Chapter 7

Dean

“Bella, I can’t talk; I’m sleeping in today. I was up all night,” I said when my agent called.

My drab apartment looked a little less drab as the sun shone in and I pushed myself upright in my bed. The mess of clothes and take out boxes that littered my bedroom actually looked slightly less pathetic with the glow of the new day. I made a mental note to pick everything up before the maid had to see just how much of an animal I really was. Living in the extended stay apartments was much better than a hotel, although I didn’t bother to use the kitchen nearly as much as I should have.

“I know.”

“Wait, how do you know?”

“I’ve already had several calls asking for comment about your dating the most well-known reality star in the world.”

“Wow, she’s that well-known? Hmm,” I laughed.

“Dean Morrison. You are going to make me very happy if you tell me you and Angelina Kent are actually dating.”

“Sorry to disappoint you; it was just one date. Nothing too exciting.”

I wasn’t about to give any details to Bella about my date; I knew her all too well. Bella’s job was to get me attention, but that didn’t mean I wanted all of the attention that she tried to get for me. Going on a date with Angelina wasn’t about publicity, it was a surprisingly real and honest date that I didn’t want to ruin or cheapen with the kind of publicity that Bella wanted to do.

“Did you meet her on Instamatch?”

Her question sat in the air like a target she was waiting for me to hit. I didn’t want to lie to her, but I knew the second I told her the truth, it was going to become very hard for her to just let me date Angelina and not make it into a public event.

“Bella, I’m going to trust you and tell you the truth, but I’m also asking that you don’t share anything yet. It was only one date, and I like this girl and would like to go out again, do you understand?”

“You did meet here off of Instamatch! Oh, my God! This is such great news. You do know that you make more money depending on the number of people who interact with your posts that they are tagged in. Do you know what this means?”

“I suppose it means that you are going to try and get me to post about her on my social media pages?”

“Dean, this girl has millions and millions of followers. If you and her both posted; oh my goodness, this is going to be such a huge endorsement deal! Is she working with them as well? Wow, this is good Dean. This is really good.”

“Yeah, I think she has a similar contract. We sort of accidently ran into each other. We both thought the other was a fake account. It was really funny actually.”

I wasn’t opposed to my contract with Instamatch, and I understood what Bella was saying. It was her job to help me make money in this new social media world; I just didn’t like the idea of trying to make money off of a girl that I had only been on one date with. Plus, I really did like Angelina and wanted to get to know her. I wasn’t interested in ruining it by selling her out.

“Just promise you’ll talk to her about it; who knows, maybe she’s interested in posting something with you too. You’re a pretty awesome catch yourself there buddy.” Bella laughed.

“Okay, I’m going now. I’ll let you know when I know more. For now, your response is ‘no comment’, understand?”

“I hate that; you know I hate that.”

“Talk to you later,” I said as I hung up and reluctantly climbed into the shower.

I knew Bella hated when she couldn’t fill in the press, but I suspected every agent felt that way when the news stations were hounding them for stories. When I was younger, I would have caved into everything my agent said, but I didn’t care as much as I use to. I did want to get back into the movie making scene, but I wasn’t going to sell my soul to get there.

I waited all day long to reply back to Angelina when I realized she was working for the whole day. It was my day off, so it seemed like torture not to try and call her or talk to her, but I knew what those filming days were like and wasn’t going to interrupt her much. As I climbed into bed at the end of the day, I saw a text from her pop up on my screen. There was no way I was going to sleep after seeing that, I had spent my day waiting to hear from her.

“Finally, I got back to my room; we got a little ahead on shooting today.”Angelina said in her text.

“That never happens!” I replied.

“I know; I think they built in time for me to suck, and today I didn’t suck … lol.”

“I’m sure you don’t normally suck.”I said as I thought about the conversations we had had together. She was a very eloquent woman and I suspected she was a fabulous actress.

“Sometimes I suck real good.”

What the hell! Did she just say what I thought she said? This was the wild girl who had been messaging me when we first started to talk. I liked this side of her.

“Don’t get me started thinking about your perfect mouth,” I text her back.

“Oh, you don’t want to think about my perfect mouth wrapped around your body?”

I felt my body reacting as we text, and I wanted her there in my bed desperately.

“You better get going to bed; I suspect you have another long day ahead of you tomorrow?” I said as I tried to avoid the sexual innuendo.

“I could sleep better if you were here in my bed,” she replied.

Fucking hell! This girl was killing me!

“How about tomorrow I take you out after you’re done. Maybe a late dinner?”

I waited patiently for a response, but nothing came through. I felt like a kid as I stared at my phone hoping to see the little bubble pop up that would show that she was typing me a message. About ten minutes passed, and I decided that she had fallen asleep. I remembered what those days of shooting for fifteen hours were like. When I would finally get to bed, it was all I could do to stay awake long enough to set my alarm for the next day. I fell asleep thinking about Angelina for the second night in a row.

“I’m so sorry I fell asleep on you! Yes, I’d love to see you again. I’ll text you when we wrap for the night. Probably around nine,” Angelina responded to me around seven o’clock in the morning.

It was near noon when I had woken up, though. Our schedules weren’t all that close to each other. I would be finishing up my show around 9:30 p.m., but I figured that would probably still work alright.

“I’ll be done around 9:30 p.m. Text me where you’d like to meet up, and I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

It certainly wasn’t the most romantic way to spend a second date, but neither of our lives was typical at all. We were going to just have to do whatever worked for us and forget about the norms of the dating world. To be honest, I didn’t really know what normal dating was anymore. Before I had moved to New York, my dating had been sporadic at best. I lived in Los Angeles and dated random female actresses and models that I met on the road. There was the occasional woman that I kept around as what people called a girlfriend, but only a couple that I could remember actually having feelings for.

