You Had Me at Hola

by Alexis Daria

  Her words were like a kick in the gut, because she was right. Nothing between them had been “just” anything. But he couldn’t tell her that now.

  He shoved a hand through his hair, ruining forty-five minutes of the stylist’s work in half a second. “I wasn’t just hiding it from you.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Her voice was high with outrage and disbelief, and something else. Coño, he’d hurt her. “Ashton, I’ve dated enough guys who didn’t care about me to know that you do. And honestly? That only makes it worse.”

  On that, she spun on her heel and left, but not before he heard the crack in her voice, or saw the tears in her eyes.

  All of his instincts screamed at him to go after her, to beg her to come back and let him explain. Her pain cut him to the core, made worse by knowing he’d caused it, however inadvertently.

  This was so much worse than dumping a coffee on her. And it couldn’t be fixed with a simple apology and a few cups of Café Bustelo either.

  But what was there to say? She was right. He’d had his chance to tell her about Yadiel on his own terms, and he hadn’t taken it.

  Whatever hope they’d had as a couple was gone now. And it was all his fault.

  WHEN THE DAY from hell finally ended, Jasmine called Riley on the ride to the hotel. Her agent said all the right things about how all press is good press, but Jasmine could barely take it in.

  Tanya sent a slew of texts to schedule interviews to capitalize on the media attention and do damage control, but Jasmine couldn’t focus on them.

  Michelle and Ava waited for her in the hotel lobby when she arrived, with bottles of wine and fancy chocolate and a giant margarine tub full of their grandmother’s arroz con pollo. They took her upstairs to her room, hid her phone, and said all the right things about how he should have told her, but as soon as they left, Jasmine crawled into bed with her phone and kept searching for what people were saying about them.

  It wasn’t healthy, and she knew it, but she couldn’t stop. Sure, she got that celebrity gossip could be fun and intriguing, but god, did people have to be so mean?

  Even after Jasmine shoved the phone under a pillow, the headlines and quotes plagued her.

  When sleep eluded her, she went back to scrolling social media for commentary about Ashton. Both their names were trending, but she already knew her own baggage. Ashton, on the other hand . . .

  After so many years of secrecy, everyone wanted to know about his son, and by extension, who the boy’s mother was. Apparently it was the best-kept secret in the world of telenovelas, and everyone was dying to know.

  Jasmine cared less about who the woman was and more about why Ashton had kept it from her.

  He couldn’t fucking tell her he had a child?

  She was tempted to text him and ask for the real story. But he would have told her if he’d wanted her to know.

  If she were being honest with herself, that was the part that hurt the most. She’d shared so much of herself with him, and he hadn’t trusted her enough to do the same.

  And after the way they’d left things, she didn’t think he’d want to hear from her right now anyway.

  According to the Buzz Weekly exposé, his son—Yadiel, that was his name—lived in Puerto Rico, which explained why Ashton had flown down there a few times during production on Carmen. But one of the photos revealed that Ashton’s son had been in New York City that very weekend, at a Yankees game in the Bronx.

  Ashton had slept in her suite the night before, which meant he had left her bed and gone to the game. Which meant his family had been, and maybe still was, in New York City.

  And he hadn’t told her. Angry tears burned her eyes but Jasmine refused to let them fall. Instead, she turned her phone off and finally fell asleep.

  Chapter 32

  ScreenFlix security was pretty good about keeping photographers away from the gates of the studio, but being located in Queens, with one-way streets, there were only so many routes off the lot.

  The crowd down the street from ScreenFlix Studios had grown. There’d always been a small but loyal group of guys sitting on camp chairs inside a pen of metal police barricades, but after the Latinx in the Arts Summit, their crew had tripled in size. Now, in the wake of Ashton’s “scandal,” that number had doubled over the course of the day.

  The paparazzi yelled and jeered, their gigantic cameras snapping and flashing as Ashton’s car rolled through the gates. They shouted questions at him about Yadiel, about Yadiel’s mother, about Jasmine, about the ridiculous rumor of a love triangle, even about Puerto Rican politics. That last one he did have a lot of thoughts on, but he wasn’t falling for the bait.

