They reached the red carpet they were to walk on to get to the venue. Kaira moved forward and Peter hung back.
“No you don’t.” She grabbed his arm and yanked him out in front of the cameras. People yelled at her and him. Hailey could imagine the questions she’d be getting in the morning for her. Who was the scared man Kaira drug around the red carpet?
It was their turn to walk out and Hailey felt her legs buckle. She was not ready for this.
“You’re going to be the most stunning lady out there, Little Bird.” He kissed her temple. “Nothing to be worried about.”
Liam was behind them with a date Hailey didn’t recognize, but she didn’t see Dustin or Missy.
“Where’s Dustin and Missy? She texted she’d be here in time to walk with us.”
“She probably had to go to the bathroom five times. They’ll be here,” he said.
He laced his fingers with hers, and they walked out onto the red carpet. She tried to remember to smile as a million flashes went off. She was concentrating on walking and the surreal feeling of being on Jasper Daly’s arm. He was such a natural. He waved and smiled. She watched him joke with the paparazzi and fell for him a little more.
When they made it to the tent at the end, she took a deep breath. They’d made it.
The tent was set up as a green room of sorts. There was a bar and two long buffet tables with food. Hailey’s stomach growled, betraying her. She’d not had time to eat. Not a single woman in the tent was eating. Her stomach growled again.
“Let me get you some food,” Jasper said loudly. “I won’t take no for an answer.” He winked at her as he walked off. He was doing her a favor knowing she wouldn’t go get food by herself. When he returned, there was a plate full of fruit, cheese, and chips with dip.
Overjoyed, she tried to dig in as daintily as possible. She still didn’t see Dustin and Missy so she pulled her phone out to text her.
Hope you’re okay.
“Ma’am come over and grab your gift bag.” A nervous looking young girl in all black approached.
She finished her plate and handed it to Jasper. The girl led her to a table with designer purses completely full of everything from fancy water to fancy tights.
It was surreal, and she stared at the purse without picking it up. Finally, the girl shoved one in her hand and she realized there were people waiting behind her. Embarrassed, she rushed back to Jasper.
She didn’t tell him about her nervous weirdness at the free-stuff table. A tap on the shoulder caused Hailey to jump. She turned around to find Samantha standing behind her. Sam looked amazing with her hair up in curls piled atop her head. She wore a gorgeous form-fitting gold gown.
“What are you doing here?” Hailey asked.
Hailey hadn’t expected to see Sam there. She hadn’t thought about their fight for a while and it all came flooding back.
“Can we talk?” She looked down at Hailey and Jasper’s interlaced hands and smiled.
“Sure,” Hailey said.
Jasper let go of her hand and walked over to talk to one of the event coordinators. They stood throughout the room waiting to make sure no one needed anything.
“Listen,” Sam started, “I’m sorry I took our friendship for granted but I really miss you. I think I’m on the road to getting my shit together. I would like another chance to be a better friend to you.”
Hailey had never heard Sam say anything like that before. “You really did treat me like an afterthought. I appreciate the sorry. I’ve missed you too. So much has happened.”
“I know, for me too,”
They looked at each other and then the ground. It was an awkward moment.
“It’s going to take some time to get back to the way we were,” Hailey said.
“Yeah, I was just thinking that too, but we’ll get there.”
“So why are you here?”
“That day I called I wanted to tell you I met someone. He’s a DJ, a really popular one. Like on albums and up for an award. He treats me great, and we’re serious. It’s not been that long but I know this is the one.” She clasped her hands in front of her face, smiling brightly.
“That’s great, Sam. I’m so happy for you. Let’s do lunch next week and you can tell me about how you two met.”
“Yes, and you can tell me how you bagged Jasper Daly,” she said with a wink.
They embraced and Hailey made her way back to Jasper.
“It’s almost time to go in,” he said. “You want any more food?”
Hailey did but what she had would hold her over until the show was over. She didn’t want to be a total pig when all the waifs were avoiding the buffet as if it was on fire. She shook her head.
As they were walking out of the tent, she heard a commotion outside at the carpet. A girl’s voice rose up over everyone and said some choice words.
“Autumn?” Jasper turned around.
She wasn’t alone. Tara was stumbling right along beside her laughing. The man Autumn was clinging to was a notorious womanizer and not a great guy; the rapper Lil Mouth. He walked up to the buffet and started shoving food in his mouth picking it up with his fingers.
Tara and Autumn headed straight for them. Hailey put an arm around him, feeling him stiffen. Two of these starlets were much worse than one. The fact they’d joined forces to form some sort of mean girl tribe was fitting for the two. It was Tara who was more the bully, but Autumn was easily molded to fit whatever someone needed.
“I see you’ve downsized to dating the help,” Tara said, looking at Hailey.
“Yeah,” Autumn said laughing.
Hailey thought of clever comebacks, but decided smiling would be the best thing for them.
“What are you smiling at?” Tara asked.
Hailey continued to smile, turned Jasper’s head toward hers, and kissed him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and really went for it. Kaira whooped somewhere in the tent. She didn’t let him come up for air until Tara told Autumn it was time to go. When she pulled away, Jasper was breathing hard.
