by India Lee
This time, Casey’s reply was a single word.
Fine.
Closing her eyes, Amanda let go of a breath.
Thank God.
She wasn’t foolish enough to think that she’d just solved her problem completely but she had at least bought time to think about her next stop. Maybe I can hire a private investigator. Maybe he can dig something up on Casey and we can all call a truce, Amanda thought for a moment before snorting inwardly at herself. Yeah. I’ll keep brainstorming.
“Sorry. Putting it away,” she apologized to Liam, tossing her phone into her chevron tote. “What were we talking about?”
“How you’re a predator.”
Amanda felt her eyebrows lift, surprised by his answer. She tried not to look too pleased by it. “Really?”
“You catch on too fast to be the prey,” Liam said with a grin. “Considering everything you made for yourself in just six months here.”
“Well, a lot of it — ”
“You can’t credit Ian for all of that. Especially when he spent less than a quarter of that time with a clean nasal passage.” Liam’s look was unrepentant when she narrowed her eyes at his phrasing. He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “You had connections to get here but you earned everything you got once you were here on your own. You have a way of drawing people in and charming the hell out of them in a minute flat. Wendy. Vogel. Like I told you, you’re natural and nice and,” he laughed, “People aren’t used to that so they want to be around it. And you’re smart enough to turn these relationships with people into jobs, which is what makes you a predator and not the prey.”
“So I’m one of the nice predators,” Amanda smiled.
Liam laughed. “If you need to put it in Disney movie terms, yes.”
She snorted, rolling her eyes at him. “You know what, maybe I’m actually not as nice as everyone thinks.”
“You did threaten to kill me the other day in Chelsea.”
“Only out of love,” Amanda laughed, though she immediately blushed at the suggestion of love of any sort. It was the first time she’d even mentioned that word to Liam. Cautiously, she peered up at him. To both her relief and chagrin, he didn’t appear to have any reaction out of the ordinary. It was just the usual smirk.
“I hate to break it to you in case you were hoping to hear otherwise, but you’re a good person. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be so damned loyal to Ian. And you probably wouldn’t have kicked your best pair of shoes into the pool for me the other night.” A glimmer danced Liam’s his dark eyes as he laughed. “Were you planning on pulling me out of the water yourself?”
“Only so I could kill you with my own hands, as promised.”
“I can live with that. As long as it would’ve been out of love.”
Amanda’s eyes fluttered at the word. She peered up at Liam despite feeling her cheeks grow hot. He gave her a crooked little smile before nodding out the window.
“Come on. We’re here.”
“Where?” Amanda asked curiously. Turning to look out the window, she broke into an immediate smile, her eyes lighting up to match the delight spreading her lips. She stared for a second longer before she burst out laughing. “This is where we’re having dinner?”
~
Lining her foot one before the other, Amanda took little steps on the white-painted grass, tracing the shape of the interlocking “N” and “Y” with her blue leather sandals. It was her first time in the Bronx and her first time at Yankee Stadium.
It was also her first time standing on an actual ballpark field. It was like nothing she’d ever felt before. The view of the endless green and towering lights from behind home plate was utterly majestic and breathtaking and filled her with a rush of adrenaline so intoxicating that she was convinced in the moment that she could conquer the world. Or at least New York. All she wanted was to just sprint across the grass with her arms outstretched, perhaps do a few cartwheels if she still remembered how.
And she could if she wanted since the Yankees were in Texas.
With the team amid a four-game road trip — and Amanda in the midst of some Leadoff-induced insecurity over her lack of baseball knowledge — Liam had rented out the entire space. For the rest of the night, the two-and-a-half acres of plush field was entirely theirs.
