Page 29 of This Time It's Real
“Forty-eight hours?” He shakes his head. “Too long. Make it an hour.”
“Twenty-four hours,” I insist. “And you have to text me the location beforehand.”
“Wow.” Caz lets out a half laugh and runs a hand through his hair so that it looks perfectly windswept: a move I’ve seen captured in slow motion and thirsted over on every fan forum out there. “I feel like I’m dating my manager.”
I scoff out loud at that, but my gut tightens.Well, here it is, I think grimly, willing the hot, sharp pang to dull.Proof that I’d suck in a real relationship. I can’t even be an appealing fake girlfriend.
Yet as if he’s heard my thoughts, Caz turns around, and his eyes are darker, his mouth softer at the corners, almost gentle. “I’m kidding, by the way,” he says evenly. “You’re still way hotter than my manager.” Before I can even react, he twists back to face the paved path and adds, like an afterthought, “Fine. I’ll send you the location. But I’m in charge of transport.”
“Can you—can you even drive?”
He snorts. “Don’t worry, I have alternate means of transportation.”
“Oh,” I say, immediately picturing him showing up outside my apartment in a massive horse-drawn pumpkin carriage for some reason. I give myself a mental shake before I can do something horribly inappropriate, like laugh. “Okay, fine.But we’ll be splitting all costs fifty-fifty. Don’t try to be a gentleman and pay for me; money will only complicate things.”
“Fine,” he echoes.
“Great.”
“Great,” he repeats again, and it’s kind of incredible that he can piss me off even when he’s technically agreeing with me.
“Wonderful,”I bite out, marching right past him. Still, I can almostsensehim smiling his insufferable look-at-me-I’m-a-superstar smile behind me.
And his smile turns out to be scarily effective. We’ve only just rounded the corner, where the crowds are denser and the paths are lined with food stalls, when these two teenage girls come into view. They both stop walking when they see us.
Or rather, seehim.
“Oh my god,” one of them murmurs in Mandarin. She’s wearing a cute floral bucket hat that looks close to sliding over her eyes at any second. She nudges her friend in the ribs. “Oh mygod.”
Oh my god, I think too, but with pure dread. I’m really not here to watch strangers fangirl over Caz Song’s very existence. I just want to write his essays and go home and curl up on the couch with some dramas. Though he’s kind of already ruined that particular experience for me; I can’t even watch a drama now without realizing thatthisactor once shot a variety program with Caz, orthatactress once filmed a kiss scene with him.
“You don’t think . . . ?” Hat Girl is saying.
“It’s him,” her friend answers. “It’s definitely him.”
They’re both trying to sneak looks at Caz’s face in the most conspicuous way possible. If I weren’t searching for a quick escape route (would it look weird if I ducked behind that bush?), I’d probably laugh.
The first girl clears her throat, adjusts her hat with visibly trembling fingers, and approaches Caz. She looks like she might start crying. “Um, hello? Caz Song?”
It must be weird to have a complete stranger call out your name in a park like you’re classmates or something. But as weird as it is, Caz must also be used to it, because he straightens, his charm dialed up, immediately reverting to my initial boy-from-the-magazine impression of him. Perfect.Tooperfect.
I can only imagine how I must look in comparison.
“Hey,” he says, smiling at them both. “How are you?”
“I’m just—I’m a huge fan,” Hat Girl says, her voice trembling too, her words tumbling out in a great rush. “I’ve watched every drama you’ve starred in. My favorite has to beThe Legend of Feiyan . . .It was, like, theperfectadaptation of Hero’s novel—you’re exactly how I pictured the male lead when I first read it . . .”
The other girl has whipped out her phone and started filming the exchange, and panic flashes through me. I do not need every Chinese netizen to see a video of me looking like this. My dress is still too short, and I’m suddenlyveryconscious of the pimple on my forehead.
But Caz has started chatting with them in earnest: about his next drama, his castmates, his diet and workout routine, each answer so smooth I wonder if he’s reading off an invisible script. I linger behind him, feeling somehow both invisible and way too exposed, when Hat Girl turns her attention to me and her eyes widen.
“Oh, holy crap—are you Eliza Lin?”
I blink. “Yeah . . .”
To my surprise, her face splits into a broad beam. “Iloveyour essay. Your writing’s amazing.”
My pulse skips, and heat, good heat, rushes to my face. “Wow,” I say, sounding as shy as I feel.This random girl actually likes my writing.I mean, I’ve gotten more than enough compliments from people online by now, but this is different. This is actually happening in real life, and it’s happening tome.“Um, thank you. That means a lot.”
