You've Got the Look
By: Rhuben
Summary-Katie thinks she has to change the way she dresses and acts to get and keep her boyfriend's attention. Katie/OC One-Shot
Katie Knight was happy with her love life. She had her first boyfriend, Patrick Jackson-McGuire, who was good looking, funny, over the top, and always looking to have fun. But, she was always worried that she was going to do or say something wrong and make things awkward between them. Not that things weren't awkward between them anyway; she was his first girlfriend. Now, that was hard to believe.
He had millions of girls throwing themselves at him, and he seemed to know the right thing to say to them to make them sa-woon, but he was just as nervous about dating as she was. Even his nervousness made him that more attractive to him, but he seemed more put together than she was. But, at the same time, she wondered if she could compare to those millions of girls. He heard his comments, he thought they were hot or cute, but she didn't get compliments out of him that easily. But, that was why she also enjoyed having a girl's day with her friends; Lizzie Zevon, and twin girls, Riley and Rhuben Jackson-McGuire.
Lizzie Zevon was almost her complete opposite, taller, blonde, and an extrovert. Being Dak Zevon's little sister, the two girls had met shortly after Katie moved to Los Angeles, and really only started hanging out regularly when Dak worked with Katie's older brother, Kendall, with his band, Big Time Rush.
The twin girls were part of the famous Australian band, the DarkElements. They also became friends with Katie through her older brother as their band was contracted to help Big Time Rush with their careers until their second CD was released, at the same time they were working on re-mastering their own CDs from Australia to release in America, while producing new CDs to release in Australia. Katie often wondered how they got any work done, especially with her brother and his friends acting like idiots all the time, but the two of them and their little brothers, twins Patrick and Noah Jackson-McGuire, and their baby brother, Sydney Jackson-McGuire were some of her best friends. Riley was also dating Kendall while Rhuben was dating Lizzie's brother, Dak. She and Lizzie both looked up to the twin girls like they were their big sisters. They had a great bond and enjoyed having some time to hang out together.
"How do you know…if your relationship isn't going anywhere?" Katie asked, stirring her fruit loops into her yogurt before taking a bite. A pained expression crossed her face. "I mean…that's obvious, but how do you know he's not bored with you?"
"Did Pat say he's bored with you?" Rhuben asked.
"He better not have," Lizzie commented, shaking her head. "I'll rip him a new on if he did."
"Get it in line," the twin girls said in unison and Katie laughed a little bit.
"He didn't say he was bored," Katie explained. She brushed her hair behind her ears. She hated talking about her feelings, but these three girls were the easiest to talk to about something like this. Besides, her mom anyway. And she did go to her mom for advice when she needed it and sometimes her mom surprised her by giving her advice whether or not she knew that Katie needed it. "I just…I feel it, I guess. I mean, I catch him looking at other girls sometimes."
"You know, I've always wondered," Riley commented, tapping her chin with her spoon. She put her spoon in her mouth and sucked on it for a moment before turning towards her sister. "We basically raised our brothers and Noah and Syd turned out fine, but Patrick's an asshole."
"Yeah," Rhuben agreed, slowly nodding, "but he's a lovable asshole." Her nose wrinkled before a thoughtful look crossed her face. "It balances out, I guess." She shrugged. "Somehow." Lizzie laughed, but Katie shook her head.
"He is an asshole," Katie commented.
"And he knows it, too," Riley said, pointing her spoon at her. "You can call him every name under the sun. I don't really care if it's true. But I mean, that's just Patrick. He's a guy."
"I hope you guys aren't having any problems," Lizzie commented, picking out a chunk of Oreo from her fro-yo. She chewed rapidly before wiping at her lips with her napkin. "I've had this double date planned for weeks, and I don't want it to go to waste."
Katie stuck her tongue out at her best friend. "Thanks a lot," she commented. "I just know he thinks they're prettier than me."
"A: That's not true, trust me," Riley commented, putting her hand in the air, and "B: you don't need to go comparing yourself to anybody else. It's not worth it. Again, speaking from experience."
