by Zoey Dean
you felt a great song with your whole body and something more. A great kiss brought to life
parts of you that could never be detailed or diagramed in any textbook. The glow around your
heart. That tickle in the back of your brain. The starburst just behind your eyes. He and Myla
were kissing. Great kissing. Kissing like they needed each other, wanted each other, could
never be torn apart. Until, unbidden, his mind flashed to Myla kissing Lewis. Myla curled next
to Lewis, his hands all over her.
Ash pulled away, hearing in his mind the familiar ripping sound of a needle being pulled
abruptly from a vinyl record. The Myla-Lewis scene sent waves of pain through his body, like
he was getting kicked in the balls while his heart was being stomped on.
"What's wrong?" Myla said, her lush green eyes glittering and wet at the corners. She leaned in
again, putting her hands on his chest.
Ash sprang back from the couch, standing above her. Nothing and everything was wrong. He
wanted more than anything to kiss her again. But his vision stood between them like an
invisible force field. Kisses like his and Myla's were supposed to be all theirs. But she'd kissed
Lewis, and maybe that kiss had been just as great. "I can't do this," he said, looking at Myla but
feeling half-blind, like he could only see the bad things. "Every time I see you, I see... that
night."
Myla hastily wiped away a tear. She pressed her eyes closed, and when she opened them again,
all signs of tears were gone. "The thing with Lewis, it meant nothing," she said, sounding
businesslike, rational, even though there was a telltale quaver under the words.
"Doesn't matter," Ash said, grabbing his Paul Smith jacket off her bed. Of course she would
tell him it meant nothing. What else would she say? That it was a great, amazing kiss and she'd
never forget that night with Lewis?
Myla rose, striding silently over to Ash. He was right. How could he believe her? She'd
scrubbed her mind, and her lips, dozens of times to forget the sliminess of Lewis's mouth on
hers, and the way Ash had looked at her when he saw it happen. But for all Ash knew, the kiss
with Lewis might have been her idea of everything a kiss should be--the symphony. She left a
gap between them, staying close enough that he could feel her warm breath on his neck. She
didn't know what she was going to say. She just knew she wanted to be between Ash and the
door. "How can I make you believe me?" she uttered, more to herself than to him.
Ash shrugged, pulling his coat tight around his shoulders. Even behind the stubborn lock of
hair that fell in front of them, Myla could see his eyes were glistening. She hated that she'd hurt
him. Knowing she'd betrayed him hurt worse than if she'd been the one to catch him in the act.
Which gave her an idea...
"Kiss someone else," she blurted out.
A small, sad chuckle broke free from Ash's lips. "Why, to make you feel better?'
Myla shook her head, regaining her strength. "No. Because it's the only way you could ever
understand." Myla grabbed for his hand with urgency, locking her green eyes onto his. "I want
you to. Kiss someone else, and see that the only kisses that matter are the ones between you
and me."
Ash looked at her like she was Crazy Daisy. Wouldn't another kiss be another scar on their
relationship? More irreparable damage?
"That's ridiculous, Myla," he said, ambling toward the door. "Look, I need to go. I'll see you...
at school."
And then he left.
Myla folded herself into a corner of the couch, her knees pressed to her chest, and let the tears
fall.
SPARKS WILL FLY
"Are you at all freaked out by those three girls who are following Grant around?" Kady said,
tearing off a piece of her pretzel croissant and "mmm"-ing in ecstasy as she took a bite. It was
Wednesday afternoon, and Amelie was sharing a table with Kady and Jake at the City Bakery
in Brentwood. She'd finally gotten Jake to talk to her long enough to schedule a tutoring
session. She'd agreed to meet him here, at the only Western outpost of the famous New York
bakery, before realizing it was the spot where he and Kady would be filming a scene without
her later that day.
So much for tutoring. Kady never shut up, and Jake had lazily checked Amelie's worksheet,
but seemed distracted as he listened to Kady. The three of them were crammed around a small
circular table only meant for two. Kady had pulled up a chair and smushed herself between
Jake and Amelie.
The place was packed to the point where three teenage celebrities could skate by unnoticed. Not
that Brentwood's rich denizens didn't see celebrities every day. A dozen or so trophy wives
clustered around the salad bar, competing to see who could make the smallest salad. A honeytressed woman, baring her slim but defined upper arms in a sleeveless tank, placed three
roasted brussels sprouts on her otherwise empty plate. Her narrow-waisted brunette friend
added just one to a plate that contained four small tufts of arugula.
"I never thought we'd find groupies at a Beverly Hills high school. We were doing his big
speech about how he, well, Knox, used to be in love with me," Kady continued, tearing off
another piece of pretzel croissant and hastily chewing it. "Oh my God, this is so good.
Anyway, Grant's fan club were all staring at me so hard, like they wanted to switch bodies with
me. I got this freaky chill. They're like cute versions of Macbeth's witches."
Jake laughed, catching Kady's eye over a forkful of his tofu salad. "I've been trying to tell
people that for years," he said, emptying his second bottle of Smart Water.
Amelie giggled, feeling a little guilty as she did. "They're harmless, though," she protested.
