Chapter 14
Baby, you don't have to worry
I'll be coming back for you, back for you, back for you, you
Lately, I've been going crazy
So I'm coming back for you, back for you, back for you, you.
-"Back For You" by One Direction
"Hey Dad!" I said, greeting my dad on the phone while I was internally freaking out. I only picked up because I was sure he would call the cops if I didn't, plus I just felt really bad.
"Fish, you haven't been checking up on me like you promised," he said. I gave a sigh. Despite my worry about him finding out, I missed the sound of his voice.
"I'm sorry, we've just been really busy with unpacking and stuff," I trailed off and winced. I hated lying to him.
"Well I hope you aren't busy now because I'm on my way to visit you right now," he said.
I froze. "What?"
"... Is that a problem?"
I cleared my throat. "Oh, no, it's great! How long do you think until you get the-here?"
"Um, maybe forty minutes or so. There was an accident and now there's some traffic," he said.
Okay, I was closer to the apartment than him.
"Great!" I exclaimed, then added, "Well not about the traffic but the- oh you know what I mean."
He chuckled. "See you later, Avery."
"See ya!" I said, trying so hard to sound excited and not like my entire cover was about to be blown. I ended the call.
Oh. My. Fuck.
This was it; he was going to find out about the show; I was so screwed. No, no I wasn't. All I had to do was get him to believe that I was still living with Hannah, which should be easy enough. I think. I picked my phone back up.
"Hannah, I want you to listen very carefully to what I'm about to tell you," I said when she picked up the phone. I proceeded to tell her the entire situation and what we were about to do it fix it.
When I was finished talking with her, I ran up the stars and to my room like my life depended on it. I grabbed some clothes from my dresser, my toothbrush and a couple other things that would make it seem like I lived there.
Just as I was leaving the room I noticed Rose, crawling around in her crib. I had a half thought of just letting Sage watch her, but then I remembered what he told me a couple days ago; he had a photoshoot today. If he had already left for it, I was completely screwed.
"Sage!" I yelled and picked up Rose, hoping I didn't drop her with all the other stuff in my hands. "Sage! Where are you!"
I ran around the entire upstairs and when I couldn't find him, ran down the stairs also, calling his name. I ran the entire house twice before catching sight of him through a window, getting into his car.
He was leaving.
"Sage wait!" I shouted, running outside, probably looking like a mess. I had done nothing to my crazy morning hair, I had no shoes on and there was way too much stuff in my hands.
Sage, who was sitting down but had yet to close the door, poked his head out and looked at me as if I was a crazy person. And as previously mentioned, I looked like one.
"What're you..."
I ran over to his car and took some time to catch my breath. I really needed to work on my fitness. "Thank God I caught you," I said in between breaths.
"Uh..."
"My dad is going to my apartment to vist me, and he still thinks I live there so I need to go," I said. "I know you have a photo shoot but please just take Rose with you."
"You're dad doesn't know? Why haven't you told him?"
"Sage this isn't the time to point out my mistakes, he's gonna be there in like thirty minutes, please!"
He gave me a blank stare, his blue eyes flicking back and forth from each of my eyes. I gave him a huge pleading smile.
"Fine," he mumbled.
"Yay! And while you're at it can you drive me there too?" I knew I was pushing it but I might as well milk this for every drop.
"Avery, why are you screwing up my entire life?" He said and banged his head on the steering wheel.
"I'll take that as a yes!" I threw all my stuff into the car, ran back inside to get shoes then ran back out and into his car.
"You need to tell your dad," Sage said as he pulled out of the driveway, another car with the cameramen following behind us.
"I know but it'll break his heart if he knew," I said.
"It'll break his heart if the TV's the one to tell him and not you," Sage mumbled.
I sighed, Of course he was right. I did need to tell my dad. It wasn't like I thought my dad would be mad, it's that he would misunderstand and try to get me off the show. He would never understand that I was actually starting to like the show, and I wanted to stay on it.
So it would have to wait.
I gave Sage the directions to my apartment and he dropped me off with only a few minutes to spare. "Thank you!" I called to Sage, then ran into the house. It was so nice of him to do that, especially since it probably made him late to his shoot when I heard him telling his manager he wouldn't.
I opened the already unlocked door. "Hannah?" I called.
"Avery?" I heard. She poked her head out from the kitchen. I smiled; it was great to see Hannah again, but now wasn't the time for a huge reunited scene. My dad was going to be here in five minutes and we needed to move.
"Hannah, he's gonna be here soon, let's move," I said.
