Runaway (Airhead #3) (12 page)

“That’s something you might want to ask your boyfriend, Brandon,” Christopher said.

“Oh, ha-ha,” I said, trying to sound like I hadn’t just done exactly that…and like what he’d said hadn’t felt like a knife through my heart. “I told you, Brandon forced me to—”

“Save it, Watts, I heard it all the first time. Okay, I see you,” Christopher said.

“What?” This startled me so much, I nearly dropped my umbrella. “You see me? How can you—”

But then Christopher turned the corner right in front of me and put an arm around me.

“Hi, honey,” he said, and kissed my cheek. “Right on time.”

I was completely shocked. His lips were warm against my icy skin. And the arm he’d slipped around me?

It felt like heaven.

Especially since I’d been certain I’d never feel his arm around me again.

“I already got the tickets,” he said. He was talking in an inappropriately loud voice.

That’s when I realized it was for the benefit of Fancy Pants, not me. Because tickets? What tickets?

“Great,” I said, going along with him. I noticed he was carrying a plastic bag from Forbidden Planet, the comic book store, which was nearby. I remembered, belatedly, that Christopher had a mailbox there, where they held all the comic books he ordered every month. He must have just been making his weekly pickup when I called.

“So, are you ready?” he wanted to know.

He still had his arm around me. It felt so wonderful, I hoped he’d never let go.

But none of this, I knew, was because Christopher actually cared about me anymore. It was just because of old times.

Lulu had been wrong: Making a boy think you need him didn’t do anything.

Except make you want him more.

“Sure,” I said. I didn’t see how any of this was going to work. Now Fancy Pants, who was standing over to one side of the sidewalk a few yards away, texting, was just going to follow us both.

Or so I thought.

Because a second later, Christopher dropped his arm from around me, and staring at the guy, shouted, “You. Hey,
you!”

Thirteen

THE GUY WHO’D BEEN FOLLOWING ME looked up from his cell phone, startled. Then he looked behind him to see if Christopher was talking to someone else.

“I’m talking to you,” Christopher cried, going right up to Fancy Pants and shoving him on the shoulder. “Were you just following my girlfriend?”

That’s right. Christopher shoved the Stark security guy in the shoulder.

He also called me his girlfriend.

My heart began slamming behind my ribs, and not from the possible confrontation I knew was about to ensue.

Fancy Pants did
not
like Christopher calling so much attention to him. Either that, or he didn’t like being shoved, even though, to be truthful, it was only a little shove. He put his cell phone away and said, in a controlled voice, “I don’t know you, son. Please take your hand off me.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know me?” Christopher asked, still using a voice loud enough to make everyone on the sidewalk look around at us. “You’re sure acting like you know me. Or at least like you know my girlfriend, Nikki Howard. Because you’ve been following her for the past four blocks.”

There! He’d said it again!
Girlfriend!
I definitely hadn’t mistaken it.

When Christopher said the words
Nikki Howard,
a lot more people started paying attention. They actually slowed down on the sidewalk, or stopped walking altogether and stood there and started staring. One big burly guy who’d been unloading cans of soda from a truck on the corner actually came over and got in Fancy Pants’s face.

“Hey!” Burly Guy said. “That true? You following Nikki Howard?”

Fancy Pants looked quickly around, as if for an escape route. He actually began reaching inside his coat— and not for a cell phone, which I’d already seen him drop into the trench’s wide side pocket.

I was standing at just the right angle to catch a glimpse of exactly what it was inside his coat he was reaching for……a gun. In a shoulder holster, the handle nestled underneath his arm.

I gasped, and reached out to grab Christopher’s arm, my fingers sinking into the leather of his jacket. I think I stopped breathing for a minute. I couldn’t believe it.

A gun! He actually had a gun! He was going to try to shoot us!

But between Christopher, Burly Guy, the gathering crowd, and me, there were apparently too many witnesses. Because a second later, Fancy Pants’s hand dropped away from the gun, and instead, he seemed to be looking for a different way out of his tight situation.

I continued to hold on to Christopher’s arm, so freaked out I wasn’t sure I could have remained upright if I didn’t cling to him. A gun! He had a gun! And he’d been going to use it!

“That’s not nice!” Burly Guy said, poking Fancy Pants in the chest— quite sharply, I thought. Especially considering the fact that he had a gun. “We leave celebrities alone around here!”

“True,” Christopher said, shaking his head sadly at Fancy Pants. “We really do.”

Fancy Pants looked perturbed.

But there was no way he could shoot his way out of this situation. Not unless he was some kind of psychopath. There were way too many people gathered around now, watching.

And I highly doubted Robert Stark would hire any psychopaths as part of his security team.

