“Seriously.”
The word broke the lengthy silence between us.
“I believe you.”
“And when it was all there for the taking, I took. Believe me. So do a lot of us. So would you.”
“Probably,” I agreed. “But I haven't yet, and kinda don't plan on starting.”
Part of my deal with Mom. I had to stay me and not become another typical Hollywood Kid out here.
He leaned in front of me, his thumb tilting my chin up to peer into my eyes. “I'd say we'll see about that, Daniels.”
I know the last thing on Earth I wanted was to like JT, even remotely, and even worse, fall for him. Like, could it get any more cliché? Naive teenage girl falling for the walking definition of the quintessential Hollywood bad boy. All he needed was the leather jacket and a motorcycle.
I had a sneaking suspicion he already owned both.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why'd you go to rehab in the first place?” I'd done a bit of Googling and had turned up a bunch of articles, mostly tabloid stuff, but I figured it was better to hear it straight from him.
He went silent for a few minutes as he stared at the lights slowly coming on in the houses on the hills below.
“Stupid stuff.” He started to rip the corner off the paper bag, shredding it into tiny pieces.
“Like?” I pressed gently. Maybe I was pushing too much. This was the most we’d talked one on one. Maybe not exactly the best time to delve into our life stories.
“Like, I was fifteen, sixteen, partying like I was twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-nine, even.” He didn't even look at me. “I liked my Corona and lime. When I had my first motorcycle accident, I broke my ankle in two places and had to have a plate put in. That’s when I added a cocktail of pain killers to the mix.”
“Wow.” I hadn't quite expected him to be so blunt about it all.
“That was the first go around. The second time, I was back on the painkillers, and my parents talked me into going, saying it might be what I needed to get my acting career going again.”
“So you still want to act?”
I remembered seeing him in movies when I was like nine or ten and he would have been about my same age at the time, but really nothing since then. ’Course, I hadn’t made the connection at the party. Back then, he’d gone by Justin, and he didn’t really resemble the skinny little kid with the big blue eyes anymore.
“Yeah. Actually had a few auditions again this week.” He straightened up and looked at his empty cup. “You done?”
I looked at the remnants of my drink, completely unaware I must have finished it in the last few minutes. “Looks like it.”
“Good. We better get going, anyway. It’s getting late.”
I stuffed the garbage back into the paper bag. “I don’t have a set time to be home.”
Suddenly, I didn’t want this to be the end of our first date.
He shot me a smile. “That’s good. There’s still one place I want to take you tonight.”
***
It was hours later that I sat on the front steps, JT next to me. Dad’s car was gone, and the security lights were yet again illuminating the house, giving it that warm and cozy, not to mention inhabited, feel.
“Thanks for tonight.” I held the half-eaten cotton candy he’d bought me before we’d left the Santa Monica Pier.
He scuffed his sneaker against one of the stones. “Glad you had a good time. I didn’t want to risk us getting another ‘mystery girl’ mention, so I went low-key.”
“Low-key was great.”
Actually, low-key was pretty much perfect. Matching baseball caps pulled low, and he kept his sunglasses on half the night.
Despite my fear of heights, which I guessed maybe I’d conquered that afternoon on the rooftop, I’d loved riding on the Pacific Wheel down at the Pier. But my favorite had been the vintage carousel. JT, however, favored the rollercoaster, which somehow, I survived without getting ill. We must have ridden it half a dozen times or more before he finally decided to move on to something else. Maybe he’d been smart waiting ’til after we’d done the ride thing to get me the cotton candy.
I caught him looking at me. “Seriously. It’s probably the best first date I’ve been on.”
Hands down, it beat going to a movie or hanging out at someone’s house watching them play video games.
The corner of his mouth tugged up in a small smile as his eyes met mine.
Suddenly, all I wanted in the world right then was to kiss him.
I gave in to impulse and leaned over to kiss him. I could smell the mix of his citrus aftershave and the salt air we’d spent so much of the night in as my lips touched his, an almost static-like zap of electricity hitting me as I tasted the cotton candy on his lips.
He pulled back with that amused grin on his face, his forehead leaning gently against mine for a second before he pulled further away. “I knew you liked me, Daniels.”
“It’s the cotton candy. Gets me every time.”
He looked at the blue tuft still in my hands. “I’ll remember that.”
18
The phone call from Lorna a few mornings later had woken me up, but I hadn't pushed myself out of bed to catch it before it went through to voicemail. All I knew from her message was she hoped I'd had a nice weekend and if I was available, could I come down to the offices that morning? Short and sweet and totally not telling me anything.
