#Starstruck (#Lovestruck, #1)

by Sariah Wilson

“Just promise me you won’t go falling in love with some other guy while I’m gone.” He said it in a playful tone, but I sensed some seriousness behind it.

I knew she was trying to be sympathetic, but Gavin clearly adored Lexi. Possibly even loved her. She couldn’t have been questioning that.

“I love Cheese,” she said, hugging my neck.

“Thank you for the flowers. They’re amazing, and I absolutely love them, and nobody’s ever done anything like that for me before. And you have to make this movie. You are going to kill it and win every award in the entire universe.”

The only way I’d ever be smoking hot is if I were cremated, but I loved her for saying it.

“What? Yeah, I’m still here, Mom.” He waved me over. “Okay. I will see what I can do. I know it’s important to you. I understand. Okay. Bye. Love you. Bye.” He hung up and paused for a moment before he said, “You look amazing.”

Instead of watching the bride, I watched the groom. The look on his face—the openness, the love evident in his eyes—made me a little weepy. It was like he couldn’t wait to marry her.

I gulped, hard. I loved the feeling of being held against him. “We really need to go back downstairs.”

“Worth a shot, right?” He winked at me, and I felt better. Even if I’d disappointed him, he wasn’t sulking or getting angry with me, like some other guys had when they’d realized I was serious about this celibacy thing. “But you didn’t answer my question. Where else do you love to go?” “The Marabella aquarium. My grandma had season passes, and we went there almost as often as we went to the beach. It made me love the ocean.”

I kissed him again right below his ear, and he groaned softly and then put his hands on my shoulders to push me back. “It is much too late, and you are much too beautiful, and that feels much too good for me to keep my hands to myself. You should probably go inside. My lack of self-control is what landed me in rehab in the first place.” I loved the rough timbre in his voice.

“I don’t know. I think I might love Gavin.” She laid her head against my shoulder.

“I love magical kisses.”

I would tell Lexi. Later. When she knew whether or not she loved Gavin and wouldn’t take Chase from me, accidentally or otherwise. When I knew whether or not what Chase and I had was serious. When I figured out where this was going and how he felt about me.

“I can’t believe you rented the entire aquarium,” I said as we approached the sea-horse tank. They were such weird-looking creatures, like underwater aliens. I loved watching them swim with their little fins and hang on to tall blades of seaweed with their curly tails.

I loved how he could make me laugh. “I shouldn’t let you do this kind of stuff.”

There was a round white-leather seat in the middle of the round room, meant to mimic the jellyfish. He pulled me over to it, and we sat down. “The last woman I seriously dated used to leave catalogs lying around with things circled. She also sent me links to her wish list on Amazon. Took me into jewelry stores to show me her favorite pieces. In every other relationship I’ve had, there’s always this expectation that I’ll spend all this money and go to all these extravagant places. But with you I never feel that way. I never feel like you expect anything from me. And it makes me enjoy doing things for you. I love experiencing things you love and seeing how excited you are.”

The one serious problem I had was that I didn’t want our nights to end. I hated leaving him. And Chase didn’t make things better by telling me how much he wanted me to stay. Not to fool around or take things further than I wanted but just because we loved being together.

I grabbed my bowl of Lucky Charms while Lexi commanded the commercials to hurry up. “They had Amelia Swan on earlier, and you should be glad the TV is still in one piece. Skank. They’re doing the press tour for that new time-traveling movie where he comes from the present to the 1940s to stop World War II, and she’s the stupid tramp he falls in love with.”

“Nobody is watching right now to find out what’s going on in my life. They want to know about this.” Helen pointed at the screen behind them, and I stopped breathing when I saw the picture. It was one of the Disneyland photos. Not our private ones, but one taken by somebody in the crowd. “About Disneyland? I highly recommend it,” Chase said.

While I logically understood his argument and knew it was his profession, how many other women had boyfriends with jobs that required them to kiss and have pretend love scenes with beautiful actresses?

“I know it is, babe. And I’m sorry. It’s weird. But I love my job, and I’m good at it, and I want to keep doing it.”

I brought Chase some of my anger-induced cookies, and he showed me his surprise. He’d hired a famous television chef who was known for his love of swearing to give us a private cooking class. The chef turned out to be a total sweetheart and attempted to teach us how to make pan-seared chicken breasts, rosemary mashed potatoes, and green beans with almond slices. We didn’t get cussed out once, and there were only two minor mishaps involving fire, so I counted that as a win.

He always thought about the little things. I loved the idea of sleeping in his clothes, surrounded by his scent, next to him in his bed (even if a board was between us). But he had made the effort to get me something, and it would be rude not to accept. “I’ll take what your assistant picked out. You’re very detail oriented.”

We lay in silence for a few minutes, just looking at each other. I couldn’t believe how much I loved this. Being here with him.

I loved him.

