"I tried to draw my soul but all I could think of was flowers."
-Natalya Lobanova
"What the hell happened?" Cameron shouts over the pelting rain.
"My idiot brother forgot to fill the tank!" I yell, getting out of my car and racing around to where Cameron is standing, his car behind him. "And then the stupid roof wouldn't go back up, I think the latch is stuck or something!"
"Well I called a tow, they'll take it to a shop and fix it up for you," he says. "Now get in." I do as he says and slide into the passenger seat of his car. The heat is blaring and I shiver roughly as I try and heat up. I'm dripping water everywhere, but I'm too cold to care. Cameron jumps into the driver's seat and pulls away from my car.
"Okay, first things first, you're an idiot," Cameron says. "And secondly, I realize you can't go home like this."
"I think my parents would be rather questioning, don't you?" I say.
"Exactly," he says. "So you can come back to mine, tell them you're at a friend's house or something, and you can dry off, get a change of clothes, and I'll drop you home later."
"Are you sure?" I ask.
"Yeah, you did me a favour, so I'm doing you one," he says. I look at him for a minute, then nod.
We drive with the soft sound of the radio playing in the background until we reach an apartment building that he stops outside the front of. He leaves the car running and hops out, so I assume he has someone to park it for him. I follow him into the building and into the elevator. He presses a button but I'm too cold to focus on which one it is. He must notice me shivering because I'm soon wrapped in a pair of strong arms. I try to forget who they belong to of course, but it's a little hard to.
"Come on," Cameron says as the elevator doors ding open. I allow him to lead me to his apartment and then into a bathroom in which he puts on the shower and leaves, shutting the door behind him. I undress quickly and jump into the jet of water, quickly lulled by the heat. I don't know how long I stay in for, but I'm in no hurry to get out. Obviously it's late and I have school tomorrow, but that's a small negative. I wrap myself in a towel when I'm done and, realizing I have no clean clothes, step out of the bathroom to find Cameron. Or his closet at least.
I wander through the apartment aimlessly, my hair dripping gently onto the carpet. The apartment is beautiful, with windows covering most of the walls. You can see almost the whole city from up here, I bet I could see my house if I looked hard enough. But I snap back into reality when I realize I'm standing in the middle of someone's kitchen in only a short towel.
I rush back towards the bathroom and call Cameron's name, and he comes almost immediately.
"Dude, put some clothes on," he says, averting his eyes when he sees me.
"That's why I called you, dummy, you never gave me any fresh ones," I sigh, adjusting the towel tight around my chest.
"I'll get you some," he says, turning around.
"Don't lie, you're totally getting a hard on right now," I smirk.
"Scarlett, you seem to be forgetting I have a girlfriend," he says, turning into one of the rooms which I assume to be his bedroom.
"And you seem to be forgetting that she is now me," I say, raising my voice a little so he can still hear me.
With what seems to be an anguished groan, he replies, "I have never regretted signing a contract so much."
"Ouch, don't hold back now, Cammy," I say. "I didn't know you could be so heartless."
"Look," he says, reentering the hallway, "I called Daisy and she said she really wasn't happy about it. She said it was the same as me cheating on her, or something. She suggested a break, but I said that it would only cause an argument, but me saying that actually caused the argument."
"Do you want to talk about it?" I offer, taking the clothes from his hands. His face becomes confused.
"With you?"
"Don't sound too surprised, I'm not a complete bitch," I say with a small smile. "And I've been told I'm pretty good with advice." He seems to mull over the idea in his head for a bit, before shrugging.
"Okay, sure, but get dressed first," he says, his eyes lingering on my legs for probably a second too long, but I decide not to mention it. If we're going to be pretending that we're in a relationship then we should at least try our best to get on.
I hop into the bathroom and pull on the sweat pants and t-shirt he gave me. I don't have any clean underwear, but since they're not actually too wet, I just put on the set I was wearing earlier. They'll have to do. I wander out of the bathroom again, now fully clothed, with my hair wrapped in a towel. I feel much more relaxed and I can hear music playing. I follow the sound and end up in the living room, which is open plan and joined on to the kitchen. There's a square of sofas which center around a fireplace, the fire on and warm on the hearth. I flop down on one of the couches and Cameron appears through. "Drink?"