I had a feeling the photos were back, and Rico either wanted to, a) congratulate me on a job well done, or b) tell me he was very sorry I wasn't at all photogenic and Adriana was now taking over, and how soon could I return my unused House of Vanetti wardrobe? Also, where could he send the bill for the rest of the clothing?
I really needed to work on my optimism.
Parking in my usual spot outside Rico's offices, I grabbed my cell and tote bag and headed inside. The place was calmer than it had been on the weekend, and I felt a lot more relaxed when Lorna waved at me from behind the desk, wearing the identical red T-shirt I'd worn out with JT on our date the other night.
“Hi, Chey. You’re early.”
“Too early? I can come back.” I motioned back to the door. I could drive around, get a coffee, kill some time until they were ready for me.
“No, it's fine. Go on back. Rico's in one of the back rooms looking over the photos.”
I paused, about to go over there. I searched her face for a sign of what the pictures had turned out like, but she simply smiled and waved me back. Darn it, I was hoping for some sort of idea what they had turned out like, but her expression was almost neutral. Not helpful at all.
I still didn’t budge.
“Go on. He can’t wait to see you.”
That didn’t tell me anything.
I headed back and found Rico in a small office off to the side. I hesitated, gathering my nerve. Even from where I stood outside the doorway, I could see the oversized table he sat in front of covered in shots from my shoot.
“Rico?” I wasn’t sure I should disturb him. He looked busy and all, but on the other hand, Lorna had told me to go right in to the back office.
“There she is!” He stood and hurried towards me. “My favorite model. The camera adores you.”
I smiled in relief as he gave me a hug, glad he was pleased. I was afraid none of them would be usable, even with the extreme use of Photoshop.
He took my hand and pulled me into the room, closer to the photos that littered the table.
I was almost afraid to look.
“Sit. Take a look at these.” He pulled another chair up. “Can you stick around awhile? Todd’s waiting for the final mock-up of the billboards to be delivered. He’ll be back soon.”
I couldn’t stop the huh that came out of my mouth. Nobody had mentioned billboards. I’d known there were going to be print ads in the papers. Obviously, they’d be online, and he’d wanted to paper the windows of the boutique with huge
colored posters while they finished the inside in the next week or so, but this?
A billboard?
A larger-than-life, down-the-side-of-a-building billboard like he’d just said while I was sitting here silently freaking out? Totally made my head swim.
He must have sensed my…slight freak out.
“Only a few scattered strategically around the city. Nothing to worry about.” He patted my shoulder gently.
Yeah, if I wasn’t the worrying type. Unfortunately, that was another lovely gene I’d inherited from my parents.
“By this time Friday, your face will be everywhere,” he continued on, clearly not noticing my sudden bout of panic.
I swore the room swam around me. It felt like I was drowning—the lack of air, the feeling of panic; yet, I found myself nowhere near the water. I felt Rico’s hand on my arm and realized I was still standing.
“Come sit. Do you want a soda? Some iced water? Coffee?”
“No, no. I’m fine.” Though I admit I wobbled a little as he led me over to the bright red vinyl couch against the wall. I fell back into it just as Todd made his way into the room, a large cardboard poster tube in his hands.
“Am I late?” he asked after giving me a quick hello.
“Right on time. Well, let’s take a look.” Rico smiled, turning to me. “We had a tough time choosing.”
I found my nails digging unconsciously into the armrest and tried to loosen my grip before they could do any damage to the furniture as Todd carefully pulled the poster out and began to unravel it. My lungs started to burn from lack of oxygen, but I wasn’t going to be able to breathe until I saw more than the tip of the skyline.
I watched in awe as it unfolded, noticing something funny. My shoe was at the top. Which meant…I tilted my head.
“Upside down,” I said, breaking my silence.
Todd looked horrified, and Rico simply laughed as they righted the poster. Before I knew it, the whole shot was on display, and the only thing I could do was gape. The girl staring back from the poster was gorgeous, and I fought back the little voice that said she couldn’t possibly be me.
“Is that me?” I couldn’t believe the words came out of my mouth as I felt my face turn fire-engine red.
Todd gave me a rare smile. “That is you. And this is the look that’s going on how many billboards across L.A.?”
He turned to Rico.
“A dozen, at least. That’s what we had booked before, but now, looking at this, maybe I should try and wrangle a few more. Print ads of different shots are going in the paper next week. The digital ads are going to be finalized before the end of tomorrow and start running a few days after…just bits and pieces to get some early buzz. Before you know it, Chey, you’re going to be a household name around here. But mum’s the word, okay? I want these to make the biggest impact possible.”
I stared at the image, my vision just a little blurry around the edges as I locked on the girl staring back at me from the glossy surface. I heard Rico’s voice as if in the distance, and suddenly, there was a cold bottled water in my hand.