“I wasn’t following her,” he said, both to the burly man and to Christopher. “We just happened to be walking in the same direction, is all.”

“So keep walking, why don’tcha?” Burly Guy asked him.

“Maybe I will, then,” Fancy Pants said, looking injured. “Maybe I will.”

But of course, he kept standing there.

“So go,” Christopher said. “If you’re in such a hurry.”

“Yeah,” Burly Guy said. “Go, why don’tcha?”

Fancy Pants, throwing us all a very dirty look, began walking slowly away. My heart continued to pound inside my chest as I watched him go, hoping he wouldn’t turn back and start shooting.

“Faster,” Burly Guy commanded.

Fancy Pants picked up the pace, walking off toward Union Square. He didn’t look back.

“Thank you so much,” I breathed, my grip loosening a little on Christopher’s arm. My fingers felt sore from how tightly I’d been clenching him. I couldn’t imagine how his arm must have felt.

But he wasn’t complaining, I noticed.

“No problem,” Burly Guy said. “We can’t have people harassing our local celebrities. That’s what makes New York different from L.A., you know? Here, people can walk down the streets and no one bothers them, ya know? Hey, I gotta say, my niece is about as pretty and talented as you are, and is going to be a superstar herself someday. Can I bug you for an autograph? You know, to inspire her.”

“Of course,” I said. “I’d be happy to. What’s her name?” And when he told me Helen Thomaides, I scrawled,
For Helen, Reach for the stars. Love, Nikki Howard
on a page of his order form.

This, of course, opened the floodgates, and then everyone who’d been standing on the sidewalk watching our little confrontation with Fancy Pants wanted an autograph. Pens appeared from nowhere, and soon I was signing everything from people’s drugstore receipts to the backs of their wrists.

As I signed, I tried to keep track of what was happening beyond the circle of autograph seekers around me. Where was the guy who’d been following me? Had he really just given up? Where was Christopher? Had he, too, given up on me? Or was he still there?

Finally, I felt a hand wrap around my arm. I looked up, startled. Fortunately, it was Christopher, not Fancy Pants. He’d scooped up Cosabella— thank goodness. Otherwise, she’d have been trampled in the rush toward me for my signature— and now he was saying, in a serious voice, “Nikki? I think it’s time to go.”

I looked over at the street and saw that he’d hailed a cab and that it sat with one of the rear doors open.

Christopher was helping me to escape? After telling me he wanted nothing to do with any of this?

I felt a rush of warmth toward him that was even greater than when he’d put his arm around me.

“Oh,” I said to all the autograph seekers. “I’m sorry, I have to go.”

“To a fitting?” one of the girls who’d asked me to sign her wrist wanted to know.

“To a photo shoot?” another one asked.

“Yes,” I called to them all. What was the point in telling the truth? It would only disappoint them. “Sorry! Thanks so much! I love you all!” I blew them kisses just like I’d seen movie stars do on TV and ran to the taxi, ducking inside it, then scooting all the way across the seat to make room for Christopher, who was leaning inside to hand Cosabella to me.

“Come with me,” I all but begged him. I could tell he was getting ready to bail, even though he’d done all those nice things for me already.

“Em,” he said. His face had closed down, his blue eyes shuttered as if no one was home.

“Christopher,” I said. “He had a gun….”

“I know,” Christopher insisted, glancing over his shoulder. “That’s why you’ve got to get out of here
now.”

He knew? All that time, he’d acted so calm! He’d shoved the guy, knowing he had a gun? I couldn’t believe it. He’d done it for me. Even though he claimed not to feel anything for me anymore. Anything but contempt. Maybe what he claimed and what he actually felt were two different things. I hardly dared to let myself hope….

“I’m worried about
you,”
I said. People who hadn’t gotten my autograph, but had seen the crowd, were starting to drift over to the taxi, curious about who was inside it.

“Would you just go already?” Christopher said. “He’s probably found a cab and is on his way back—”

“Please get in.” Now I was begging. “I
need
you.”

I don’t care,
Christopher could have said.
You’re the one with a problem. Not me.

But he didn’t.

Lulu was right: Maybe guys just do want to feel needed sometimes. Not all the time. Because then you come off as a Whitney Robertson, all whiny and completely helpless.

But every once in a while, maybe you needed to stop running and tell other people you need them, and let them help you.

Including the guy you like.

Christopher got into the taxi beside me and shut the door.

He didn’t act like he was too unhappy about it, either.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“I
was
going to Gabriel’s,” I said. “I think…well, I don’t know. But I’m worried Nikki might have said something to someone.”

Just saying it out loud caused my mouth to go dry and my pulse to speed up. I couldn’t look Christopher in the eye. Not so much because I was genuinely worried about Nikki and her family, which I was.

