by Maggie Marr
“How’s your tummy?” he asked.
“What?” I’d totally forgotten the excuse I’d used the night before at Area to get out of the club and get home. “Oh… right. So much better when I got up today. I am so glad I went home when I did.”
Choo’s eyes looked past me and toward the view, then his brilliant blue eyes locked on to me. The brilliant blue eyes that looked so much like Dillon’s. My heart leapt with the memory of last night—of Dillon pinning me to the wall at the club, his breath so close, his body pressed against mine, and then the flush of embarrassment that had coursed through me with the things he said. I wasn’t trying too hard; I wasn’t trying for anything other than having a good time. Memories of him with the girl. The rush, the thrill that had pulsed through me while I watched him have sex with her. Then the other Dillon. The one from this morning. The “good guy” who’d found my Jeep and fixed it. That guy had pinned me this morning with his looks and his face and the attraction I felt for him.
“Is something going on with you and my brother?”
A short gasp broke over my lips. I dropped the script I’d been reading to my thighs.
“I thought so.” A sad little smile crept across his face. He looked up at the sky. “That man-whore.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Nothing. It’s not like that.” I searched the sky with my eyes and let out a heavy sigh. “Nothing has happened between us. Nothing can happen between us. He doesn’t even want me in the same room with him. I can’t figure him out. Sometimes he seems okay with me working for him and sometimes it seems like…” My words drifted away into silence.
“Like what?”
“Like he can’t stand me.”
“Oh, he can stand you. That’s the problem.” A smile curved over Choo’s lips. “It’s complicated,” Choo said. “The last two years have been a roller coaster. Our parents toss me out. I’m homeless. Dillon tries to work three jobs, I try to work two jobs all to pay for my college and his college plus a place for us to live. Out of nowhere he gets plucked for that Armani ad. And now this?” Choo held up his hands at our surroundings. “The whole thing is surreal.”
I nodded. My gaze latched onto the script on my lap while a picture of my mother played in my mind. I understood how life could change in a second. One phone call. One diagnosis. One moment and your entire existence, your entire reality upended.
“Now Webber and Boom Boom—”
“Boom Boom?” I couldn’t hold back my skeptical grin.
“I know, right? Sounds like a stripper.” Choo sniffed. “She’s not. She’s Dillon’s publicist. So now Webber and Boom Boom have this whole plan to brand Dillon. To sell him to the public like he’s some packaged product. Like diapers or deodorant.” Choo leaned his head onto his hand. He crooked his lips to the left and shook his head, but his voice held the sound of surrender. “His first movie comes out in July and they are selling him as this unattainable bad boy. Ungettable, but sexy as hell.”
Heat curled up my thighs with Choo’s words. “I see it,” I said.
Choo raised his palms to the sky and shrugged. “I mean, I get it, but it’s my brother. To me he’s always going to be the disgusting, pudgy twelve-year-old who lights his farts on fire.”
“Oooo.” I scrunched up my face. “That is disgusting.” The thought of a goofball preadolescent Dillon with a lighter and bad gas made me laugh.
“But it is true as far as never committing,” Choo said. “He never really has. I mean, there are girls—there have always been girls—but just no girlfriends.”
A tiny bit of joy pulsed through me, some weird sense of pleasure that Dillon had never given his heart away. “We don’t have to worry about that.”
“Right,” Choo added. A question hung in the air around his word. Something unsaid that Choo was thinking but didn’t say.
“What?” I blushed. “It’s nothing like that… I mean, we haven’t been… I’ve never been…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it, even to Choo.
He leaned toward me and put both his hands on his knees as if he was being told a most outrageous secret. “Wait, Lane . . . Are you telling me you’re a…” He slid his eyes to the left and to the right as if he couldn’t quite get his mind wrapped around the idea. “Are you telling me you’re a… virgin?” He whispered the word as though it was too dirty to cross over his lips.
My entire chest, neck, and face flamed red. I bit down on my bottom lip and closed my eyes, then gave one silent nod.
