by Dahlia Adler
“Sorry,” I murmured, forcing myself to banish all thoughts of Liam as I pulled Nate back in for another kiss. Whether it was because I was drunk or because my head was three-thousand miles away, I didn’t know, but it took me about a minute to realize that Nate wasn’t kissing me back.
I pulled away and sighed, but I didn’t want to be the first one to speak. What was I supposed to say, anyway?
Turns out, it didn’t matter what I had to say; Nate had plenty. “You were thinking about him, weren’t you?” he demanded, his jaw set.
“Him who?” I shot back, mostly because I needed to buy some time to figure out how to make myself sound less pathetic for pining after my ex who’d probably forgotten my name by now.
“You know who,” Nate said coldly. “I’m so sick of trying to compete with that stupid pretty piece of crap.”
“He’s not a piece of crap, and you don’t even know him. Besides, I broke up with him and I’m here with you; what more do you want?”
He looked at me pointedly.
I snorted. “You want to have sex? Let’s have sex.” Without waiting for a response, I rose up on my knees and pulled my dress over my head, leaving me in nothing but the same lace underwear set I’d worn to Josh’s party. What was the point of holding on to it—to any of it—anyway? Prom and its fancy dresses were stupid. Waiting, only to lose the person you wanted to sleep with instead of losing your actual virginity, was stupid. Dwelling on long-gone Liam was stupid. Life was too fucking short. “Will that make you feel better? If it helps, Liam never got around to it.”
“Ally…” Nate reached out and touched my arm, and I had to force myself not to recoil. Just get it over with, I mentally commanded, both to me and to Nate. Get this done and maybe everyone will get over whatever they need to get over. But I could tell Nate wasn’t going to move further. Both the way his eyes raked me up and down before meeting mine and the tent that was just beginning to set up camp again in his tuxedo pants said he wanted to, but I knew he wouldn’t. Not without a little push. Or a not-so-little one.
He’d been lying on his side on the bed ever since he’d pulled away. Now I shoved his shoulder so he lay flat and climbed on top of him, rendering my 34Cs unignorable enough to keep him distracted while I unbuttoned his shirt before bending down to kiss him again.
This time, he didn’t resist, returning the kiss with a surprising amount of fire while he gripped my waist to keep me balanced. “You really are hot,” he mumbled in between kisses, as if the thought had never occurred to him before.
He slid his hands up my back and homed in on the clasp of my bra, which he then proceeded to fiddle with to no avail. After a minute or two of trying to let him get it on his own, I was about to tell him I’d get it when he pulled away, angrily spitting, “Fuck it, I can’t do this.”
I jolted back, startled by the venom in his voice. “Nate, it’s not that big a deal. I’ll—”
“No, I can’t do this.” He swept his arm up and down, indicating the length of my body, and slipped out from underneath me to roll off the bed and onto the floor. “We need to stop, Duncan,” he said, his voice low. I could see his fingers shaking as he started to rebutton his shirt. “You shouldn’t be here. Doing this. With me.”
I suddenly felt very cold, but I couldn’t seem to find my dress. I yanked the covers around myself instead. “Why not?”
“First of all, because you’re in love with another guy—”
“Stop talking about Liam,” I cut in, shaking, those words crawling down my spine. “I don’t want to talk about Liam.”
“You think I do?” Nate shot back. “You think I feel good about this?”
“He’s out of the picture!” I exclaimed, growing seriously frustrated. “He wasn’t even mine! Aren’t you the one who was so fond of telling me that?”
“I was full of shit!” Nate yelled back. “I was angry that my date with Vanessa went badly, and I wanted to blame it on actors not being able to date regular people. I wanted things with you and Liam to fail because I wanted to think they had to, that people like us couldn’t be with people like them. And I hated seeing him get both you and the girl I’ve been fantasizing about for years. I just didn’t want him to have everything when I had nothing. I put those shitty ideas into your head so you’d dump him and he’d see what it’s like to be a regular loser for once. I’m sorry, okay?”
