When It’s Real by Erin Watt

32

HER

Wanna come to a party? Justin’s parents are gone.

I show the phone screen to Oakley. He’s leaning against the counter, eating a piece of chocolate cake, which was what was in the big white box that Katrina brought. She left about thirty minutes ago, and Oak has been hanging around ever since. He doesn’t seem in any hurry to leave.

“Yeah, can we?”

“I don’t know. Do you need to check with Ty or Big D?” This earns me a frown, but I don’t back down. “What if they go all nuts on you?”

“These are the people who came to Maverick’s show with you?”

“Yeah.”

“They seemed cool.”

He clearly wants to go, so I text Kiki back.

I’m w/ Oak. How bad do u think everyone will freak?

OMG. Seriously? I’m freaking right now. Does he have any friends w him?

Yeah, dummy, me.

Ha ha.

If we come, everyone has to act normal. No asking him to sing. No trying to get in his pants. Do not make a big deal out of this.

Treat him like a normal guy from TJ?

Exactly.

He’s Oakley Ford, V. U R asking the impossible!

Then we’re not coming.

“I still want to go,” Oak says, peering over my shoulder.

“Does the word private mean anything to you?”

He rinses his plate off in the sink. “Yeah, it means that the stuff you and I do isn’t anyone else’s business.”

I roll my eyes. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.” He kisses me on my temple. “But that’s my definition. Let’s go.”

“She hasn’t agreed to my terms,” I balk.

“We’re going to a party, not negotiating a hostage release.”

“Fine.” I call out to my sister, who’s at the dining table across the room. “Paisley, we’re going to Justin’s tonight. His parents are gone and he’s having a party.”

Ty starts to get up, but Oak waves him off. “No, not tonight, Ty. We’re just going to a friend’s house.”

Ty looks worried. “I dunno, man. I don’t think Jim would like it.”

“It’s fine. Vaughn’s friends are good people. They’ll drink but no one will drive and it won’t be superbig. Maybe twenty kids, tops,” Paisley reassures him. Weirdly, Paisley’s completely cool about Oak and me dating for real.

Ty settles back in his chair. He doesn’t want to leave Paisley. Oak and I exchange another smirk before I find my keys to the car.

“No singing?” he asks as he climbs into the passenger seat.

“Justin’s friend Matt likes to pretend he’s a musician. Kiki and Carrie are going to have to sit on him so he doesn’t attack you with his uploaded YouTube videos.”

“Hey, plenty of stars got discovered that way. Don’t knock the internet hit-making machine.” Oak moves the seat all the way to the back before buckling in. It reminds me a little of Dad and his long legs.

“I’m not. I’m knocking Matt. He doesn’t do it because he loves music but because he thinks it makes girls want to drop their panties.” Something that probably does happen far too often for Oak.

“What if I want to sing?”

I roll my eyes. “Knock yourself out, champ.”

He smirks and falls silent, tapping his fingers against his knees. Justin doesn’t live far away, only about a mile. When we arrive, there are a few people outside the house. Oak flips his hood up and tugs his baseball cap low, but no one even glances twice at us.

Before I can get my hand up to knock, the door flies open.

“Oh, God, it’s you. You’re in my boyfriend’s house!” Kiki exclaims. Then she slaps a hand over her mouth. “I’m trying to be cool. As cool as I can be. Can I touch your cross tat?”

“No,” I say rudely and push by her. “No touching. No saying ‘oh, God.’ No staring.”

“I can’t stop staring. He’s so gorgeous.” She trails behind us as I drag Oak inside.

“Oak, you remember Carrie, Justin and Kiki. This is Colin, Matt, Tracy.” I reel off a bunch of names.

Oak takes the initiative and shakes everyone’s hands or slaps their palms. It takes a moment for everyone to settle down, but someone, probably Carrie, cranks up the music and shoves a beer into Oakley’s hand.

“Red Solo cup,” Oak murmurs with delight.