But because I was aware that we were alone in a nice, cozy cab together.

It was the first time we’d been alone together since he’d woken me up in my bed…

…and dumped me. Basically.

But now he’d just saved my life.

“You could be right about that” was all he said, though. “Considering the new friend you picked up back there. But I don’t know how good an idea it is to head over there with Stark security on your tail.”

“Where we headed?” the cabdriver wanted to know. He had to yell to be heard through the bulletproof glass between the front seat and the backseat. He’d released the brake, and we were cruising down Broadway, going the opposite direction Fancy Pants had walked off.

If he hadn’t jumped into a taxi of his own, and was following us that way.

“Just keep driving,” Christopher yelled up to the driver. He was evidently thinking the same thing I was. “We’ll tell you when to turn.”

“Do you think he’s following us?” I asked Christopher, turning around in the seat to look.

All I could see, however, was the usual vast ocean of taxis behind us. There was no way to tell which, if any, of them held Fancy Pants.

“Probably,” Christopher said.

“What do we do?” I asked anxiously.

“I say we go for a nice drive downtown,” Christopher said, “and try to lose him just in case, then get out and jump onto the subway back uptown when it seems safe.”

I couldn’t believe Christopher was being so calm. This was obviously the new, supervillain Christopher, who was used to being in high-speed car chases.

Although we weren’t really going high speed, considering we were stuck at a red light.

I looked down at Cosabella, who’d jumped onto my lap to peer out the window. Cosy loved being in any moving vehicle. Looking down at her was easier than looking into Christopher’s face, which always just reminded me of how much I wanted him.

And how much he, in return, did not want me.

At least, up until a few minutes ago. I still wasn’t sure if I should allow recent developments to give me hope that things were changing.

“What makes you think Nikki would rat us out?” Christopher wanted to know.

“She’s mad,” I said. “About this whole thing. The fact that she can’t have her old body back. It’s what she asked Brandon for, you know.” I turned my head to look at him, feeling suddenly shy. “In exchange for telling him why his dad tried to have her killed.”

Christopher stared back at me blankly. “She asked him for what?”

“Her old body back,” I said.

His eyes widened. “Wait…she wanted you to—”

“Yeah,” I said glumly. “She really hates the body she ended up with.”

Christopher bristled.

“Did it ever occur to her that that’s what happens,” he said, “when you try to blackmail your boss? What did she expect?”

I goggled at him. “Well, not to have him try to murder her.”

“Blackmail’s against the law, you know,” Christopher said. “It tends to make people angry.”

“Well, whatever Robert Stark is doing is against the law, too,” I pointed out. “I know two wrongs don’t make a right, but it’s not like Nikki knew any better.”

“Uh, she’s a member of the human race, isn’t she?” he asked. “Plus, I thought she was an emancipated minor. So you can’t say she didn’t know better. She claims to be an adult.”

“I’m just saying,” I said, starting to feel a little less warmly toward him than I had when he had just saved me from Fancy Pants, because I was having such a hard time making him see how important losing her body would be to a girl like Nikki. “I know how she feels. It’s horrible to have to give up your whole life because you made one stupid mistake.”

“What was your mistake?” Christopher asked. “Pushing your little sister out of the way when that TV came loose so it fell on you and not her? Being in the wrong place at the wrong time? You didn’t make any mistakes. And neither did Nikki.”

The vehemence with which Christopher spoke surprised me. I hadn’t known he felt that strongly…about anything other than avenging my death, which now was a moot point, since he knew I wasn’t dead.

“I— I guess I never thought of it that way,” I said, absently stroking Cosabella’s woolly little head.

“So she lost her body,” Christopher said. “She’s still got her mind. Just because her former career was entirely based on her looks, that doesn’t mean she can’t have a new career, this time using her brains instead. Has she even considered that? It’s not like she doesn’t have good business sense. As you might have noticed, considering the fact that she scared the owner of a multinational corporation into trying to have her murdered.”

I blinked at him. It was true. Nikki had a lot more going for her than just her face.

But how was anyone going to convince her of that?

“If we could only figure out what Robert Stark was so scared of her revealing to everyone,” I said slowly. The embryo of an idea was forming in my mind. “The thing with the Quarks, I mean. The fact that she was instrumental in discovering it… if we could uncover it and make it public, that might be enough to boost her self-esteem into not wanting someone to hack into my head and scoop my brain out of it again.”

Christopher yelled at the cabdriver, “Turn right here!”

The cabdriver yelled back, “You are crazy! I’m in the wrong lane!”

“Just do it,” Christopher yelled back. “There’s an extra twenty in it for you.”