“Okay? Okay? No, it is not fucking okay!” My head was spinning. Or maybe the room was spinning. I wanted to yell more, but I knew that the next time I opened my mouth, it was going to be to throw up. I gestured wildly for Nate to pass me the garbage can and I promptly vomited several cups of jungle juice and I don’t even know how many flutes of champagne. Nate at least had the grace to hold my hair back, but he stood as far away from me as possible while doing it, clearly terrified of me.
When I was finally sure I was done, I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand and thrust the can away from me. Nate immediately let go of my hair and backed away.
“How could you do this to me?” I didn’t yell it—my head had begun pounding with a vengeance—but I needed to know. “You lied about liking me, you made me feel like shit about my relationship and myself, and worst of all, you actually pretended to be my good friend the entire time. What did I ever do to deserve this from you?”
“Nothing,” Nate said, his tone a combination of desperation and assurance. “We are friends, Duncan. None of that was bullshit. I had a great time with you tonight and I still—”
“Oh my God, stop.” I held up my hand; I couldn’t listen to him talk anymore. “You think we’re friends? You think friends do this to each other? I can’t have this conversation with you right now. I can’t even be here right now.” I slid off the bed, snatched my dress from where it glittered on the ivory carpet, and pulled it on over my head. “I have to get out of here.” I grabbed my shoes but didn’t slip them on; wearing four-inch heels now was only going to hinder my movements. Before Nate could protest, I was out the door.
* * * * *
Of course, once I actually got away from Nate, I began to realize just how limited my options were. I couldn’t call my parents to pick me up; my father was in the hospital, and I wasn’t going to have my mother bring Lucy along to find me reeking of alcohol. Even if Van and I had been speaking, she was in New York, as, obviously, was Liam. Pretty much everyone else I knew was in that room, and nobody had a car. I’d brought twenty bucks in my bra, but that certainly wasn’t going to be enough for a cab from Malibu.
Behind me, I could hear Nate emerging from the bedroom, so I quickly dashed down the hall and out the back, onto the beach. Not a chance I was going to come face-to-face with him again that night. I had no idea where I was gonna go, but I couldn’t imagine there was anywhere I could end up that would be worse than being at Corrinne’s right then.
After the whole mess with Nate, it actually felt good to be walking outside, breathing in the sea air and letting the cool breeze make the spangles on my dress dance and glimmer in the moonlight. As I thought about how the sand must be sloughing off an entire layer of skin from my feet, I couldn’t help smiling as I thought of how they probably resembled my dad’s now, albeit with some subtle nail polish. Of course, it wasn’t long before the fond thought turned to feelings of guilt at how incredibly stupid I was being right now—how stupid I’d been all night, all month, all year. I had no idea where I was going. Hell, the only other time I’d even been to a beach house in Malibu was—
Josh’s house. Even in the dark of night I could see the backyard of his house just yards down the beach, the tacky Christmas lights that illuminated his palm trees year-round twinkling in the sky like stars on acid. It was an absolutely absurd idea and I knew it even as I felt my legs carry me up the stone stairs from the sand to the pool area, but I pushed all thoughts out of my head except for getting the hell out of Malibu. He might have been an asshole, but he was an asshole with a car—or, at least, cab fare.
I’d
expected that there would be a party going on, but the house was completely silent, which was definitely not good news. I hadn’t thought Josh had planned to go to New York this week—he was all movies and modeling, no TV, so there was no reason for him to be at the upfronts—but what if he’d gone to hang out with Liam at the party? My heart hammered in my chest as I slipped into my shoes and pressed on, refusing to turn around before I knew for sure the house was empty.
It was strange to be in the backyard when it was so quiet; it was a completely different place from the one I’d been to weeks earlier. It was even more beautiful, and definitely more serene. I was dying to dip my aching feet into the pool, but I didn’t dare. I walked right up to the door and searched for a bell, all the while unable to escape the feeling I was being watched.