  Inside the SUV, Ashton slumped in the back seat and attempted to ignore them, immeasurably grateful for the vehicle’s dark windows. He’d tried to close his eyes to block them out, but that only made it worse. He felt more in control with his eyes open. If something was going to get him, at least he’d see it coming.

  Rationally, he knew they couldn’t hurt him. Probably. Most likely. Okay, he didn’t really believe that. All the media attention had ratcheted up the paranoia he kept tamped down, and every time he tried to talk himself out of it, his brain reminded him that someone had already tried. So no, he couldn’t convince himself he was safe, because when the police had finally found the would-be intruder, the man had a hunting knife in his possession.

  Aside from the police, Ignacio was the only other person who knew this detail. Ashton prayed it remained that way.

  He finally closed his eyes when they got on the highway. And didn’t open them again until the SUV rolled up in front of the apartment where Ashton’s family was staying.

  Ashton waited inside the vehicle while Drew—his new bodyguard friend, courtesy of Tanya—checked the sidewalk and vestibule. Ashton guessed the coast was clear, because Drew headed back over to the car. Ashton climbed out and they went inside. And although he felt weird about the whole thing, he asked Drew to wait in the lobby and make sure no one snuck up on the building.

  Drew didn’t seem to think any of this was weird, because he just said, “Sure thing,” and took up a post by the door.

  In his line of work, Drew had probably seen some shit Ashton didn’t even want to know about—his nightmares were bad enough already.

  Upstairs, Ashton assembled his father and grandparents for a family meeting while Yadiel, up past his bedtime and riding high on his second wind, climbed on every piece of furniture in the living room.

  “No veo cuál es la gran cosa,” his father said for at least the tenth time.

  Ashton gritted his teeth and tried, once again, to explain why the entertainment news media dragging his name through the mud was a very big deal.

  “I want Yadiel to have a normal life,” he began in Spanish, but Abuelito Gus cut him off.

  “What’s normal, anyway?” The older man shrugged and gestured at the energetic boy. “He’s fine. Kids are growing up with all sorts of new concerns that we didn’t have. This is just one more.”

  The memory of glass breaking echoed in Ashton’s ears. “I’m not talking about something like too much screen time. Most children don’t have photographers stalking them and printing pictures of them in magazines.”

  “I don’t get enough screen time,” Yadiel muttered under his breath, and Ashton regretted bringing up what was already a sore topic in their household.

  “How do you know?” Abuelito Gus held up his smartphone, challenging Ashton’s assertion. “Everyone has one of these now. Anyone could be taking pictures of him at any time.”

  That argument did not make Ashton feel better. “That’s my point—”

  “Verdad.” Abuelita Bibi nodded and cast on a new color of yarn to her needles. She was taking advantage of the “cooler temperatures” of New York City to get some knitting done.

  It was eighty-five degrees outside.

  Then Abuelita Bibi turned on Ashton with that eagle-eyed dime el bochinche express
ion she wore when she sniffed out gossip. “¿Y la mujer?”

  “¿Qué mujer?” Did she mean Yadiel’s birth mom? The only people who knew her identity were sitting in this room. Ashton had given Yadi a choice, and the boy had decided he would wait until he was ten to be told. He viewed ten as some magical age where all sorts of information and skills—mostly regarding video games and skateboarding—would be unlocked for him.

  “La nena de las telenovelas americanas,” Abuelita Bibi clarified. “Jasmita?”

  “Jasmine.” Ashton corrected her before he could stop himself. The last thing he needed was his family making up nicknames for her.

  “Sí.” Abuelita Bibi gave him a look like, ¿Eres estúpido? “¿Pues? ¿La mujer?”

  Ashton heaved a sigh. “We’re just . . .” The word friends turned to ashes on his tongue. “No sé.”

  He had no idea. In all likelihood, Jasmine would never want to speak to him again. Regret hung like a lead weight around his neck, but it was an emotion he didn’t have the bandwidth to indulge.