Since arriving in New York, I had been concentrating much more on myself and not so much on the dating stuff. The women I went out with were typically one-night stands, and I hadn’t kept anyone around much longer than that.

That afternoon, I had to meet up with a couple of the guys from my investment group. I had missed our normal Sunday night meeting and still needed to give them my monthly payment for our group. I really valued all the learning about investments that was going on in our group; I also valued the friendships that I got from the guys in the group.

“You have been a busy guy,” Merrick said as I walked into the diner where all the guys were sitting and waiting for me.

“What is this, some sort of intervention?” I laughed.

“Hey, we need to keep in contact with you somehow. You’re going to be too famous to want to hang out with us soon,” Ren added.

“You know I think Angelina is beautiful, way to go, Dean,” Wyatt added.

“She’s sexy as hell,” Luke chimed in.

“Okay guys, are we talking about my dating life all afternoon or should we make our investment decisions?” I added.

“Your dating life,” Ren and Luke both said at the same time.

“Oh, come on guys. You can’t be all that interested. I’ve never had to answer to you before about the girls I went home with.”

“So you’re saying that you went home with her? Yes, tell us about that. What was she like in bed? Details Dean; we need details,” Luke said intently.

“I’m not saying anything about our date or if we went home with one another,” I said firmly. “But I will say she’s got one hell of a body, doesn’t she?”

“Oh! Yeah, that’s the truth,” Merrick said quietly.

“Seriously guys. She’s a nice girl. Smart as hell and really fun to talk to. I’m just going to ride it out and see how things go.”

I saw the childish look on Ren and Luke’s faces as Ren mouthed the words ‘ride it out’, and then they both started to laugh hysterically. They were the youngest guys in our group, and it certainly showed in how they behaved.

“Okay, guys you better calm down if you want to meet her someday,” I teased.

“Yes, I want to meet her,” Luke said as his face went totally serious. “And her sister Abigail; I want to meet her sister.”

“I’ll see if I can hook you up somewhere down the road,” I said as I finally got Luke to turn more to a serious tone. “Now, can we talk investments? I think my little Instamatch contract is going to be very lucrative. I’d like to be ready to invest my money the right way.”

“You met her on Instamatch!” Ren yelled out, and everyone in the restaurant turned to look at us.

“Yep,” I said. “Thanks for helping me set up my profile.”

“I’m getting on there right now,” Luke added as both he and Ren ignored me and started to download the app and set up their profiles.

“That’s some good dumb beginners luck,” Merrick said.

“I know; it was funny. We both thought the other was lying about who we were and then showed up and were totally surprised.”

“That’s a good love story, dude; I hope it works out,” Wyatt added. “You know I’m totally supportive. I’m living proof that you can meet the woman of your dreams online.”

“I know dude, thanks. So I do have a little bit of a dilemma; maybe you two could help me?” I asked as I looked at Merrick and Wyatt.

“Sure,” Merrick replied, and Wyatt shook his head.

“My agent wants me to post about this whole thing online. She says it will increase my deal with Instamatch by the millions. It just seems pretty slimy to me. I don’t want to be that kind of guy. On the other hand, she’s got a deal with Instamatch too; so maybe she will want to publicize everything too?”

“I don’t know how all that celebrity stuff works,” Merrick started to say, “but I do know women. You’ll need to talk to her about it. She might freak out if you just post pictures, and she might not. The best option is to talk to her and know where she’s at about it all.”

“Listen to Merrick and all his expert advice on social media,” Ren added. “He’s right, though; once you post, you can’t take it back. Make sure she’s down with it.”

“When are you seeing her again?” Luke asked.

“Probably tonight after my show.”

“Man, I could see you making some big time dough on this deal. Look, she’s got millions of followers on her Instagram. If you are getting paid based on your social media reach, wow, this is going to be huge,” Ren added.

“Yeah, that’s what Bella was saying.”

“It’s a good deal for her too, though. You’re not some schmuck off the street. Being seen with you will help her profile too.”

“How do you figure?” I asked skeptically.

I didn’t see how being seen with an aging Hollywood star would be all that beneficial to an up and coming starlet. She seemed to have her whole career ahead of her, and I was desperately trying to hold onto mine.

“You are a legitimate Hollywood star. She’s a wannabe. Sure, she’s a sexy, rich wannabe, but she could use someone like you to bring her popularity to the mass of regular people. It would help her get into some big movie roles too.”

“Hell, I can’t even get my own big movie roles.”

“That will change if you’re dating this girl. I guarantee it, and I bet your agent will say the same thing. This girl is your key to the new age marketplace. I mean, I’m not suggesting you date her just because she’s popular, but I’m just saying it certainly won’t hurt your efforts to get new roles.”

Ren had a good point, and I absolutely hated that he had said it out loud. I didn’t want to even think about the possibility that I was using Angelina to get what I wanted out of Hollywood. I wasn’t. I really did like her, and I wasn’t going to do a thing that would jeopardize what we had started between us.

“I’m not going to use her.”

“If two people who were never famous, both got famous at the same time. Would they be using each other?” Merrick asked.

“No.”

“That’s what would happen here. You aren’t famous in the social media world, and she’s not famous in the movie world. You can both benefit and build your brands. From a business perspective, this seems like a win-win situation to me.”

“Okay, I see your point. I’ll try and talk to her about it. But it’s not really the most romantic way to start a second date.”

“Wait until the third date.” Wyatt laughed.