CHAPTER ONE
Grace
The long streak of light crackled and whizzed, pirouetting up into the air and exploding in a glorious plume of purple and green. More fireworks followed, each one lighting up the sky and the calm ocean beneath them. I pressed my hips against the banister, leaning as far as I could. The scene was so vivid. If I only tried hard enough, it felt as if I could reach out and touch the multi-colored stars.
Next to me, Rainy whistled and jumped up and down, some of her cocktail spilling over the rim of its glass. “More blue!” she slurred, like whoever was at the pier setting off the fireworks might just hear her and abide.
“Swim over there,” I teased her. “Just make sure to change into your bathing suit first. That’ll convince them.”
She gave me a saucy pout. “That’s a good idea. Maybe I will. Or maybe you should go. Men love Latinas.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever.”
“Half Latina counts,” she said. “Because you know...”
Another round of fireworks burst into the sky, drowning out the end of her sentence. Several more people from the party pushed against the edge of the yacht, oohing and smiling up at the sky.
Two firm hands pressed into the small of my back before snaking around my waist. I tried to play it cool and hide my smile. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rainy grin and waggle her eyebrows at me from underneath her thick blonde bangs.
“How’s the view?” Eli said into my ear between two explosions.
I pushed one hip back just right, the tight fabric of my sparkly green dress stretching to its limit. I’d picked it out with him in mind, although not in a million years would I admit that. My hip grazed his thigh, and he responded by shuffling forward a bit.
“Better now that you’re here,” I answered, making an attempt even though half of my sentence was lost in the noise.
I turned sideways to peek at him. His unruly brown hair was sticking up every which way — a style that was meant to seem casual but which I knew took painful time crafting.
His hand slid down to my palm and tugged. I hesitated, planting my six inch stilettos firmly into the deck. Eli gazed back at me, and I cocked an eyebrow, letting it be known that I questioned his intentions. No way was he drawing me away that easily, no matter how willing I was to go. Eli and I had only hooked up once. Well, maybe once and a half — that depended on exactly what you considered hooking up — and there was no reason for me to stop playing hard to get anytime soon.
He jerked his head to the main door leading below deck. Between us and it, several black tie servers moved about with trays, offering drinks and hor d’oeuvres to the mostly twenty something crowd. The best Fourth of July party I’d been to in years was in full swing, and there was no way Elijah Bishop Welty was going to enjoy the satisfaction of drawing me away from it without a fight.
“Well?” I said, despite the fact that he couldn’t hear me. He could read my lips, though, and his fingers grasped mine harder as he took a step towards me.
“I want to show you something below,” he said into my ear.
I tried to keep my face composed while I slowly nodded. One minute, I mouthed, although we both knew that if things went well for both of us, we would be gone for much longer than one minute.
I let him lead me through the door and into the red carpeted hallway decorated with gold and white striped wallpaper, past the entrance to the kitchen and into a long room at the end of the yacht. I didn’t know much about boats — except that it probably isn’t okay to call a yacht a “boat” — but I knew the vessel we were on was impressive. It was all thanks to Rainy’s father, a man who had made his mark as a leading actor in high budget action flicks decades before Rainy and I were even born. He called the party an early birthday present for her, though her twenty-second was still months away.
The room Eli pulled me into had a fish tank longer than a couch in the middle of it. A big flat screen TV was planted against the wall and strewn about the room were chairs and chaises. I walked over to the tank, inspecting the tan starfish creeping along the pebbled floor.
“You look amazing tonight,” Eli said to my back.
“Oh yeah?” I softly responded, watching his reflection in the fish tank’s glass.
His voice practically dripped with lust. “Yeah.” The boy wanted me, and he wanted me bad, but I was enjoying the chase too much to just give in right then and there. Trailing my finger along the base of the tank, I tried to think of what to say next.
The cell phone ringing in my clutch interrupted all thoughts. I jumped slightly, having forgotten that I’d left the volume on the stupid thing turned up all the way.
“Do you need to get that?” Eli asked.
I dug in my little white purse while I turned to face him. My fingers found the side of the phone, and I hit the silence button. “Nope.”
He took a couple of fast steps towards me, stopping only a foot away. “What was I saying?”
I tilted my face up towards his. “You were telling me how good I look tonight.”