“Oh my God!” Choo shrieked. He jumped to his feet and covered his mouth with both hands.
“Stop!” I was completely embarrassed by his reaction.
Choo pressed his lips tight together widened his eyes and sat down on the lounger again. “A virgin,” he whispered between his cupped hands. “I don’t think I’ve known one since eighth grade.”
“Come on,” I said. “It’s not that unusual.”
“Oh yeah, it is. In L.A. You’re starting your fourth year of college and you haven’t had sex with a guy? You’re like a two-headed pink unicorn out here.”
I sighed. This reaction was exactly why I didn’t share this tidbit of information with many people. “Look. I had a boyfriend in high school, and he was great but… we were more friends than anything. Then I started college and I have to keep a three point five for my scholarship and I have to work and there just wasn’t time, and then there was the thing with my mom last year.”
I closed my eyes. I forgot because it felt like I’d known Choo for forever that I actually hadn’t, and he didn’t know all the details of my life. So much had happened in so little time.
“When she was sick.” I didn’t want to get into the details. “Before she…” I wasn’t sure I could share all of it. “She just…” Not yet. “She just…” I shook my head. I felt so empty when I talked about what had happened. “I spent most of last year trying to juggle all that. There wasn’t time for anything else.”
“So you and Dillon haven’t?” He ran his pointer finger through a circle he made with his other hand.
“Please,” I said, “don’t be disgusting. I’ve known him two minutes and I am obviously not his type.”
“Most girls that’s how long it takes.” He leaned forward and picked up Kong. “No, you’re not his usual type.” Choo petted Kong on his belly.
My teeth ground with Choo’s comment. I got that I wasn’t as hot as the type of girls Dillon usually was with, but I didn’t want my only friend in L.A. confirming what I already knew.
“That was part of why I hired you.” Choo’s eyes raked over me. “You’re not Dillon’s type right now. For later, when he’s done with his branding opportunity, you’re exactly the type of girl I could see with my brother.”
My toes curled with Choo’s comment. He could see Dillon with me? He could picture it?
“Look, he’s just…” Choo’s eyes gazed out over the view again. “He’s complicated. His relationship with our mom and dad”—he shook his head and rubbed his fingers over his eyes—“we don’t really have much of a relationship with them.”
I bit my bottom lip. “I overheard him one day on the phone with your mom.”
Choo whipped his eyes toward me. “Overheard Dillon? Talking to our parents?”
His surprise alarmed me. I hoped I hadn’t completely stepped into a mess. “I think it was your mom.”
Choo leaned back and rolled his eyes toward the sky. “Yeah, they still call him. He’s not contaminated. He can still be saved.”
I took a deep breath. “You’re an amazing person with an amazing heart.” I grabbed his shoulder with my hand. “I’m sorry your parents don’t see that.” I squeezed and he placed his hand over mine. “Maybe someday…”
Choo shook his head. “No. Not ever.” He pulled his lips tight and I saw a deep sadness in his eyes. “They sent me to be deprogrammed twice. The last time I nearly died.” He pulled his bottom lip into his mouth and closed his eyes. “I’m the reason Dillon works so hard.
” He scrubbed his hand over Kong’s belly. “Lost puppies aren’t the only thing my big brother saves.” He looked into my eyes and I saw the slick tears.
They were so lucky they had each other. What I wouldn’t give to have someone… anyone… some family for me. I didn’t have anyone anymore. Not a soul. Sometimes I felt so alone. I couldn’t imagine what it felt like to have parents who hated who you were so much that they would intentionally hurt you.
“You guys are really lucky you have each other,” I said.
“Yeah, we are,” Choo said. “And now you’re here too. At home on our island of misfit toys.”
“I love that movie.”
Choo nodded and smiled. “The best. Girl, we have so many movies to get through this summer. What’s on the agenda for tonight?”
I grabbed my computer. “I pulled up the AFI lists earlier. I thought we’d do drama first and then comedy.”
Choo shook his head no. “We do a comedy and then a drama. I need to intersperse the funny with the tears.”