"Well…a few new shirts wouldn't hurt," Lizzie commented, tilting her head to the side, looking at her friend. Rhuben gave her a wide eyes stare, and she ignored it. "Just to change it up from your jeans and t-shirts all the time. And maybe if you did some more with your hair."
Katie let out a heavy sigh. That was another thing that set her and Lizzie apart. She wasn't into fashion or the hottest trends or dressing just to impress a guy. She was into money, business, and making a business of suckering people out of their money. Back in St. Paul, Minnesota, fashion wasn't the most important thing to her or her friends, but it seemed to be on the minds of a whole lot of girls in Los Angeles. Even Riley and Rhuben took the time to go shopping to amp up their wardrobe every once in a while.
"We need to change your wardrobe," Lizzie said casually.
"Yeah, I already had that conversation with my mom and it's not going to happen," Katie replied with a shake of her head.
"Not anything drastic, I mean, booty shorts and halter tops are definitely not your thing," Riley pointed out and Katie let out a loud snort. "Yeah, I know." She quickly finished her fro-yo. "Just stick with your style. Personally, I think stripes and off the shoulder shirts are perfect for you. Maybe dark wash jeans, simple stuff like that."
"I hate shopping," Katie grumbled.
"You can always do what I do," Rhuben commented, motioning towards the football jersey she was wearing. With the dark wash Capri jeans and high tops she was wearing, it was a cute combination, even Katie had to admit that. "Go boyfriend sopping. I got this and that black coat from Dak, you know that one that he wore when gave Kendall and them those dog collar things when they were preparing for their first concert?"
"Aw, I love that jacket," Riley commented.
"See?" Rhuben asked with a laugh. Her laughter then faded. "Oh, well, Patrick's kinda weird with his clothes. He might not give up anything."
"That's what stealing is for," Riley pointed out with a shrug. "How do you think I got this?" She pointed towards her head and at the gray beanie that sat on her head.
Kendall was notorious for collecting beanies and if there was one thing Katie knew about her brother, it was that he would never give anything like that up. So she knew that Riley had to have stolen it. But, that was a cute look of her as well.
Maybe I do need to change my look, Katie thought, spinning her spoon around to check her reflection. Stick straight hair, no makeup. How boring. She tilted her head this way and that. She was plain looking. She looked over at her three friends. They're definitely not plain looking. It's no surprise that they have boyfriends.
"If anything, you probably have nothing to worry about," Riley commented, putting her hand on Katie's shoulder. "I mean, you guys are each other's first real relationship. No one said it would be easy. Just try and talk things out with him."
"Well, I could get a new pair of jeans," Katie commented.
"That's settled then," Rhuben said, reaching into her pocket before slapping her hand down onto the table. A black card sat underneath her hand. "And it's all on daddy. Within reason."
"What is it exactly that I'm trying to look for?" Katie asked from where she was sitting as she watched her friends go from rack to rack, piling their arms with clothes.
"Anything you like," Riley replied, pulling a purple and gray striped shirt off a rack. She looked it over and spun it around and Katie noticed that it glittered when the light hit it. "Here, I think this would be great for you. And it'd go great with your new hair style."
Katie reached up a hand to touch the waves in her hair. "Do you really think it looks good?" she asked with a smile. "Do you think Patrick will like it?"
"Only one way to find out," Riley said, swinging the hanger back and forth on her finger. Katie tilted her head to the side, looking at the shirt.
"Its fine, I guess," Katie replied, taking the hangar from her friend. A small smile came to her face. It was more than fine. She liked the shirt. She was just surprised that someone apart from herself or her mom could shop for her and in most cases her mom didn't get her anything she really liked.
"Try it on," Riley pressed, "I'll see if I can find you some jeans or something."
Katie sighed but made her way over to the dressing room. She was the type of person that knew her size. If it was the correct size, she'd buy it without ever trying it on. Get in; get out. That's how much she disliked going shopping. But, she mainly didn't like going shopping because she didn't think anything ever really looked good on her.