His mouth broke into a side grin. “Oh, yeah. I was.”
“You wanna keep going with that?”
Two palms grasped my hips, pushing my back up against the tank. “I’d rather do other things with my mouth.”
The dam inside of me broke. To hell with playing hard to get.
“Show me what you had in mind,” I whispered.
***
The cool glass against my forehead felt like heaven. I sucked in a deep breath and batted my eyelashes open. I’d brought along the darkest sunglasses I owned, anticipating a hangover, but even they did nothing to shield me from the painful glare of Los Angeles’ midday sun.
The car’s driver hit a pothole, and my stomach lurched. Had I really had that much to drink last night?
It was hard to remember. I knew I’d thrown back a couple of cocktails by the time Eli and I went down below. After that, we’d found the liquor cabinet hidden in the room. There’d been a lock on it, but breaking it open was child’s play. Somehow the entire bottle of Grey Goose Magnum disappeared in no time at all, much like my strapless bra, which I never did manage to locate.
After going back up to the deck, we proceeded to drink more as well as smoke something questionable out of Connor Gentry’s bowl.
But considering that I had successfully hooked up with Eli and had no real physical damage other than a gnarly headache, I’d say it had all in all been a successful night.
Rainy and I had loose plans to meet up later to have drinks and rehash the events of the party. As I debated whether or not a little hair of the dog might do me some good, the car pulled into the circular drive on Sierra Mar. There were no cars in our driveway since my dad always preferred to use the garage, so it was impossible to tell whether or not he was home.
Saturdays could be iffy with him. Half the time he chose to see them as any other day of the week, working straight through the mornings and afternoons at his office downtown. “People need cat food every day,” was something he liked to say, referring to Pet Hop, the pet store chain he’d begun expanding across the country years ago.
Fumbling for the handle, I let myself out of the car. My legs shook slightly and I was glad I’d had the foresight to pack a pair of flats. After staying out on the yacht till close to dawn, Rainy and I had drunkenly traveled — thanks to her father’s personal driver, of course — to her house in Venice Beach. After a few hours of sleep, my own journey home began. It was time for a shower and a pair of underwear that didn’t ride up my ass in the name of being sexy.
“Thanks,” I mumbled to Rainy’s driver, remembering at the last second to turn around and grab my Gucci Soho leather shoulder bag. One of my high heels peeked out the top of it, and I jammed the shoe back in.
The driver nodded to me. “Have a good day, Miss Wells.”
I hurried past him and towards the front door. The Hollywood Hills street was quiet enough that most of the traffic was from residents, but I didn’t feel like pushing my luck. Someone I knew driving by and seeing me perform a walk of shame in last night’s dress, even if I was in my own front yard, was not something to be desired.
After rummaging through my purse, I located my keys in the very bottom and let myself in. The whirring of a vacuum cleaner came from somewhere in the right wing of the house, meaning LuLu the housekeeper was there. Too spent to talk to anyone, I headed for the stairs.
The Asian inspired house had been a part of my life for as long as I could remember. With a main section plus two wings that wrapped around the swimming pool and a massive loft on the second floor, it overlooked most of the city below. After petitioning my dad for several years, he’d finally taken the exercise equipment down from the loft and let me move into the space. At the top of the landing was a short hallway, one end of it housing a bathroom and the other end opening up to the massive room I called home.
My cell phone rang as I pushed the door to my sanctuary open. Sighing, I dropped my purse on the floor and pulled it out. Unlike my keys, my phone had its own little side pouch it lived in, ensuring I never lost track of it.
“What’s up?” I asked Rainy, walking to the bed and falling flat on my back.
“Hey.” Her voice sounded weird, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what the strange tone suggested.
I sat up, suddenly feeling much more awake. “Hey, yourself.”
“Have you seen the news?”
“No.” Did she know who she was talking to? It’s not like I’m a dumbass and didn’t know what was going on in the world, but I had better things to do in the mornings than sit down with a black cup of coffee and study the day’s headlines.
Although the coffee part sounded good...
My temples throbbed, and I reached up with my free hand to rub at them. “Aren’t we meeting later?”
Rainy sucked in a sharp breath. “There’s something on the news about your dad.”
“What?” My heart started pounding, and a dozen visions of my dad dying in various ways flashed through my mind. Heart attack. Car accident. Murder. “What are you talking about?”
