“Do you know how happy I am to be doing this?” Heidi snuggles on the leather lounge chair next to me, and I sigh from content.

“Are you kidding me? This is what you had in mind for my visit? Sitting in your massive movie room, binging Netflix shows and eating gourmet junk food? We are in Hollywood! We should be out, passing velvet ropes with all of your new connections!” She throws her hands up, but then pops a Ghirardelli truffle in her mouth with a smile.

I laugh and snap off the end of a Twizzler with my teeth, reveling in the sugary sweetness that is oh so bad for me. Looking around, we’re drowning in bowls and bowls of different candies. When Heidi had mentioned coming out for a trip, and after Dean fled without so much as a word a day after we slept together, I knew it was the perfect time. I had his credit card, booked her a first-class ticket to LAX, and planned the ultimate girls’ night. Talking with Skylar about meal prepping, I’d relayed that I wanted all of the bad, sweet, fried foods that I’d been avoiding since I’d been in front of cameras so much. He set up appetizer deliveries from some of the most delicious restaurants in the area—including dumplings from my favorite new Chinese joint and buffalo shrimp from the tiny exclusive tapas place on Rodeo Drive—and also worked with Dylan’s Candy Bar to set up an incredible spread. It was overkill for the two of us, and we were stuffing our faces like an LA model’s nightmare, or fantasy.

“This is a hundred times better, believe me. And I do that every night, I’m so sick of it. A real night with my best friend for me equals a gossip session on the couch while stuffing our faces and watching terrible romantic comedies.” I tuck my sweatpants-clad legs under my butt.

Heidi rolls her eyes. “Oh, poor little rich engaged girl … she is just forced to attend all of those swanky parties and accept free top shelf alcohol and gift bags.”

I throw a piece of caramel and chocolate flavored popcorn at her forehead. “It’s good to see you too, B.”

“Yeah, yeah. A girl can’t really complain when she was flown out here with free champagne and a first-class window seat. And then picked up in a Bentley. And then taken on a shopping spree on someone else’s dime. He may be a bastard, but Dean Jacobs is a rich bastard.”

Heidi had arrived last night, and in our usual fashion, we’d climbed into my king bed and talked until we fell asleep. Sure, she could have stayed in one of the other fifty beautifully designed rooms in this castle of a house, but having her sleep on the other side of my bed felt like a little piece of home I could cling to. Earlier in the day today, we’d gone and bought out the stores of LA of every overpriced pair of pants and too-expensive shoes.

It felt good, vengeance almost, to spend Dean’s money after he’d shrunken away like a coward. One day after we’d come out of our bodies in his dressing room after the concert, he’d flown to London early without even a word to me. I’d woken up the next day, alone in my bed, confused and turned on and needing to talk about what happened. Needing to process and vent and fight about why I’d let myself do that, about why we had to explore these feelings that truthfully, had never gone away.

But I couldn’t. He’d left word with Patrick, his agent, to let me know he had to go on tour and that he’d be back in two weeks. It seemed like after every physical encounter we had these days, this man who claimed to be so in tune with his feelings about me just flew out the door like a bat out of hell.

“So, what movie should we watch next?” I pick up one of the seven remotes it takes to control this room and click a button to pull up the movie library.

“Rich people have it so good. This entire room is bigger than my parent’s house back in Jersey, and he seriously doesn’t even have to wait for movies to come out?! Look, there is that new Ryan Gosling romance that doesn’t release for two more months. This is seriously the life.” Heidi relaxes her hand behind her head and scrolls the movie database.

“It does have its perks. So tell me the gossip, come on. I miss New Jersey.” I click on A Cinderella Story and let Chad Michael Murray’s face fill the screen.

Heidi nods her head in approval. “An oldie but a goodie. Hmm, let me think. Marie came into the salon the other day, she was glowing. I think she’s knocked up … definitely a honeymoon baby. And the Peter family is closing down the diner, apparently, Noah Peter doesn’t want to take over the family business so they’re selling. What else?” She taps her finger to her chin. “Oh! Do you remember Mr. Walsh? The hot history teacher at the high school?”

“Do I remember him? I had the biggest crush on him sophomore year.” I laugh, enjoying the frivolous talk.

“Well, word is, he’s dating a former student who was only a few years above our grade. Kind of gross, but also I’m so jealous of her.”

I digest the information about Marie and Henry, secretly envious that the other Elm Hill high school sweethearts were doing so well. “Congrats to Marie and Henry if so … I mean, obviously, they’re going to be awesome parents. And yeah … Mr. Walsh was hot. But I don’t know how I’d feel sleeping with someone who saw me through the braces phase.”