“This is as normal as it gets,” I tell him as I accept the bottle of water Carrie hands me. I’m not drinking tonight, not after what happened at Oakley’s house.

We rest our butts against the side of the dining room table, just off the kitchen. He takes a cautious sip and then another. After drinking half the cup, he leans over. “This is terrible.”

I take the cup from him and indulge in a tiny sip of the keg beer. “Oh, man. It really is.”

“I love it.”

“So Oak, you a Rams fan now?” Justin asks.

“Christ, I guess so? I haven’t been to a game yet. You?”

“I went to a preseason game with my dad and brother but we haven’t pulled the trigger on the game tickets. Damn expensive.”

Oak nods as if he understands. His hand slips around my waist. “My dad was a huge LA Rams fan but they moved before I was born. Dad was so pissed they left that he refused to cheer for them again.”

“Same with my dad,” Matt interjects. “When they got the okay to move back, I thought he’d be happy. Instead he told me that he’d cheer for the Rams when hell froze over.”

A few more people drift over to join the football talk. Since sports bore me more than anything, I drift away to find Kiki and Carrie out on the deck.

“Straight up, is it weird dating Oakley Ford?” Carrie offers me her cigarette.

I shake my head in refusal and boost myself onto the top of the deck railing.

“At first, it was weird, but now, he’s just…Oak.”

“Oak, huh?” Kiki wiggles her eyebrows. “Aren’t you worried about when he goes on tour and there’re all these girls throwing themselves at him?”

I hadn’t given it a lot of thought, but something in my bones tells me that I don’t need to worry. “Oak’s not the type to cheat. He’d tell me if he fell for another girl.”

This is a guy who doesn’t like being touched, and in all the time I’ve been with him, there’s never been another girl on his radar.

“Really? I don’t think I could deal with that.” Carrie taps the cigarette over the side of the deck. “I’d be too stressed out and superjealous all the time.”

“Vaughn’s always been chill,” Kiki says.

“It’s not me.” I laugh. “It’s Oak. He’s not that kind of guy.” Unlike with W, I’ve never found a group of strange girls hanging out at Oak’s house or the studio. And he has access to hundreds of them if he wanted to. Plus, he doesn’t even make offhand comments about how different celebs are hot or how he’d like to tap that—W used to do that all the time.

“What about April Showers?” Carrie protests. “He was with, like, a dozen girls while he was dating April.”

I catch my lower lip between my teeth. How do I explain this to them without giving everything away?

“It’s not always what you see in the press,” Oak says from the doorway.

The two girls turn bright red as he approaches. When he reaches me, he slides his arm around my waist again, either anchoring himself or me. Maybe both.

“April and I were friends. We did some stuff together but it didn’t work out. Sometimes the magazines and websites like to stir up controversy for hits and views. Touring isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. It’s a lot of work and the down days are often spent traveling from one location to another. You miss your family, your friends, even your own bed.”

“That actually sounds amazing,” I tell him.

We lock eyes. “You should come with me next time.”

“Maybe I will.” I grin, but when he doesn’t grin back, I realize he’s serious. Going on tour with him as he travels all over the world? That would be amazing.

“And on that note, I think I’m going inside,” Carrie announces. “You, too, Kiki.” She pulls Kiki off the railing.

“But I wanna see what happens next,” Kiki wails.

Oak’s lips curve up.

“They’re not a television show,” Carrie scolds as she drags Kiki inside the house.

“No, they’re better.”

I can’t help but laugh. “We should go inside, too.”

Oak’s hand tightens on my hip. “Do we have to?”

My skin is too tight for my frame. Every sense I have is heightened. His fingers feel heavy against my jeans. The cool night air is tickling all my nerves.

“How’d you do it? You and April?” I ask quietly.

He answers without hesitation, knowing exactly what I mean. “We weren’t ever friends, despite what I just told your girls. We were two bratty kids who thought we deserved more than we got even though the world was pretty much on a platter. I thought she should do whatever I wanted and she thought the same, only in reverse. I wasn’t very nice to her.” He makes a face. “Are you going to hold this against me?”

