Work Text:
"Sonny."
"No."
"Sonny."
"No."
"Sonny."
Sonny looks at Chad in the lit mirror of her vanity, pulling her hair back into a ponytail. "You're not getting bored of this, are you."
"Usually at this point you stare into my eyes and do what I want."
"No."
"Sonny."
Every time he says it he gets more syrupy, his exaggerated pout getting deeper. Sonny rolls her eyes and says, "If you think repeating my name will get you anywhere –"
"Sonny."
"Chad," she says.
"Sonny."
"No."
"Penelope and Chloe are both up in Canada filming that Camp Hip Hop sequel. I just need your arm and your face for twenty minutes. Thirty tops." He pushes his hair back and flashes her one of his patented smiles, all teeth and bright eyes, the kind that she's seen him practice in the mirror. The one that gets him free things at Starbucks.
"Penelope and Chloe? They have real names too, Chad."
"Probably." Chad shrugs, walking further into Sonny's dressing room, hands shoved into the pockets of his impossibly tight jeans. "I just need your –"
"– help?" Sonny says, smirking.
"Not help," Chad says quickly, standing behind her at the mirror. "I do not need your help. I'm – trying to – further your career. Get you some exposure."
"Oh, thanks," Sonny replies, using a wet cloth to wipe the make-up from under her eyes. "I'll have you know I was in Tiger Beat this week."
"I know," Chad says. "When bad clothes happen to good people. Flattering."
"I was taking out the trash," Sonny seethes from between clenched teeth.
He has a copy of the magazine, because of course Chad has a copy of the magazine, rolled up all tight in his back pocket. "Sunny Manlow looks retirement-ready in this bag of a dress. Sunny, your grandmother's house called, it wants its wallpaper back," Chad reads, his voice going deep and announcer-ready. "You're right. With attention like this I don't know why you would possibly need my help."
Sonny grabs the magazine out of his hands and flung it in the direction of the garbage can. "Stop pretending like you're doing me a favor."
"Sonny. Sonny Sonny Sonny. When am I not doing you a favor? Me being in this –" he looks around at the dressing room frowning, "– closet with you is doing you a favor."
"Yeah," Sonny says, "you're teaching me extreme patience."
"It's the studio's annual Snowflake Ball. It's the place to be seen. You can stop pretending like you don't want to show up at the most anticipated event of the year. And this way you can go with television's own Chad Dylan Cooper and maybe someone will take a picture of you in a dress. And spell your name right." He pauses for effect. "Maybe."
Sonny takes a settling sigh, spinning her chair around to face Chad with his tight clothes and eyes too blue. "Okay."
"Right on time," Chad says, grinning. "Six minutes, the usual point in our conversations where you do what I want."
"Let's get one thing straight," Sonny says sharply. "I'm going to help you. This is me doing you a favor, okay?"
"Whatever you need to tell yourself, Sonny."
"This is a fake date. It's fake. Not real."
"Our second," Chad says, slipping into a grin. "If we keep this up you're going to have to meet my fake parents for fake dinner."
Ignoring him, Sonny continues, "I'll walk in with you. You get one dance. I'll stand near you for photos. I'll walk out with you."
"You're cute when you're in denial."
Sonny frowns, already feeling like she's lost. "If you try to hold my hand, I am fake dumping you."
"Why would I want to do that? It's called moisturizer, Sonny."
"Don't push me," Sonny says, turning her chair back to the mirror. "Eight-thirty?"
"Eight thirty," Chad repeats. "Do you need me to help you pick out a dress?" It doesn't really sound like a question.
"I don't need your fashion advice. I can get dressed on my own, thank you."
Chad crosses his arms over his chest, looking at Sonny's old t-shirt and acid-washed jeans. "Right. Of course you can."
"You know," Chad says, lowering the driver's side window of his BMW and leaning out. "That dress isn't half-bad."
"I know, right?" Sonny says, walking out of the studio lot and into the glow of the streetlamps, Chad's convertible the only car left in the parking lot. "You're late, Chad."
