the one who said I looked fourteen. He must be following us.
As Steve put the squeegee back, he took out his PDA and pushed buttons on it. I tried to get his attention, but he only looked at the PDA and not me. I would have gotten out of the car and told him, but my last trip out of the car in front of photographers had not gone well.
Besides, if Steve knew we had paparazzi trailing us, would he call the police again? How long would that delay us this time?
I stayed where I was, and in another minute Steve put the nozzle back on the pump and opened the passenger side door.
“Jim just e-mailed me my new lines. Do you mind driving while I go over them?”
“That’s fine.” I slid over to the driver’s seat and he got in the passenger side, still reading off of his PDA.
When I pulled out of the gas station, so did the gray car. I headed onto the freeway, every once in a while glancing in the rearview mirror. The car kept its distance, but its headlights never lagged far behind us.
Steve ate and read. I went over my options. How did one lose a car on the freeway? I continued to increase my speed. The gray car kept pace.
Steve chuckled. “Jim now has Maid Marion crawling out the window of Sir Guy’s castle and leaping into a tree. I wonder how Esme will like that?”
“Does she get pushed into a fishpond anywhere in the story?”
Steve shook his head. “Not that I can see.”
“Too bad. I suggested that plot twist too.”
Steve looked at the speedometer for the first time. “You’re going ninety-five. If you get pulled over going twenty-five miles over the speed limit, it’s a criminal offense.”
“Really? How do you know that?”
Steve smiled. “Don’t ask. Just slow down a little.”
“I’m trying to lose that car behind us. It’s one of the guys from the restaurant.”
“What?” Steve’s head swung backward to check. “Where?” But I didn’t have to point it out. He saw it and swore.
“I recognized him at the gas station. It’s the guy who thinks I look fourteen.”
Steve ran his fingers through his hair and looked back at the car again.
I asked, “How do you usually get rid of them when they follow you?”
“Usually I don’t give them interesting enough stories that they want to trail me for hours on end.”
“You must have some method for discouraging them,” I prompted.
“Yeah, I drive home and sit in my house until they get tired and go away.”
“Well, we just need to think of something else. Come on, what would Robin Hood do?”
Steve lifted one hand in exasperation. “Shoot him? Steal all of his stuff and give it to poor Saxon villagers. . . .”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. If you aren’t going to be any help, I’ll take care of it myself.” I slowed my speed way down.
“This is the fast lane,” Steve said. “Is your plan to annoy the other drivers until they—”
But he didn’t finish because at that point I veered the car onto the median that divided the highway so we could head back the opposite direction. And let me say, for a guy who can do his own stunts, you wouldn’t have expected him to grab hold of the dashboard and curse like a sailor as we drove over to the other side. I mean, okay, so we flattened a bush and some branches flew into the windshield. I could still see. And besides, bushes are resilient. It would grow back eventually.
We jiggled and bumped over the gravel to the other side. I glanced at the rearview mirror and didn’t see any headlights following us across the median. “Did we lose him?”
Steve still had hold of the dashboard as though he expected it to jump in his lap. “I can’t believe you just did that! Are you crazy?”
I gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Why do people keep asking me that?”
He turned to stare at me, his eyes worried. “Who else keeps asking you that? Are any of them doctors?”
I put my foot down on the accelerator, heading the wrong way but getting there really fast. I needed a place to get off the freeway to turn around. “I am not crazy. Because at least when I have crazy things happen to me, I know they’re crazy. Crazy people would think they’re normal.”
Steve still had one hand on the dashboard. “You’re not reassuring me at all. Pull over and let me drive.”
“I’ll pull over at the next exit.”
It turned out the next exit was at Barstow, eight miles back the way we came—and driving eighty miles an hour there and then back again added twelve minutes to the trip. I really am pretty good at math problems.
Steve didn’t speak the entire way there. He just kept tapping his fingers on the door handle, as though calculating his chances of survival should he need to fling open the door and jump.
Finally I pulled over to the shoulder of the road and put the car in park. I didn’t get out. I was half afraid if I did he would lock the doors and take off.
Steve leaned back in his seat and watched me, his expression serious. “So exactly what sort of crazy things have happened to you?”
I kept my hands on the steering wheel and didn’t answer.
He reached over, pulled the key out of the ignition, and leaned back in his seat again. “I don’t mind sitting here. You’re the one who’s in a hurry. What time does Jeremy go to bed, anyway?”
“That’s blackmail,” I said.
“That’s what Robin Hood would do.”
I let my head fall back against the seat in defeat. “Okay, come around to the driver’s side, and I’ll talk while you drive.”
