Chapter 19: America's Sweetheart

It took only three days before Macey discovered that she was bored of my room.

"I can't handle it anymore," she said, pacing in silent circles on the carpet floor.

"Tired of me already?"

"Please, I was sick of you the moment I met you. But seriously, we should go somewhere," There was an intriguing idea. I hadn't really left the house for the entire summer. There hadn't been anything stopping me from walking around outside at night, but before I had met Macey, there had been no reason to. "I want to go to somewhere with actual people," I motioned to myself with mock offense and she rolled her eyes, another signature Macey-ism, "but we can't go anywhere too crowded. I really don't want to run into the press,"

I ran through all of the city's entertainments. "Hmm. How about the movie theater? Not too empty, but dark enough so that Macey McHenry's beautiful face won't be seen by the adoring public and paparazzi," Macey agreed with my idea.

As we were climbing out the window, she turned back to me, "You think I'm beautiful?"

I wasn't even going to dignify that with an answer.

"This is nice," Macey said, scooping a big spoonful of Dippin' Dots from the cup I had bought for her. The street was nearly empty as we walked towards the theater. We were going to catch the midnight showing of a new Tom Cruise spy movie that Preston had highly recommended. Most of the stores were closed so the only light came from yellow streetlamps. Macey was talking to me about the Dior's spring line, but I noticed she was scanning her surroundings all the while. She must've been nervous of being in a somewhat shady part of time at night. There was no one around except a middle aged man leaning against a wall talking on his cell phone and a street sweeper that was clearing litter and abandoned newspapers from the sidewalk. When he saw me looking at him, he tipped his cap to me. I felt Macey tense next to me.

"Walking around an abandoned part of town at 11 isn't a part of your job description?" She smiled, but it seemed a bit forced. I must have been imagining it because a second afterwards, she started jumping up and down in excitement.

"Hey, can we go into that store?"

"Which store?" I didn't see any open ones. Macey didn't answer. Instead, she just dragged me down the block, into an alley, across the street, and down two more blocks with surprising strength. "Where are we going?"

"..It's a surprise," she chirped, pulling me along not-so-gently. We finally stopped in front of a storefront. I don't know how she had seen it from where we had originally been standing. Maybe she just had some fashionista spidey-sense about these kinds of things. For some reason, she thought that was a good place to pull out her compact mirror thingy and check on her makeup. I wasn't even aware that she had been wearing makeup. I had seen her without it and she had looked equally flawless…ahem.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Let's go in!" I shrugged. We did have a little time to kill before the movie.

It was one of those small town boutiques that sold locally designed clothing at outrageous prices as well as other handmade knickknacks. Macey pulled her newsboy cap lower over her head as we entered.

"Hello dears, are you looking for something in particular?" The old woman at the counter said, blue eyes twinkling.

"We're just browsing, thanks," Macey said before turning away and walking deeper into the shop. I just waited for her near the counter.

"You have a very pretty girlfriend, young man," Wait, was she talking to me? I looked over at the woman, who winked.

"What, her? She's not, no, us? We, no," I stammered. Really, Nick? How difficult was it to say "Oh, she's not my girlfriend" The old lady leaned over the counter and peered up at me. Even though she was a good 5 inches shorter than me and as old as my grandmother, I felt like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar, which was crazy because I had absolutely nothing to be embarrassed of.

"Why not? You obviously like the girl or else you wouldn't have let you drag her in here," I think the lady was underestimating Macey's upper-body strength.

"Your store is nice," I protested feebly. The woman humphed and put her hands on her hips.

"Not to teenage boys it isn't," I couldn't refute that, "So what's stopping you?"

"She…our parents.."

"If Romeo and Juliet could do it, so can you," was that really the best example? "Besides, what's the worst that could happen?"

"Mutual suicide?" It was how Romeo and Juliet ended, after all.