"It's Tawni's, isn't it?" He grins and Sonny really wishes he wouldn't look at her like she's some kind of amusing kid sister. It's really grating on her goodwill, especially when he looks so – so friendly, almost like he's comfortable toying with her. "She wore the same dress when she went to the Snowflake with me last year. I know it's a Christmas party but you can wear something other than red. And maybe from this year? I won't mind."
Sonny stands a bit straighter, grits her teeth and holds her clutch in a battle-grip. "Well – well, your suit is ugly."
"No it isn't," Chad says automatically. "Wear purple. You look good in purple."
"You look good in – in prison."
Chad starts raising the window again. "There's the Sonny charm I love so much."
"I'm getting tired of this," Sonny says, pulling down another rack of costumes. "No one will know that was Tawni's dress," Sonny says. "And it's beautiful, why can't I just wear that?"
"Really, Sonny?" Chad says, grunting and pulling the dust-cover off a rack marked 1920s, women. "This is why no one photographs you. Sweatpants might be dinner wear in Wisconsin, but you're living in – civilization now. Besides, what you wear reflects on me." He starts sorting through the hanging dresses one by one. "I do not date girls in last year's dress."
"Fake date."
Chad nods absently. "Yeah, that."
"This just isn't me, Chad. This isn't the Sonny style."
"Yeah," Chad murmurs, "no dresses made in aged cheddar orange, I'm afraid."
"Oh, very funny," Sonny says, sitting on a stool and watching Chad pull out a few dresses that catch his eye, pearly white and fringed, soft pink and floor-length. Sonny makes a retching noise but Chad ignores her. "Wisconsin is known for other things, you know."
"Like what?" Chad asks.
Sonny pauses. "Cows?"
"Perfect." Chad pulls the hanger off the rack and folds it over his arm, presenting it to Sonny like a waiter. "Go put this on."
"Show me the dress."
"Just put it on," Chad says impatiently, "it's perfect."
"Say the magic words," Sonny says.
"When you wear red you look like a tomato. Are those the magic words, Sonny?"
Sonny falters, grabbing the dress from him. "Your hair looks like Farrah Fawcett." Chad pats a protective hand over his hair, just like she knew he would, just like she knows he's going to check it in a mirror while she gets changed. "You're going to an awful lot of trouble for a fake date," Sonny continues sweetly, loving the way Chad kind of fidgets because of it.
"Honestly, Sonny. You'll look great."
It's not as deflating as she wants, his reply not as quick and cutting as she wishes it was. Mostly he just looks earnest, glancing from the dress to her face, eyes cloudy and still thinking.
Probably about his hair.
"Why, Mr. Gatsby," Sonny says, twirling out of her dressing room, Chad sitting on the edge of her bed and glancing around her room like it's making him kind of sick. "I believe it's time I freshened up with a cocktail."
"Mister who?"
"The Great Gatsby?"
Chad stands up, and he's smiling which shouldn't make her smile but it kind of does. "Is that the new show on The CW? The one about the orphaned teen millionaires in Paris? Ugh, they wish they were the Falls."
"It's a book," Sonny says, feeling the spring leave her step, letting her dress settle gently around her shins. Chad is just watching her, the lines of her flapper dress, her drawn-back dark hair, the slight arch of her bare feet. "You know, books? Literature? Oh, never mind, I don't want to ruin the surprise."
"You look good," Chad says quickly. "I like the. Thing. Come on, we're going to be late."
"I need shoes." Sonny finds some strappy gold high-heel that she struggles into, the heel clicking with each of her steps. She finds Chad in the labyrinth of clothes racks and does a quick spin in the dim light, his eyes following the wave of her. "Shoes," she says.
"Right. All right, let's – go."
"What, nothing sarcastic to say about them?"
Chad looks down at her feet and back up. He looks puzzled, a little flush high in his pale cheeks. "You look like – an extra from – Thoroughly Modern Millie."
"That's the best you've got?"
Chad shrugs. "It's the best you're getting." He pulls out of his keys, tosses them in the air and catches them. "Come on, you've made us late."
"Oh sure, I kept us waiting."
