Three months later
“I miss you,” Heather says just before the video on the computer screen goes grainy.
“I miss you too. How’s Jake?”
“Good. We’re still fuck-buddying it.” She laughs. “I watched the premiere the other night. It’s fucking hilarious. Halfway through the show, I started crying because it’s not fair that you’re all the way in Atlanta. How much more money do they have to pay you before you can afford to have me move in and live rent free as your entertainment value.”
I laugh. “Please move out here. It’s so lonely. Everyone here is all polite and prudish. You say the word vagina too loudly, and people give you dirty looks. It’s just not the same.”
“I’m coming out in two months. Maybe I won’t go back.”
I tap my fingers over my desk, struggling with whether to ask about him or not. I minimize the video call and type Johnny Depth into the search bar. Thousands of pictures populate on the screen. When I finally find one of him where he’s not balls deep in Brandi or Vee, I click on it. I stare at his face—his masculine jawline, those eyes, the slight stubble on his face and I sigh a little. I’m so angry with myself because now I’m back at the start. This picture should evoke hate, not sadness, not longing. Then, just like a movie reel, my mind flips through all those years I spent with him. All the moments of my life I gave him.
“He really did quit, Jemma.” I close out of the browser and pull the video back up.
“What? Jake quit dancing?” I ask, playing dumb.
“No you fucking dick dribble.” Heather rolls her eyes. “Tyler. He quit doing porn.”
“Oh, well, good for him.”
My doorbell chimes and I glance at the clock, swearing when I realize I’ve totally lost track of time. “Shit, I gotta go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Is that Grayson,” she asks, practically swooning. Grayson is my co-star, my love interest on the show. We’re not together, although according to the tabloids, I’m already pregnant with twins. “Yes, but we are not together.”
“I can’t believe you would lie to me like that.”
The doorbell rings again. “I’m not. I have to go.”
“Let me talk to him.”
“No.”
“Please?”
“No, you are that friend I have to explain to people, and as soon as he came on the camera you’d show your tits to him and ask him how long his cock is or some crazy shit and then I’d be stuck trying to explain that shit.”
She smirks. “Well, my tits are epic.”
“They are. Talk to you later.”
I shut the laptop, hop up, and try my best to touch up the shitty makeup job from earlier. The doorbell dings again before I reach it. When I open the door, Grayson is braced in the doorway. His eyes skim over me, and he laughs. “You look cute.”
“Shut up,” I say, closing the door behind me.
“What? Cute is a good thing.”
“Cute is not a good thing. Puppies and kittens are cute. Women are not supposed to be cute.”
“Noted. So Thai?” he asks, placing his arm around my waist as he guides me toward his Land Rover Sport.
“Sure,” I say, yanking away from his hold.
“Oh, come on. The publicist said it would be good to give way to the rumors, how the hell are we gonna get on the front of the tabloids if you won’t even let me touch you?
The locks to his car clicks and he opens the door. Sighing, I climb in. Greyson’s a good guy, but I hate that we are faking this shit just to get our names in the press more.