  Abuelito Gus wiggled his eyebrows. “Ella es muy hermosa.”

  It was on the tip of Ashton’s tongue to extol her other virtues. Yes, Jasmine was beautiful, but she was also so much more than—

  Ashton sighed. They were trying to change the subject and get him to come clean on the truth about his tryst with Jasmine, but he wasn’t ready to do that yet. The wounds were too fresh, hastily bandaged so he could get through the current crisis. But sometime soon, he’d have to poke at them, and then he’d become fully aware of everything he’d sacrificed. He’d been fooling himself, thinking he could make room for her in his life.

  You’re fooling yourself if you think you can live without her, a little voice whispered in the back of his mind, but Ashton slapped it away. He should have stuck to his policy.

  Just in case he needed the reminder, he’d received a text that evening from a number with a Miami area code that read Leave me out of this in Spanish.

  It could only be from Yadiel’s mother.

  Thoroughly exasperated, Ashton blurted out, “Am I the only one who remembers what happened before?”

  Yadiel leaped off an armchair and crashed to the floor with a resounding thud that rattled everything on the coffee table. “What happened before?”

  Carajo. Yadiel didn’t know about the attempted break-in. How could Ashton have been so careless? The weight of all these secrets was going to bury him.

  Ashton wiped a hand over his face and said, again, “Mijo, this is an apartment. People live downstairs.”

  Yadiel ignored him and bounced to his feet. “Papi, quiero visitar tu trabajo.”

  This conversation was going off the rails. Just the thought of bringing his son to the studio now, when it was swarming with photographers and reporters and who knew what else, was enough to make him sweat. “No, mi amor. I’m sorry, but it’s not a good time for you to visit.”

  “¿Por qué no?” Ignacio cut in. “Everyone knows about us now. Why can’t we visit the set?”

  Ashton nearly choked. “We?”

  “Sí, let’s all go.” Abuelita Bibi looked up from her knitting with an excited smile.

  Yadiel cheered while Ashton panicked at the image of his worlds colliding. What would the cast and crew think? And, coño, what if they met Jasmine? His father would absolutely try to meddle.

  Not to mention the potential for exposing them to the public, to the press, to . . . anyone with nefarious purposes.

  “Espérate,” he began, but Ignacio got up and patted him on the shoulder.

  “We’ll come tomorrow, okay?” Then he leaned in and said in a low voice, “The person you’re worried about is back in jail.”

  The person—did he mean the stalker? “How do you know?”

  Ignacio shrugged and gave him a crooked smile. “I check with my friends at the policía every month.”

  Some of the tightness in Ashton’s chest eased. Of course Ignacio hadn’t forgotten what had happened. He’d been there that night. While Ashton had grabbed Yadiel out of his crib and called the police, his father had run outside with a baseball bat to chase the intruder away. What’s more, Ignacio had also been the one to file all the reports and follow up with the Miami PD while Ashton made immediate plans to sell the house and move Yadiel to Puerto Rico. Without his father’s help, Ashton never would’ve gotten through the experience.

  Looking around at their smiling faces, at Yadiel high-fiving Abuelita Bibi, at Ignacio and Abuelito Gus discussing what they were going to wear to the studio, Ashton couldn’t deny them this. Even though it scared him.

  He nodded. “Fine. I’ll ask the producers.”

  God help him.

  Chapter 33

  Some small part of Jasmine hoped Ashton would have reached out while she slept, to offer an explanation, an apology, something. Instead, she got radio silence.

  Oh, she had plenty of texts and voice mails, but not a single one from Ashton.

  Everything about her . . . fling? Affair? She didn’t even know what to call it. But everything about her time with Ashton had been different from all her other relationships.

  Except this part. The part where she ended up alone. Again. Shit had hit the fan, and he’d bounced. Left her hanging. Ghosted her.

  Okay, so he was probably dealing with some shit over on his end. After everything he’d told her, she could understand why he’d gone to extreme lengths to protect his child. It was admirable, if misguided. No one could work in the public eye and expect complete privacy. She knew that all too well. Especially since the news about Ashton’s son had unleashed renewed interest in Jasmine and her love life.