I pointed at him. “Good call.”
“So what’s first?”
“We already went through the first fourteen, so tonight it’s The Philadelphia Story.”
“Oh, but she’s so yar,” Choo said, doing his best Katherine Hepburn impersonation. He placed the back of his hand on his forehead as though he might swoon. He wiggled his eyebrows at me and I clapped at his performance. Choo popped back up. “Can I ask Jackson to come over?”
“But of course.”
My phone beeped and I pulled it from my jean shorts pocket. I read the text and a smile broke across my face.
“What is it?” Choo asked, curiosity in his voice.
“Just this guy I met,” I said and shrugged my shoulders. I looked through my eyelashes at Choo. “He’s having a party and wants to know if I’ll go.”
“Hell yeah!” Choo said and nodded. “Hot guy? Party? Katherine, Jimmy Stewart, and Cary Grant will just have to wait.”
I bit my bottom lip. “Here’s the thing, I don’t want to go alone and—”
“Girl, say no more. I am all over this.” Choo pulled his phone from his pocket. “Can Jackson go?”
I nodded. Choo’s fingers danced across his phone. “What time,” he asked without looking up.
“Ten?”
“Perfect.”
I texted Taylor that I would be at his party with two friends.
Chapter 12
Lane
Bob deposited Choo, Jackson, and me at the address for Taylor’s party. The house was high in the hills off Laurel Canyon. Light shone out from the sleek glass windows and music trickled toward us as we climbed the stairs to the front door.
Excitement churned through me. I was excited to go to a party, meet more people, talk to a cute guy who smiled at me and made me laugh. I knocked and the door swung open. Music blasted from the house.
“You left the pups at home?” Taylor said. A so-happy-to-see-you smile spread across his face. He held the door open for us. He looked past me and reached out his hand to Choo and Jackson.
“This is Choo and his boyfriend, Jackson,” I said.
“I’m Taylor,” he said and shook both their hands. “Thanks for coming.” He stepped away from the door to let us in. Choo looked over his shoulder at me and mouthed, “So hot.”
I smiled and nodded. We followed Taylor into the house. The place was modern and minimalist. If not for the crowd, I would see straight through to the backyard.
“This is huge!” I yelled over the music. “You have a lot of friends.”
He skirted around a group that contained two CW stars and a guy from the last Christopher Nolan movie. “I just have a few. My cousins grew up in L.A. Most of these people are their friends.”
Taylor nodded toward a leggy, raven-haired girl who looked too beautiful not to be on the cover of Vogue. Her hair draped to the middle of her bare back. Her skin was fair, and she had high cheekbones and a swan-neck. She turned and looked toward us and her blue eyes nearly pierced me.
“That’s my cousin, Amanda,” Taylor said.
She glanced from Taylor to me and the corners of her mouth tilted into a tiny smile.
“She’s so beautiful,” I said. “She doesn’t even look real.”
“Tell me about it,” Taylor said. “But Amanda is very real. A real pain in my ass most the time.” He smiled when he said it. I sensed that Amanda was more like a sister than a cousin to him. “And that’s her brother.” Taylor nodded as a black-haired guy in a T-shirt and jeans walked up beside Amanda. He was taller, but their skin tone was the same and their hair was an inky-black color and loosely curled.
“Are they twins?” I asked. They were both so beautiful—nearly unreal.
“No.” Taylor tilted his beer to his lips. “But they get asked that a lot. “Sterling is three years older than Amanda.”
We stopped at the bar and Taylor got me a vodka and tonic. “Sterling’s out of school and works for their dad, but Amanda is at USC.”
“And you live here with them?”
Taylor nodded. “When I’m not touring.”
“Touring?” I asked. “What? Are you a musician?”
A sly smiled spread on his face. “Nah,” Taylor said. “I ride a bike.” He took a swig of his beer.
“As in it’s your job?”
Taylor nodded.
“I’ve never met a professional athlete before.”
“It’s part of the reason my mom moved us to Cali. I can train year-round and, well…” He tipped his bottle toward Amanda, who now wove through the crowd toward us. “We have family here.”