Sonny follows Chad to the car and it's quiet, the soft rustle of her dress and the mirrored clicks of her heels with Chad's dress shoes as they push out of the studio and into the late-December chill of Los Angeles.
"We should go over the rules," Sonny says just as Chad levers open the driver's door.
"One dance. No hand-holding. Back home by twelve or you're a pumpkin. Got it, Cinderella, just smile pretty for the cameras and we'll get this night over with."
"I always smile pretty."
"Sometimes you look like you're about to swallow the camera," Chad says, keying the ignition and relaxing into the squeaking leather of the seat. He's got a bit of the swagger in his voice again but he doesn't move, doesn't look beyond the rear view mirror, just stares straight out at the road as he shifts into gear.
"This was your idea anyway," Sonny says coolly, settling primly in her seat. "If you didn't want me to swallow the camera you shouldn't have invited me."
"I didn't invite you," Chad says, pulling out onto the freeway. "I'm doing you a favor."
"And I'm doing you a favor," Sonny says, clasping her hands in her lap. "Because I'm not enjoying this."
"Neither am I," Chad says.
Sonny stares straight ahead. "Good."
"Good," Chad snaps.
"Good." Sonny grits her teeth.
They're silent for a second, all caught up in the neon blur of Los Angeles whipping past them and dragging out into thin lines of color, the promise of a real Hollywood party, Sonny's first.
Chad takes a deep breath, glancing one or twice at Sonny before turning back to the road. "Don't wear red lipstick, you look like a vampire."
"I hate you."
"Sonny Cullen."
"I hate you."
It's a thousand flashes and strings of colored Christmas lights. It's a sudden surge flashbulbs as Chad blindly reaches for Sonny's hand and walks with her into the mob. The sky rushes down and blinds them as their names – okay, Chad's name – is called out in a Greek chorus.
Chad maneuvres them front and centre, grinning with his perfect teeth and deep dimples, his grip on Sonny's hand pale and tight.
"Chad," Sonny seethes from her smile. "You're breaking my fingers."
"Keep smiling," Chad hisses off. It's funny the way he gets in front of the cameras, eyes going hard as silver, his smile nothing like the easy toss he offers Sonny when they fight, not the grins that make him seem almost sweet even as he's railing on So Random. "Keep smiling."
They make quarter turns this way and that, Chad stiff and awkward beside her, keeping Sonny deathly close to his side and gripping her like an anchor.
The carpet is red and on some level Sonny can feel her heart skip every second beat because she's a Wisconsin girl arm in arm with Chad Dylan Cooper on her way to a Hollywood Christmas party and it's really only been a few months since she went from t-shirts to ball gowns but it feels good, she feels like grinning wide enough to eat a camera. But then Chad squeezes her hand and his palm is sweaty and Sonny can't help but laugh.
He eases as they get to the end of the line, his hand going a little looser against hers but not letting go, shifting a little so their fingers lace and Chad goes a little more relaxed against Sonny's side.
"Gosh, Chad," Sonny says as they step past the security and through the double-doors into the hotel lobby. She drops his hand and wipes her own on his suit-jacket. "What happened to the rules, huh?"
The shift that comes over him is instant, shoulders back and hips cocked, half a smile aching with his usual swagger. "Trust me. Front page material. Chad Dylan Cooper and mystery girl with split-ends. You'll thank me for that."
"I'll thank you to stop breaking my fingers."
"I'll thank you to –" he pauses, straightening the collar of his shirt, "– stop being around me now."
Sonny walks off, her heels a little wobbly, the flare of photography still ringing in her eyes. She pushes into the party, to the dull-throb of bad music and strung Christmas lights and fake silicone snow falling slowly to the floor, and she can just hear Chad calling out, "you still owe me a dance!"
Apart from the clutch of slouch-shouldered Mackenzie Falls boys, Sonny is pretty much the only teenager in the room, surrounded by all these adults with their gin and tonics laughing about the latest scandal. It's not really what she expected her first Hollywood party to be. No romantic shirtless actors from the latest vampire romance, no tasty appetizers made from cheese.