“I mean about Pet Hop.”
I exhaled sharply. “Jesus Christ, Rainy. You scared me.”
“Sorry.”
I fell back down on the bed, thinking about chastising her more but also not having the strength to do it. Unlike me, Rainy still had both her parents. Unlike me, her mother hadn’t died when she was a baby, leaving her to be raised by babysitters and nannies. Unlike me, she didn’t live with the constant painful knowledge that the things she cherished most could be quickly and inexorably taken away from her.
“So what is it?” I asked.
She didn’t say anything.
“God, Rainy.” I was starting to get irritated. “What is it?”
“Everyone is saying Pet Hop is closing,” she said in a rush.
I absorbed the information. “Which one?”
“All of them.”
I scoffed. There were hundreds of them. There was a location in every major city in the United States and like half a dozen in L.A. alone.
“I’m not kidding, Grace.” Her voice was quiet. Serious. More serious than I’d ever heard her.
A thick ball formed in my throat. “It’s just a rumor. Why would my dad close them? That’s stupid. Come on, you don’t really believe that, do you?”
“The news says that the company is declaring bankruptcy.”
I stood up, unzipping the back of my dress and shimmying out of it while I talked. “Well, that’s not happening.”
“Okay,” she said, though I couldn’t tell whether she believed me or not.
“It’s not,” I stressed, kicking off my ballet flats. They ricocheted off the wall’s baseboard and landed on the carpet.
“I said okay.”
I stomped over to the closet and yanked the door open, then grabbed a yellow maxi dress off a hanger. “Look, I’ll text you in a little bit. We can go to Eau Claire. Or The Ivy.”
“K. See you.”
“Bye.”
As soon as she hung up, I called my dad. The phone rang and rang and when he didn’t answer, I threw it on the bed. Gritting my teeth, I pulled on the sundress and found my Louis Vuitton slides.
LuLu had killed the vacuum cleaner, and there was the soft talk of the radio coming from the kitchen. I veered away from that part of the house, heading for the side door that led to the garage. My dad’s silver Corvette was missing, but my yellow Hummer sat in its usual spot. I unlocked it, thinking of heading straight for the Pet Hop offices downtown.
I knew I probably looked like shit, what with last night’s mascara still on my face — albeit in the wrong location — but I was determined to figure out why such an awful rumor was going around. Pet Hop filing for bankruptcy just didn’t make sense. It was the leader in pet supplies. Last I’d heard, my dad was even talking about opening some stores in Canada.
I climbed into the Hummer but then froze as a familiar engine revved up the drive. A few seconds later, the garage door opened up. My dad pulled the Corvette into the spot between my car and his Jaguar convertible, and I climbed back down onto the concrete floor to wait.
His brows furrowed as he climbed out of the car, though the tense expression on his face could have meant any number of things. The man’s not exactly what you could call easy going — even a little thing like the mail man arriving thirty minutes later than usually could set my father off if he’s already in a sour mood.
As he looked at me and pursed his lips, though, I could see something was different. Something big was going on — like, much bigger than having your newest order of paperbacks from Amazon arrive half an hour later than you hoped they would. His forehead glowed with sweat, a couple drops trickling down from underneath his sandy blond hair. He pulled out a handkerchief from the front of his suit and wiped his brow.
“Where have you been?” he demanded.
His cutting tone made me draw back. “At Rainy’s Fourth of July party. I told you. Remember?”
“That doesn’t explain why you didn’t answer your phone. What about a party could be so distracting that you forget about the rest of the world?”
Oh, Dad. You do not want to know the answer to that question.
Immediately, I began to humorously play out exactly what the scene would look like if I were to tell my father about the drugs and sex on the yacht. Whatever his reaction might be, it would likely provide my friends and me with a story to laugh over for years.
“Didn’t you see my missed calls?” he pressed.
“Well... yeah.” There had been several missed calls from him when I’d woken up that morning, but no messages.
He stomped past me and pushed open the side door leading out of the garage. “I assume you’ve at least been on Twitter, so you know something about what’s going on.”
That one actually hurt. For the most part, my dad and I lived separate lives. And even though he could be distanced and preoccupied, very rarely did his treatment of me ever actually come close to scathing.
