When I'm With You Page 13

  Henry stood and caught Josh beneath his armpits. Kat helped drag Josh to the couch, where he sat slumped in its center.

  “What happened?” Kat asked. She wrinkled her nose as a whiff of alcohol hit her smack in the face. “What were you drinking?”

  “Christmas happened,” Josh said. He grinned and ruffled her hair. “Ooooh, A Christmas Story. My favorite. Did you know they made two sequels? Two really terrible sequels. Why couldn’t they stop at one? That’s what everyone thinks, right? If you have one really good project, why ruin it with a second? Like if you found the perfect woman and married her, why would you need another one?” Josh laughed. “I mean, who would do that?”

  Kat looked helplessly at Henry, who just sighed and sat back down on the couch. “Have some popcorn, man,” Henry said as he handed Josh the bowl.

  “Thanks, guys. You know…” Josh smashed a handful of popcorn into his mouth. “You guys are like my best friends. Really. I love you guys. I do.”

  Henry patted Josh on the back.

  Kat wanted to ask again what was wrong, press Josh on why he was drinking, find out whether this had anything to do with his family or if he was somehow talking about Henry’s, but one quick look from Henry had her sitting on Josh’s other side.

  The three of them snuggled into the couch, and no one mentioned that Tom had never come home that Christmas Day.

  Chapter Nine

  Kat assumed she would wake up on the day after Christmas with no tasks, given how she and Henry had left Josh passed out on the couch. But she was wrong.

  She groaned and hugged her pillow tight as she spotted the piece of torn notebook paper by her bedside. She should have locked her door last night. She had never quite remembered to yell at Josh for coming into her room. She sat up, rubbed her eyes, and grabbed the list:

  Check news, TV, and all other sources for mentions of my name or the movie production.

  Read through the top-50 teen books out now and see which to pitch for my next project.

  So now he was having her work as his literary scout? Well, it would be good experience, at least, she reasoned, and she loved a good book.

  Kat made her way downstairs. She could hear Henry in the kitchen and was nervous about how he would be doing this morning. Yesterday had felt like they were in a soap bubble, safe from the outside world, but today he would have to deal with the reality that his father was most likely having an affair. Henry’s life was about to undergo a brutal change. Which was why she didn’t expect to find him smiling and making breakfast, just as he had every morning since she’d first arrived.

  “Good morning.” He poured Kat a glass of orange juice.

  “Thank you.” She took a sip. “You seem okay.”

  “Slept great,” Henry said.

  “But are you really—”

  “Great,” Henry said forcefully with a smile. His eyes softened. “I’m fine. I just want to be fine a little while longer.”

  She nodded and finished the juice before flashing Josh’s to-do list at him. “Do you have a computer I could use?”

  Henry let out a short laugh and nodded. “You remember the game room at the end of the hall? Just use any of the laptops in there. The passwords are taped beneath the desks.”

  Kat reached over the counter and nabbed a bit of scrambled egg. Henry made to slap her hand away but grabbed it instead and pulled her over the counter toward him.

  Her breath caught as he smiled at her.

  “I’ve never had a girl overnight in my house before this,” he said. “I kind of like it.”

  “What’s not to like?”

  “I want to kiss you.”

  Her brain fizzled for a moment before she pulled away and said teasingly, “Yeah, well, get in line.”

  She skipped away to the game room to the sound of his laughter and with a bubbly sense of happiness. It was like she had all the right lines, knew exactly what to say…finally.

  * * *

  Kat was shocked at how much she could find out about Josh just from searching for his name and the movie title and production company. There were rogue pictures of the set, as well as pictures of him in Bande. She’d even found a few entertainment journal clips that talked about how this was his big comeback.

  She made a list and emailed him, asking where he was.

  She received a terse thank-you with no other details.

  A knock sounded at the door, and she looked up to see Henry grinning through the opening.

  “You done?”

  “I still have to scout a project for Josh from the top-fifty teen books.”

  Henry grabbed his phone and pressed a few buttons. A second later an email notification popped up on her screen. She opened the attachment—a list of promising projects based on the current bestselling and underrated teen novels.

  “My agent already did one for me,” he confessed. “Forward it to Josh, and let’s get out of here.”

  “Don’t you want me to delete the ones you want?” she asked.

  Henry laughed. “Josh and I don’t exactly go for the same roles.” He walked into the room and pulled a tie out of his back pocket.

  “What’s that for?” she asked warily.

  “I’m taking you to a surprise place,” he said. “No peeking.”

  Kat’s heart thumped as he moved behind her and reached over her shoulders. The cloth tie settled, dark and heavy, over her eyes. She reached for it involuntarily, as if assuring herself it was there. “I don’t know about this.”

  “Do you trust me?” he said against her ear, sending shivers through her.

  “Er,” Kat said.

  Henry laughed, and another set of shivers ran up her spine.

  “Are you cold?” He palmed her shoulders and ran his hands up and down her bare arms quickly, without realizing he was only giving her more chills, not fewer. But the feelings were too dizzying and addictive to brush away. She’d never felt this, never imagined that wanting someone felt like this. Like an addictive, out-of-control yearning that she wanted to give in to and hold on to all at once.