“You must be the girl with the dog pack?” Amanda said. She slid her eyes from her cousin to me. There was a sharpness to her, an edge as though you had to earn the right to get close to her. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Really?”
Taylor shifted from one foot to another. “Not a lot,” he said and took another sip of beer.
“Okay,” Amanda said. “If that’s how you want to play it, cousin.” She leaned forward and cupped her hand over her mouth. “A lot,” she whispered to me and smiled.
I’d only noticed Taylor today, but he must have been checking me out for a while.
“Taylor said you just moved to L.A.,” Amanda said.
I nodded. I realized that aside from some hurried phone conversations with Emma, I hadn’t spoken with a girl in what seemed like forever. “I had an internship at CTA,” I said. “Or I thought I had an internship at CTA, but that didn’t work out.”
Amanda bit her bottom lip and we all sat on the couch.
“But they found me something else. I’m reading scripts for one of their clients,” I said.
“Which one,” Amanda asked. She combed her fingers through her long hair.
“Dillon MacAvoy.”
Amanda’s eyes flashed from me to Taylor. “You’re Dillon MacAvoy’s reader?”
A wave of panic crested through me. Choo had said Dillon was a complete man-whore. I hoped that didn’t mean that he’d slept with Amanda. I mean, she was completely his type—put together, beautiful, so completely L.A.
“Do you know him?”
Amanda shook her head. “Not personally,” she said. “But he may be working in my father’s next film.”
This moment was so L.A. Amanda’s father was probably some outrageously famous movie star. I had to ask the question. I wanted to know. Oh. My. God. I’d become just as bad as Nancy’s assistant in HR at CTA.
“Who’s your dad?” My insides cringed with the words.
“Steve Legend,” Amanda said. “King of the action film.”
“And the highest grossing producer of all time,” I added.
Amanda tilted her head and sipped her drink. She pulled her lips together into a pucker, then rattled the ice in her glass. She sighed. “If you’re reading for Dillon, you’ll want to meet my brother.” She nodded toward Sterling, who stood on the far side of the room with two othe
r guys and a girl. “He and my dad want Dillon for their next film. Hunter—”
“Fabian is directing.” I finished Amanda’s sentence. “I read that script this week. I liked it. I told Dillon I liked it.”
“Sterling will be happy to hear it,” Amanda said. “The entertainment community…” Amanda rolled her gaze toward the ceiling. “Once you’re in it, you can’t ever get away from it. It’s like a small town in a huge city.”
“I have a hard time believing that anything about Los Angeles is small-town. I know what a small-town is. I grew up in a small town.”
“You don’t believe me?” The corners of Amanda’s lips raised in a puckish smile. “There are only ten thousand professionals in the entertainment community. That is a small town.” She gazed across the room. “See the guy with the baseball cap?”
I nodded.
“His dad won the Academy Award last year for best actor. And the girl he’s got his arm around?”
Again I nodded.
“Her mom runs Galaxy Pictures.” She leaned forward and waved her hands toward the room. “Everyone in here has some sort of industry connection. Most of us went to school together, same summer camps, same parties, our parents worked together. It’s like a specialized business in a big city. A small town.” She shrugged her shoulders. “And for us”—she placed her hand in the center of her chest—“it’s a family business.”
Taylor wore an amused grin. “Don’t look at me, I’m just the stupid jock in the family.”
“The stupid jock with a degree from Stanford,” Amanda said. “Not very stupid at all. Plus a shot at the next Olympics if you play it right.”
“Really?” My eyes widened. “That’s amazing.”
“There are about a million miles between me and the next Olympics,” Taylor said. “Good thing I like to ride my bike.”
Amanda stood up. “Sorry. I have to go help a girlfriend of mine, she’s being accosted by this guy who loves her but she can barely stand.”
My eyes followed Amanda’s gaze. Her friend, the one she was saving, just happened to be Zoey Collin, the female lead in the number one film in theaters right now. I worked hard to pretend not to notice.