“No. I just wondered how you kept it all separate. Did you put April in the friend compartment and then take her out and slot her somewhere else when you needed to be…affectionate with her?”

He places a thumb at my chin, gently pulling me around so that I have nowhere to look but at his face. “So I need you to look at me while I tell you this. April and I were never a thing. What you saw in public wasn’t anything more than the two of us acting in order to get more mentions in the press, more coverage. I was on tour and Claudia wanted me on the cover of something every day. April and her family live for that shit. There were feelings that got hurt at the end, and I didn’t see it coming because I thought she was a great actress. I’m sorry she got hurt. If there’s anyone who’s in trouble here—” he waves a finger between us “—it’s me. I think you know that.”

“I’m confused right now.” I rub my sweaty palms on my knees.

Oak drags his index finger along my lower lip. “I know, baby. And scared?” I give a small nod. “I’m scared, too. But let’s work this out together. Let’s see where it goes. We don’t need labels or words. We just need to be together.”

I let my anxiety go in a huge rush of breath and reply, “Okay.”

He squeezes my hip and then lifts me down off the deck. “So Matt sings, huh?”

“You’re going to play?”

“Why not?” He slides a grin toward me. “I heard it’s real popular with the chicks.” He slips inside before my punch can land. “Anyone got a guitar?” he asks loudly.

Matt jumps up so fast that he nearly tips the table over. Miraculously, four guitars are produced, including one from Justin, who, in the fifth grade, slammed his recorder onto the concrete in his driveway and then proceeded to ride his bike over it again and again. The recorder was plastic and suffered no damage whereas Justin got his butt whipped by his dad.

“You don’t even play an instrument,” I accuse.

“I know. It’s for Ford. Just in case,” he says sheepishly. “I borrowed it from my uncle.”

“This is a righteous instrument.” Oak swings the body of the guitar up and strums a couple of chords.

“What do you want to play?” Matt asks eagerly. “I know your whole catalog. Even the new stuff.”

The girls and I hide a smirk behind our hands.

“I’m up for anything but my tunes. Know any Smashing Pumpkins?”

Matt nods. “Yeah, I can play ‘The Everlasting Gaze’ or ‘Today.’”

“‘Today’ it is. Where we doing this thing?”

Matt leads the way into the living room. “You can sit here.” He points to the middle of the sofa. Oak takes a seat and Matt then positions himself on the ottoman right in front of Oak.

“I’d be worried that Matt is going to try to steal your man,” Kiki murmurs in my ear.

“He does look infatuated.”

“Infatuated,” Carrie scoffs from my other side. “If Oak batted his eyes at Matt, Matt would be down on his knees so fast, the house would shake.”

“Mmm. Nice visual.”

“Come sit by me, baby,” Oak calls and pats the cushion to his right.

“Baby?”Carrie and Kiki mouth to me.

I ignore them, try to keep from turning beet-red and climb over a dozen people to slide next to Oak. He cants his body slightly so that his back is pressed against my side and the neck of the guitar is slanted away from us. The closeness of our position means I feel his arm move as he slides his fingers up and down the fret.

The guys sing one song and then Matt leads them into the next. Pretty soon, they’ve moved on to 1D songs. Oak even sings a lower rendition of “I Knew You Were Trouble” by Taylor Swift, sending me sneaky glances the entire time that no one in the room misses.

Oak singing to me in public is different than him singing in the studio. At the studio, he’s working. The songs are often cut off at the halfway point and then he and King will try something totally different. You almost never hear the whole song.

But here, it’s as if every word that comes out of his mouth is some message about how he likes me, thinks I’m the best thing that has happened to him, that I’m saving him in some way.

By having me sit by him, by him looking at me almost the entire time, he’s making a public declaration of his feelings. Something that W hardly ever did. The boy wouldn’t even wear his Vans that we decorated. He said he wanted to save them, but I knew then, as I do now, that he was embarrassed of them.