He did. Although he drove slowly at first. He wanted to make sure the gray car hadn’t pulled over to the side of the road somewhere, waiting for us to drive by so it could resume tailing us. This added more time to the trip, but I didn’t have the heart to calculate how much. Stupid paparazzi.
“Talk,” Steve told me.
My foot immediately began to twitch. I made it stop. “Last night I dreamt that the Grim Reaper came to our house . . . and today sometimes it feels like the dream didn’t end, like he’s still here, watching me.”
Steve shrugged. “Some nightmares are that way. That’s not crazy.”
“In your trailer, it felt like the Grim Reaper leaned over my shoulder and told me that Jeremy and I couldn’t escape from the underworld.” I rubbed my forehead, trying to make the memory go away. “When a person is being followed around by the Grim Reaper—well, either I’m sliding toward insanity, or this has bad omen written all over it.”
Steve’s attention drifted from the road to my face, but he showed no shock at my confession, just concern. After a moment, he looked back a
t the road. “How long has it been since you’ve had a good night’s sleep?”
“I don’t remember.”
“How much sleep did you get last night?”
“Four hours. Maybe five.”
Steve’s voice turned soft, caressing. His warm brown eyes flickered to mine again. “It’s not insanity or a bad omen. When you’re under a lot of stress and sleep deprived, things can happen to your mind.” As though offering up proof, he said, “My father used to be a policeman in LA. He had to deal with all sorts of bad things—murders, gangs, drug dealers. Once when he was trying to break up a fight, he got stabbed. While he was home recovering, it all came back to him—every violent crime scene he’d ever gone to was suddenly right in front of him, like a slide show.”
I drew my breath in sharply, and Steve went on, trying to reassure me. “It only happened once. And he’d eard about this sort of thing from other police officers, so he wasn’t even too worried about it. My point is, you’re going through a hard time right now. It wouldn’t be normal if you didn’t fall apart a little.”
That made sense, but part of me couldn’t shake the feeling that the Grim Reaper was real, a living being, watching me, just outside my peripheral vision. Maybe a good night’s rest would take care of that. Certainly after the surgery had gone well, everything would return to normal. And now that Steve was with me, I really thought things would work out.
Everything was looking up.
But half an hour outside of Barstow, in the middle of the Mojave Desert, the car broke down.
Chapter 13
At first the car slowed down. Steve kept pressing the gas, but the car limped along, losing speed.
“This is bad,” he said.
The engine light came on, and he steered the car over to the side of the road, where it rolled to a stop. He turned the ignition off and got out. I followed him, even though my entire knowledge of car mechanics consists of where to put in the gas. The night air bit into my bare legs, and I hugged my arms across my chest.
He lifted the hood and poked at things.
“What’s wrong with it?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” More poking at things. “Whatever it is, I’m going to have to call a tow truck.”
My first thought as I looked around in the darkness was: Why does God hate me?
Which was probably a foolish thought. God had better things to do than sabotage Steve’s car. But still.
Steve took out a long, thin metal strip from the engine. “Our transmission fluid is gone. We must have broken a line when we went over the median. It’s all leaked out.”
Which made me feel even worse. It hadn’t been God’s vengeance. It had been me, driving the car like a maniac over shrubbery.
Steve called directory assistance and then made a phone call to a towing company back in Barstow. “Nothing to do now but wait,” he said. “It’s going to take them about a half an hour, forty-five minutes.” Which meant it would be between nine and nine-fifteen when they got here, and then another half-hour trip back into Barstow where hopefully we could find a rental car.
I called my parents and explained what happened—well, minus the part about me cutting across a median. “Tell Jeremy we’ll wake him up when we get there.”
I shivered as I got back in the BMW. Steve turned on the car heater but also pulled his jacket from the backseat and gave it to me.
“Don’t you want to wear it?” I asked him.
“You’re only wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Besides, this way you have the complete Steve Raleigh clothing line.”
“Thanks.” I put on the jacket, enjoying the smell of Steve that clung to it, a sort of mellow woodsy smell. I tried not to let him see me snuggling into it so I could get deeper whiffs. Finally, I leaned my head against the seat and looked over at him. “Despite the way you yelled at me earlier and, you know, had me dragged off by security guards—you’re actually a nice guy.”
Even in the dark I could see his eyes glittering and his trademark smirk. “Thanks.” He looked at me for a moment longer. “And you’re seventeen.”
“Right. I haven’t had a birthday since the last time you pointed my age out.” I knew he was telling me I was too young for him, and it irked me. I wasn’t too young, and he shouldn’t have just assumed that I was attracted to him. Even if I was.
I leaned away from him and kept my voice casual to show that I didn’t care. “What was your first confession—the one you didn’t tell me?”
“I’m still not going to tell you.”