Amelie had had lunch with Billie, Talia, and Fortune again yesterday, and she'd had a blast,
flipping through fashion magazines and letting the girls try out a braided updo from the Phillip
Lim show on her red hair. Maybe they weren't officially her friends, but gossiping about them
made her uneasy. Someday, when she went to BHH, they'd be more than just lunch buddies,
and friendship meant not saying nasty things behind one another's backs.
Kady rolled her eyes. "I know. It's just so weird. They're not even really fighting over Grant.
They're like the three lovesick Musketeers--all for one and one for all. Imagine asking them out.
He'd have to buy three dinners, hold three doors, look deeply into six eyes. I don't even want to
know what happens during a make-out session. I'm a woman of the world, but that's too
worldly for even me."
Amelie noticed a blush creep up Jake's face and he instantly reached for his empty water bottle.
"Oh, I'm out of water," he said, shaking the bottle. "I'll go get another one."
"You can have some of my Diet Coke. I forgot I had one from craft services when I ordered,"
Amelie offered, pulling the fresh bottle from her tote bag.
Jake smiled politely. "I'm trying to stay away from soda. Grant says it makes you pasty," he
explained. "I'll be right back."
Kady watched as Jake ambled to the cooler in the corner. She wrapped her red Free People
cardigan tightly around her tiny frame and turned to Amelie conspiratorially. "I don't fully get
Grant mania. What's the appeal? He's so broody, and way more full of himself than he lets on."
and sweet. And hot. Where are his groupies?"
Amelie mulled this assessment with a swig of tea. Kady was right, of course. With his new
leading-man status, Amelie expected Jake to be surrounded by eager females. But then again,
Jake was no Hollywood himbo. "He's smart, so maybe they're intimidated," Amelie reasoned.
Kady flipped up her hood, so that just a fringe of her silky black hair wisped around her tiny
doll face. "I'm going to tell you something, and you can't make that face where you look like
you've digested a bad tuna roll." She paused, her sapphire eyes scanning Amelie's face. "I like
Jake."
Oh, big news, Amelie thought with a touch of annoyance. Instead, she smiled and teasingly
said, "Yeah, I know. You've been flirting with him since pretty much the first time you saw
him."
Kady took a deep breath, rolling one of her croissant's oversize salt grains around on the
placemat. "I know. But I think maybe I actually really like him."
Every muscle tensed beneath Amelie's breezy gown. She'd known Kady had a crush, but the
thought of her and Jake actually in a relationship made her shiver like she was stranded atop a
diamond run at Big Bear ski lodge. Kady was a force of nature or, well, of nightlife, and Jake
was several ego trips short of ruling the club scene. The last thing she wanted was for Kady to
change him into the kind of guy who talked about "the scene" all the time.
Instead, Amelie just said, "Jake? Is he really your type?"
Kady, who never got embarrassed--not even when she'd tripped over a camera wire and split
her pants the other day--actually blushed. "I can't stop thinking about him. He's not a scraggly,
unshaven hipster, true, but there's something. But I don't know if he likes me."
"You're asking me for advice on that?" Amelie laughed, breaking off a piece of her molten
chocolate cookie. "I don't really have much luck in the guy department. I mean, he seems to be
paying a lot of attention to you." And ignoring me, even though I'm three chapters behind on
geometry, Amelie thought. She knew she should be more helpful. Kady had helped her be
alone with Hunter that night at Area. She had no say about who Jake should date. He was just
her tutor. And, okay, the guy who made her laugh even when she was feeling sorry for herself.
But she didn't own him or anything.
Jake returned with his fresh Smart Water, plopping down in his seat. Kady had nudged her
chair a little bit closer while he'd been gone. "When are we supposed to shoot this scene?" he
asked, looking at Kady.
"We have time," she said, gazing at Jake like he was the only person in the room. "Have you
ever tried one of these?" She waved her pretzel croissant under Jake's nose temptingly. Jake's
eyes surveyed her pixie-like face. Amelie felt as invisible as Ryan Seacrest on the red carpet
with Brangelina.
"Uh, I don't know if I should eat so much salt," Jake said, evidently taking all of Grant's food
rules to heart. Amelie rolled her eyes. Grant's health obsessions were ridiculous, especially
from a guy who hadn't set foot outdoors since he'd left the birth canal. "Maybe a little piece. It's
kind of carby."
Kady tore a piece from the pastry and brought it to Jake's lips. Feeling like a ridiculously
unnecessary chaperone, Amelie stared down at the open geometry textbook until her eyes
blurred. Jake "mmm"-ed in delight. Amelie couldn't have felt more embarrassed than if he and
Kady had been making out. Mercifully, her cell phone vibrated across the table, the number
coming up restricted.
"Hello?" she said tentatively.
"Amelie? It's Hunter."
Amelie took a deep breath. Hunter sounded tinny and far away. Still, it was unmistakably his
toe-curling baritone coming through the receiver. She watched from the corner of her eye as
Kady fed Jake another bite of pretzel. You have Hunter on the phone. Pay attention! She
focused on making her voice sound less irritated.
