Prep Boy Secrets

Chapter Five

At home, I opened another one of my prepackaged outfits from my stylist for the party tonight. Inside the garment bag was a gray Lanvin suit with a bright yellow v-neck tee. Nice choice, I thought to myself.

“Hey bro, did you get the okay to partaayyy?” read a text message from Henry. Although he was hesitant to go at first like we talked about last weekend, he agreed it would be a good chance for us all to make amends.

“I did! I’ll see you there soon,” I typed back while laughing to myself.

“Kyle, are you ready to go to Ryan’s? The towncar is here,” my mother asked as she passed by my room.

“Yes, I’ll go to the down to the lobby now,” I said while entering the penthouse elevator.

As soon as I got to the downstairs lobby my eyes were almost blinded. The paparazzi clicked their cameras through the windows looking into the lobby. The front desk clerk called out to me to come over to him.

“We tried to get your car in the back entrance but the paparazzi are waiting there too. We can have a couple of security guards escort you through the front doors. Sorry for the inconvenience Kyle,” said the clerk.

I thanked him and braced myself for the paparazzi and reporters waiting to get there perfect shot. Should I really go out there? I thought. I grabbed my phone and dialed my mom’s number, but she came out of the elevator all dressed up. Was she wearing that before? I don’t think so.

“Okay honey, new plan. I’m going to go out there with you. If the press sees me with you they won’t assume you’re off to a party,” mom told me as she quickly put her earrings on.

We exited the lobby to a roar of reporters and photographers shouting my name and asking me an endless amount of questions that sounded like one loud chaotic sound.

“Kyle over here, where are you off to tonight?” one stocky photographer asked.

“Drowning your sorrows tonight at the club Kyle?” yelled another tabloid reporter. I had to fight every urge to not flip these people off. I wasn’t used to all this negative attention. I’ve dealt with paparazzi before when I went with Amber to her celebrity parties and award shows, but I was always just in the background. All the attention used to be on Amber alone.

“Mrs. Parker, how do you feel about your son possibly going to the slammer?” yelled another photographer. We both stayed silent as the burly security guards weeded us through to the town car.

We finally got into the car and breathed a sigh of relief. My mom frantically scrolled through her Blackberry contacts and pressed the call button.

“Hi Anna, just wanted to give you the heads up that you’ll be getting some calls soon from the tabloids,” she said. I gave her a confused look and she held up her finger to signal she would explain in a minute. “If they ask what our destination is tonight tell them the 71st Grill, then contact our stylist Gabby to get two doubles and send them there. We need to get the photographers off our backs. Thanks, bye.”

“‘Doubles’?” I asked her, I was starting to get worried. “I thought we were going to Ryan’s party?”

“We are going to the party,” she answered. “I just sent two look-alikes to the 71st Grill so they won’t know your true location. Right now we are going to drive through some parking garages and loose these guys that are following us.”

I looked through the rear window and sure enough there were cars with paparazzi hanging out the windows, some with bikes, and some were just plain running after our car in the crawling New York traffic.