  “Kat?” he asked, concern in his voice.

  She turned quickly in his arms and brought her hands to his face. She heard his quick intake of breath, and beneath her thumbs, which stroked the column of his neck, she felt him swallow hard.

  “I wanted to feel where you were,” she said.

  She felt the warm press of his lips against the inside of her wrist and had to stop herself from grabbing him tight.

  “Kat?” His voice was hoarse. She heard the question there, the question beneath her name, but she wasn’t ready for the answer.

  Not yet.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  * * *

  Kat trailed her hands along the wall as Henry led her through the house. Her slow, short steps gained confidence with each move.

  “We’re turning right and going out the front door,” Henry directed.

  Kat followed his lead. Suddenly there wasn’t wall beneath her fingers and she felt the wind picking up her hair and the sun shining on her face.

  “To the truck,” he said.

  She was ever more aware of him beside her, of how his skin was rough on the palm of his hand but smooth on the back.

  “One more step.”

  She stopped and reached in front of her until she felt the side of his truck. He helped her inside. She struggled with the seat belt but clicked it in before she heard him get in on the driver’s side.

  The engine revved and chugged to life. “It won’t be long,” he promised.

  The car lurched out of the driveway, and they were off. After a few moments, she laughed.

  “What is it?” Henry asked.

  “I was trying to time how many turns you were making and when. You know, to see if I could figure out where we were going, like the hero does in action movies.”

  “But it’s impossible?”

  “Totally impossible.”

  “Take a guess,” he
said. “Where are we?”

  “I don’t think we’ve been on the highway, so we’re still in Beverly Hills.” Her heart jumped. “Are we recreating that Pretty Woman scene where you take me to a fancy shop on Rodeo Drive?”

  Henry laughed. “I hope you won’t be too disappointed, but this gift doesn’t involve unfettered access to my credit card.”

  “I didn’t mean that,” Kat said, mortified. “Just the scene of it.”

  “You do have the hair for the role,” he said.

  She felt his fingers trace through her tresses. Josh had ruffled her bangs a dozen times, but it wasn’t until now that every last strand of hair on her head came alive.

  “Almost there,” he promised, his hand moving away.

  Kat couldn’t handle the restless energy running through her. Her foot tapped against the floor, and her fingers drummed against the seat.

  “Patience,” he said. She could hear his smile beneath his words.

  The truck slowed to a stop.

  “Is this it?” she asked.

  She was met with silence, the slam of his door, and then the swish of her door opening. Henry helped her out of the car, his hands straying to her waist where they stayed as he led her through a door and up a set of stairs before stopping.

  She sniffed the air but couldn’t sense anything besides him. She reached in a wide berth around herself.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  “Yes, yes!” She was dying to rip off the tie.

  She felt his hands at her face and then the dark slowly slid away as he untied her blindfold and slid it down her face and off.

  She blinked, orienting herself in the light overhead. A bookshelf came into focus with row after row of comic books. Then a neatly made bed with blue nautical stripes. The walls were peppered with famous movie posters—the original Star Wars poster, the breaching shark of Jaws, the dark Godfather, and the electric-orange of Cool Hand Luke.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “My bedroom.” He looked around with a nervous wave. “I wanted to show it to you, and I thought just walking you up here would feel lame.” He ran his hand over his head. “Now I’m worried this is lame, too.”

  “No, no, this is great.” Kat laughed, fanning her face. “I was just surprised. Are you sure this doesn’t violate your dad’s rules?”

  “It absolutely does,” he said. “But I don’t think my dad’s in a position to talk to me about rule-breaking right now.”

  A ringing sounded.

  “What’s that?” she asked, looking around.

  “My phone—sorry. I’ll turn it off.” Henry reached for his back pocket and pulled out his phone. He was about to click it off when his expression changed. “It’s my mom.” Then the phone was at his ear. “Hey, Mom. What’s up?”

  Kat watched as a slideshow of emotions played across Henry’s face, ending in anger.

  “I’ll call you right back,” he said. He began to thumb the screen.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. “What is it?”

  He kept swiping through his screens, growing more and more agitated. Then his hands fell to his sides. “How could you?” he asked.

  “Henry, I don’t know what’s going on.”

  He held up his phone.

  It was a gossip site, and the headline was huge: SCARLETT HILL BREAKS UP TOM TRENTON’S MARRIAGE.

  “Oh no,” Kat moaned as she skimmed the first line. “Your poor mother. To find out like this.”

  Sources close to the Trenton home confirmed that Tom Trenton and Scarlett Hill saw each other in secret on Christmas Day, she read.

  Henry’s words rang in her ears. How could you?

  “Wait, you don’t think I…?” Kat gaped in horror. “You think I said something?”

  “Who else knew?” he asked. “The article says sources close to the family. Do you think my dad said anything?”

  “I thought gossip mags made up stuff all the time,” she said, recalling what Josh had told her.

  “Sure, when they’re being generic. But this is specific.”

  “Henry, I didn’t say anything,” she promised. “I told you I wouldn’t. Please, believe me.”

