by Dahlia Adler
“You made this choice,” she reminds me, as if I don’t know. As if I haven’t beat myself up over it every second since. “You’re not ready to come out, and I respect that. But I don’t wanna be your secret girlfriend while you parade around on Zander’s arm. I’m not Ally, okay? And I don’t wanna be.”
The mention of my best friend throws me, and I’m about to retort that Ally has nothing to do with this, when I realize that I am a complete and total moron. Because that is basically who I’d be asking Bri to be if I tried to get her to stay while I’m still unwilling to break up with Zander. Last year, pretending to date Liam for the tabloids while he and Ally were falling for each other nearly ruined both them and us. And maybe I didn’t see the similarity here because Zander’s a guy and Bri isn’t, but that doesn’t make it okay. I know that. And I’m not being fair to anyone here.
“I don’t want you to be Ally,” I say quietly. “I just need time. I’m still trying to figure myself out, and I need to do that before I can even consider letting the rest of the world into my head. Things are different when you’re in the public eye. That might sound obnoxious or self-important, but it’s the truth.”
“It doesn’t sound obnoxious or self-important.” She sighs. “I know you’re right about that part. It’s not like I pay no attention at my job.”
“So you see how important it is that I get it right,” I press. “I just kissed my first girl. And yeah, I think I might be…”
“Gay?” she supplies.
“Maybe. Or maybe I’m bisexual. What if I am?”
“What if you are?” she challenges. “Like boys all you want, Park. It still won’t fix this. I’m bi and I promise you, it’s not a fucking light switch. You can’t just set it on ‘boy’ because it’s inconvenient that you like a girl right now. Widening your options doesn’t change the feelings you have. Trust me—if I could lie awake at night thinking about anybody else, I would.”
The truth in her words squeezes my heart so tightly I can barely breathe. I know my life would be so much easier if I liked Zander the way I’m supposed to. But I’ve tried for years to want the guys everyone else wants me to be with—guys hand-picked by my parents or Ally or Jade. And none of it mattered. Whatever label I give myself, or the media gives me, it won’t change the fact that I’ve never felt about anyone the way I do for the tattooed redheaded girl in front of me.
Bri’s face softens. “Look, I get the predicament you’re in. I may have been a few years younger than you when I realized I was bi, and obviously I’m not a celebrity, but it had its moments of suck. But I’m out. I’ve been through the ‘mess around with confused straight girls’ phase, and I can’t do it again. Not with someone capable of breaking my heart.”
I don’t respond. I can’t. If I open my mouth, I will cry.
I can tell that she knows it. She sighs again, gently this time, and kisses me on the forehead. “You’re gonna be okay, Park.”
A single tear leaks out of one eye, and I swipe it away quickly. So freaking embarrassing to lose my shit here while Bri is walking out for the last time, all confident and noble and sure in what she wants. Another tear spills from the other eye, but Bri reaches out to wipe it away before I can.
I don’t even know I’m going to kiss her until I do. But her hand is on my face, and her touch is so gentle, and she’s so close, and I just do it. Just for a moment. And then I pull back like I’ve been burned, because I know I’m being unfair, and wrong, and she just said she didn’t want this. But her fingers tangle in my hair as she pulls me back and it’s not just me, it’s her, and it’s us, and obviously, neither of us is ready to say goodbye just yet.
Chapter Twenty-One
Josh
The sunshine feels awful in my eyes as I let myself out of the house, but there’s no sign of K-drama anywhere. Bri’s car’s still in the driveway, which makes me think she’s in the guest house, and I wonder if she’s fallen asleep. Can’t really blame her, given that I woke her up at the ass-crack of dawn. I probably have to let her yell at me now, but I’m hoping she’ll take pity on my hangover and let it go this time.
As if that’s likely.
When I approach the guest house, I catch a glimpse of her through the glass doors. She’s definitely not in bed. And then I see a pair of pale legs and I realize she’s not alone, either. Bri must still be here, which means whatever their fight was, it was probably pretty bad. Not such a shock, considering Bri’s the spawn of Satan. She seems okay as far as I can tell, but no one who sprang from Jade Harris’s loins can be certifiably sane.