I followed her into our bedroom and we set up everything I had brought, along with putting some of her stuff on my side of the room, When we were finished we collapsed onto the couch in the living room.
"Wait," Hannah said. "What about him?" She pointed behind me and I looked at the camera man. I had completely forgotten about him. Being on this show had made me less sensitive to people recording me.
"Um, can you hide in the closet?" I asked the man, hoping that this would be the one time that he actually responded to my requests.
He rolled his eyes, sighed, then did as I asked.
"So," Hannah said suggestively, dragging out the vowel. "Tell me everything."
"What do you mean everything?" I asked, rasing my eyebrow.
"Oh, come on. Something's definitely happened between you and Sage since I was there. He's driving you places now. I thought you said he hated you," she said.
I rolled my eyes and mumbled, "I thought you said you watched the show."
She shrugged. "They don't show much. But stop trying to change the subject! You and Sage!"
"There is nothing-" Thankfully, the conversation was cut short by the doorbell ringing. My dad was here and it was time to lie my ass off.
I got up, walked to the door and opened it. I tried to look as normal as possible. "Hey dad!"
"Hey, Fish," he said and pulled me in for a hug. I let my shoulders sag and hugged him back, nostalgia taking over. I missed home.
"Awww."
I pulled away from my dad to see Hannah standing there with her arms opened. "Hi Mr. Fisher," she said, then came in for a hug. I watched, smiling. It felt like it had been years since I'd seen my father, when in reality it had only been a month or so. Obviously, he hadn't changed much in that month. He was tall but not skinny, the hair on his head and face the same dark brown as mine. His gait was also the same, a little awkward and as if he felt too big for his surroundings. He was still my dad.
We went into the small living room and sat down, already starting to catch up. I had to remember that I had supposedly been living with Hanah, I couldn't ask her what she had been doing. We stated talking for a long while when I recieved a text message. It was frome Sage.
I'm at your apartment. Should I come inside? It said.
Crap. I didn't think of that. He was my only ride back unless I wanted to take the bus, something I did only when necessary. There were bad people on buses. Plus I didn't even bring any money with me. Sage had to take me home.
I looked up at my dad as he spoke to Hannah. He'd said five minutes ago that he had an appointment and needed to leave soon, so he shouldn't be here for much longer. I couldn't just have Sage stay in the car outside, my dad would notice him when he left, so Sage had to come inside.
"Ring the doorbell" I sent to Sage. I also sent a quick text to Hannah telling her that Sage was going to come inside. My dad wouldn't recognize Sage, and if I just acted like he was a normal guest, it would be fine.
A minute later, just as I instructed, Sage rang the doorbell.
"Who's that?" My dad asked, looking at me.
"Uh, stay here, I'll go check," I said and stood up. I went and opened the door to see Sage standing, his hands tucked awkwardly in his pockets and sunglasses on to protect his identity.
"First," I whispered, and took the sunglasses off his face and threw them to the side.
"Wha-"
"Shhh," I ordered and studied him. He looked bad boy, not the type of person I wanted my dad to see. Luckily, his tattoo could be easily covered up with clothes, and at the moment they were. But it was with a leather jacket. I stripped him from the jacket, ignoring his protests and telling him to shush, then thanked God when he was wearing a long sleeved shirt under. His tattoo would still be covered.
"You're meeting my dad, whether you like it or not," I said as I forcefully pulled his pants higher on his waist.
"I don't-"
"Whether you like it or not," I repeated. I pulled him in the house, quickly whispered to the cameraman behind him that we already had one and that we didn't need another one hiding. Then I slammed the door in his face.
Just as I closed the door, my dad appeared, eyeing Sage wearily. Hannah, who had an "I'm sorry expression" on her face, was behind him.
"So, Hannah tells me this is your boyfriend," he said.
My eyes widened. What?
"She, uh, she told you that, huh," I said, glaring at her as she looked at me with an evil smirk. I ignored her, then looked back at my dad. Then I realized that he wasn't looking at Sage warily, he was looking at him as if he was about to kill him.
"Hello Mr. Fisher," Sage said with a smile, despite the fact that it seemed as if he was about to face certain death. He held out his hand, "I'm Sage."
"Ron," my dad said. Then he took Sage's hand and shook it.
"It's nice to meet you, sir. You're daughter is a really great girl," Sage said.
I eyed him. His acting skills really came in handy somtimes. He was great at the doting boyfriend thing.
"Well, Sage, let's get to know each other," my dad said and began walking back into the living room, expecting us to follow.
"Why does he think that?" Sage whispered to me as we followed.