“B! I said the same thing when my mom came home and told me. Then she said I was disgusting and told me I needed to find a nice man. Whatever.” She rolled her eyes and recited a line from Hillary Duff in the movie. “And you know Jennifer Price?”

“Is she the one who works at the strip club in Florida?” I remembered seeing her more … risqué pictures she liked to post on social media.

Heidi clucks her tongue. “She prefers exotic dancer if you read her Instagram page … but anyways, she’s pregnant.”

“No! Jeez, is there something in the water?” I shake my head.

“Not unless you tell me you have a bun in the oven, which would make it three for three.” She flicks my arm.

“As if me, Marie and Jennifer Price have anything remotely in common. No, there is no way I’m with child. Religious birth control pill taker ever since the day I turned seventeen, you know that.” I hold my fingers up like I’m pledging a Scout’s honor.

“As if I don’t remember the day your mom took you to the gynecologist.”

Oh lord, that had been so uncomfortable. Telling your mom you were no longer a virgin had to be one of the weirdest conversations a teenage girl could have. She’d cried in the doctor’s office, called me a woman and wanted to hear every kind of birth control option possible. Meanwhile, I’d wished my grave would open up in the middle of the floor and just swallow me whole right there.

“It’s not like you’re sleeping with anyone anyway. Lucky girl. Who gets a five-carat diamond and doesn’t have to put the vijayjay on display?” She picks up a salted caramel and pops it in her mouth.

I stay silent, staring ahead at the movie. No matter which way I go with this, Heidi is going to get it out of me. But I can stall for just a minute longer.

“Wait a minute … I know that look. Did you sleep with him?! Did you sleep with Dean fucking Jacobs!?” She grabs the closest, cushiest pillow and smacks me over the head.

“Why do you say his name like you didn’t sit next to him every day at lunch for all of high school?” I pout, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Are you fucking serious? You slept with him? He put his million-dollar penis in your vagina?”

The way she described it made me laugh, and I had to reach for the wine glass on the side table next to me. “Yes, okay? I didn’t really mean for it to happen …”

“Oh, yes you did, I saw this coming from the three hundred miles away where I live my boring life in New Jersey. I knew it.”

“Just rub it in.” I roll my eyes at her.

“Was it good?” She wiggles her eyebrows.

I sigh, giving up putting this off. “It was fantastic. Incredible. Sexy in a way I’ve never had before, and I’ve already slept with the damn man.”

“Oh, this is making my toes curl. How, when? I feel so cheated that you waited a day and a half to tell me this.” She sits up on her heels, turning toward me as if she’s a child and I’m going to read her a story.

“Down, girl. Fine … it was at his concert three days ago. Or, after it, I should say. In the dressing room. He practically sang the entire show directly to me, B. It was insane, I’ve never been more turned on in my life. And yet, I was so pissed off at myself for having those feelings, that it made the sex almost … angry. Shit, I don’t know.”

Heidi squeals. “So, what does this mean? Did he say anything before he left?”

My heart drops at having to say this out loud. “Not a peep. We got in the car after we finished, he stared out the window for the forty-minute drive out to Malibu, and then closed the door to his room the second we walked through the front door. It’s like … I am not even the one who has been up front about my feelings or pursuing anything, and yet whenever something intense or intimate happens, he runs for the hills. He snuck out of this house like a regretted one-night stand. I have no idea what it all means. I never wanted this.”

I hold up my hand at her, the diamond ring sparkling.

“Maybe he is freaking out about you possibly freaking out. That’s such a guy move, you know?” Heidi waves her hands around as she talks. “And come on, Kara … you’re my best friend. You don’t have to lie to me. A small part of you knew that something like this was going to happen. No one in their right mind agrees to a fake engagement to the love of their life without having some repressed feelings involved.”

Burying my head in my hands, I mumble, “You’re right. I just … I feel like one of those weak women. I told you he never cheated, right?”

Her warm, supportive hand lands on my arm. “You did … and I believe him, Kara. Remember the only time I ever mentioned it, right at the beginning when you broke up, and you got so mad that I let it drop? I never truly believed he could do that. Sure, Dean has that swagger about him, and he hasn’t been an altar boy for the past seven years, but he loved you. He really loved you. You’re not weak, you’re human. And you let go of a love that most of us never even dream of, much less experience. I think it’s okay to explore that when it’s gifted back in your face.”

Maybe she’s right. But I feel so vulnerable right now, that I feel like if I expose one artery to Dean, he could slice it and I’d bleed out.

My head is not in rhythm with my heart. Both are all over the place. And the only way to have them marching to the same beat is if Dean comes home and we address this, once and for all.