“You owe me a confession, then. It’s only fair. I’ve already told you things about myself no one else knows.”
He cocked his head at me. “Is this some sort of game girls play at slumber parties? Why do you want to poke around in my psyche?”
“I’m bored. What else are we going to do in a broken-down car in the middle of nowhere?”
He raised an eyebrow, and I blushed, realizing how that had sounded. A wicked glint flashed through his expression. “See, that’s why I pointed out that you’re only seventeen. Seventeen-year-olds are still naïve.”
“I’m not naïve, and you’re only two years older than me.”
He sat further away from me and ignored my last statement. “Why don’t we save time, and instead of me trying to come up with a confession you’re satisfied with, you can just ask me whatever it is you want to know.”
I wanted to ask about his family. I wanted to know why he’d sued to be an adult at sixteen years old, but that felt too personal. “Tell me about Karli. I have a hard time picturing the two of you together.”
He looked up at the car ceiling and rubbed his fingers over his chin. “I’m not sure that’s a good subject.”
“Too painful?”
“No. If I talk about her, then you’ll realize I’m not such a nice guy after all.”
“Because you broke her heart?”
“Because I went out with her for the wrong reasons in the first place.”
“And what were those reasons?”
He returned his gaze to me, but I could tell he was still reluctant. Finally he said, “I’ve worked in this business my entire life. I don’t remember a time when my mother wasn’t hauling me around to auditions. I even made some good money as a kid. But nobody knew who I was until Robin Hood became a hit. Before then, I doubt Karli would have paused long enough to give me an autograph, let alone give me her phone number. I dated her because I could. Because that meant I’d arrived. I had a girlfriend that thousands of guys wanted.” He looked at me again. “Do you still think I’m a nice guy?”
I reached out and put my hand on his knee. “Yes. Because you knew it was wrong. That’s why you broke up with her.”
“Well, that and because she really started to get on my nerves. She had this obsessive need to primp. I still can’t walk by a mirror without feeling like I should pull someone away from it.”
He didn’t move my hand off of his knee, but I saw him looking at it. His voice was soft, lulling. “We’ve only known each other for one day.”
“I realize that.”
His gaze stayed on my hand. “You’ve never dealt with the tabloids. You have no idea what the paparazzi are like or how to avoid them.” His voice slowed as he added to his list, “And you live in Nevada, which is a four-hour drive away.”
I leaned closer to him. “Is there some reason you keep bringing up these little facts?”
Now his gaze moved to mine, dazzling and intense. “I’m reminding myself why it would never work out between us, because I don’t want to do anything stupid.”
He was probably right, but at the moment I wasn’t thinking intelligently. Or cautiously. I never would have come to California if I hadn’t been beyond all of that. I leaned over and kissed him.
I hadn’t expected him to kiss me back, but he did. He put his hand against my cheek and layered soft kisses around my mouth. He kissed me like I was fragile and he didn’t want to break me.
I
had kissed other guys, but it had never made me so nervous before. He pulled me closer to him, and I worried he’d feel the pulse of my heart beating against my chest like a frightened bird. But I wasn’t frightened. I just couldn’t believe this was happening. I’d seen this guy ride across my TV screen, and now he sat here kissing me. I wanted to hold on to the moment so it could never pass away.
He leaned away from me and let out a ragged breath. “Any chance that when you graduate you’ll go to college in California?”
“I’ve always liked UCLA.”
He bent forward and kissed me again, this time less softly. I wrapped my arms around his neck.
Then almost as quickly as he kissed me, he pushed me away from him, placing me back in my seat.
“This is a bad idea.”
I blinked at him in confusion. “What?”
“You’re vulnerable and you’re tired. I don’t take advantage of my fans.”
I let out a slow breath. He was still close enough that he made me feel dizzy. “Okay, even though I woke up before dawn to buy an action figure that looked like you, technically, I’m not your fan.”
He laughed, a rich sound that sent sparks up my spine. “That’s what I like about you, Annika. You keep things in perspective.”
I smiled back at him, trying to calm my rapid heartbeat. I needed to pretend my mind wasn’t still spinning with the experience. I needed to pretend it wasn’t a big deal to kiss him, or to be so soundly pushed away. I wanted to think of some casual retort, but couldn’t.
His PDA had somehow fallen to the floor, and he picked it up. “I still need to run lines. Do you want to help me?”
And so we did. For the next hour—the tow truck driver had apparently been optimistic in how long it would take him to reach us—I read him his cues and listened as he said his lines, complete with facial expression and voice inflection. I probably would have laughed at his seriousness, except the whole time my mind lingered on our kiss, processing the implications. Had it meant anything to him?
Did I mean anything to him?