"Hi, Hunter," she said. Kady and Jake looked up at his name. Jake's face flickered with
something, maybe worry that Hunter would swoop in and take his part. Or maybe it was just
surprise that Amelie was there and had a life of her own. Good, she thought. She had concerns
beyond Class Angel and tutoring, too.
"Can you... meet me for coffee? The 101 Coffee Shop? I just... I need to talk."
"Meet you now?" Amelie's eyes blurred, but she saw Kady give an enthusiastic nod. Whether
she was enthused for Amelie's romantic prospects or her own was unclear. Let Kady have the
tutor, Amelie thought. Hunter Sparks was calling her. It was what she'd been waiting for.
The 101 Coffee Shop teemed with teenage hipsters in skinny jeans, beat-up Vans, and ironic
tees. Right now, they were all staring at Amelie, who stuck out like something larger and more
glittery than a sore thumb in her sugary white dress. Her new white metallic Chloé bag seemed
to scream, I cost more than a used Hyundai! under the low lights. A girl with rumpled black
hair wore an American Apparel tee screen-printed with Amelie as Fairy Princess, Miley Cyrus
as Hannah Montana, and Demi Lovato, all standing beneath the words Girl Power? She
whispered something to her guy friends, and the table laughed caustically.
The 101 looked like a family room from the 1970s, and it was poorly lit. A long cordovan
banquette ran along one wall that was a mosaic of flat brown, white, and beige rocks. Along
the other wall were booths in the same brown hue, each table beneath a dangling spherical light
fixture. Amelie finally spotted Hunter, sitting alone at the booth farthest from the door. He gave
her a little wave.
She slid into the booth, feeling his eyes on her. Even sitting down, Hunter's five feet eleven
inches of gorgeous was apparent. He leaned forward, his chiseled jaw resting atop one of his
muscular forearms.
"Hey, Amelie," he said, reaching over to touch her arm. "I'm glad you could make it. I ordered
us both cappuccinos, hope that's okay."
Amelie nodded. "Yeah, that's fine," she said, pleased that he'd ordered for her. It meant he'd
been thinking about her before she arrived. Hunter stared forlornly at his reflection in the
stainless-steel napkin dispenser. Amelie wondered if they were on a date. If so, why was
Hunter acting like it was the end of the world?
"Is everything okay?" she asked gently. Maybe he'd been regretting that they hadn't seen each
other since the night of Lewis Buford's party. Or maybe he felt shy about what he'd said that
night, when he'd admitted he couldn't resist her.
Hunter heaved a sigh. "No," he said, glancing up with a polite nod as the waitress set down a
cappuccino in front of each of them. "I've never been fired before, Amelie."
Oh. So he wasn't thinking about them; he was still caught up in getting the boot from Class
Angel. "I don't think I'd call it fired, Hunter," she said, giving him her best soothing smile. She
wished she knew whether to listen wholeheartedly or try to flirt him out of his doldrums. "I
don't think you were bad. I think producers just get ideas in their heads sometimes and think
they need to change things." It was true. Sometimes studios made last-minute changes just to
exert their power. But after watching
the dailies, Amelie knew that Hunter really had been
phoning it in. She didn't have the heart to tell him, though.
Hunter smiled weakly. "That's what I'd been thinking. They just changed it for no reason," he
said, brushing an invisible piece of lint from his cashmere V-neck. "It's like they fixed
something that wasn't even broken."
Amelie paused, not knowing what to say. Hunter was handsome and already a star, but the
reality was, Jake was better. Like Tommy Archer, Jake was a guy who didn't know how great
he was. With Jake at its core, the whole movie now had true sweetness and that je ne sais quoi
teen angst factor. She had a feeling that Jake was just being Jake, not Mr. Superstar Method
actor. But even if the producers had just gotten lucky, Jake had given Class Angel the true
authenticity they'd been hoping for.
"I wouldn't worry about it, Hunter," Amelie said, thrown by how grown-up she sounded. "I
mean, you've got a lot coming up, right?" Just last week, Hunter had landed a part as Iron
Man's illegitimate son in the next installment of the franchise. And she'd just read about his
casting in an indie role as a gas station clerk being stalked by a famous actress. She'd practically
been ready to stalk him at the time. But now... things felt different.
"Yeah, I guess," he said, dolefully catching the eye of a trio of Hollywood High School girls
who were staring at him. "But I feel like I don't know what I'm doing. Is the new guy a lot
better than me? Jacob What's-His-Name?"
Amelie stirred her coffee surreptitiously. She was somewhat relieved that Hunter hadn't
connected the name with Jake. They had met, after all, at Lewis's party--when Amelie had let
Hunter believe that it was Jake who'd left her brokenhearted.
"He's... got a different style than you," she said carefully. "He's new at this. It's kind of hard to
compare." Of course, it was easy to compare them. She'd been doing it from the moment she'd
sat down, mentally tallying the pros and cons of Hunter and Jake as Tommy Archer.
"But different, good? What's his method? Is he a real high school jock? How often does he
work out?"
Amelie glanced at the time on her Sidekick, a bit put off. Was Hunter always this insecure?
Had he always fished for compliments this way? "I don't know, Hunter," she said. "Jake's just