“You don’t have to be so mean to me,” I said, trying to quell the shake in my voice. “Just because of some stupid rumor...” I followed him up the little stone walkway to the left wing of the house.
He spun around to face me. “It’s not a rumor, Grace.”
I stared at him, not doing much else but blinking and breathing. Even my mind, completely devoid of thoughts, suddenly became incapable of functioning. From somewhere above us a bird trilled, its song out of place in the dour moment.
“B-but,” I sputtered, not entirely sure where I was going with the conjunction.
He sighed and looked at the ground. “I’ve been trying to hide it from you for over six months. I kept thinking that things would get better, that I would be able to pull the company through.” He continued to gaze at the grass. “But that’s not going to happen.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but only a croak came out. I took a deep breath and tried again. “What are you going to do?”
Finally, he looked up at me. “I’m going to New York to see if I can work something out with some shareholders there.”
“Oh,” I said, relieved. “That doesn’t sound so bad. How long will you be gone?”
All I need is one weekend to throw a kickass house party and make all these worries float away.
He shook his head bitterly. “I don’t know. As long as it takes. I don’t know what will happen, Grace.”
My fingers were twisting together and I forced myself to stop. “It’s okay.”
He studied my face. “Grace, the company isn’t just filing for bankruptcy. I am too.”
“Okay.” I got the sense there was more to what he was saying, so I stood there, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Everything will change. We have to sell this house... and the one in Massachusetts.”
My vision blurred. “Wait. What?”
“We have to sell the houses. And the cars... the boat. Everything.”
A strange noise escaped my throat, making me sound like a cross between a rabid fox and a crazy clown. “Not my car. That’s mine.”
He pursed his lips. “Yes, the Hummer too. I’m sorry.”
The tears welled up in my eyes, and the anger surged forward, spilling out of my heart and escaping from between my lips. “How could you do this?” I demanded. “How could you let this happen?”
An expression I’d never seen on anyone settled on his face. I didn’t know exactly what he was feeling, but whatever it was, it wasn’t good. I tensed, thinking he was about to blow up at me.
Finally, he just ran his hand over his eyes and sighed. “I did wrong by you. I’m sorry... I brought you up, giving you everything you wanted, and now look.” He gestured pathetically at me. “Your mother would be disappointed in me.”
Pain pricked at my chest. I didn’t know what to say. He hardly ever talked about my mom, and to have him finally mention her in such a shitty moment sucked balls.
A quick realization hit me like a truck, and I gasped. “If you’re selling the houses, where will I go?”
I expected him to say Hotel Bel-Air, Rainy’s, or New York.
“I’ve been thinking about that too,” he said. “And you need to get away for a while.”
I guffawed, slapping my thigh. “I hardly think this is the time to plan a vacation, Dad.”
His face became stony, and I shut up. “You stay out late partying. You don’t have a job. You never finished school.”
I crossed my arms. “You make me sound like an awful person. That’s not all I do.”
“You tan and go shopping.” He held his palm up to silence my objection. “Like I said, it’s my fault for letting it get this way. I should have put my foot down when you got kicked out of NYU, but I didn’t. I was too busy working all of the time to be a father, and I’m sorry.”
Some of the tension left my shoulders. The apology was straight out of left field, and I had no clue how to respond to it. How ashamed he seemed of me.
“You won’t want to be in Los Angeles much longer anyway,” he said, his voice ominous.
“What does that mean?”
“North Carolina,” he said, ignoring my question. “I spoke to my brother this morning, and he’s agreed to let you stay with him for a while.”
My head spun, going a thousand miles per hour, a new question popping up with every mile the tornado of my mind gained. North Carolina, where? And what made my Uncle Joe — who I hadn’t seen since high school — so gung ho to take me in? And what was I to even do in such a hick state?
“I’m not going,” I gasped. “You can’t make me.”
He looked at me with sadness. Or was it pity?
“I think you’ll soon find that going there will be preferable to any other option.”
What’s that supposed to mean?
He turned and went into the house, shutting the door behind him. A few seconds later, I followed, immediately running up to my room and texting Rainy before hopping in the shower and washing my clown face off.