"Are you sassing me, young man?" How was a tiny old lady so frightening? "Good. Now, I want you to take your friend," the word was heaped with sarcasm, "somewhere nice and ask her to be your girlfriend," The way she said it made it sound like the most simple thing in the world. "Hmm, just wait here a moment," I don't think I dared to leave. The old woman turned around and a door that was situated behind the counter and slowly shuffled inside. I could hear her humming quietly as she retrieved something from what—I think—was the back room of the store. "Here," she handed me a tissue wrapped package when she returned. "A gift,"

"Oh, no. I can't possibly take this," I tried to hand it back to her, but she brushed my hand away.

"Who said it was for you? Give it to the girl. Think of it as a good luck charm…what are you doing?" she cried shaking her head, making her grey curls wobble, "Don't open it now!" I taped the tissue paper closed again, "She'll see it! Give it to her when she agrees to be your girlfriend" For a stranger, she seemed very sure that we would become a couple. "And have a little confidence in yourself. Just because she's America's sweetheart and famous and all doesn't mean she's too good for you," My jaw dropped. Macey walked up to us then, holding a set of Captain America trading cards and some Japanese style hair pins. I surreptitiously tucked the little package in the back pocket of my jeans, pulling the hem of my hoodie over it so that the bulge was hidden.

"Just these," She placed the items on the counter, head still lowered.

"Don't bother. She recognized you," I told her, still in shock at how normally the woman had reacted to seeing Macey.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. McHenry. I'm Margaret Rogers," the woman said, holding out a wizened hand. Macey shook it, smiling. "Why, you're even prettier in real life," Peggy's tone was not at all starstruck; she said this the way someone would say "the sky is blue." Macey thanked her. "You two have a nice night. And you," she turned to me, "remember what I told you," I nodded. I don't think I could forget it if I tried. I ignored Macey's bemused expression. We said our goodbyes and left the store with Margaret mumbling about how "this generation has no moxie" behind us.

"You looked like you enjoyed the movie," She nodded, smiling like she was remembering an inside joke. We had watched a Tom Cruise action movie that had received good reviews from Roger Ebert, Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB, and Preston Winters. It had been listed as action, thriller, and adventure, but apparently Macey thought it was a comedy because I had noticed her laughing quietly at random scenes that weren't funny to me at all.

"It was entertaining," Macey replied simply. She looked down at her feet and said quietly, "But it was a bad idea. I felt paranoid of someone recognizing me the whole time. I know it's stupid, but it happens when you're surrounded by press 24/7," I had assumed that Macey had been enjoying herself the whole time and felt bad for not noticing her discomfort.

"Don't even apologize. It's not your fault," she said right when I was opening my mouth to do exactly that. "Let's change the topic. What did you and that lady at the boutique talk about?" I had wondered how long she would wait before caving.

"She was just giving me some…life advice. You know how adults are," She seemed to accept my vague answer. I decided to satisfy my own curiosity. "Never knew you were a Marvel fan," I motioned towards the brown paper bag she was holding that contained the clips and trading cards.

"Oh, those are for Preston. I thought he would like them. Why are you looking at me like that?" I don't know, because you're sarcastic, intelligent, devastatingly beautiful, but also kind and thoughtful and the most complex human being I have ever met.

"Because you have some chocolate on your chin," She blushed and rubbed it quickly.

Five minutes later, she paused in her tracks. "Wait a second, I haven't eaten any chocolate today,"

AN: Initially, I had no idea the Macey/Nick arc was going to be this long. I'm planning for there to be a couple more chapters of backstory. I apologize to all of you that want me to get back to the original storyline and Zammie, but I feel like I can't do a good job of explaining Macey and Nick's relationship unless I'm really detailed. However, most of you seem to like them, so that's good. Did you guys catch the Avengers allusion and the Captain America allusion (I'm not talking about the trading cards) in this chapter?

As always, thanks to all of my reviewers. Thanks to my guest reviewers, Kayla, Team Zammie, and Tiana.

To Tiana, who asked if my story was going to be faithful to the books: So sorry I wasn't able to address your review earlier. Although I have reused some scenes and characters from the books, this is going to be my own plot line (although I'm planning to crossover quite a lot with another famous book series. I'll let you guys guess what series it is).

I hope you keep following this story. Update to follow soon.

Love, Anh