  “You’re the only other person who knew. I know how much it means to you—to be famous and how these paparazzi promise things. That they can make you a big star.”

  Kat stepped back as though he’d struck her. “You really think I would do that?”

  Henry rubbed his temples.

  “You told me that as long as I let myself be led around by what others said instead of what I believed that I’d never be happy. Now I’m saying it to you. What do you believe, Henry?”

  She stared at him, willing him to look at her, to believe her. But he kept staring at the floor.

  Kat swallowed hard, turned, and walked away.

  * * *

  Kat was silent as Izzy picked her up in her sports car. She kept waiting for Izzy to ask what was wrong, but she only cast Kat a sympathetic frown.

  “Union Station?” she asked.

  Kat nodded. After a few minutes, it all came pouring out. Kat’s eyes stung as she remembered Henry’s face. “Why didn’t he believe me? Do you believe me?”

  Izzy’s lips turned up at the corners. “You just turned down my offer to stay with me instead of going back to your school. I think the word’s out: you’re not the clawing, ambitious actress I’d hoped you were.”

  Kat wiped at her eyes. “I’m so sorry that I only call you when I’m in trouble. You always come to help me, too.”

  “Like a knight in fashionable armor,” Izzy said. “Secret’s out for me, too. I’m kind of a nice person. I just become neurotic and crazy on set. I don’t know what it is. All those people counting on you, and you want to do your best. You know that you have to do your best.”

  “I get it, trust me,” Kat said.

  “You’ll come back down if I have the perfect audition for you, won’t you?”

  “Of course,” Kat said. “I’ll come back down if you don’t, too. If you just want to…you know…”

  “Hang out? Be friends?” Izzy smiled as she pulled into Union Station and stopped at the curb.

  “Yeah, paparazzi-free friend time.”

  Izzy leaned across the car, seat belt tugging at her shoulders, and hugged Kat. At the gesture, Kat felt the tears spring from the corners of her eyes, and her stomach clenched.

  She suddenly missed everything and everyone.

  She missed her mother and their usual Christmas together. She missed Fanny. She even missed the Jane Austen Academy.

  And already, she missed Henry.

  How had everything gotten so out of hand?

  She pulled back and let out a breath.

  “This feeling you’re having,” Izzy said, “you know what to do with it, right?”

  Kat smiled wryly. “It’s going into the acting repertoire.”

  “See?” Izzy said. “That’s the best thing about being an actor. Even the bad stuff? It’s not all bad.”

  Chapter Ten

  Kat drank in the sight of the towering, stone facade of Jane Austen Academy as her cab pulled up to the front of the school. The iron lettering over the main gate of the grand entrance read, We Will Be Heard. It was that very saying that had convinced Kat, years ago, that this was the perfect school for her. Kat had wanted to be heard and seen and appreciated and loved. She’d wanted it so much that she’d wanted to shake the shoulders of every student and ask if they saw her.

  If they saw her.

  Henry had seen her. He’d understood her struggles with acting. He’d understood what it was like when everyone thought you had the perfect lines, the perfect entrance, but they’d been scripted for you. He’d understood what it was like to struggle to know how much of you was you instead of what someone else had directed. He’d seen her—or so she’d thought.

  Because if he’d really seen her, he would’ve known she would never have betrayed him—or Tom Trenton—or have done an
ything to hurt his family.

  “Do you need help with your bags?” the taxi driver asked.

  “No, thank you.” Kat rolled her luggage in one hand while carrying her canvas bag in the other. She walked straight through the residential hall, not stopping, and into the quad. She walked halfway across the lawn and gazed at the grand apple tree in the center.

  She’d never felt like a part of the crew that sat around that tree.

  That was always the other girls. They had lunch under the tree. They had their rituals where they climbed the tree and shouted at the top of their lungs. They had staged their protest against the Jane Austen Academy name change beneath that tree.

  Kat had always watched them enviously. Something about the ritual gave them power. They never seemed more certain of themselves than when they were at the tree.

  No one was there now.

  Most students wouldn’t return to the Academy until January second. A few scattered students ate lunch on picnic blankets in the grass. A few heads turned as she left her bags behind and stalked toward the tree.

  Before she realized her intention, she was climbing the trunk, lifting a foot over a low branch to push herself higher, until she made it all the way to the top.

  She leaned against the trunk while nestled on a tree branch.

  More heads were turned toward her now. Kat Morley was queen of the stage but not of this tree. She wasn’t the Kat Morley who had left the Jane Austen Academy to embark on a Hollywood adventure with Josh Wickham.

  That Kat Morley had thought she was a star, had thought she was strong. That Kat Morley had believed that as long as she was onstage, she would be heard.

  But it wasn’t true.

  Kat had buried her true self behind a stage presence. Parts of her persona were real. It was like Henry had said with the hats: there was a little piece of her in every performance. But none of them were her.

  She’d been so obsessed with an idea of herself that she’d never really stopped to consider who she was. What she wanted to say. How she needed to be heard.

  More than wanting to be a star, she wanted to be trusted. More than wanting to be famous, she wanted to be a good person. More than wanting success, she wanted respect.