"Hannah is a Savery shipper," I whispered back, and sat down on the couch next to him. I looked up at my dad, who noticed the close proximity of the two of us, and scooted a little bit away from him.
"So, how long have you been together?" my dad asked, staring straight at my so called boyfriend.
"Well-" I started, trying to save Sage, but my dad cut me off.
"Not you, him," he said, not even looking my way.
Well okay then. It was extremely weird to see my dad this way. The normally loving, happy guy looked like he was in the CIA or something. And it wasn't as if Sage looked like normal, stand-offy him, he actually looked normal. His entire aura had changed from egotistic to boy next door in three seconds. It was amazing.
"A month this Friday," Sage answered my dad, not missing a beat.
What ensued next was probably the strangest thing that I've ever seen.
"So you aren't serious?"
"Well-"
"Or are you?"
"I hope to be, sir."
"How old are you?"
"Twenty." He lied.
"You drink?"
"I'm not old enough to drink."
"Do you drink?"
"No, sir."
"Do you love my daughter?"
"Of course."
"Do you respect my daughter?"
"Almost more than I love her."
"What are your plans for the future?"
"I'm in college to become an engineer."
"Do your plans include having sex with my daughter?"
"If she wants to?" He said, but it came out more like a question at my dad's glare. "If you want that to happen," he amended.
And then my dad smiled. "I like you," he said then looked to me and Hannah. "Well girls, it's been nice visiting but now I've got to go."
I breathed a sigh of relief. We'd done it, he believed me. All was right in the world.
"Bye dad," I said as he walked out. When I heard the door close I turned back to Sage and gave him a sheepish smile.
"Dude, Sage Kingsley said he loves you," Hannah said, elbowing me in the side. "I think you've won life."
I glared at her then turned back to Sage. "Thank you so much for that. Props on the acting skills."
He rolled his eyes. "Yeah."
Suddenly, I remmbered a very small, but important thing missing. "Hey, where's Rose?"
"She's," Sage stopped and looked around. "Um..."
"Sage," I said, trying not to believe what I think he was implying. "Did you leave her in the car?"
He took a deep breath, as if he were bracing himself. "I think I left her at the studio."
My heart jumped into my throat, and I almost collapsed. In the studio? Who knows where she is at this point? She could be dead by now.. er.. broken.
"Sage!" I shouted and began rapid-fire hitting his arm. "How could you!"
He easily blocked all of my blows. "Hey, hey, hey!" He said, then caught my arms. I expected him to say something calming but he only said, "You shouldn't have left her with me."
Hannah snickered. I yelled. "Sage! This is not the time!"
"I don't know why you're freaking out, all we gotta do is go back and get her," Sage said, being his normal nonchalent self.
I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down. Of course the camera man had come out of the closet and was filming all of this. But it didn't matter, everything would be fine if we just did what Sage said and go back and get her.
"Okay, lets go," I said, then turned to Hannah. "You coming?"
She shook her head. "I've got work. Oh, and Avery, the rent."
Oh. I totally forgot about that. Hannah and I had planned to get jobs and split the rent but because of the show, I'd never gotten a job. Plus the show didn't pay me since I was technically a volunteer.
"Um... I guess you can just get it from my savings then," I said.
Hannah shook her head. "Those are your savings," she emphasized. "You said you were using that for college."
"Yeah but-"
"I can pay for it in full, now let's just go," Sage interrupted, saying this as if it wasn't a big deal and the mere fact that we were discussing money problems in front of him was insulting.
"You can't do that," I said, although I was really flattered by the suggestion.
"Yes I can, now we're really wasting time so we need to-" Sage started, taking my elbow and trying to pull me towards the door.
"No Sage, I can't let you-"
"Just tell me the date you need it by and I'll pay," he said.
"No." I said forcefully once again.
He looked away from me and to Hannah. "You'll text me the date?"
Hannah looked absolutely starstruck. "If that means I get your number, yes."
Ignoring my protests, he pulled out a pen from his pocket and after making Hannah promise not to sell it, he wrote his number down on her hand.
"You aren't paying," I told Sage as we walked out of the apartment, the missing cameraman finding us and following us into his car.
"It's not a big deal. You're making it bigger than it needs to be," he said, not looking at me but at the road.
I glanced at him, confused. I'd already figured out that Sage could be a nice guy under all of his doucheness, but not this nice. It was freaking me out. Maybe I should stop thinking about it.
"Whatever," I said. "I still can't believe you left Rose unattended. Do you know how many points we're gonna lose?"
"Are you forgetting that I helped with your dad? Give me some credit," he said.