“That’s one way to get them to go away.” He laughed and led Hailey inside the venue so they could find their seats. Kaira and Peter weren’t far behind.
Chapter Nine
She didn’t see Autumn and Tara. It was a good thing they weren’t sitting close by. Hailey was proud of herself. A few months earlier and she would never have had the balls to do such a thing.
The show started and the host appeared on the stage in a burst of smoke.
“Oh no, they are going to do magic this year.” Jasper shook his head.
Sure enough, the host, a well-known comedian, did some poorly executed magic and even called Kaira up on stage to be his helper. Kaira was always a good sport. When he told her to get into a bucket of water, she took off her shoes and pulled her gown all the way up to step in.
“What trick is this?”
The wannabe magician made the water disappear while Kaira stayed dry. It wasn’t a great open, but he quickly got to the rest of the show and it went quickly from there. Hailey looked around to where Liam and his date sat. Missy and Dustin should have been right beside them, but they weren’t there.
The categories were announced, and the winners did short speeches. It was for everything. Actors were called, musicians, people who were in plays, and other entertainers. Hailey had never even heard of the Media and Magic awards, but everyone was taking them seriously.
Jasper was up with his band for best new song for one of their older songs. She wasn’t sure when his category was coming up.
“And now to announce best breakthrough performance in an indie film, Holly Delaney,” the host called out the name of one of Hailey’s favorite actresses.
“I love her!” Hailey said and squeezed Jasper’s hand.
“Yo, yo, yo,” the voice coming from behind the curtain was not Holly’s. It was Autumn’s
“Oh, no,” Hailey said leaning forward.
“I want you to know that my
man, Lil Mouth,” she yelled his name, “is the breakthrough star of the year. Rap for them baby.”
Autumn stumbled onto the stage and the rapper came out right behind her. There was no way the show appreciated the impromptu rap session. She wondered if it was live. Lil Mouth came on stage in a fully white outfit, suit, and top hat. He pointed at Autumn as she danced provocatively behind him with no music.
“Thank you, baby, you hot thing.” The rapper proceeded to jump up and down on stage and rap some super offensive lyrics.
It was embarrassing, shocking, and strange. A man in a black suit walked onto the stage and grabbed Autumn by the arm. She jerked away from him and backed up almost losing her balance. She yelled something that couldn’t be heard over the rapping, and another man dressed the same came out and helped the other one take her off the stage.
They cut Lil Mouth’s microphone. Why hadn’t they done that in the beginning? It would have saved a lot of time. When he realized no one could hear his rapping, he yelled about his album dropping and running back and forth on the stage. The two men who had taken Autumn off the stage came back for him. He ran from them for a while before one of the men tackled him, taking him down hard. It was a PR nightmare and Hailey was pleased she didn’t represent the rapper. She wondered what Matthew thought of Autumn now. Was she just having fun? No, she’d gone completely off the rails.
“Come on,” Jasper leaned in and told her. “We are just going out to the lounge. No one will care. We’ll come back in before my category.
Hailey had no words for what had taken place. There weren’t any. Autumn had completely gone insane. Matthew sat nearby and shook his head. As much as he wanted to help her with her bad girl image, he likely wasn’t expecting her to commit career suicide.
She turned her phone back on after they made their way out of the auditorium. She had three missed calls. Bill was calling her. She looked down and debated on whether she should answer it. Finally, she did. There was no reason for him to call her unless it was an emergency.
“Look, where are you.” Bill didn’t bother with a hello.
“I’m with…”
“Never mind, I don’t care where you are. Just listen. Missy June is in the hospital. Something’s going on with the baby. They were at the award’s show and Dustin almost got in a wreck going over to the hospital with her. The media are outside the hospital. A lot of them followed from the show.”
“Oh my God, what happened?”
“I’ve told you everything I know. You’re still my employee until next week. Take care of our clients.” With that, Bill hung up.
Someone had won an award and the whole place had erupted in applause
“Jasper, something is wrong with the baby. We have to get to the hospital.” She yelled over the crowd’s clapping.
The moment she started screaming they stopped so everyone turned to look at her. There was really no way to explain what she meant, so they took off running towards the door.
“Jasper,” Liam’s voice trailed after them. “Our category’s coming up, where are you going?”
“Something’s wrong with Dustin’s baby, Liam. We’re going to the hospital.”
They made it outside despite the massive amounts of gathering fans. The photographers snapped pictures as they ran.
Jasper tried calling Carl on the way to the car, but he didn’t answer. They found him sitting in the front seat with headphones on, nodding his head along to something. Jasper banged on the window, scaring him, and they jumped into the car. Luckily, there wasn’t that much traffic since the music awards were still going on so they were able to get to the highway without delay.
They made it to the hospital quickly and climbed out at the emergency room. The reporters were crowding around them.
“Did Missy overdose because Dustin isn’t the father?”
“Is Dustin here because he pushed Missy and hurt the baby?”
