Whatever It Takes (Bad Reputation Duet #1)(37)

I digest this and loosen my grip on my backpack. I’m slowly inching into their world, and I knew there’d be bad parts, like the constant gaze of cameras—but I don’t think I ever calculated these parts: the loyalty from people who’ve just met me.

“Funny,” Ryke says, hitting the gas pedal as the light turns green. “I don’t remember ever being a fucking superhero.”

Loren’s smile fades, and he stares at his older brother for a long moment, like he wants to say something more. He ends up dropping his hand and swiveling towards me. “Stay close to me when we get out. They’ll try to get in your face, and it’ll be easier to walk inside the apartment complex if you’re near me.”

“They’re going to ask who I am, right?” I nervously wipe my palms on my jeans.

“I’m going to lie, so you don’t have to,” Loren tells me. “Okay?”

I notice Ryke going rigid in the driver’s seat, his eyes hardening through the rearview mirror. I don’t know him well enough to understand why he’s pissed. Maybe he’s protective of Loren. Maybe he hates lies. Maybe it’s the paparazzi in general.

All I know is that I’m about to make my debut in this media-crazed universe. And Loren Hale, my brother, is helping guide me.

“Okay,” I nod.

“How many boxes are in the trunk?” Ryke asks.

“Just two. She only shipped my clothes and bedding.” I said she instead of Mom to bypass the awkward tension of releasing her name into the atmosphere. I saw her not long ago. Our conversation at a local restaurant, Lucky’s Diner, went something like this:

Mom: If you stay here, you’re on your own. I can’t help you in Philadelphia.

Me: I know.

Mom: looks over her shoulder, expecting Loren Hale to jump out and frighten her by his presence

Me: He’s not here. (He knew you didn’t want to see him, ever.)

Mom: silence

Me: Can I still talk to Ellie?

Mom: When you call, I’ll make sure to hand the phone to Ellie. checks watch

Me: …do you want me to come home?

Mom: …you would’ve been out of my house in a year’s time anyway for college. Maybe this change now is for the best.

Then she gave me the faintest of smiles, like a goodbye, like she’d already begun severing me from her mind and she was waiting for me to do the same. She’s used to leaving children behind, I realized. Maybe she thought this was the natural course—that she should leave me behind too, in time.

Sometimes I wonder if it was all a ruse, if she just appeared detached so she could let me go more easily. If she spent the night crying on the plane. If she hopes my life will be better here than it was there.

I’d like to believe all of this because it makes me love her a little more and resent her a little less.

Leaving Ellie has turned out to be the hardest part of all. Without constant communication, I can’t know how she’ll fair. If I fool myself long enough, I can imagine that my absence won’t have any real impact on her, but I know it will.

Ryke parks in front of a brick apartment complex, the lot nearly full with cars. I feel out of my element. Not only because four different vehicles park near us, doors opening and cameramen jumping out—but because I’m only seventeen and entering territory that college students step on.

Lo isn’t happy about it.

I can see that now as he scans the twenty-something, backpack-clad students, strolling in the apartment complex. His brows pinch, and his eyes darken.

“I’ll be okay,” I tell him, having to raise my voice as paparazzi gather outside the car doors.

He shakes his head a couple times. “You should really be staying with us.”

Six people live in his house: three Calloway sisters and their three significant others, all in their twenties. Along with two newborn babies, one is Loren’s son.

There may be extra room in their mansion-sized house, but I don’t feel like I’d fit in. In fact, I see myself always in the way.

I haven’t even met Rose Calloway’s husband, Connor Cobalt, yet. He could very well hate me. On the reality show, he came off as a conceited human being. I even made a gif set of him saying (with a straight face), “Most people never reach the pinnacle of perfection. But I’m not most people, so think of it as an honor to meet me.”

He’s a genius. A billionaire. And living in a bedroom down the hall from him sounds like a fantasyland not created for me.

“I don’t want to complicate your life,” I tell him honestly.

His brows rise at me, and he motions to a bearded cameraman by my window. “And I’m not complicating yours?”

The man meets Lo’s gaze, and Lo flashes his iconic dry smile at him. Seeing that smile in person is more powerful than in photograph.

On impulse, I almost take a picture, but I control myself, flipping my phone in my hand. It’s so easy to become part of the paparazzi without really knowing.

“I’m going to grab a fucking box and head inside. Do you have your keycard?” Ryke asks me.

I nod.

Loren seems reluctant to do this.

Ryke gives him a look that I can’t read. “You can’t force her to live with us,” he reminds him.

“She’s only seventeen,” he whispers, running a frustrated hand through his hair, thicker on top, shorter on the sides. “She should be closer to the high school she’s going to attend, not to Penn.”