She stepped into the dressing area, giving a brief smile to the girl who was standing at the counter, folding clothes that had already been tried on. She stepped into the small room and locked it behind her. She looked around as she took off the shirt she was already wearing before pulling on the other shirt that Riley had found for her. She twisted this way and that, tugging at the shirt, adjusting the the bottom of the shirt.
She then unlocked the door and made her way out. "I don't know, I think it's kind of baggy," she said to Riley who was sitting in one of the chairs, waiting outside. She spun in a circle, arms out. "What do you think?"
"It's supposed to be baggy," Riley replied with a small laugh. Katie twisted her mouth to the side. "See, you can have it stop here, or you can pull the bottom down to here." She adjusted the shirt for Katie, pulling the bottom of her shirt down until it hugged the top half of her thighs, looking more like a tunic shirt. She then spun Katie around to face the mirror. "See? It looks great both ways."
"I don't know—"
"It looks fine," Riley said with a brief roll of her eyes. "We're not doing anything too drastic just a few new shirts and top." She moved to stand in front of a mirror and used her fingers to fix her hair. "Besides, i don't know why you're worried, Pat always thinks you look good in anything, and it is true."
Katie's mouth twisted up into a half smile.
Katie sighed as she stared at the bags of clothes that sat in front of bed. She was sitting cross legged on her bed, staring at the bags. She did get a lot of clothes that she liked, and she learned about what make up went grat with her skin tone and how easy it was to over do it, but she didn't know when she was going to start wearing them. As soon as she got home she had changed back into her normal pair of jeans, a t-shirt, put her hair up into a ponytail, and wiped off all the make up she had on. She was just comfortable that way. It seemed like such a big deal despite being told that it wasn't. She knew she was going to get comments about it, if not from the person she wanted to get comments from but from Kendall and his friends, Carlos, James, and Logan.
Kendall was over protective or her, and rightfully so, but it was really James that she had to worry about. One could argue that James and Kendall were the closest out of the four boys and despite the three of them looking at her as if she was their own little sister, it got to be too much sometimes. James had ruined a few good dates for her because of that and he had even tagged along with her and Patrick to the movies, going as far as sitting directly behind them to be sure nothing happened between the two of them.
"Hey."
Katie looked up, giving Patrick a brief smile as he walked into the room. He jumped onto her bed and she laughed as the bounce nearly made her fall off her bed. Patrick was a great person to go to whenever she needed a good laugh. It was just who he was. He got through nervous situations, and filled any moment he thought anyone wasn't having fun with jokes or funny comments or he acted stupid to try and get people's spirits up.
"What's up?" Katie asked, smacking him with her pillow.
"You asked me over here," Patrick replied with a shrug. "I was going to ask you that. But, I didn't have anything better to do, so…"
Great. So he comes to hang out with me just because there's nothing else going on, Katie thought, feeling a frown come to her face. He's so used to lavish get togethers and mansion parties, why would he want to hang out with me?
"What?" Patrick asked, a look of worry coming to his face. "Did I say something wrong?" He sat up and hugged the pillow to his chest. "Are you mad?"
And then there are moments like this where you can't stay mad at him, Katie thought looking over at her boyfriend. He looked so small as he waited for her answer. Waiting to see if she was mad at him. She felt bad for him. Because of his past dealing with child abuse, he had always feared disappointing people. It was clear that he was still worried about it. It was cute; in a 'I-feel-bad-for-you' kind of way. But, she knew that he hated being treated as a charity case.
"No, it's fine," Katie replied, giving him a smile.
"No really," Patrick replied, his eyebrows lowering slightly. "What's wrong."
"I want to show you something," Katie said, getting off her bed, grabbing a bag of clothes, checking inside it for a moment to see if that was the one she wanted. "Just wait here. I want your opinion on something."
"Ok," Patrick replied as he started to flip the pillow into the air.
