Love and Fame Games (Book 1)

20

"I wanna ask you to come over to my house."

"Why?"

"Just . . . It'll be fun, " he said. "C'mon, we'll get pizza. Half cheese, half sausage and mushrooms--our usual."

"You literally just had breakfast." I blinked. "Twice."

"So? It's almost lunchtime."

"Don't you have anything better to do?" I asked, getting irritated. I wasn't in the mood to be whisked away today; I needed to regroup. "Like making sure girls aren't going around not dropping their panties?"

"Uh," Seth's cheeks pinked. It was almost sweet.

"That's cute," I said, scoffing. "As if you're not completely shameless about that kind of thing."

"I'm the shameless one. Me." he said, flatly. "You're the one sending dirty texts."

"I was not!"

"C'mon, Adrian, all those poop emojis?" He laughed again, clearly enjoying seeing me completely distraught. Like an ass."All those poop emojis. That's- that's hardcore."

"Oh my God! When are you gonna let that go?"

"I don't think I can. It's too funny."

"It's not that funny."

"Says you. I bet Ethan and Tristan will agree with me on this," he said, laughing.

I inhaled sharply, making a small squeaking noise. Seth was being obnoxious enough without Idiots 2 and 3 egging him on.

Seth was being obnoxious enough without Idiots 2 and 3 egging him on. They were gonna see those messages over my dead body.

"Call for pizza," I said, throwing my hands up as if to surrender, headed for our house and flung the back door open. "Mom! Dad! I'm going out!" I yelled into the house, and then hauled Seth off our property without even waiting for a reply.

*

Seth's sister, Bree, was in the living room when we walked in. She was eating cereal and watching cartoons, looking lovely even in her PJ's.

The Frasiers were a good-looking bunch.  I'd hate them for it if I didn't like them so much.

I went to her, leaving Seth, who headed toward another part of the house.

"Hey Bree," I said, touching her shoulder. "Crazy summer, right?"

"Well . . . Crazier, " she said.

It occurred to me then that our age difference meant she had just started ninth grade. "I haven't seen you around school."

"It's a big school."

"That's true. How are you liking high school so far?"

She looked thoughtful for a second, made a face, and tucked a strand of hair--the same rich brown shade as her brother's--behind her ear. "I'd like it a lot more if I didn't spend my lunch hour hearing my friends talk about how hot they thought my brother was."

She'd passed it off as a joke, but having also grown up in my older sibling's shadow, I wasn't fooled, and could sympathize.

"You should sit at our table at lunch," I said to her, grinning. "No one will ever say your brother's hot."

"Hey!" Seth called out from across the room.

"Oops." I didn't think he would hear me.

"Thanks, but I'll survive. I'll see you around, anyway." Bree quirked her mouth in a wry smile before turning back to the TV.

I noticed that the two Frasier children barely acknowledged each other. Bree used to adore her older brother; she was always following us around when we were little. I guess even siblings who started out close could drift apart.

Seth motioned for me to follow him upstairs. I did as told but stopped in my tracks at the sound of an older woman's voice.

"Seth Alphonse Frasier, what did
I tell you about taking girls up to your room?" the voice asked, sternly.

Seth turned around, his face all scrunched up. When I was able to breathe again, I too, turned around and greeted the woman who looked like a grownup version of Bree with a smile.

Mrs. Frasier didn't go by that name anymore. She used her maiden name, Katz, or urged people to call her by her first name, Bernadette, but I still thought of her as Mrs. Frasier,  or simply, Seth's mom.

"Mom! Jeez! Don't be weird. You're freaking Adrian out. You know she's scared of you."

"Okay, um. That's not true," I said, even though it was, a little. Part of me would always be a little guilty because she would never get those hours she wasted trying to teach me music back.

Just like that, mother and son were laughing together. Maybe the idea of me dying from a heart attack in her house amused them.

"Ignore him," she said to me. And then, lowering her voice, conspiratorially, "My son gets awkward when he's called by his full name. That's why I use it around girls every chance I get."

"You don't say." I cast Seth my most diabolical smile and touched my fingertips together, forming a pyramid, in true cartoon supervillain-style.

Seth groaned. "Look at what you've done," he told his mom.

I relaxed a little, and decided I was glad I came over, after all. Seeing Seth with his family--a sister who wasn't the least bit impressed with him, and a mom who liked to cockblock him for fun, apparently--made him seem so normal. Neither superstar nor sleazebag.

"You guys got a new piano?" I asked as we went up the stairs once more. I'd caught sight of the pearl white grand piano now taking up most of the space on the far side of the living room when we first came in. "Where's the old one?"

"In storage," he said. "I told mom she could give it to the church, or to one of her students on scholarship, unless . . . Do you want it?"

"Yeah, right. Why would I?"

Seth pushed the door to his bedroom open and stepped aside so I could go in first. "Dunno. Your mom seems to want you to play again. Remember what she said earlier?"

"Oh. That. Well, You can't really take anything my mom says seriously," I said, and then hurried to change the subject. "That new one looks real nice, though."

"Yeah, Mom always wanted that model, but never wanted to spend that much on herself. You know moms."

"Um," I said. My mom would never have that problem. How was he not getting this? "You bought that for her?"

"No big deal. Made enough over the summer to cover it." He flashed me a smug grin, plopped himself on his bed, right at the center, using both arms like a pillow, shoes and all; I fought the urge to scold him about it.

"Pfft. And then some, right?" I moved closer to the bed and lowered my voice. "C'mon, just between you and me, how many zeroes are we talking about?

"No idea. You'll have to ask my dad. Or the other guys. Neither one's complaining, though."

"Your dad's handling everyone's money?" My eyebrows shot up, remembering the resentment he expressed back at Warped. "Are you okay with that?"

"It's the one thing he cares about, so . . ." Seth sighed, and then shook his head. "It's fine. Ethan seems happy, so that's good. Said he can stop worrying about baseball bats on his kneecaps for the time being, at least.

"God," I breathed, awestruck.

This was why I could never stay away from him very long, despite the arguments, the heartache, the confusion: Life was infinitely better with him than without. It always felt true, at least for me, but what he'd done for Ethan and his family was actual, quantifiable proof.