What Happens in L.A.

Chapter 3: Facade

A

Chase x: Where are you?

Outside of Kefisco, just got through with dinner. Miss you. How's Spain?

Chase x: How long are you planning on being there?

Don't know, honestly. Should be here for a while. Why?

Chase x: No reason. I have to go. I love you

Okay then.. Love you too. Bye x

Addilyn locks her phone and looks up at the brown eyes staring at her. "What?"

"Him again?"

Mason drawls out, words hanging in the air. The tension that Jayce released still hasn't cleared up yet as the photographer remains to groan to nearby people about how he attacked him. If Addilyn was a good step sister, she would stop him. But, well, she's not. He got himself into it, now he's going to suffer. "Yes, Mason."

"Why don't you break up with him?"

"Because I love him."

"Is that so?" Mason trails off leaning down so his mouth brushes her ear. His cool breath against her skin. "You weren't exactly saying that a few days ago, now were you?"

"Why don't you break up with Aria?" She asks, looking into his dark brown eyes.

"Why should I?"

Addilyn would have told him why, maybe without words, maybe with just her lips, but she's pulled out by the conversation on her phone.

Chase x: Look up x

In a fast movement she's looking up to see her boyfriend, Chase, and running into his arms. Time always seems to slow down and speed up when she's with him. Like he's both the beginning and end of her, her own personal planet. Around him she feels like the moon, constantly being pulled in by him.

If Addilyn looked behind her, she would see Mason glaring at them. But she's not looking behind her because she's actually unhooking herself from Chase and kissing him. For the past 2 weeks her boyfriend has been in Spain celebrating his brother, who is now the ambassador for the country.

"I missed you, fuck, I missed you so much." Chase mumbles against her lips and Addilyn can only nod. "My place?"

"Please."

-

When Addilyn wakes up in the morning, she's nude with an arm around her waist. Last night was one of their many, "I miss you, but I missed having sex with you more", greetings. To bystanders, they look like the perfect couple, to themselves, it was all for show. Their relationship was built off of empty I love you's and lust.

It started at the end of tenth grade, Chase and Addilyn where both overachievers craving for a distraction and family approval, so they started a relationship based on others happiness instead of their own. It started after they drunkenly slept together and decided to go on a spontaneous date after a more-than-awkward morning. The couple's families praised them both and showered them in attention after their first date, something they both seek for daily, until it wore off with delay and boredom.

Then after an agreement, they went from: Addilyn and Chase, Best Friends, to Addilyn and Chase, Dating. Now after two years they are, Addilyn and Chase, A Forever Kind of Thing.

It would seem ridiculous to others, the fact they can be compared to puppets or dogs wanting to please their masters, but that's the thing, no one gets it. They do want to please their parents. They want love, affection, praise, to make them proud. It's what they thrive on, for the people who raised them to be able to look them in the eye with something other than disdain and regret. They are proud trophy children, waiting for the next pat on the back.