“It’s just a security camera manning the entrance,” I murmured to myself, glancing upward. I didn’t see a camera, though, nor did I see a bell, but when I turned, I looked straight into a pair of eyes and screamed.
23
“JESUS!” YELLED JOSH, pulling open the door to his media room, where I saw now he’d been sitting and watching The Usual Suspects. “Do you mind? I’m trying to have a peaceful evening at home.”
“I can see that.” I glanced past him, but he was clearly on his own, a bucket of popcorn and a six-pack his only company for the evening. “Look, I’m sorry for just showing up like this. I don’t know if you remember me—”
“Of course I remember you,” he said icily. “I just don’t like you.”
“What did I ever do to you?” I blurted. “You’re the one who walked in on me.”
“First of all, it was my bedroom, and second of all, you dumped my best friend, that’s what you did. What the hell are you doing here, anyway? Trying to trade up?”
“Gross! Of course not!” Then I realized that maybe I shouldn’t have been so emphatic about that, considering I needed to ask a favor. I shifted uncomfortably as I tried to figure out how to ask. “Um, I mean, not that you’re not good-looking and all—”
“Spit it out, Liam’s Ex. I assume you didn’t come here looking for him since I know you know where he is right now.” His expression softened for a moment. “I will say, though, if Liam was upset about not being able to take you to prom before…” He whistled. “You do clean up nicely.”
I barely registered the compliment; I was too focused on the fact that Liam actually gave a damn about not being able to take me to prom, so much so that he’d even mentioned it to Josh. “He mentioned prom?”
Josh snorted. “What, you think guys don’t talk about shit? I had to listen to him bitch and moan for hours when you dumped his ass.” He shot me a look. “Please tell me you’re not here to do the same. I can’t listen to any more of it. I told him getting a real girlfriend was a bad idea, but he was all, ‘Nah, Chester, she’s special!’ Whatever the fuck.”
With each word, Josh might as well have been poking me with a flaming stick. Everyone seemed out to hurt me that night, and the worst part was that I obviously deserved it. Maybe Liam and I weren’t meant to be, but he’d been as good a boyfriend as he’d been able to be, all things considered. He’d earned more from me than to be ditched at a party and dumped over the phone.
“So, are you going to tell me what you’re doing here?”
I bit my lip. “Can I come inside? It’s getting kind of weird talking to you through the door.”
Josh heaved a sigh like he was doing me the biggest favor in the world and stepped aside to let me in, closing the door behind me. I opened my mouth to tell him I needed to get home, but I ended up spilling out the whole stupid story, from how I’d decided to break up with Liam to how I’d gone to prom with Nate even after fighting about it with Vanessa, and right down to my explosive argument with Nate at Corrinne’s.
“Et voila,” I said lamely, gesturing around me. “No phone, no car, no best friend, no boyfriend, and no available parents. You were the only person I could think of who might be able to help me get home.”
“Wow, that is a pathetic story. No wonder Liam hated that little shit.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” I muttered.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about your dad. That part does blow.”
“Jeez, Liam told you about my dad, too? Boys really do talk.”
“Who do you think gave him the brilliant idea to volunteer so your dad could get a private room?” Josh asked casually, picking up the beer he must’ve been in the middle of drinking before I darkened his doorstep.
I dropped my head into my hands with a groan. That was the final straw. Liam and Vanessa had volunteered to spend the day at the hospital together to help my dad? How the hell had I not put that together?
“You didn’t know he did that,” Josh deduced.
“Apparently, I didn’t know a goddamn thing about my own relationship,” I gritted out. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“About the hospital?”
“About everything! Suddenly everyone seems to be coming out of the woodwork to tell me how much Liam cared about me, but where were they—you—when I needed to hear it? When I felt like a pathetic hanger-on living in a fantasy?”
Josh raised an eyebrow. “So you’re angry because other people didn’t tell you your boyfriend was crazy about you?”
“No, of course not! I just…” Oh God. Had I been that insecure? Had all the signs been there that Liam was all in while I was just too self-conscious about my non-celebrity status to notice? “Was he?” I asked softly. “Crazy about me, I mean.”
He rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t remember who you were if he wasn’t.”
“Then how could he pretend to date Vanessa? And how could he miss my prom?”
“He thought he was doing what you wanted him to do,” said Josh. “He knows how much she means to you—or meant to you, fuck if I know. He was just trying to make you happy, and when he realized he could use it to his advantage with the whole double-date thing, it sounded even better. Of course, he had no idea what a douchebag your little friend was.”
“He’s not my friend,” I growled.
“Whatever. And as for missing your prom…sorry, sweetheart. I don’t know what to tell you. He’s getting paid a fuck-ton of money for hosting the party, and he seemed to think he’d need it to help some chick fly home from college as often as she needed to see her family and her boyfriend, and maybe head over there as often as humanly possible, too. What an asshole, right?”
“Now you’re just messing with me.” Please just be messing with me.
“Why would I bother messing with you when telling you the truth is so much better?”
I gritted my teeth at the evil look in Josh’s amber-colored eyes, but I couldn’t hold my anger for long. I was feeling too many other things—guilt, regret, sadness, and oh Good Lord, did I miss Liam. I would’ve given anything in that moment to be able to run into his arms right then, apologize profusely, and then finish what we’d started upstairs in this very house.
But that wasn’t going to happen, and it couldn’t, as long as Liam was three-thousand miles away.
“When’s he coming back?” I asked Josh, not caring how obvious and desperate I sounded.
“I dunno,” said Josh, taking one last swig of his beer before slamming the bottle down on his coffee table. “First week of August, I guess? Assuming Daylight gets picked up at upfronts tomorrow, which it definitely will.”
“I’m sorry, did you just say August?”
Josh looked at me strangely. “Yeah, when’d you think? Doesn’t make much sense to come back to L.A. for, like, two days before the Gallagher movie starts shooting in New York.”
“So Liam got the part,” I murmured.
“Jesus, when you cut somebody off, you really cut them off, don’t you?”
“Hey, this isn’t all my fault. I said I was okay with following Jade’s orders, not getting it on for every wannabe gossip columnist with a Wi-Fi connection. Besides, it’s not like Liam e
ven came over to try to explain things or get me back.”
“After the way you dumped him? Over the phone? You can’t do that to a guy with trust and abandonment issues like Holloway’s and expect him to come crawling back,” Josh argued. “You’re talking about a guy who had to bribe his fucking father to take him in. When he was eight. And then you just disappear, dodge his calls, and eventually tell him you don’t want to see him anymore?”
“Stop it!” I demanded, jumping up, feeling the tears I’d worked so hard to keep inside begin to prick the insides of my lids. “I get it! I’m a horrible person, and I screwed everything up, and there’s nothing I can do about it.” The tears started to spill, and I couldn’t wipe them away fast enough. How could I have been so selfish? I knew how painful Liam’s life had been better than anyone; had I really deluded myself into thinking that because he was hot and famous, he was invincible? That because Van always bounced back from rejections, Liam was guaranteed to do the same? “Please don’t say any more. I can’t stand it.” With all the tears I’d shed over my father in the last four months, I hadn’t thought I had any left, but it was like a dam had burst. I fled the room, a tearful, snotty mess, and searched for a quiet corner I could truly bawl in.
Josh let me go, but after a few minutes of sobbing in the black marble powder room, I heard footsteps enter and then he handed me a tissue. “You can stay here tonight,” he said in the kindest tone he’d used all evening. “It’s too late to take a cab back alone, and frankly, I don’t wanna pay for it. I’ll call my driver in the morning and have him take you back. Your parents aren’t expecting you back tonight, are they?”
I shook my head, sniffling. I’d texted my mom from Nate’s phone as soon as he’d mentioned the afterparty to tell her I wouldn’t be returning until morning. Wordlessly, I let him lead me to a guest room and accepted the spare toothbrush and oversized T-shirt he provided.
“Thanks for this,” I barely rasped as he started to leave the room. “And hey, if you speak to Liam—”