Her heart swelling with awe, Amanda plopped down onto the Yankees logo, taking a seat to properly soak it all in for a couple more minutes. The 6PM summer sun was the absolute perfect amount of heat and shine. Amanda could practically see its sparkling rays beating down from the sky and into the dome of the stadium, the most brilliantly golden ones seeming to reserve themselves for her on the fluffy grass behind home plate. Suddenly, she was glad to be wearing the distressed, pale blue shorts that Wendy had given her from her new denim wear client — they had initially seemed far too short to don in public but now, in the beating glow of the stadium sun, Amanda figured they were the next best thing to what she really wanted, which was to strip down to her underwear and lay in the middle of the outfield. She had simply never felt such energy before. Something about the iconic stadium made her feel like she wanted to be great, like she wanted to accomplish everything.
And something about the incredible, wildly kind gesture made her feel like she wanted to tell Liam that she loved him.
But she physically couldn’t — not just yet. She wasn’t sure why but it didn’t bother her. I’ll know when it’s time, she convinced herself as she leaned back on her hands, squinting up to see a grinning Liam take the seat on the grass beside her.
“I figure this is a good place to crash course you on baseball so you feel good going into your next day of work.”
Amanda giggled. “Oh, I already feel great. This is absolutely insane and incredible. So thank you.” Still smiling, she ran her lower lip between her teeth as she gazed out at the field. “It’s kinda weird, but this is making me miss North Carolina.”
Liam lifted his eyebrows under the old Yankees cap that he’d put on for effect. “Same, actually.”
“I guess this is proof that we stay sanest by running off to somewhere big and private and grassy every once in awhile. Just for a week. Or until we miss New York again.”
“Yeah. We think alike.” Liam leaned forward with his arms resting on his bent knees. He looked over at Amanda. “Which reminds me — remind me to give you your birthday gift later.”
She burst out laughing. “This isn’t it?” she asked incredulously, leaning back to rest on her elbows. As she did, she noticed movement in the corner of her eye, turning to see a stream of pinstripe-clad stadium vendors filing down an aisle over by the third base line. Her smile was quizzical as they streamed onto the field with their giant bins of peanuts, hot dogs, Cracker Jacks and beer. She turned to face Liam, her glittering eyes wide with delight. He laughed at her reaction, touching the dimple in her cheek.
“We need to give you the full stadium effect,” he said. “You know. For work purposes.”
Amanda shook her head in awed amusement. “For research. Totally,” she murmured as the vendors neared, her eyes feasting on the giant bins stacked with Philly cheesesteaks, sliders, lobster rolls, cheese fries, pretzels and fried dough.
“We’re going full gourmet tonight, by the way, in case you didn’t notice.”
“I did, yes.”
The sun had set halfway by the time Amanda and Liam were officially done with their meal. With the various foods set onto a Yankees logo blanket that one of the vendors had brought, Amanda had marveled over the picnic spread, sampling tiny bites from every dish as Liam went over both baseball terminology and the season’s Yankees stats, just in case she was ever asked again about a Yankees pitcher’s over-under for wins. Oddly — or perhaps not-so-oddly, considering her strange, new energy — Amanda had picked up on everything quite rapidly.
“Definitely will start watching Sportscenter and games with you from now on, but,” she eyed Liam with a grin, “Judging from Ono’s stats and record so far and how m
any starts he has left, I’d say that he’ll have over sixteen wins this season. He’ll probably end the season with seventeen or eighteen,” Amanda decided. Liam raised his eyebrows, genuinely impressed.
“See what I said about how you catch on quickly.”
Amanda smiled as she tucked a lock of straight hair behind her ear, trying not to beam like a five-year-old who had just been given a golden star. She let her head tilt a bit to the side, resting it lightly against Liam’s arm. “Well, it’s not like I’m completely clueless about baseball. Megan used to play shortstop for the softball team in high school.”
“So you did too?”
“No, I didn’t play any sports,” Amanda snorted, shaking her head at herself. “But since I was her glorious little lapdog, I always helped her field balls when she practiced batting for tryouts every year.”
“You actually caught balls?”
Amanda paused. “Was that a sex joke?”