She finds the punch bowl and stands there trying to look as approachable as she can be (networking, she reminds herself, it's all about networking) while people ignore her and help themselves to raw squid sushi.
She could use a pizza.
Chad slips away from a hot-shot producer and does a tight two-step as he slides next to Sonny at the punch bowl.
"I hope you're not drinking that," he says, picking up a squid appetizer, smelling it, and putting it back down.
"What, why?" Sonny looks down at her full glass. "Is it cranberry? I hate cranberry."
Chad blinks at her for a moment. "Sonny. It's a Christmas party. That punch is mostly rum."
"Really?" She sets her drink on the table, seeing Chad close his eyes in exasperation. "Why would someone do that?"
"Because – Christmas? For adults?"
"Is anyone from So Random even here?" she asks.
"So Random?" It dawns on him like a bolt. "Oh right, your show, your cute little show." Chad puts his arm around her shoulder and leads her to an empty table just off the dance floor. "I don't know if you've looked around but there is no kids' table."
"Why did you even ask me here?" Sonny asks. "This was supposed to be my first big Hollywood party and you left to go – and, I mean, people just keep asking me where the washrooms are."
"Come on," Chad says, "I put you in a nice dress, I can't help the fact you look like a waitress. A man can only do so much."
And just like that Sonny wants to hit him in the face again. She sits on a chair, hands resting her in lap. "I mean, where are the chicken fingers? Where's the Miley Cyrus music? Where's – I mean, they don't even have Jenga. Who doesn't have Jenga?"
"Are you from Wisconsin or Mars?" Chad frowns, sitting next to Sonny. "Never mind, same thing."
"What do you even do, then?"
Chad shakes his head, turning to Sonny with an easy hand on her shoulder. "You're cute when you're ignorant. And Sonny, you're cute most of the time."
Sonny doesn't even have anything to say with that, she just wants a place where she can collapse, fit in like a puzzle piece but ever since landing here that has seemed like an impossibility, everyone too rash, too sarcastic, too biting to lower their guard and let her in. "Some party," she says, sagging in her seat. "I don't even like the food."
Chad nods, sighing deep and long-suffering. "A wise philosopher once said: just dance, it's going to be all right. Wise, wise words." He stands and stretches a little, planting a hand on Sonny's shoulder. Somewhere in the distance he catches a girl's eye, nods his head with a grin before looking down to Sonny with a condescending smile. "I suggest you take that advice."
Sonny watches him walk off and suddenly, desperately wants to hurl squid at him.
She takes Chad's advice. Not because she wants to, but because swinging onto the floor with one of those dull-eyed apes from Mackenzie Falls will let her get close enough to Chad to hit him. Sure, bring her to a party with a punchbowl full of rum and then leave her to sit there keeping the canapés company.
The music spins loud, lots of crooners and old jazz standards, the kind of stuff played at retirement parties. It's only when Sinatra pipes in with "Old Devil Moon" that Sonny finds Chad, hair glinting stupidly with his hands hard around girl way too old for him.
Sonny takes the lead and drags her boy over to the neat circle Chad is cutting and, glancing past him with a shuffling step, slaps the backside of his head. It feels better than it should.
"What –what are you doing?" Chad shouts, voice breaking little. "Who are – Sonny?"
"Your party is lame," Sonny says, a little louder as she dances out of his orbit and back into it.
"Don't hit me," Chad says, twirling away from her.
"I only hit you because they ran out of squid," Sonny says, spinning her partner a little too fast, trying to follow Chad as close she can through the field of dancing adults. "You don't just leave me at a table!"
"Stop – hitting me –" Chad says, twirling the girl he's dancing with to shield himself from Sonny. "Are you crazy?"
Sonny spins her partner and lets go, watches him turn and turn with momentum before being swallowed up by the mass of dancers and disappearing, leaving Sonny standing in the middle of the floor with her arms crossed over her chest. Now that she's here, now that she's staring Chad down, she really doesn't know where to go with this. She doesn't want to dance with him, she doesn't even really want to be here anymore, but he can't just – he can't get away with holding her hand like that for the photos and then leaving her to the squid.
