Page 174 of Promising You

“No, I didn’t.” I look at Frank again. “He seemed like a nice old man. That’s why I’m so confused. About all of this. Letting him pay for college. Meeting his wife. I feel like I shouldn’t even want to see him again, but he’s my grandfather and part of me kind of wants to get to know him.”

“Then maybe you should. Maybe just have lunch with him and his wife and see how it goes.” Frank sighs and shakes his head side to side.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just never thought I’d be encouraging you to get involved with the Sinclairs.”

The back door opens and we hear Ryan in the kitchen, his keys jingling as he hangs them on the hook.

He comes in the living room and sits down. “Jade, is your boyfriend on some reality show on cable?”

Frank laughs like his son is kidding but Ryan looks serious.

“The Prep School Girls’ Reunion,” I say.

“You know about it?” Ryan asks.

“Of course I know about it. How did you find out?”

“When I dropped Chloe off I went in her apartment for a few minutes and was flipping through the channels and I heard Garret’s name. And then I saw him with some girl. At least I think it was him. I could only see the back of him.”

“That’s not Garret. He’s not on the show.”

I explain everything and when I’m done Frank and Ryan don’t seem to believe me. But they never watch those reality shows. They don’t get how much of those shows are fake.

“That’s why Garret couldn’t come home with me,” I explain. “He’s hiding out from the photographers. They’ve been following him around and some of his fans are following him around, too. That’s why I didn’t tell you about the show. I didn’t want you getting all worried about me being around all that. But tonight was the second episode and next Thursday it ends. After that, people will forget about it and everything will go back to normal.”

“Garret’s father should sue the production company and everyone else involved,” Frank says.

“The lawyers told him it would be better to ignore it. Fighting it would just end up getting Garret even more unwanted press. I should talk to him quick and see if he watched tonight’s episode.”

I go in my room and call Garret. “Hey, did you watch tonight?”

“How about a greeting before you jump right in with the questions?”

“I’m sorry. Hi, Garret. How was your day?”

“Same as every other day this week. I’m so sick of hanging out here I’m actually looking forward to going to class again.”

“So did you watch the show?”

He laughs. “You don’t even care what I did today, do you? And no, I didn’t watch the show.”

“Garret, you have to know what they’re saying about you. I don’t have cable here so I didn’t see it, but Ryan saw part of it when he was at Chloe’s so then I had to explain the whole story to them.”

“They would’ve found out eventually. I don’t know why you were hiding it from them.”

“Did you hear from anyone who saw it?”

“Decker called right before you did. He watched it. He said I took Ava skiing up in Vermont. Apparently we had a great time.”

“It works out well for the show. They could cover up their Garret look-alike with ski clothes and nobody would guess it wasn’t you.”

“Jade, just forget about it. There’s one show left and then we can move on and pretend it never happened. What time are you leaving tomorrow?”

“Ryan and I are leaving around 8, so we should be at Carson’s around noon.”

“Will you call me this time?”

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