Hailey tried not to get angry at the stupid questions. She’d have to make a statement to the vultures, but not until she saw if everyone was okay.
“Are you dating Jasper, er, whoever you are?” one woman up front asked.
“Move! Everyone move!” Jasper yelled, and they pushed their way toward the door.
Dustin was pacing the floors, and when he saw Jasper, he rushed forward and hugged him. Hailey’s heart went out to him; the concern on his face was painful.
“Why are you out here? Will they not let you go back?”
“No, not yet. They told me if something was wrong with my daughter I could come back, but right now they are running some tests or something.”
“So, what happened?” Hailey asked.
They all sat in the hard chairs along the wall of the waiting room.
“We had just gotten to the show and Missy had to go to the bathroom. I was standing out front talking to some fans when she came running back crying hysterically. I had to get her back into the bathroom where the reporter couldn’t follow us to figure out what was wrong. She said she was bleeding, and she was worried about the baby. Being almost seven months pregnant now is concerning.”
Hailey couldn’t believe it had already been seven months. When she thought about it, though, she was almost three months pregnant when she told her. It had really only been around four months that Hailey had known.
“Whatever you need from us, we’re here okay,” Jasper said, patting Dustin on the back.
The three of them sat down in the emergency room and waited. Hailey was trying to figure out what type of statement she needed to make to the press outside. The hospital staff had already called the police to get them to back away, so they were more or less across the street from the hospital in front of a gas station
“I think you should call Jemma,” Jasper said. “Tell her the small details and let her get it out there.”
“I’m not telling anyone anything until I know how Missy is and what the situation is. I want to know what she wants to tell the press.” Hailey would always respect her clients in that way. Nothing would go out until Missy told her to.
After an hour of waiting, Hailey was getting increasingly nervous. She didn’t know much about babies, but anytime a pregnant woman was admitted to the hospital early it wasn’t a good thing.
“We have every right to be here.” There was a tall thin man in a purple dress shirt yelling at a nurse in front of the ER entrance.
Hailey didn’t recognize him, but figured he was someone from the pushy side of the press.
“You do not,” the nurse said. “I’ve already called the police on one of you. Don’t make me do it again.”
Hailey moved toward them.
“What are you doing?” Jasper asked.
“I’m too nervous to sit here. I think I can help with this situation.”
Hailey walked up to the nurse and the reporter who were practically nose-to-nose. She got as close as she could before she spoke. “Hello.”
Both of them jumped as she startled them apart. The nurse wore a frown and the man smirked.
“Who are you?” the reporter asked with a disgusted look on his face.
“I’m Hailey Finch, PR agent to Missy.”
The reporter’s face brightened. “So, you can tell me what’s going on with Missy?”
“No, that’s private, but were you at the awards ceremony earlier?”
“I wasn’t. This was happening at the same time. It wasn’t live so they didn’t want press inside in case something went wrong. Why?” He raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“Because something did go wrong, and if you’ll leave the nurse alone and let her do her best, I’ll tell you all about it.”
The reporter opened the door. “I’m James, step into my office.”
Hailey wasn’t pleased with him for being so rude to the nurse, but the tale of Lil Mouth and the drunk actress would give him enough and he would leave. Now knowing the awards weren’t broadcast live, she was certain she was about to give him an exclusive.
<
br /> When she came back into the hospital, Dustin and Jasper still sat in the waiting area and a doctor was speaking with them. She rushed to sit beside Jasper so she could hear.
“The baby is fine. Missy was having a little bit of bleeding from preterm labor. We’ve stopped the contractions, but we’ll keep her here until she’s full term. No work for her, and lots of rest.” He reached out and patted Dustin’s hand.
“So, she was trying to have the baby now?” Dustin asked.
“Yes. Sometimes these things happen. She wasn’t trying to, her body was. She’s around twenty-nine weeks along. When the baby is full term we’ll induce labor, if necessary.”
“So, she’s going to be here for eight weeks?” Dustin ran his hand over his face.
“Yes, we need her to rest and there’s a concern with the placenta where we need to monitor her continuously. It’s standard, but if something changes with it, she’ll need to be nearby so she can have surgery.”
“She’s going to be so mad she can’t go shopping,” Dustin said. “We had planned a big trip to buy things for the baby.”
“It’s okay,” Hailey said, hoping she was being helpful. “There’s online shopping and Jasper and I will buy what she can’t get online.”
“You guys are good friends.”
Liam showed up alone and walked over after he went to check with Dustin about how Missy was.
He stuck his hand out to Jasper and after a minute’s hesitation, he took it.
“Jasper, I’m sorry for what happened with Autumn.”
“It’s okay, Liam, I forgive you.”
Hailey didn’t know what he was talking about. There could have been a number of things, but she tried not to think about Jasper and Autumn breaking up because she’d slept with Liam.
“Bros before hoes!” Liam cheered and hugged Jasper. He looked at Hailey, “Sorry, Hailey. Obviously not before you.”
Being quiet was probably the best plan.
“You can go see her if you wish. Just don’t get her excited,” the doctor said, and he was gone.
Managed 4 (Managed #4) Page 7