I’m still out of visibility for both girls, and out of curiosity, I stay that way. It looks like Bri’s leaving, but I can’t read the look on her face. What the hell is up with—
My brain short-circuits completely as K-drama suddenly…kisses her. Full on the mouth. Exactly the kind of thing fantasies are made of, except when it’s the girl you want laying it on someone who’s not you.
They part, but only for a second, and I don’t even know how long they go on for, but I can’t tear my eyes off of them. But as suddenly as it started, Bri yanks herself away and bolts for the door. It hits me a second too late that she’s about to spot me, and though I jump out of the way, I’m not fast enough. Her face pales when she sees me, and her mouth drops open. For a second, I think she’s gonna run, but all she does is join me out of Vanessa’s eyeline.
“That…that wasn’t what you think,” she says. “I mean, I don’t know what you saw. If you even saw anything.” She buries her face in her hands. “Christ.”
“Yeah, definitely sounds like there was nothing going on,” I say. My voice sounds even dryer than usual, and I’m glad she doesn’t know me well enough to tell something’s wrong. “Why don’t you explain, then?”
“It wasn’t anything. It just happened, and it doesn’t mean anything. We’re friends, okay?”
I hold up my hands. “Sure, if that’s your story. I wouldn’t say that seemed particularly friendly, though.”
“Josh.” She bites her lip, and it looks borderline painful. “You can’t tell her—or anyone else—that you saw that. Please tell me you won’t say a word to her. Just forget it, okay? I’m begging you.”
My eyebrows shoot up, and I realize there is far more going on here than I thought. But it’s clear I’m not going to get any answers from Bri, and honestly, all I really want is to talk to K-drama, so I just nod curtly. “I won’t,” I say, meaning it.
“Thank you.” There’s so much relief in the way her shoulders slump that I can’t help wondering what the hell I’ve missed. “I gotta run. Thanks for, uh…” I guess she remembers then that I haven’t done shit but drag her out of her house to come pick me up from the cops. “I’ll see ya.” And then she’s off, and I glance back toward the guest house.
Vanessa’s sitting on the bed now, her mouth drawn into a frown. She rubs her lower lip with her thumb, like she’s trying to seal in that kiss, and my stomach roils again as I approach the house and open the door. I’m dying to ask what the hell I just saw, but one close-up look at her face and I already know—Bri’s the person she’s into. Not Zander. Certainly not me.
A chick.
What. The. Hell.
She looks up in surprise at the sound of the doors opening, and I watch her quickly arrange her face into a bland expression she totally doesn’t pull off.
“How’d everything go with Mini-Jade?” I force myself to ask.
“Okay, I guess. Thanks for that.” She smiles weakly, and it’s kind of heartbreaking. Christ. She is seriously into that girl. “Guessing you didn’t get any sleep.”
“Nah, too hungry. I figured I’d check and see if you wanted to grab some food.” At least, that’d been my original plan when I came to the house. Now I don’t have much of an appetite, but I’m dying to get out of this place.
She laughs, and it’s the saddest fucking sound in the world. “Can you even imagine the shitshow if we were spotted out together now? God,
I can’t. Between the paparazzi at the police station and the whole mess with Zander…I need to go home, Josh. If I even still have a home, because I’m pretty sure the second I see my mother, she’s going to kill me. All the gossip about me right now…”
She has a point that it sucks to be her. I can do whatever the fuck I want, and no one will care by the next week, but kids actually look up to her. She has parents she cares about pleasing. She has fans who aren’t utterly depraved.
And apparently, she isn’t who any of them think she is.
I sit down next to her on the bed as she drops her head into her hands. “The thing is, K-drama, sometimes you just have to accept that no one else’s opinion means shit, you know? Sometimes you just have to do what makes you happy and say fuck everyone else.”