"Water would be great," I nod, and so he brings me over a glass of water, setting it down on the coffee table in front of me. He sits down on the sofa across from me and sits silently, staring at me. Full on studying me.
"Are you finished?" I ask after a while, raising an eyebrow.
"Not yet," he says, holding up a hand to shush me. I scoff and cross my arms, leaning back in the seat.
"You know, for a guy who claims he has a girlfriend, you're really not being subtle about checking me out," I comment.
"Oh I'm not checking you out," he says. "I was just trying to see why Anthony thinks it's such a great idea for the press to think that I'm dating you."
"I would be offended by that comment if I actually cared about your opinion," I say. I guess being nice is out the window now, but hey, he had his chance.
"Do you remember that dinner party my parents had and I accidentally spilt shrimp all over your lap?" Cameron asks randomly.
"Yes."
"And do you remember how you freaked out and threw all of the shrimp at me and our parents had to split us up for like a month?"
"Yes."
"Well imagine the freak out you had that night," he tells me. "Then times it by, like, eighteen. That's how I'm feeling right now."
"And I didn't even have to pour shrimp over you," I say sarcastically.
"This is ruining my life," he groans, leaning back in his seat.
"Not exactly peachy for me either, buddy," I say.
"What's wrong with you?" he asks with a sigh, sitting back up straight so he's looking at me.
"Well tonight I had to blow off a... date, I guess. I think it was a date, I mean, like, yeah. Yes, okay I had to blow off a date I had with this guy so I could come to that stupid meeting and I never told him. So after the meeting I thought I'd go to his house to explain, but my car broke down. Karma or some shit, I dunno. I texted him when I was waiting for you, saying that I'd been on my way over but my car broke down and he told me to save it. So, yeah. I blew it."
"This guy sounds like a douche," Cameron says with a short laugh.
"He had a point, I did ditch him."
"Yeah, but that's not something you dump someone over," Cameron says. "And you even told him that you'd been on your way over but your car broke. Did he even offer to pick you up or anything?" I dig my phone out of the pocket of my sweatpants and click on to my conversation with Jonah.
"He said, and I directly quote, 'Scarlett save it for someone who cares, like that boyfriend you're on every newspaper with or something'."
"Wow, that's harsh," he sympathises. "Daisy told me 'Cameron, if you pretend to date her then we're not going to have to pretend us breaking up. We're through'."
"Dude," I laugh. "Okay, I admit, that was pretty good. Daisy's pretty sassy."
"Incredibly sassy," he agrees, smiling. "To be honest though, I think I'm pretty done with her. I mean, all she did was cause drama. And that's without the press involved."
"Why were you with her in the first place then?" I ask, taking a sip of my drink.
"We kind of just fell into it, I guess," he shrugs. "I mean I don't think we're actually over, we always kind of argue like this but then get back together pretty quickly. But, like, we never just have fun anymore. It was basically just seeing each other, making out and then having sex."
"That was brutally upfront," I acknowledge.
"And true," he shudders. "But we've known each other for long enough and I guess we're going to have to start seeing a lot more of one another."
"That's also true," I agree. "How did we wind up in this situation, god."
"Let's not get into that again," he grins. "Nah, it won't be so bad, I guess."
"And how do you figure that?"
"Well, it's not like we don't already know each other," he says. "All we're going to have to do is be convincing in front of other people, but when we're alone we don't even have to speak to each other."
"Yeah," I nod. "I suppose it could work."
"And I can already tell our parents will love the idea," he says, rolling his eyes.
"I thought you lived with your parents?" I say abruptly. "Like, this place seems too small for all of you. Where do they live?"
"I do live with them, this is my dad's apartment. I just stay here occasionally. He keeps it for 'business'." He puts air quotes around business. My eyes open a little wider.
"Dude, your dad does not take clients up here and get down and dirty," I say with a shocked grin. "That's so scandalous."
"It's disgusting," he says with a frown. "But of course he loves my mom FAR TOO MUCH to leave her, and she's so horribly naive that she doesn't see it."
"That's pretty sad," I nod. "But also scandalous."
"You're right, it's a scandal," Cameron says with a hint of a laugh.