***
Ivy at the Shore was just as busy as it usually was on the weekend, but as soon as the hostess saw Rainy and me, she led us to the bar. The spot had been one of our favorite mid-day mimosa stops since both Rainy and I turned twenty-one a year before. Not that we hadn’t drank all the time before that. It had just been more difficult to do at all hours. There were lots of clubs, of course, that looked the other way — and even catered to us once they found out who we were — but restaurants at brunch could be a different matter.
On a typical weekend, we liked to come in and nurse hangovers while keeping an eye out for A-List celebrities and then acting like we could care less when Kim Kardashian or Brad Pitt settled down a table away from us and ordered an organic omelet.
This visit, of course, had an entirely different reason and mood behind it.
The hot, dark haired bartender smiled and nodded at us as we settled into two seats in the middle of the cozy bar. A minute later, our usual cocktails were in front of us. I took the first slow sip, letting the orange juice and champagne seep into my veins.
Rainy studied me from the corner of her eye. With her hair piled up in a big bun on the top of her head and a wraparound dress draped across her lithe limbs, she looked like she belonged in a magazine. All of our friends said it was only a matter of time before just that happened. She’d been trying to break out from the shadow of her dad for years, going to film auditions and modeling calls nonstop. Granted, she wasn’t exactly the best actress — that much I could tell — but we all knew you didn’t need to be talented to make it in Hollywood.
“So,” she said, swishing around the contents of her glass.
I glanced surreptitiously around us. The seat next to her was unoccupied and sitting on my side were two older men in suits. Even though no one we knew was around, I lowered my voice nonetheless. “It’s not a rumor.”
Her eyes went wide. “Oh my God.”
I gritted my teeth. “Yeah. Tell me about it.”
She stared at me, looking fearful, which totally sucked because I was kind of counting on her to help pull me through the catastrophe. If my best mate was losing her shit, how could I be expected to keep it together?
“What’s going to happen?”
I lowered my voice even more. “My dad’s going to New York to try and fix it all.”
She furrowed her brows. “Like, sell the company?”
“I don’t know,” I groaned. “I don’t know. All I know is that he wants me to go to North Carolina.”
“North Carolina?” she shrieked, making Mr. Hot Bartender glance up from the sink to look at us.
“Keep it down. I don’t exactly want the entire city to know.”
“I don’t get it. Why there?”
I nervously tugged at a strand of my hair. Despite the urgency of meeting up with Rainy, I’d made sure not to leave the house without washing and blow drying. I’d been growing my hair out for a few years, and it had just gotten down to my elbows. No matter what was going on, taking the time to look my best was a priority. After all, you never knew what might happen or who you could run into.
“Grace,” Rainy said. “Why North Carolina?”
I sighed. “Because my Uncle Joe lives there.”
“But what will you do there?”
I shrugged, suddenly not wanting to talk about it anymore. The further we got into the conversation, the more twisted my stomach became.
“Are you going back to school?” Rainy pressed.
“Nope.”
She grinned. “Are you raising cattle?”
I pursed my lips. “I think you’re getting North Carolina confused with Texas.”
She shrugged nonchalantly, like it didn’t matter either way. And it didn’t. She was staying in L.A. Everything in her life would remain normal and decent. I, on the other hand...
“Heeeey,” a familiar voice said.
From the front of the room, a girl in tight black pants and a crop top sauntered over. Madi pulled her sunglasses off and ran a hand through her short dark hair before stopping between mine and Rainy’s seats.
“Kick ass party last night, Rainy,” she said about three octaves too loud.
Rainy nodded. “Yeah, it was awesome.”
I glanced at Rainy, trying frantically to emote with my eyes how much I desperately needed her to keep her mouth shut about what was happening in my life. Just telling her about it was embarrassing enough — although necessary if I didn’t want to implode from the stress of dealing with the upheaval on my own.
Madi nodded eagerly, sliding her eyes to me, and I just knew. The way her head was bobbing up and down gave everything away. The question was whether or not she was going to mention the scandal.
“So,” she chirped. “What’s up?”
Rainy shrugged. “Just trying to recover.”
Madi’s thick red lips stretched into a malicious grin. I could practically see the wheels turning as she set her gaze on me. “And how are you, Grace?”
“Good,” I responded as naturally as I could manage.
She put on a phony look of sympathy. “I heard a funny thing this morning.”
“Hm.” I clutched the stem of my mimosa glass tighter.
She waited for more from me. I didn’t give it.