Liam raised his eyebrows. “Actually, no, but we can pretend it was,” he said as his eyes dropped to her mostly bare legs, which rested across his lap as she sat perpendicular to him. Her lips twisted into a smile when she tipped his chin back up but still failed to bring his gaze away from her thighs.
“Hey,” she said softly, tilting her head to meet his eye. “Before I forget, I need to thank you for being such a good, patient teacher tonight. I actually feel a lot better about work tomorrow.”
Liam wound a string of fringe from her shorts around his finger. “Good. Show those assholes what you’re made of.”
“I will. I actually kind of can’t wait to go in tomorrow,” Amanda murmured, laughing at herself. “I just feel…” she shook her head, her eyelids heavy as she gazed out at the pretty white frieze crowning the upper deck of the stadium. “I don’t know. I’m energized. My whole body just feels so damned good right now.” She laughed quietly to herself, chewing on her lower lip as she returned the eye that Liam gave her. “Make a sex joke.”
“I can make your body feel even better,” Liam said without missing a beat, laughing at her when she bit a little grin back. “Jesus, Amanda, that was horrible and you’re still blushing.”
“I know, I don’t know what’s going on with me,” she giggled, shaking her head and squeezing her eyes shut for a moment. They were still closed when she felt Liam’s smiling lips give her a kiss.
“You make one.”
“What?”
“Sex joke.”
“Oh, is this my practice for the writer’s room?”
“Sure.”
Amanda snorted. “Um.” She squinted as she thought about it. “Something, something, going to second base.” She nodded when Liam furrowed his brow before blinking several times with surprise. “I know. Some obvious joke material that you overlooked right there.”
“Very obvious. Shame on me,” he said with feigned gravity.
Amanda cracked a grin as she ran her hand up his chest, snaking her arm around his neck as he stared out at the darkening sky, some pleasant, faraway thought casting a little haze over his dark eyes. Amanda smiled when he unconsciously dipped his head to kiss her forearm. Somehow, the simple gesture made her feel so plain and simply loved. Amanda studied Liam, her heart beating fast despite her calm. Apparently, it was just her body’s natural reaction to merely looking at the man and reminding herself that he was hers — from the perfect square jaw to the hard and broad chest to the delectably perfect V-shaped hip bones that she really needed to see the rest of by now.
Amanda blinked. Suddenly, she couldn’t understand why she hadn’t yet had sex with Liam. She wanted and needed to be with him immediately. In his bed, the sheets kicked to the floor, the weight of his body on top of hers. Wetting her lips, she turned to Liam who was already looking at her, his smirk inquisitive.
“You okay?” he asked, seeming to know the answer as he eyed her slightly parted mouth. Amanda managed a somewhat sheepish smile, able to feel the blood rushing to her lips, the heat flushing in her face. When Liam placed a hand on her leg again, she answered his question with an involuntary pump of the thighs. He raised his eyebrows, once again dropping his gaze to her bare legs. “Should we go?” he asked slowly, his hand squeezing her naked knee.
Amanda’s toes curled in her leather sandals as she felt Liam’s body grow suddenly rigid with the same need to leave. “Yes, let’s go home.”
He managed a smirk. “Baseball joke?”
“Sure.”
Within mere seconds, she and Liam were up and off the field, making their way through the tunnels of the stadium and toward the exit through which they came, their lips stretched into polite, wordless smiles as the vendors said goodbye.
But slowly, Amanda felt the curve in her lips fading as she continued her walk, realizing that it wasn’t just the first vendor who had given her and then Liam a strange look. All the vendors were flashing odd looks at them that they hadn’t worn on the field just a few hours before. Before she could chalk it up to her usual paranoia, Amanda snuck a glance at Liam, whose brows were knit with a quizzical frown as he passed a goateed male vendor in his early twenties, who pressed the end of his fist to his mouth as he looked up from his phone at Liam.
What is going on? Amanda wondered, feeling as if she were walking through a parted sea of either judgmental looks or suppressed laughs.