But Oak has no problem singing about how happy he is to be in love with me.

“Play one of your new songs,” I urge him. I know he’s insecure about his music, but it’s more amazing than he realizes. An appreciative audience like this one would be the perfect place for him to test out a song or two.

Oak must agree, because he starts strumming the one with the bridge that neither he nor King have been happy with. “Yeah?” he says.

There’s a chorus of yeses. Oak ends up playing half his album before he stops and admits he’s thirsty. A herd of feet trample into the kitchen to be the first to get him a drink.

Oak’s neck is sweaty. Playing the guitar is a lot of work. I draw my finger down the middle of his neck. He shivers and then leans all the way back, resting his head against my shoulder.

“What’s it really like, being you?” Justin asks. The jam session has broken down the barriers, and whatever rules Carrie and Kiki tried to impose have been strummed and sung away.

Oak reaches up and brings my hand down over his shoulder. He laces his fingers through mine, settling our entwined fingers against his chest. “I can’t complain.”

Meaning he won’t. He has so much it would be gross for him to say his life is terrible even if it can be at times.

“What’s the best thing?” Justin presses.

“Is it the girls? The girls must be awesome,” Matt says. He ducks when a bunch of Solo cups are thrown at his head. “What? It’s true, right?” he protests.

Oak’s lips twitch. “Even if it was true, and I’m not saying it is, I wouldn’t disrespect Vaughn by talking about someone else. She’s my girl and the only one I care to talk about these days.”

The words are so sincere that they make the heart of every girl here flip over, including mine. I grip his hand tighter. He thinks he’s the one in trouble? No way. I’m in it up to my eyeballs.

He taps the top of the body of the guitar with his palm a few beats before continuing. “The best thing is walking out on stage and hearing thousands of people sing your lyrics back to you. You can stop, anywhere in the middle of a track, and they keep going. That’s incredible. I can’t even describe how it makes you feel. But in those moments, you literally feel invincible. Like you could fly based on their raised voices.”

Matt looks disappointed at the answer, but he’s the only one.

“What’s the hardest thing?” Carrie asks, handing Oak a glass of water. I throw her a grateful look.

“Thanks.” He takes it with his free hand, refusing to let go of my fingers. “I don’t get to do stuff like this very often.” He waves his hand around the room. “Everything is a production. If I want to go to the Rams game, I can’t sit on the fifty with Vaughn. My people have to call the Rams’ front office. We will need sideline passes for me and probably four bodyguards. On the sidelines, there are reporters, other people, and maybe in the first quarter, no one is asking me about anything but by halftime, someone knows someone else who has a sister’s cousin who wants into the music industry and would I care to hear the stuff. And those that aren’t asking about music connections are taking snaps and selfies to be the first to say that they saw Oakley Ford.

“And as I say this stuff, I know I sound like a self-righteous pig. Oh, poor Oak, can’t do anything ordinary people can but tonight, hanging out with you guys, jamming with you, playing Frisbee in the back? It’s been awesome. No one’s bragging about tonight. No one’s treating me different.”

Matt glances a little shamefacedly at the guitars.

“Nah, I don’t mind playing. This has been great. But so much of the time when you leave the house, your guard’s got to be up and that isn’t great. It sucks. On the other hand, fans pay the bills and if it wasn’t for fans, I wouldn’t be where I am. So I’m grateful for all of it and try not to complain.” He slaps the guitar. “Now that I’ve bummed you out, how about we play a couple more songs before I take my girl back home?”

Matt readily takes up his guitar again and Oak reluctantly releases my hand and sits up.

I know he’s doing this because he wants to, but this year that I’m with him? I’m going to watch out for him. I’m going to try to give him things that he can’t get because he’s Oakley Ford. Whether it’s space to hang with kids his age, whether it’s a reconnection with his mother, whatever it is, I want him to have it.