Instead, Rainy spoke up. “You guys want to check out that new club in Hollywood tonight? My friend Ricardo is a promoter for it.”
“I don’t know,” Madi replied, drawing the words out longer than necessary. “Can you go, Grace?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. Madi and I had never had a beef with each other. We usually enjoyed jokes at other people’s expenses. The fact that she could so suddenly be snarky after years of being friends was downright pathetic.
And who gets their lips pumped full of collagen at twenty-three anyway?
I thought about going ahead and asking her the question just to put her in her place. She was already opening that ridiculously puffy mouth again though.
“I mean, can you stand to be seen?”
The remark felt like a bolt of lightning. Instead of sending me crumbling to the floor, though, it had me sitting up straighter. I stared my unexpected adversary down. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Wow. You’re really amazing. You know, I really admire you.”
I turned my back to her, choosing to stare at the shelf of liquor bottles while sipping my mimosa. Her last remark didn’t even deserve a response.
“So you want to go?” Rainy asked Madi, as if the whole last minute hadn’t even happened.
“I’ll see,” Madi casually responded. “Who else will be there?”
“I don’t know. Ricardo has promised to get us the best booth. Oh, and I heard Leonardo DiCaprio might be coming.”
“He’s all right,” Madi answered, though she didn’t fool anyone. If the man were standing in front of her at the moment, she would probably be licking the tops of his shoes.
Madi went on. “Can you even afford to go out, Grace?”
That one hit me like a whip. I spun around in my seat to face her. “Yes, I can afford to go out.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Rainy said. “We won’t have to pay for anything at Blase anyway.”
I stared at her. Did she not see how much that dumb comment totally did not help?
Madi giggled. “Well, that’s good. If Grace does get in a bind, she can always wash dishes in the back.”
Rainy laughed as well. “Or mop the floor.”
I resisted the urge to kick her in the shin. Some best friend she was being.
“I gotta go,” Madi announced. “I’m meeting Katie and Amber.” She gave a half ass wave and walked away, weaving around the tables.
“You’re a bitch,” I snapped as soon as Madi was out of hearing.
Rainy looked clueless. “Huh?”
“You’re making fun of my life here. Or did you forget this is real and not some stupid movie you’re auditioning for?”
Rainy wrinkled her nose. “Geez. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”
“You were completely on her side.”
Rainy sighed. “Okay. I’m sorry. I got carried away. This is all so... new, you know?”
“Yeah, I know,” I dismally answered before downing the rest of my drink.
“Are you coming tonight?”
“I don’t think I should.”
She tilted her head, authentically confused. “Why not?”
“Because it will be just like the last ten minutes... except way worse. Everyone will be there.”
I thought of Eli, and a pang ripped across my chest. What would he think of me once he found out I was poor? Would he even want to see me ever again?
I’d heard the term social pariah before, but I’d never thought the day would come when it could be applied to me.
“Oh my God,” I groaned. “I’m done for.”
“Stay with me,” Rainy said. “Don’t go to North Carolina. You know my parents won’t mind.”
I bit my lip, giving it some thought. “I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because it won’t change anything. Everyone knows about what’s happening. How can I face everyone?”
“They’re going to know whether you live in L.A. or some town no one’s ever heard of.”
“Unless they don’t know where I went.”
Rainy cocked her head. “You’re going to lie?”
I squared my shoulders. “I’ll tell everyone I’m going back to NYU.”
“You got kicked out of NYU.”
I glared at her. “I know that. But I’m sure they make special exceptions sometimes. They’ve got to take students back.”
Rainy looked doubtful. “I guess...”
“It’s a great idea,” I told her. “As long as you go along with it.”
Rainy sucked in a slow breath. “All right.”
“Good.” I grabbed my clutch. “Let’s get out of here. This place is depressing me.”
I threw some cash on the bar and then stomped off, leading the way to the sidewalk. At the hostess stand, we passed a few men in suits. Rainy waved to them, then stopped like she was going to start up a conversation. Snatching her hand right out of the air, I dragged her through the front door.
“I don’t want to be here anymore,” I hissed through my teeth.
She yanked her hand away. “God. What’s your problem? I knew that guy. He was a producer on whatever that last film was my dad did.”
“So what?” I kept walking, heading past the valet parking stand and down the street.