“I have no idea,” Liam murmured to her under his breath, reading her mind. In silent confusion, they continued what felt like a much longer walk out of the stadium than it had felt like coming in.
Finally, when they reached his Mercedes waiting right outside, the door through which they’d exited swung back open. The goateed vendor burst out of it, in hysterics as he pointed the camera of his phone at Amanda and Liam, pushing back his coworkers who tried to pull him back in.
“Yo, you just dropped mad money on a date that don’t even matter!”
Amanda and Liam both stared back at the boy, though through her confusion, Amanda somehow knew to reach for her phone. And somehow, she understood exactly what was going on the second before she turned on her screen. Her pulse blaring in her eardrums, she held onto Liam, bracing herself for a text from Casey and whatever it would have to say. Tapping on her screen, she confirmed her suspicions upon seeing the little icon indicating a new message. And suddenly, she missed the horrible, deafening sound of her own heartbeat in her ears. She preferred much more than the absolute nothing she heard, the frozen numbness she felt as she read the words of Casey’s text.
Changed my mind, doll! I told everyone.
Chapter 7
BREAKING: LIAMANDA STAGED — COMPLETELY FAKE RELATIONSHIP
Amanda Nathan: Internet troll, blackmailer and half of the most staged romance in Hollywood!!! Pop Dinner gets the exclusive, anonymous leak about America’s once-favorite couple!!!
HDU via Pop Dinner
Posted by R0X1E
July 15th
Bombshell time!
So what’s utterly plain on the outside and evil to the core on the inside?
If you didn’t guess Amanda Nathan, march your ass to the back of the line because as Pop Dinner has been trying to tell you for ages, America’s Sweetheart really ain’t so sweet after all. That’s right. Your favorite girl next door is actually a master manipulator who dragged her faux beau so hard on the Internet that he was forced to email her and ask for mercy.
But let’s start from the beginning.
If you’ve ever scoured the Internet for some juicy tidbits on your favorite Hollywood celebs, you’ve probably run into the gossip community, HDU — basically the Florida of celebrity reputations. And guess who serves as the Grim Reaper of so many Hollywood images? Yep — Amanda Nathan, who spent the past five years under the online pseudonym, PrettyKitty29, the past two of which were spent as moderator of the almighty online rumor mill.
And under this horrifically embarrassing username, our sweet little Miss Nathan blackmailed Liam Brody into letting her play the role of his inexplicably pl
ain girlfriend. Why would Liam go for it? Well, according to the video/bribe offer below, it was to land the wholesome role of John Parker Camden in Terrence Rambis’s A Soldier. Yikes! Kind of desperate but looks like the evil plan did trick senile Terrence into handing over the dignified role. Probably regretting that now, aren’t ya, Terrence, old boy? This was your final Oscar contender, your baby, your masterpiece and now “Liamanda” has turned it into a giant, PR joke. Womp womp. Hope John Parker Camden’s family is okay with their hero being played by a spandex-sucking womanizer who tricked America into loving him and his so-called Plain Jane sweetie — who, as it turns out, is all plain and no sweet. Hope audiences can think of anything besides the fools they were to trust Liam Brody while watching A Soldier — assuming they even go to see it anymore.
Because who needs the actual movie when you’ve got the behind-the-scenes entertainment? Our next move here at Pop Dinner is to see how the famously temperamental Rambis reacts to this mortifying ordeal. Watch out Liam — you pissed off the wrong Hollywood director! Don’t be surprised if he goes ahead and drops you from the cast of The Legends.
And as for Amanda — we’re going to assume that her fifteen (okay, thirty) minutes is finally over. Back to the gossip forums with you, lonely Internet troll!
(I HAVE NO WORDS. WE HAVE BEEN LIED TO. OUR GREAT MODERATOR PRETTYKITTY29 = AMANDA NATHAN!!!!!!!!!
JUST COMMENT BECAUSE I CAN’T EVEN RIGHT NOW. OMFG
HDU, AMANDA NATHAN!!!!11