It might be Hollywood but there are manners.
"What's the matter with you?" Sonny snaps.
"Nothing's the matter," Chad says, waving her off. "Come on baby, keep dancing, keep dancing away from the crazy lady-child."
Chad's partner is looking at Sonny agog, frozen on the spot, the three of them standing still in a churning sea of bodies. Sonny knows she's really out of her depth here, that people are starting to stare, but she has a point to make. What that point is – well, she'll figure that out as she goes.
"Stop dancing with Chad," Sonny says in a rush.
The woman looks at her like she's kind of crazy, which, well, if the shoe fits. "Stop – what do you – aren't you a waitress?" the woman asks, hand on her hips, long red nails.
"What aren't you, a – a housewife?" Sonny says, flushing.
"Whoa, whoa, ladies," Chad says, sliding between them, a hand on each of their shoulders. "There's enough Chad to go around. There's always enough Chad."
"With an ego this big every girl in this room could have a dance," Sonny says, standing straighter and loving the way Chad half-glares, half-grins at her. "Really, what happened in seventeen years that made you such a – such a monster?"
"Wait." Chad's partner turns to him, pushing his hand from her shoulder. "You're seventeen?"
"No, no, sweetie, I'm not, I'm –" Chad pauses, offering one of his perfect, charming smiles. "– I'm a very mature seventeen, Darla. Very mature. I'm an actor. Who is very mature."
"Seventeen?" she says, spitting out the last word like poison. "I knew your hands were too suspiciously soft."
Chad's shoulders drop and Sonny should be feeling good about this. She should feel great seeing Chad deflated like he deserves with his body going all lank and boyish, but mostly all she can think about is the way he bites his lower lip and looks kind of sad, almost like he has feelings.
"You happy now?" Chad says, rolling his eyes. "Now we can both go sit by the squid. Great party, Sonny."
"How old did you tell her you were?" Sonny asks, bumped toward Chad by the dancers surrounding them, their little island of static electricity shrinking around them.
"Twenty-six," Chad says like it isn't a joke.
Sonny snorts. "Chad, you look old for seventeen, but you're no Nick Jonas."
"She believed me," Chad says, sighing out his frustration. "Listen, if you did this to make me drive you home, forget it. We are staying at this party until I catch another pretty lady. I am riding this party to the bitter end."
This is it, isn't it? This feels like this is what Sonny wants, Chad alone in the middle of a field of dancing strangers, looking at her all put out and kind of angry and kind of sweet, as reluctant as she is to admit that. She shuffles forward a bit and extends her hand. "You still owe me a dance."
Chad blinks at her, wide eyes bright with reflected light. "I said a pretty lady."
"If you take my hand, I'll pretend you didn't say that." Sonny can feel her heart going wild in her chest and, God, is she really getting this flustered around Chad Dylan Cooper? Most of the time just wants to sock him in the nose.
"I'll take your hand," Chad says, familiar swagger in his voice again, "but I definitely did say that."
"You make it so difficult sometimes," she says, wishing her heart would stop racing. "And your hands really are suspiciously soft."
"I do, I really do," Chad replies, his hand on the small of Sonny's back, bringing them closer together, looking down at her with a half-smile. "But come on, I'm worth it sometimes."
"Sometimes," Sonny says, hesitating a little just as their bodies press flush, as Chad starts to slowly dictate a gentle spin. "When you're not acting like a total snob."
"Snob? Really, Sonny?" Chad says, their rhythm goes totally out of balance with the pulse of the music. Sonny really doesn't mind. "Just because some of us put work into acting."
"You're not that great an actor," Sonny murmurs.
Chad's body is warm against hers, and his breath soft and raising the wisps of hair by her ear. "Really? Cause you're buying it right now."
"I'm acting too."
"Really?"
Sonny rests her head on Chad's shoulder, lets him guide them around while she just half-closes her eyes, smells him cologne and sweet. "Really."
"Then you definitely need lessons," Chad says, sounding really far away.