“So he’s nice. And kind of cute.” She ran to catch up with me.
“And old.” I walked faster.
“No, he’s not. He’s only, like, forty.”
“He won’t give you a part in his next film.”
“Where are you going?” she asked, still a couple steps behind me.
“I don’t know. To drown myself in the ocean maybe.”
She finally fell into step next to me. “You know, you brought this into your life. You used the Law of Attraction.”
I shot her a look intended to kill. “Do not start with that bullshit.”
She scoffed. “What? You went to the workshop with me. You know it’s real.”
“Then how come you haven’t gotten a part in two years?” I threw back at her.
She shut her mouth, her lips drawing into a tight line. “I’m glad you’re not coming tonight.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Nu-uh, you said—”
I cut her off. “I don’t care what I fucking said, Rainy! My life is falling apart here, and all you care about is whether or not you’ll get a bottle service booth tonight! You think this is all a joke! You’re supposed to be my best friend, the person who’s there for me no matter what.” I stopped walking and turned to face her. “And right now you’re anything but.”
“That’s not all I care about,” she fiercely said.
I scoffed. “Oh, sorry. That’s right. You care about whether or not Leonardo DiCaprio is going to be there. News flash. Even if he is, he won’t be sitting at your table.”
She clamped a hand on a hip and opened her mouth to say something else but was interrupted yet again.
“Hey, Grace!” someone yelled.
We both turned to see two teenage boys standing on the curb. One of them had his cell phone pulled out and was apparently filming me.
“You going to sell all your designer shoes?” he asked.
Next to me, Rainy gasped. Instantly, my face started to burn.
I turned my back to the boy. “Come on,” I told Rainy. “Let’s go.”
I started walking, but she didn’t move. “Rainy,” I hissed at her. “Let’s go.”
The boy with the phone came closer, getting within a few yards of us. “Say something to the world, Grace. Tell them what it’s like to fall from the top.”
I kept my face passive, glad I was wearing sunglasses that hid my eyes so well.
Never once had a random person on the street known who I was... and now?
Fame truly wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
“Fuck off,” Rainy told the kid.
“Rainy,” I repeated, keeping my voice even and emotionless. An outburst was what the guy was looking for, after all. The more passive we stayed, the fewer hits the video would get on YouTube.
Our aggressor only took a step closer, coming within inches of Rainy.
“Hey,” he said to her. “Why don’t...?”
Rainy reached up and knocked the phone from his hand. It crashed to the concrete and smashed into several pieces, one of which skidded underneath a car parked on the street.
The second boy burst into laughter.
“You bitch!” the wannabe paparazzo spat at Rainy.
Rainy flipped him the bird. “Lick my clit.”
She turned and stomped away, taking my hand as she passed me.
The boys yelled behind us, shooting insults our way, but neither Rainy or I looked back.
At the valet stand, we finally stopped walking. Rainy got busy digging her ticket from her purse. “Little dick,” she muttered.
The valet gave her a stink eye.
“Not you,” she told him, handing him her ticket.
“Thank you,” I muttered to her.
Rainy hooked her arm in mine. “Hey. I’m your best friend. Remember? I’m sorry if I was distracted by other things. I’m here for you.”
I smiled weakly. “Even if I’m in North Carolina?”
“Ehh,” she said, pretending to consider the issue.
I poked her in her side. “Bitch.”
***
“I’m going to go,” I announced to my dad as I stood in the doorway of his office at our house.
He gazed up at me, not looking surprised in the slightest.
“What?” I asked. “Aren’t you going to ask me why?”
Sighing, he leaned forward and started messing with some papers on the desk. “I can guess why.”
I bit my bottom lip. The phone started ringing, and he glanced at its screen. “I have to take this.”
I turned to go.
“By the way,” he announced. “I already got your ticket. You’re leaving tomorrow.”
“Wh-what?” I sputtered.
He picked up the receiver. “Go ahead,” he said into it.
My hands balled into fists. Anger rose in me, but I wasn’t entirely sure what I was the angriest about. Was it that my dad correctly predicted that I would finally go without a fight or that he gave me only twenty-four hours, presumably, to pack my bags?
Either way, I was furious. Or maybe depressed... I wasn’t really sure.
All I knew was my life was getting flipped upside down, and no matter what was to come next, there was no way I could prepare for it.