Somehow, that only seems to make her sadder. “Yeah, well. Maybe someday I’ll be able to do that, but that day isn’t today.” She braces her hands on her thighs and stands. “It’s been quite the adventure, but I really do have to get home. Think you could get me a cab? My ride kinda checked outta here.”
She doesn’t offer why Bri left, and I don’t ask. I whip out my phone. “I should probably go see Liam, anyway,” I mutter as I dial. “I don’t remember a lot from last night, but I’m pretty sure I was a raging asshole to him.”
“You? Never.”
“Funny, K-drama. Come on. Let’s go.”
We fix ourselves up and meet the cab out front. It’s been a really shitty day for both of us, and it’s pretty clear it’s only gonna go downhill from here.
It takes a shit-ton of time to find Liam that afternoon. For one thing, the set’s in the middle of fucking nowhere, which is exactly what they’re going for, given that it’s an army movie. For another, it’s a sea of actors in camouflage—even guys I’ve known forever are looking alike to me right now.
He’s sitting in a chair, looking over the script with—shock of all shocks—his abs on prominent display. He’s sweaty and dirty and staring at the pages with a kind of focus I don’t possess on my best day. He doesn’t even notice me until I’m practically on top of him, casting a shadow on the sides. Then he finally looks up, blinks, and says, “Chester?”
“Hey.” I glare at the actor next to him until he rolls his eyes and vacates his seat, and then I slide in next to Liam. “Thought I should probably track you down and apologize for being a dick yesterday. It wasn’t my finest hour.”
He raises an eyebrow. “It definitely wasn’t, but you apologizing might be. Did you seriously come all the way down here just to say that? A text would’ve been fine.”
“Yeah, it would’ve,” I admit, feeling like an ass. “I don’t know. I just needed to get out of my house, I guess.”
“Heard you went to the drunk tank last night. And that Vanessa came and got your ass this morning.”
“Also not my finest hour.”
He sighs. “Are you hooking up with her?”
No, but someone is, and it’s not her boyfriend. I think back to this morning, the fierce way she laid her lips on Mini-Jade, and feel a little shittier than I did a minute ago. “Trust me, I’m not. She’s otherwise occupied.”
“Oh, come on. I’ve fake-dated Van. I recognize her ‘I’m so not into this’ eyes. You can’t tell me she’s actually into Wilson. At all.”
I’m not telling you that, I wish I could say, but I know that I can’t. I’m dying to tell Liam what I saw, but… it’d be a douche thing to do. I know that. I don’t really know what happened this morning, and even if I think I do, she’s been a good friend—something I haven’t had many of in life. In fact, I’m kinda standing in front of my only other one right now. So, if that means keeping my mouth shut, even on a secret this good—and hot—for once? I think she’s probably earned it.
To Liam, I just shrug. “I don’t get it either, man.”
“So, are you planning on telling me exactly what happened last night to urge you to blow up at me and then get so piss-ass blitzed you got arrested?”
“Nothing happened, exactly. I just needed to blow off some steam.”
He waits for more, and I don’t really even know what else to give him.
“Things are sort of shitty right now,” I say after a minute of silence. “I don’t have any work coming up, this reality show is constantly in my face, my parents still haven’t signed over the house, and—”
I stop myself before I can possibly say another word about K-drama; Lord knows I’ve said enough. I don’t even know why I give a shit, except that…I’m bored.
I never, ever thought I would get bored of living like this. But now I get why George Clooney used to switch it up with a new constant every year or two. Hooking up may stay fun, but picking girls up? That gets tiresome as hell. The giggling, the “I shouldn’t do this, it’s so bad!” and now the hoping to be caught on camera as my arm candy…I don’t want any of that. I don’t want to start over every night; I wanna know who I’m going home with. I like that K-drama’s someone I can tell shit to and then have as company in my car or while I eat breakfast. I like staring at her legs in my kitchen. I’m not in love with her or anything—I know that—but I’ve gotten used to her in a way I don’t entirely hate.
“Do you want to have anything coming up?” Liam asks, brows furrowed.
“What do you mean?”