It's the twist of the music, the sudden insistence of Chad's weight against her that makes Sonny look up at him. She knows it's not just his charm this time, that Chad isn't actively trying to bring her down with those beautiful eyes and that phony way he has when his voice goes all low and violins seem to swoon. This is Chad, this is actually Chad, a boy with his nervous hands and his guilty little smiles, that Chad she only sees and loves in flashes. Sonny leans towards him, lips hovering a restrained inch, his breath on her mouth and his eyes almost cloudy as he watches her.
"You know," Chad says, their dance frozen, his hand running up her cheek, curling her hair back over her ear, "you've got huge pores."
She punches him in the nose.
Sonny walks quickly out of the hall and into the hotel lobby, pushing through the glass doors into the waiting mess of flash photography and blinding night. Turning away from the cameras she tries to push her way through, grabbing jackets and shielding her face with one arm, just wanting to leave. She might organize peace picnics, but right now, her knuckles still stinging, she is not messing around
"Sonny!" Chad yells somewhere behind her, just pushing his way into the crowd. The paparazzi call his name, rushing for him in a mob to leave Sonny alone in their wake.
The night is cool and claustrophobic as she tries to catch her breath, sitting on the curb in front of the BMW. Her knuckles are kind of sore and, cracking them like a boxer, that almost makes the night worth it.
"Sonny," Chad says, stumbling out of some nearby bushes. His hair is all unkempt and boyish, twigs and leaves, blood sticky and red under his nose, wet on his lips. His suit is torn a little on the sleeves, smears of dirt down the clean front of his shirt. He staggers and stands in front of her, brushing himself off. "I think I lost them."
Sonny stands, tilts her hip with a hand on her waist. "I will punch you again."
Chad sniffs, wipes the blood with the back of his hand. "Just, not the face. It's the money-maker." He stands there a little sheepishly, at least more remorseful than Sonny has ever seen him before. "Sonny –"
"Chad," she says bitterly.
Chad wipes under his nose again, most of the blood smeared away. He presses his fingers daintily to the sides of his nose and moves it about. "I don't think it's broken."
"Darn," Sonny says, wishing Chad would just man-up, quit this bashful, blushing game he's got going. "I guess I'll have to try again."
Chad shoves his hands in his pockets, giving a weak-shouldered shrug, like that's as much apology as he can muster. "Can I drive you home?"
"You can call me a cab," Sonny replies sharply.
Chad nods and pulls out of his phone, dials a number and gives the company their location. It's kind of pathetic, the way he does what she asks. Sonny just stands there and – for some reason, wishes, really wishes he would fight back a little, that his eyes would light up and he would peel off some lame comeback and she could continue hating him in peace.
Pocketing the phone again he just kind of looks at Sonny through his lashes, pushing his hair back, shuffling a little closer to her. "Sonny."
"Don't," Sonny says, raising a hand and planting it in his chest. "Stay at least four feet away."
Chad nods and freezes. "Okay."
"What do you mean, okay?"
Chad shrugs again, pushing his hair a different way. "I mean, okay. I'll stand over here until the cab comes." He takes a few careful steps back. "Am I still bleeding?"
"No," Sonny says warily. "But you. You're just going to. Stay there?"
"Yes," Chad says. "I mean, obviously you're upset, so I'll just be over here."
"Oh." Sonny bites her lower lip. "So you're doing what I ask?"
Chad nods. "I guess I am."
The silence stretches long and complicated, Sonny worrying words between her lips before settling into nothing. Chad just whistles, looking at ground, tracing the lines of the pavement with the toe of his shoe. When he looks up its with these sweet little smiles, hair over his eyes and dimples pressed into his cheeks before flushing and looking at the ground again.
"Okay, is this a trap?" Sonny asks harshly. "Because you are acting really weird."
"I think your cab is here," Chad says, pointing out beyond her shoulder.
"Gossip Girl is better than your show," Sonny tries wildly, hearing the taxi pull up behind her.
"Oh," Chad says. "I guess it is."
"Chad," she says, and it almost hurts, the way he looks at her, all young and far away. "Chad, what are you – fight back," she tries desperately. "Something about So Random being a poor man's Saturday Night Live. Anything."
