82 Your ideal type

"I have a crush on you, I said," I tried to make her laugh again, since it worked the first time.

"Why only now, Marky?" Tiffany pouted at me. "The other rumour, you're not going to ask?"

"Well, you saying you're leaving the country basically gives it away, doesn't it?" She laughed. She is easier to make laugh than Kate was. Kate was always rolling her eyes and telling me I was stupid.

Tiffany sighed again. "Mark, do you ever have times when you think, I'm so sick of this, can we just stop it already?"

"Of course," I said, thinking about yesterday, the longest Monday of my life. "I had an interview today."

Tiffany looked at me with a big frown on her face. Even frowning, she looked adorable. "Oh wow, I hope they didn't ask you about Chastity."

I paused. I realised she thought I meant it was for press. I decided against telling her it was at the police station and what it was for.

"It didn't come up," I assured her.

"Wasn't it weird, though?"

I sighed. You don't know how weird. I replied instead, "Very weird." She started to laugh and I laughed with her. "What interview question do you always get that you hate the most?" I asked her.

"What diet are you on?" she replied.

"Oh," I said, losing my momentum.

"Why?" She giggled.

"I guess it's different for girls," I said. "Ours is Who is your ideal type?"

"Really?" she started swinging harder. "We don't get asked that as much."

"Really?" I was incredulous.

"So, did they ask you that again today?" She laughed.

"Yeah," I said. "I'm running out of answers." She didn't respond, so I went on to explain. "We usually make up stupid answers when we get asked that. It's easier when it's all five of us because it becomes a contest like, who has the dumbest answer. But sometimes it's just me, because it's for a movie, and you can't win no matter how hard you try."

"I saw your movie, by the way," she suddenly said. "You were awesome! Like, oh my goodness, is that Marky? It's like a totally different person."

I beamed. My chest rose and felt like I could levitate any second. "Thanks," I said.

"And you were so handsome, like a totally different level of handsome, and the girls in the cinema were screaming like it was a concert," she went on and I narrowed my eyes at her. She laughed. "They did at the end of the movie, I swear."

"It's okay, you can make fun of me," I told her, truthfully.

"No, I'm serious," she argued. "It was shocking, they really screamed. I wish I recorded it so I could show you."

I chuckled and nodded as if I believed her. "Who did you watch with?" I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.

"Kate," she said.

"Not with Micky?" I blurted out in surprise.

"It's too public," she shook her head. "Your answer is Kate," she added, again catching me by surprise.

"My answer to what?"

"Who is your ideal type," she replied. "It's Kate. It had always been Kate, and it probably still is, isn't it?"

"We broke up a couple years already," I said. She was swinging so hard that when she swung forward, I could actually touch her.

"I know," she said. "But you still like her. Why did you sleep with that bitch from Pink Satin, in the first place?"

"What?" I exclaimed. "Is that why she refuses to talk to me?"

"Oh Marky," she started laughing and her swinging slowed down a bit. "You must know this. Girls usually don't like it when guys cheat on them."

"I never slept with Amy!" I felt so wronged. Tiffany stopped laughing and stared at me as she swung away from me, as if trying to decide whether I were telling the truth or not. As she swung towards me, I reached out and grabbed the swing. She fell onto me and we both fell onto the grass beneath us. The swing boomeranged again and, holding Tiffany close to me, I rolled us away so that it wouldn't hit us.

"Oh my goodness!" I could hear Tiffany say a couple times into my chest. I sat up when I saw that we were out of harm's way and helped Tiffany to sit up as well. She was breathless and her face a bit pink.

"I never slept with Amy, I swear," I said. "I thought Kate knew that."

"We all thought you did," Tiffany panted under her breath, looking at her hands on the grass. She started brushing blades of grass off of her clothes.

"Really?" I asked. "You think I would do that?" She didn't answer. "Tiff?" I took her chin and lifted it up so that she would look at me. "You really think I'm that kind of asshole?"

"I... I didn't want to think that," she finally said. "I defended you till the end. I kept telling Kate to trust you and talk to you." She pulled her chin out of my fingers and looked away.

I watched her sit there, awkwardly staring at her hands. "Thank you," I said. "I mean it, thanks. You always take my side. I know you do and I'm grateful."

She smiled and looked at me. "Oh, don't worry about it, you know how much I love you, Marky." It was a Goddess Athena smile. They can put that on in a second, no matter what they were feeling inside. I didn't want her to smile at me like that.

"Actually, I don't know," I said. "You always tell everyone you love me and you think I'm the most handsome guy in the universe, and I always thought you were just helping us with publicity. Even when Kate and I were together, even after you and Micky got together, you would still talk about me on talk shows. I'm really grateful for that also, but why me?"

"Why you?" She gave me a coy look. "Have you looked at yourself in the mirror?"

"But it's an old joke," I said. "Aren't you afraid Micky will break up with you?"

"He has already, actually," she said, softly.

"What?"

Tiffany smiled at me. A real smile this time. But her eyes looked sad. "He was so jealous of you that he broke up with me," she said. "Stupid, right? He eventually realized how stupid he was and begged me back. But, yeah, he actually did."

I stared at her. "Aren't you afraid I'll suddenly start believing you?"

She put her hand on my face and I thought she was going to kiss me. Instead, she said, "Lucky me." Then, she pulled away and started to get up.

I grabbed her back to me and kissed her on the lips.

It was ten seconds of heaven. Because in ten seconds, even if she started to kiss me back, Tiffany pushed me away and said, "I can't." She stood up and ran back into the house. My heart pounded so loud I couldn't hear anything else.