Fame (Except Not) [GxG Fanfic]

Seventeen

Anna looks at me. She's thinking now.

"She'll understand," I say. "I promise she will."

Anna keeps thinking.

"What?" I say, worried. "Does that make me sound horrible or something? I really didn't mean it like that..."

"No," Anna says, in an odd tone. "It doesn't make you sound anything. But, um.... you'll say you met someone?"

"Oh," I say. "Yeah. Why?"

"Someone like who?"

Suddenly I realize what's worrying Anna. "No," I say. "Not anyone particular."

"Not me?"

"Of course not you. I told you I wouldn't. Not ever."

Anna nods, and seems relieved.

"I mean," I say quickly. "I'll tell her I met someone, to explain why I'm not there, but of course I don't need to tell her who. I wouldn't anyway, probably, and to be honest, I don't think it would even occur to her to ask. All she needs to know is that there's a someone I met on the way there, and who I went off with instead, that's all. I don't need to say anything else."

Anna seems to be thinking about that.

"What?" I say. "What's wrong?"

"She won't be curious?"

"Well," I say. "It isn't like she'll think she knows you or anything, and will want to be nosy. Not like if it was someone from her party."

"Yeah," Anna says. "But..."

I wait.

"But she won't ask?" Anna says. "She won't want to know more?"

"Nope," I say, thinking about Elouise. "No, I'm pretty sure she won't."

"I would," Anna says.

"Me too," I say. "Probably. But Elouise isn't like that. I promise."

Anna thinks some more.

"I promise," I say again. "And I'll be careful. I really will. Everything will be all right."

Anna nods slowly. "Thank you."

She seems happier, and to have stopped worrying, but I just want to make sure. "So is that okay?" I say. "I mean... are we okay?"

"Yeah," Anna says.

"So we're all good?" I say, anxiously.

Anna smiles. "We are."

"And we're still on with the finding out about the maybes?" I say. "Because it's the maybes I'm really interested in right now..."

Which yes, is completely insecure, but after all that I want to check that too.

Anna smiles and looks at me. She smiles patiently, though, like she doesn't mind me asking. Which is nice.

Then she leans over, as if to kiss me.

I lean back quickly. I glance at the driver, then at the window beside us. "Um," I say.

"Should we really?"

I just mean, kissing in a car, right after everything we've just talked about, that doesn't seem like a good idea. I hope Anna understands, and I mostly assume she will, but even so, I'm suddenly a bit worried. I haven't turned down a famous person before, especially one as famous as her.

"I want to," I say. "Kiss you. I really do. Just, um, maybe its safer not to?"

Safer, because like I already told her, I want to avoid getting caught up in some celebrity sex scandal just as much as she wants to. So I'll try and be smart, and careful, because of that.

I'll really try to be careful.

Anna seems to understand, anyway. She sits there for a moment, silently, and I can't work out what she's thinking. But then she nods, and leans back in the seat, and seems to be happy to wait for the hotel.

She looks out the window, smiling slightly, and so I do the same, out of mine. Looking away from each other, I tell myself, because if we don't we'll end up kissing again. Or that's what I want to think. We sit there, side by side, with our hands touching, but only barely, as the car drives us back to her hotel.