Katie took the bag into the bathroom and closed and locked the door behind her. She stared at herself in the mirror and let out a heavy sigh before she changed into her new clothes. She searched under the cabinets for a curling iron and put some twists in her hair before putting on some make up (having called both Riley and Lizzie for help, Rhuben shouted her comments from the background of wherever Riley was, causing the two girls to get into a little bit of an argument as their make-up styles differed from each other) and found a bottle of her mom's lavender scented body spray—making sure that she sprayed some into the air and stepping into the cloud instead of spraying it directly on herself.
Letting out another sigh, she made her way back into her room. Patrick was lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling, throwing the abandoned pillow up into the air and catching it before it hit his face over and over again, only sitting up when he heard the sound of her dropping the clothes bag to the ground. His eyes widened slightly before a lopsided smile appeared on his face. The smile that made the butterflies erupt in her stomach and made her knees weak.
"Wow," he said quietly. "You look great."
Katie looked down at her outfit, a purple tank top covered by a black and mesh see through striped off the shoulder shirt, dark wash jean shorts and new black and purple high tops. She gave an awkward spin. "So? What do you think?"
"I already said you look great," Patrick said, a confused look crossing his face. He scratched the back of his neck when Katie frowned. "You smell good, too."
"You don't like it do you?" Katie asked, moving to sit beside him on the bed.
"No, I do," Patrick insisted, giving her the lopsided smile again. She knew he was telling the truth. "I really do. Seriously."
"But?" she prompted.
"Well…I think it could look better," Patrick commented, reaching for his shirt collar.
I knew it, Katie thought, feeling her shoulders slump. "Look, I wanted to talk to you about—" she blinked when she saw a pair of dog tags swinging in front of her face. It also had a ring attached to it. "What's this?"
"Dog tags," Patrick replied, as Katie took it from him. "They belong to my grandfather, Daddy Teak. He made copies and gave them to me and Noah after our announcement about our abuse and stuff."
"And the ring?" Katie asked.
"Oh, Ronan gave us all rings for our birthday," he held up his fingers and wiggled them, showing the silver bands on a couple of his fingers. "I have plenty to spare, though. I thought you'd like it."
"Oh," Katie replied as she ran her fingers over the dog tags in her hands. She could feel a smile coming to her face. Her friends had special things from their boyfriends and now she was getting one of her own, but she was still anxious and self-conscious. And before she could stop herself, she blurted out, "Are you bored with me?"
"…What?" Patrick asked, blinking rapidly.
"Are you bored with me?" Katie repeated. "Us? Our relationship? Are you bored?" Patrick's jaw dropped slightly and she started explaining herself. "You don't think I notice, but I see you looking at other girls and then I wonder if you'd rather be with them than me, and we're not really going anywhere in our relationship and…yeah." Patrick's eyebrows rose. "Well, say something."
Her eyes widened slightly, and she blinked in surprise when Patrick suddenly leaned forward and kissed her. She wasn't used to that, either. He was a good kisser, she wouldn't deny that (not that she had a lot of people to compare to) but they had barely done that in their relationship, especially when other people were around. She didn't want to compare her relationship to Lizzie's (who was dating Patrick's twin, Noah), but things seemed to be running faster and smoother between the two of them. They had no problem holding hands in public, or giving each other kisses on the cheek, or cuddling with each other if they were watching movies, which was surprising as Noah was one of the shyest people she had ever met.
"I think you're crazy," Patrick commented as soon as he pulled away from the kiss. Katie frowned and grabbed the pillow he had abandoned and smacked him for a second time. "Kates, I'm dating you for a reason. And it's because you don't look like any other girl that walks around Los Angeles. Yes, a whole bunch of them flirt with me, and I'll admit that I do flirt back on occasion, but what gets me through each show when my feet are killing me and all I want to do is sit down and relax is knowing that I get to spend time with you."