"Imagine how many whore people have showered in that shower," I wonder out loud.
"Please don't put that image in my head," Cameron whines, shuddering. "The thought of my old man having sex literally makes me want to drink holy water."
"I bet you're imagining it right now, aren't you?" I grin.
"Well of course I am because we're talking about it," he says with a disgusted scowl. "That is not something I want to be picturing."
"Talk about something else then," I say. "Tell me about Daisy."
"What about her?"
"Well there must be a reason you two started dating. You can't just 'fall into it', that's not how it works."
"It kind of is how it works, actually, but okay," he says. "I guess I saw her once and I thought she was really pretty, because she is and then I got her number and we started talking. She was lovely to start with, but then she just got a little too comfortable and became irritating. I guess I still liked her though because she was never with me for my money or fame. Like, a lot of girls try to get with me because they know who I am and that pisses me off."
"Mr 'I'm a male model' hates girl attention," I grin. "That's a new one."
"It's just the desperate attention they give me, it's weird," he says.
"I know what you mean," I nod. "That's why I thought that Jonah guy was nice, because he's been a friend of mine for years. But I guess the only reason we were really getting together was because so many other people said we should."
"Don't waste your time on that guy," Cameron says.
"Oh, trust me, I'm not," I laugh, unwinding the towel from my hair, letting it fall in damp waves to my shoulders. "I'm done with him. Apparently I move on quick, did you hear I've already got another boyfriend?"
"Oh yeah, I think you mentioned it," Cameron says dryly, not laughing at my joke.
"Touchy, okay," I say, clearing my throat. "So what are you going to do about Daisy?"
"Well, sometimes you have to fight for what you love," he says. "And I'm not ready to give her up yet."
"So you're not letting her go?"
"Nope, I'm going to call and text and send flowers and everything until she forgives me," Cameron says, standing up. "I want to show you something, c'mon." We leave the living room and enter the bedroom he was in earlier. I assume it's his, it's not decorated much but the little objects show me it belongs to Cameron, mostly because they're the only teenage-like items here.
He walks over to his closet and digs around a bit. I take the time to flop onto the huge double bed and lie down. It's super comfortable. "What are you doing?"
"Cammy, your bed is like a cloud, holy golf balls," I tell him.
"Golf balls, that's a new one," he mutters, before sitting down beside me on the other side of the bed. He has a shoe box on his lap, and he lifts the lid.
"What's in there?" I ask through a yawn.
"Okay, so I'm quite into photography and every time I'm with Daisy I make her let me take a photo of her. I dunno why, I just felt it would be a cute boyfriend thing to do. But I never let her see the pictures. I was thinking of giving them to her as a way of saying sorry?" Cameron suggests, but I can barely reply. I thumb through the small slips of color. The polaroid prints fill my head as I see multiple pictures of Daisy, looking beautiful. She's not posing in any of the photos. Cameron's obviously just taken them at random points when she was unaware. It's a nice thought, actually. A way nicer thought than I thought a guy like Cameron could have.
But what kind of guy is Cameron, though? It seems to be something I haven't really considered, because I've known him so long. I guess I just thought he was arrogant and annoying, which he is. But he's also quite sweet. He told me 'you have to fight for what you love', which is dead on and so much deeper than I thought Cameron capable of. And let's not forget what he said about Jonah, because that actually helped me. Weird, but whatever.
And now this girl is telling him to shove it just because he's pretending to date me? Of course if it was reversed I probably wouldn't like it either, but Cameron is her boyfriend. And I think to him that means something. That means he's not going to aimlessly cheat on her or intentionally hurt her. He didn't have a choice in this, anyway. Anthony made it pretty clear that by declining it wouldn't end well for Cameron's career.
I glance over at Cameron, who's looking through some of the photos with a small smile playing on his lips. He's handsome, there's no denying that. He's mature for his age and looks a lot older than he is, with a strong jawline and sharp features. His eyes are soft hazel and his hair is sandy brown, making him look like your mind's idea of perfect. Of course he looks good though, I mean he is a model. And I suppose that would make anyone arrogant, in all fairness.
I don't know at what point I fall asleep, but I sleep not knowing what my opinion is on Cameron at all.
Not one bit.