“Take a sip, Chey…”
That light-headed feeling was back again, and I took a long sip of my iced water Rico had procured for me, not tasting a single drop of it as I stared in awe at the glossy image.
Rico and Todd conversed in front of me, but I didn’t hear a single word they were saying, my attention solely focused on the image staring back at me, still hanging in Todd’s grasp.
The Vanetti logo was transparent in the skyline above my head, but I couldn’t take my gaze off my face. It was like staring back at a total stranger.
19
I walked in around in a daze for a day or two after seeing the mockups. As much as I tried to tell myself this was just something fun for the summer, it suddenly felt a lot more real after that.
Like pinch yourself ’til it hurts so you realize it’s not a dream real.
Thankfully, I had Sorche to distract me. She’d been busy with her mom for a couple of days, but we were finally getting together to go shopping.
We wandered around The Grove while I tried to find the perfect birthday gift for my father. What to get a guy who could buy himself anything in the world he wanted? After a couple hours of searching, I really should have had more ideas than I did, which so far amounted to a big fat zilch.
“Any ideas yet?” Sor asked as we walked out of yet another store, more shopping bags in hand.
Okay, so I couldn’t find anything for Dad other than a couple new workout T-shirts; didn’t mean I couldn’t splurge and buy a little something extra for me—especially when that morning, a courier had dropped off my first check from House of Vanetti.
“Not a one.” I followed her down the sidewalk, weaving through the crowds and into another of Sor’s favorite places.
“You’ll find something. You’ve got at least another week, right?”
“Right.” That’s why Trish had taken me to lunch the other day after I’d gone by Rico’s to see the mock-up, to talk over the plans for Dad’s birthday, which thanks to her and the event planner she’d hired, was pretty well all taken care of. Except for my gift. Thankfully, I had Sor to bounce ideas off of. But I figured I wanted something more substantial than just workout gear he could buy himself.
“How’d the date with JT go?” she asked as we walked into another clothing store.
I shrugged. “Pretty good.”
I didn’t feel like telling her his spiel of ‘this was all mine now’ because I knew she’d agree. She’d already told me several times I needed to step into it more. But I was still a little leery about stepping in too far, afraid the door would slam shut behind me. Maybe I’d listened to Mom’s warnings about the L.A. lifestyle more than I realized.
Or maybe I was just plain scared.
I didn’t want to consider that option.
“Be honest, is it infatuation or what?” Sor asked as we began to look through the racks of shirts and she started draping a few hangers over her arm.
I sighed, noticing a couple people looking our way, more than likely due to recognizing Sorche.
“I don’t know. I’m only here for the summer, remember?” Which seemed to be starting to pass by at an alarming rate. I didn’t even want to think about how much time had already zoomed by. Days had turned into weeks pretty quickly out here.
“So you keep stubbornly insisting.” She pulled a last halter top off the rack and added it to the stack of hangers in her hand. “You wanna wait here? I want to try a few of these on.”
“Go ahead.” Least I could do was wait. She was helping me try and find the perfect birthday gift for Dad. Something I’d completely forgotten about ’til Trish reminded me. Bad daughter that I was. Just proved how quickly time was moving.
I found a leather chair outside the dressing rooms and held onto Sor’s shopping bags while she disappeared behind one of the doors with her armful of clothes. She was having way better shopping luck than me.
Before I knew it, the door swung back open, and she walked out barefoot, adjusting the black slacks and a silvery purple halter top as she stopped in front of the full-length mirror.
“What do you think? Will it work for your dad’s party?”
“Looks great.” Trish had booked some great club for the night; I’d never heard of it ’til she’d brought up the website on her cell phone at lunch, but it was gorgeous inside. Had a bit of a retro feel to it in the VIP area, with the half-circle booths, but it was the perfect spot for Dad’s big birthday bash.
She smiled. “What are you wearing?”
“I thought I’d go with something Rico gave me.” I decided not to mention the red dress or the photo shoot out in public, just for the simple fact there were way too many people around and, knowing my luck, someone who shouldn’t overhear would.
“I should’ve known that, huh?” She laughed as she headed back to the dressing room. “Just let me try on a couple more things, then we can get something t
o eat.”
“Sounds good.” I was starving, and every time we passed by a restaurant, my stomach threatened to rumble.
“Ooh, come on, the fountain should start soon,” Sor said as we stepped back into the bright mid-afternoon sunshine a couple minutes later, more shopping bags in hand.
“What are you talking about?” I felt clueless. Didn’t the fountain run all the time?
Sor shook her head as she grabbed my wrist and began pulling me through the early afternoon shoppers. “Every thirty minutes, the fountain dances. Come on, it’s one of my favorite things about shopping here.”
Cruel Summer Page 24