I rolled my eyes. I honestly couldn't believe this was happening, but it was probably bad karma for letting Bryson take Sage Jr. to that party. I suddenly knew exactly how Emma felt.
When we got to the studio, not that one I had been to before, but an entirely different one, I rushed out of the car as if I actually knew where to go.
This place was huge. What was this studio for?
"Avery?"
I turned to see Sage poised to walk in the opposite direction of me. "Yeah?"
"This way."
I nodded and turned around, following behind him with my head down. We entered the building and passed a receptionist at her desk who looked at Sage as if he were actually a king. We then walked into an elevator, going up a few floors, then entered a set.
Or what was a set. There were only a couple people left and they all seemed to be apart of the cleaning crew. Gone were the cameras, photographers and set designs. It was barren.
No sight of Rose.
"Sage!" I said and latched my hand onto his arm.
"We'll find her," he said, but it seemed like he was trying to convince himself more than me.
I followed him as he walked up to one of the few people in the studio.
"Excuse me but have you seen a plastic baby doll?" Sage asked the cleaning man.
He raised his eyebrow.
"It's a girl, you can tell it is because it's wearing pink clothes and a bonnet," I said, starting to breathe heavier.
He shook his head at us, still looking at us oddly. "I haven't seen it," he said. Then he walked away from us, whispered something to a coworker and then they both started laughing.
"They're laughing at us," Sage muttered.
"Sage, Rose is gone, what are we going to do?" I exclaimed, almost going into hysterics. What did this mean? Were we just kicked out of the competition for good? I mean, if there was no baby there was no way we could win. "Sage, we lost the competition."
"Avery!" Sage shouted, putting his hands on my shoulders, his eyes staring me down. "Calm. Down."
I took a deep breath to try to calm myself, but it was hard when the thought of my lost child looked in the corner of my mind.
"It's going to be fine," Sage said slowly.
I looked at him then, like really looked at him. I hadn't really noticed it before (my child was missing) but he had gotten really close to my face. His eyes were so bright and blue; amazingly beautiful. Scratch that his whole face was beautiful. His lips looked so smooth and perfect and he had cheekbones to kill for.
I don't know how long I stared at him, but he stared right back, a weird expression on his face. His jaw twitched, then he took his hands from my shoulders and put them in his pockets.
"Are you sane now?" He asked.
I only nodded, because I was almost positive that if I spoke my voice would crack. What had just happened there?
"Good. Now lets find this baby."
I nodded my head and followed him as we started to search the large room for any sight of Rose, asking any cleaning person we came across if they had seen her. But she was nowhere to be found.
"Wait," Sage said, and pointed.
I looked in the direction he was pointing and almost jumped for joy. It was a figure that looked like Rose. But when I took a second look, I realized that she was on top of a trash bin; a trash bin that was being emptied into a trash chute.
"Wait!" I called at the cleaning lady, running in her direction. But it was no use, she had already dumped it down. "No, no, no," I said as I looked down the chute.
Sage then explained the situation to her and asked if she knew where the garbage chute led to.
"They all lead outside. You have to go to the basement then exit through the door on your left," she told us.
"Thanks," I said, then we left the shoot.
"God, what if this was an actual baby," Sage muttered as we waited for the elevator to reach our floor.
"Lets not think about that," I said and made an exaggerated shudder. "It makes me not want to become a mother."
He shook his head. "I definitely don't wanna be a father," he mumbled.
I looked at him and raised my eyebrow. It didn't seem like this decision was affected at all by the situation at hand, like it was already decided. I chose not to question him about this, I didn't want Bad Guy Sage to come out. Not in a situation this dire.
The elevator door opened and we stepped in. When they opened back up to reveal the basement I scrunched my nose up. There was no visible trash, as it was a barren, dusty looking room, but I could already smell the stink of the garbage.
We made a left as the woman had said, then opened the door. And oh my gosh.
We had walked into a huge central garbage dump, trash falling out of chutes on the sides of the room. Plus, I had never smelled something so bad in my life. The stench was overpowering and almost made my knees buckle. I actually had to contemplate whether I wanted to inhale or hold my breath until I passed out. There was no ceiling but that didn't help the smell at all.
"Well, Rose, you had a good run but all good things must come to an end," Sage said and began turning around.
I pulled him back before he could get anywhere. "No. You got us into this mess, you're gonna help get us out."
He sighed, agreeing, and I'm pretty sure I even heard the camera man groan a little at the prospect of having to stay there.
"Lets just get started," I muttered. I stepped into the pile of trash, which went all the way to my calf, and began searching for Rose.