"Sorry your night was so bad," Chad says, walking around her a careful four feet away to open the cab door. "I guess I'll see you on set."
All at once, without even thinking about what she's doing, Sonny grabs Chad by the front of his shirt and pulls him, crashing their lips together in a rush. "What the heck is wrong with you," she says, forcing him up against the BMW and kissing him again. "Why are you being such a loser?"
Chad, even in her arms, even with Sonny pressed flush against him, just shrugs and says, "Your cab is waiting."
Sonny spins and waves the cab off. "We don't need you! Go away, please." The cab driver gives her a pained look before gunning the engine and driving off, leaving Sonny and Chad alone again, backed up against the trunk of Chad's BMW. "What's wrong with you?" Sonny gasps.
"Did you kiss me?" Chad asks softly.
"Yes!" Sonny says in exasperation
"Do you want to kiss me again?" Chad asks.
"Yes!" Sonny says again.
Sonny's on him again, got him back against the car and he kisses her back, wetly, hungrily as his hands run up her back, keeping Sonny flush against his body. She kisses with a kind of abandon, like she's forgotten everything that happened, only the slightly iron taste of Chad's lips reminding her of the fight, the struggle, the months of Chad getting on every one of Sonny's nerves. Right now he's just, he's against her, warm and hard with taut muscle and that smell a mix of dirt and his usual fussy cologne.
When she pulls back, she feels tingly and her mouth is still wet with him. "Oh Chad Dylan," she says.
"I knew it," Chad says, suddenly his normal self, bright with his usual swagger. "Sucka."
"What?"
"I knew you wanted to kiss me. I knew it, Sonny. Knew it."
Sonny frowns, not feeling maybe as angry as she should. "So all that was –"
"Oh yeah," Chad says. "I guess you can't see through my p-p-p-poker face."
Sonny shoves him against the car again and kisses him, kisses his surprise and the soft gasp in his mouth. She's got her hands against the buttons of his shirt, undoing them one by one, popping them down to sternum and warm skin. He shifts against her, their hips pressing together, and his laughter becomes soft behind Sonny's mouth.
When she pulls back, Chad is mercifully speechless. His breath comes short and wild and Sonny undoes the rest of his shirt, spreading it open over his hard stomach, finger sliding gently against his navel. She loves how easy it is, how simply she can break Chad down until he's just a boy whimpering against her fingers, this superstar nothing but a smile and pale skin.
"Chad, you're good," Sonny says playfully. "But you kiss like a kitten licking a popsicle."
"You taste like cheese."
"I hate your shoes."
"I want to kiss you again."
"Sonny."
"No."
"Sonny."
"No."
"Sonny."
Sonny smiles to herself, wiping off her make-up from the day's rehearsals. "Make out with yourself."
"I would, but cloning has a ways to go yet," Chad says, leaning against the frame of her dressing room. "But really, you skit was awful. A medieval reality show called So You Think You Can Lance? Really, Sonny? Really?"
"Right, and your episode about the painkiller-addicted millionaire amnesiac evil twin who resorts to cage-fighting to pay his debts is so much better." Sonny peels off her fake eyelashes, laying them on a paper towel.
"At least it's acting," Chad says.
"Oh yeah, you're really a master of the craft of blinking and pushing back your hair." Sonny twists her chair around and crosses her legs lazily, grinning at Chad. "You have the talent of a Wahlberg."
"And your hair looks like it's been run through a cheese grater," Chad says. "Want to get dinner?"
"Italian?"
"Sure." Chad says, polishing his nails on his shirt. "You're getting changed, right?"
"And you're fixing your hair, right?"
"You can't wear crocs to a fancy restaurant," Chad replies, suppressing a grin. "Well, not when you're outside Wisconsin."
"Well, you – can't – you look like – wearing – lipstick," Sonny finishes lamely.
"I win."
"Go away, Chad Dylan Cooper," Sonny says, turning back to the mirror.
"Pick you up at eight?"
Smiling, Sonny nods.