  The “love triangle” rumor had picked up steam, and now a lot of outlets were carrying the story. Jasmine indulged in an epic eye roll. Of all the ridiculous notions. There was no jealousy on the set or secret text messages, but the tabloids would write anything they could dream up to make the story more salacious.

  They even unearthed Seth Thomas, Jasmine’s ex from Sunrise Vista, from whatever rock he’d been living under after a cocaine bust and multiple DUIs, to prove that Jasmine had a pattern of messy breakups.

  As if she weren’t 100 percent aware of her own romantic failings.

  Also, those things had happened to Seth long after they’d broken up and had nothing to do with her.

  It hurt, being made out to be some kind of wild woman who threw herself at every man she worked with. Especially since, deep down, she worried it might be true.

  She was just looking for love. What was so wrong with that? Granted, she was clearly looking in all the wrong places. But the headlines cut her to the core. Gems like HERE ARE 8 OF JASMINE LIN’S MOST MEMORABLE BREAKUPS, JUST IN TIME TO MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER ABOUT YOUR OWN MISERABLE LOVE LIFE. Jasmine didn’t think any of her breakups were particularly memorable, and she declined to go down memory lane with the photo slideshow. Or SOAP SLUT? JASMINE LIN’S ON THE PROWL WITH HER LATIN LOVER COSTAR AND HIS SECRET BABY. Slut-shaming and an offensive stereotype, all in one headline? Real classy.

  And another by her good friend Kitty Sanchez that made an old quote from Seth sound like it was from McIntyre: DESPERATELY SEEKING JASMINE: EX SAYS “SHE WAS OBSESSED WITH ME.”

  So much for her Leading Lady Plan. Clearly all anyone cared about was who she was fucking. Why bother trying to do more?

  Anger flared—at Ashton, but also at herself.

  She’d done it again, given her heart and her body to someone without any kind of assurances that they felt the same way.

  Even she couldn’t ignore the patterns anymore. She’d seen them during that horrific brunch with her family, as if there were glaring neon signs over the heads of her parents and siblings that read, HERE IS THE SOURCE OF YOUR EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE! UNPACK ME!

  She didn’t want to. She wanted to leave it all bundled up and locked away. But once you knew, you couldn’t unknow.

  This was it, then. The final straw that would break a lifelong pattern of loo
king to men for external validation, for proof of her worth.

  No. More.

  The Leading Lady Plan, written in a mix of her handwriting and Michelle’s, flashed in her mind, reminding her that she was a badass queen who was whole and happy on her own.

  Old Jasmine would have tormented herself with what-ifs and all the ways she might have done something to cause this.

  New Jasmine refused to take the blame for the actions and choices of others. This was not her fault. She had not forced the media to obsess over her. She had not made Ashton hide his son. And she certainly hadn’t done anything to warrant the kinds of headlines being written about her.

  From now on, she would never again allow anyone to make her feel like her worth came from the man she was attached to. Not her parents, not the media, not goddamned Kitty Sanchez, and not herself either.

  Fueled by fresh resolve, Jasmine threw back the covers and stalked to the bathroom mirror to check her eyes. Not puffy, despite her restless night. Maybe her grandmother was on to something with this snail stuff.

  Instead of waiting until she got to the studio for her first hit of caffeine, she padded into the suite’s tiny kitchen and brewed herself a cup there. Maybe it would help her get her head on straight before she got to work.

  She spent the morning filming opposite Peter Calabasas on the sound stage outfitted as the Serrano PR office. Ashton was nowhere to be found, but then, he wasn’t in that scene. After that, Jasmine was booked for an interview, thanks to Tanya, the hardest working publicist in the business.

  A PA had set up two chairs off to the side of the sound stage, along with some lights. Jasmine took a seat opposite a pale, gangly man with short dark hair. The first few minutes of the interview were fine, mostly questions about Carmen, but then he blindsided her.