He shrugs. “I dunno. I just feel like you don’t really care. Like, take this movie—you might’ve been able to get an audition, but you didn’t even try. And this should be your thing, shouldn’t it? It’s a down-’n-dirty, hangin’-with-the-boys kinda thing, not to mention that it would’ve gotten you tons of ass.” He rolls his eyes, because #LiamProblems. “But…do you even wanna act? In anything?”
I know I should be able to say “sure” easily—I mean, it’s easy enough, and Daylight Falls was okay. But the truth is, he’s right. I don’t. I can’t imagine a single part in the world right now that would get me excited or focused enough to stare at my script the way he does. It’s not like I came to Hollywood to act; I act because I’m already in Hollywood.
And just as I realize that simple fact, my entire world comes crashing down.
“What the fuck am I doing?” I blurt out, because it comes to me so suddenly, so harshly, that I can’t even keep the words in.
“Josh—”
“No, seriously, Holloway. What the fuck? I’m in my mom’s reality show, so I can stay in a house my parents own. I do this acting and modeling shit not because I like it but because I’m here—which, again, my parents. How did I not realize that my parents—two people I barely have anything to do with—are somehow still dictating my entire fucking life?”
Liam cracks a smile. “I wouldn’t say they’ve got all that much control over you, Chester. You did just come from the drunk tank. But for what it’s worth, I gotta say, now that I’m doing movies I care about, I’m actually learning to love this stuff. And I have my own place, and I’ve got Ally. And still, I find life hard as hell. If it’s this tough now that I finally have everything I want, how do you get through it having none of that?”
The question stings a lot more than he meant it to, I’m sure, because Liam’s not an asshole. He’s genuinely perplexed. And I guess I am, too. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. But he’s right that it’s not making me happy. I don’t want the spotlight, I don’t want to do what I’m doing, and I’m not having fun with life as I’m living it anymore.
But what do I want?
So far, unfortunately, there’s only one answer to that question. And this morning gave me a pretty decent idea that that feeling isn’t mutual.
Then again, Mini-Jade did insist it wasn’t what it looked like. Maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t, but it seems stupid now not to at least know for sure. Back when I used to enjoy shit a lot more, at least half the fun was in taking chances.
Now I just have to take one more.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Vanessa
I let myself into the hou
se as quietly as I can, praying that I’ll get lucky for one more night with my parents’ absence. Having a lot of family in the area means they’re out a decent amount, but I realize as soon as I close the door behind me that I won’t have any such luck tonight.
My parents are both waiting for me on the couch.
I don’t think my parents have ever both waited for me on the couch.
“Hi,” I greet them quietly, knowing I won’t get any points for acting like nothing’s wrong.
“Sit down, Vanessa.” My father is a soft-spoken man—always has been—but it usually comes off as gentle. Right now, though, it’s a fearsome kind of quiet. It’s the most sure I’ve been that Something Bad is coming since my grandfather died. I immediately comply.
When I do sit and finally look at my mother, I can see that her eyes are rimmed in red. My stomach clenches at the knowledge I’ve made my mother cry, that I’m doing a bang-up job in general of hurting people I care about lately. Really not the kind of thing I’ve ever aspired to.
They’re both silent, like they’re waiting for me to kick off the conversation I’d rather die than have. I don’t know what they know yet. Lord knows they’ve never been very interested in my career. They don’t support it so much as they just don’t get in the way of it, which, while hurtful, has always been the best I’ve known I could ask for.
Today, though, I suspect that’s about to change.
Finally, I can’t take the angst anymore, and I venture out with, “I’m not sure what you think you know, but I can explain all of it.”
It’s the wrong thing to say; the flash of anger in my father’s dark eyes makes that patently clear. “Explanations no longer matter, Vanessa. We have allowed you to live this lifestyle for long enough. We said when you first auditioned that we would allow this as long as you behaved well and kept up your education.”
“And I have,” I burst out. “I have been so good. I’ve gone to family events, even when it’s meant bailing on award shows. I had Ally tutor me for the SATs last year, and I did well enough—the second time, at least—to get into UCLA. And—”