After only about ten minutes of searching, a huge pile of trash came from seemingly nowhere and knocked me off my feet.
"Ow!" I yelled as I hit the ground. When I got myself together I groaned. My entire body was dirty now, no part of me was clean.
"Uh..." Sage muttered, giving me a look. "I don't think this is safe."
"But we have to find her," I said. I couldn't go home without my baby.
Sage looked around the vast space and gave a sigh. I knew exactly what he was thinking: there was no use. Not when all the odds were stacked up against us this high. But I couldn't just give up on Rose, I had become oddly attached to her and I wanted her back. I began frantically picking up trash and throwing it, hoping to see Rose under it.
"We have," I said and threw an apple core, "to find this," I stepped on a stack of scratch paper, "baby!" I was breathing heavier, my vision was getting blurry and there were tears forming in my eyes. I was going crazy over a doll.
"Avery," Sage said and tried to catch my arm, but I pulled away. I needed to find her. He reached again and caught me this time. "Avery," he said again as I tried to pull away from him. "Avery!" He shouted, and I finally stopped resisting. I let my head droop and tried to stop anymore tears from forming in my eyes, but it was no use.
"I just..." I trailed off and took a deep breath. Why couldn't I calm down? And the mere fact that I couldn't get myself to calm down was making me even more upset. I bounced up and down and even stomped my foot like a child.
"I'm sorry I lost the baby, and I hate to say this, but if it's here, I don't think we're getting it back," he said slowly, and I realized it was with the same voice that he used to talk Aubrey off of him so long ago.
Great, now Sage thought I was crazy.
"I'm not crazy," I muttered and pulled my arm away from him, still looking down. I didn't want him to see my tear stained face. I wish I was one of those girls that still looked pretty when they cried, but unfortunately I am not.
But he laughed. "I never said you were crazy."
I wiped my face and looked up at him. "But you were using your crazy Aubrey voice," I said.
"My what?" He asked, raising his eyebrow.
"Don't you remember when Aubrey attached herself to you and you started talking to her to make her get off? Well you were just using that voice on me."
He stared at me for a while, then shrugged. "Well I guess you are crazy," he said with the straightest face ever.
"Asshole," I joked.
He half smiled, then shook his head and looked around. "Lets get out of here," he said.
I nodded and we walked out of the trash dump, trying our best to get as much stink and stuff off of our bodies. I was going to have to take a three hour shower to get the smell off of me. And it doesn't really make sense as to why it's so smelly in here. I thought models didn't eat?
Oh well.
We went back up the elevator and began walking out of the building, waving at the girl at the receptionist desk.
"Wait!" She called, as we were about to leave, looking only at Sage and not at me.
We turned around and walked back to the desk, me raising my eyebrow suspiciously. Was she just going to hit on Sage while I stood here awkwardly?
"You left this," she said, then from under her desk she pulled out Rose.
Before she could even blatantly ignore me some more, I grabbed Rose, ecstatic. "We found you!" I said, and proceeded to hug a plastic baby doll to my chest as the two of them stared. Then, a thought came to me. "Why didn't you give this to us before?"
She still didn't look me in the eye, shifting hers to the left. "I forgot," she said, but I could tell she was lying. What I didn't know was why. I would say it's because she wanted to talk to Sage, but she could have easily done that before we went surfing through trash. I looked her up and down one more time then shrugged. What did I know?
"Uh, thanks," Sage muttered then pulled me out.
"Can you believe it?" I said, looking at Rose.
"Honestly, yes," Sage said. "I knew they wouldn't let us leave the show. Plus they probably paid that girl to give us the baby at the last second."
I stopped. He was right. They needed a good show and they certainly got one with us going through garbage as if we were extremely hungry. I looked like an idiot on TV.
"That is so messed up," I said.
Sage shrugged. "Welcome to show biz."
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Did you like this super long chapter! I hope you did and I also hope it didn't take too long for me to upload. I actually had this written already, but I wanted to wait a couple of days and I thought this was a fitting time.
So, judging by you guys' comments, you guys are really starting to like Sage, which is weird because I didn't expect that to happen until this chapter. But oh well, the earlier the better I guess.
And you guys should totally leave comments. I love comments even more than votes. Even if it's a short comment (although long comments are my fave also) I really appreciate when you leave them. So comment comment comment!
Okay, thanks for reading guys, and tell your friends about this book! I'm trying to raise it up on the lists. Comment! Vote! Fanimos!
(p.s. I was laughing really hard when I choose the song for this chapter idk why)