“You’re not alone in that, you know.” I couldn’t meet his gaze, worried he would see all the love and want I had for him. And that was what had become harder over time. I’d fallen in love with him, and I wanted to show him. I wanted to express those feelings physically. Even though I knew I wouldn’t.

“Have fun in Europe. I’ll miss you.” I wished I had the courage to tell him I loved him, but I hoped the opportunity would present itself soon. Like, after he said it to me first.

Then there was the black-and-white photo he’d taken of himself lying in his hotel bed. To say he was photogenic would be an understatement. He was lying on a bed on fluffy white pillows with an arm behind his head, surrounded by a massive comforter. His shirt was off, and he wore that sly, sexy smirk I loved.

“It’s okay. I’m strong.” Then he sent me a picture of himself flexing, and I had to use my notebook to fan my face. He had the best arms. I did think it was adorable that he insisted on reading only paper books because he liked the feel and smell of them. I loved that he read because he enjoyed it and not because some professor forced him to or because he was a random hipster hoping to show up on some girl’s Instagram reading paperbacks in public (and yes, I once went out with a guy like that).

I’d be able to get more information out of him in person than I could when he was trying to work. “Absolutely. Good luck. I lo—bye.” I hung up in a hurry, stunned at what I’d almost just done. I’d almost told him I loved him, when for all I knew he was using his lips to convince Amelia to do the interview.

And all I had done was lie. Over and over again. To the people I loved. Sometimes by omission, sometimes deliberately.

There. Now I had to do it. Because it was time to tell my loved ones about Chase.

Now that I had a countdown and a mission, I was driving myself nuts. I tried all kinds of distractions. I kept rereading the same sentence in one of my all-time-favorite books. Missed entire plot points in the romantic comedy I streamed. Not even Jeopardy! could hold my attention. In desperation I drove out to Marabella, thinking housework and small siblings would help take my mind off things, but all Zia talked about was how much she loved and missed her Cheese.

So I went upstairs to the last place we’d been together. The place where I’d realized I was in love with him. When I got to his room, I kicked off my shoes and climbed into his bed. His pillows and sheets smelled like his laundry detergent, and the faint scent of his cologne surrounded me. I planned on staying there for just a few minutes because I didn’t want to lie in wait like a creepy stalker. But I had underestimated my emotional exhaustion, because next thing I knew, Chase was shaking me awake.

He repositioned himself so we were lying side by side, looking into each other’s eyes. “You have nothing to worry about. I would never give you any reason to doubt or distrust me. I would never want to hurt you like that. Because I’m in love with you.”

“Ow!” he yelped. “Did you just pinch me for saying I love you?”

But I couldn’t play along with his teasing. This was too serious, too important. “You love me?” “I love you,” he repeated, punctuating his declaration with a kiss that made me melt, like chocolate chips in cookies fresh from the oven. “When I was gone, I wanted to call and tell you about everything that happened. I realized you’re the most important person in the world to me.” “I love you, too,” I told him, but before I’d finished the last syllable, his lips were parting mine. As we kissed, everything felt different because he loved me. There was so much emotion behind his embrace I’d never registered before. He showed me with his sugary, addicting kisses that his words were true.

“I’m running the RBI stats of last year’s Padres lineup as a way to distract myself from the lovely, lush, but untouchable softness in my bed right now.”

“Neither can I. You must really love me.”

This time we didn’t try to build a wall between us in the bed. This time I drifted off feeling safe, secure, and totally loved. Happier than I ever remembered feeling.

“Last night was the best present ever,” I told him, stretching like a sunned and well-rested cat. His eyes roved over me and then snapped up to my face. Getting to be with him all night, having him say he loved me . . . what could be better?

“Okay. I guess I can go because I love you. I’ll even take a shower so I don’t stink.”

“You couldn’t possibly love me if you think me capable of this.” I put my hand on the doorknob, knowing I was about to walk out of his life and never see him again. “You said once that you’d permanently maim anyone who tried to hurt me. But I can’t imagine anybody in the world hurting me more than you just did.”

I had lost the man I loved.

Grief and loss were the cost of love, and I didn’t want to pay it.

That made the tears start up again. I knew my mom loved me, but we’d never really talked about her leaving me with my grandparents. It healed my heart a little to know that she’d take it back if she could.

“That’s not usually helpful, either. Because sometimes when a door closes, you should get some big boards and nail it shut. And sometimes you should open that door back up because people deserve second chances. You don’t think Duncan and I fought? That sometimes we accused each other of things that weren’t true? We did. But I loved him and our relationship more than my own pride. Something to think about.”

“Some part of me was also afraid he would love you instead of me.” I didn’t need to remind her about all my high school crushes who had liked her more. “I convinced myself that at first what was happening between me and him was nothing and wasn’t even worth talking about.”

“It’s why everybody loves you.”

“Not everybody loves me. Gavin broke up with me.”