And Katie's heart melted. She wasn't made out of stone and every girl loved their romance and here she was living one. And she knew, that much like his brothers and sisters, he hated talking about his feelings, so this was a big deal.
"Really?" she asked quietly.
"Yeah," Patrick replied, blushing as his voice cracked. "You're always being yourself. Hollywood hasn't changed you…sorta. It made you more money hungry, but that was bound to happen anyway." He ran his hand over his face. "I do like the clothes, I think you look great, and dare I say hot." He peered towards the door. "Kendall and James aren't here are they?"
"No, you're fine," Katie said with a small laugh despite wanting to roll her eyes.
"Well, anyway, I like that you don't care about fashion, and that you want to wear what you just want to wear," Patrick said, taking another sideways glance at the door (looking as if he was expecting the two teenaged boys to jump out at him) before looking back at her. "I always thought the jeans and t-shirt and hair up in a ponytail thing was cute. You're cute. And I'm not bored with you. I look at other girls for three reasons. First simply being that I'm a guy and I can be an asshole."
Katie gave a small smile when she thought back to how her sisters had described him. A loveable asshole. They weren't far off in that case, but he was overall the most polite and respectful guys she had met. Her sisters had done a good job raising him and his brothers. "And?" she pressed.
"And I don't want to freak you out about staring at you all of the time. And because it makes me feel better knowing that out of everyone in the world I could have, I picked you and I'm happy with you and I'm not going to drop you the minute someone tries too hard to make a pass at me, which, by the way, isn't all that flattering," Patrick commented, moving his legs to sit cross legged, resting his chin in his elbows. "But, I am going to be shallow for a moment and say that if you want to dress like that all the time, I won't complain about it." He then shielded himself from getting smacked for a third time but Katie laughed instead.
"Well, I guess, I just want some more compliments about how I look, I guess," Katie replied. "Not that I'm fishing for it or anything."
"Nah, I get it," Patrick said with a nod. "I just…I didn't want to sound stupid or anything. I'm don't know much about woman's fashion, I don't know the difference between tunics or blouses or shirt-dresses, I basically just wear whatever it is that Riles tells me to wear. Which…sounds pretty pathetic." He then reached out and took her hand. "But, I'm not bored with our relationship. It's just all new to me. I'm sorry I haven't given you enough attention. I know it makes you uncomfortable sometimes, I just didn't—"
Katie kissed him on the cheek and he gave her a shy smile. "I'm sorry too," Katie replied before getting off her bed. "I like these clothes, but I don't know when I'll be comfortable wearing them."
Patrick arched an eyebrow, a smirk slowly crossing his face; another look that made her weak in the knees. At the same time, she knew that he was going to say something borderline pervy. If not that, then it was something that he would definitely get a slap upside the head courtesy of his sisters for. "Well, before returning them, I wouldn't be too upset if you showed me what the rest of them looked like."
"You're lucky you're cute," Katie commented after a moment of silence, feeling herself blush as soon as the words were out of her mouth. Patrick got off her bed and looped his arms around her waist, giving her a hug, kissing her on top of her head.
"Nah, I'm lucky to have you," he commented. "And you don't have to change your outfits just to impress me—" he cleared his throat and started to sing, "because you're amazing, just the way you are." Katie gave him a look of amusement and he shrugged. "I can be a hopeless romantic when I want to."
"Or incredibly cheesy," Katie countered.
"That too," Patrick replied before dipping his head, kissing her. He gave her his lopsided grin when he pulled back. "So you want to go play Halo or something?"
"I thought you'd never ask," Katie said, grinning.
The End
A/N: The Patie pairing is one that is easy to write in the case of putting them in situations that a lot of teenagers that are first dating go through. But, I really loved this one-shot. It actually turned out to be longer than I originally planned it to be, but I'm glad how it turned out. I hope you all liked it.
Judging by the title, which one-shot do you want to see next? Only One in Color,That Girl Will Never Be Mine, What If, or Won't Say I'm In Love?
Cheers,
-Rhubes
