Page 13 of Becoming Mila
“Ah Mila,” Blake says as the bottle slows to a stop in my direction. “Truth or dare?”
My heart beats faster and everyone’s gaze is on me, waiting to see if the new girl is brave enough to go for the dare. But even a truth is a scary choice when I’m with strangers who know nothing about me. They could ask anything since there is so much to find out. But I can lie, right? How will they know any different?
“Truth,” I say, swallowing hard.Of coursethe bottle has to land on me when it was Blake’s turn to spin it.
He sits on a chair now, across the circle from me, a fresh can of soda in his hand. He runs his finger around the metallic rim, pretending to think hard. Then he glances up and smiles. “Who’s your father?”
Now my heart stops.What?
I stare at him with an icy look, wishing I could smack that smirk off his smug face. He knows exactly who my father is, but he obviously wants everyone else to know too since his introduction earlier clearly didn’t cause the stir he was hoping for.
Confusion passes through the group, eyebrows furrowing and murmurs tainting the stilted silence. Expressions perk up with curiosity, but the small handful of people who already seemed to connect the dots earlier are now lighting up in an “I knew it!” sense of joy.
“C’mon. . .it doesn’t matter,” I whisper, groveling pathetically, appealing to Blake’s better nature. That’s if he even has one. Can’t he tell I don’t want to talk about this? That if I wanted everyone to know who my father is, I would have found a way to work that into conversations already?
Blake glances around the quiet circle, purposely drawing out the tension. “Did you guys know we have a celebrity in our midst? Sorry – thedaughterof a celebrity.”
My lips part, shocked that he’s throwing me under the bus like this. We only just met – what could I have possibly done for him to act this way toward me?
I’m not oblivious to the power of celebrity – the truth was bound to come out eventually, but Blake is making every effort to shine the spotlight on me and, right now, it is burning far too bright.
Barney is the first to say it out loud. He hunches forward in his chair, the buttons on his shirt still waiting to be done up. “Wait. Mila. . . Harding? Everett Harding is your dad?”
I close my eyes, inhaling deeply. Here it comes. Everyone bursts into a clatter of noise, questions flying through the air, both to me and to each other.
“Who?” someone asks.
“The guy who plays Jacob Knight inFlash Point!” someone else tells them.
“Is he here in Fairview right now?” an animated voice questions at the same time as someone else remarks, “I knew it was her!”
I open my eyes and search through the jostling group to find Blake. He relaxes back in his chair, swigging his soda as though he hasn’t just created total chaos in my life. I shake my head slowly, angrily, and mouth,Why?
People have stood up from their chairs to shuffle closer to me, gathering around in hopes that I’ll answer their random questions or spill some gossip. The entire night, no one has batted an eye at me other than to say friendly hellos. But now that Dad’s name is out there? Suddenly everyone thinks I’msocool and interesting.
“Should we act as bodyguards?” Tori jokes with Savannah as they remain on either side of me. To be fair, even Savannah freaked out a little over Dad earlier today. Tori is the only one who remembered who I am but doesn’t seem to care all that much about Dad – and if she does, she certainly doesn’t show it.
The girl who’s spent most of her night in Myles’s lap pulls a chair up in front of me, eyes wide. “Is it creepy to you if I say that your dad is hot? Do you think you could get me an autograph?”
“Do you have any pictures of you and him together?” Barney asks, towering over my shoulder from behind. “Can we see?”
“I guess,” I mumble. What’s the point of being secretive now that everyone knows?
I pull out my phone and swipe through my camera roll, painfully aware of everyone’s eyes latched onto my screen, all of them subtly edging in closer and closer so that they can get the prime viewing angle. There’s only six people cornering me, but it feels like a thousand. Everyone else at the tailgate is keeping their distance for now, though I can hear the hum of their voices.
I find a picture I took of Dad and me last month. A selfie of us on the beach in Malibu as the sun was setting over the ocean, casting a golden aura over us. My wet hair sticks to my cheeks and Dad’s million-dollar gaze is even more smoldering than usual. Ruben posted this sunset picture on Dad’s Instagram to remind the world that Everett Harding is a proud and loving family-man. But yet, he wasn’t exactly conflicted when it came to making the decision to send me here.
Then, suddenly, as everyone coos over the photo, my phone is plucked out of my hand.
“Hey!” I yell, jumping up from my chair.
But Barney has already made his getaway, barging others out of the way, and slipping through a gap in the trucks. He has my phone in his fist, eyes locked on it as he runs. I give chase – becausehe has mydamn phone!And with my phone he has access to a lot of different things, like my social media accounts, and my contacts list, and my private photos of Dad and me that haven’t ever been made public but which plenty of gossip columnists would love to get their hands on. From the moment I first got a phone, Ruben has been one hundred percent clear that I’m never, ever to let even my best friends near it.
Savannah and Tori and the others follow behind me, a total ruckus as we all squeeze through the trucks to follow Barney. His hands move across my screen, scrolling, then he presses my phone to his ear. He’s laughing as he moves fast and agile across the concrete, one hand held out like a true football jock to keep me at a distance whenever I get near him.
“Give it back!” I beg, both arms outstretched to try and claw my phone from him. He’s calling someone and panicked, hot tears spring to my eyes. “Please, don’t! Please!”
“Oh, hi!” Barney says brightly into my phone. “How do you do? Is this Everett Harding?”
