“Nat, listen.” Alec grabbed her shoulders from behind. Nat pulled away again and this time turned and slapped him across the face. Hard. I wouldn’t be surprised if she cracked his tooth.

“Shit,” I mumbled under my breath and took another step back. “That’s like the second time she’s hit you in two weeks.”

“It’s becoming habitual,” Jaymeson piped up from the couch. “And entertaining, if I might add.”

“Not helping.” Alec glared.

“How, Alec? HOW?”

The camera crew was probably salivating right now as they all waited with baited breath to see what Alec had to say.

I expected it to be something silly, like he called her fat, or stepped on her toe and cracked her nail polish. Hell, I expected him to admit he tried something kinky in bed.

“I—it isn’t what it looked like. I was comforting her. Hugging her. The paper’s making it look like something it isn’t.”

“She’s Jaymeson’s mom.”

“What?” Jaymeson flew off the couch. “My mom what? What the hell did you do to my mom?” He lunged for Alec, but I stood in the way. Geez, the producers wanted drama, they were so getting drama.

“You mean other than sleep with her?” ?This from Angelica.

You could have heard a pin drop in that room. I stared blankly at Alec waiting for him to laugh it off, to deny everything.

His face went completely white.

“Dude.” I laughed and shook my head. “Alec would never do that. I mean, I know he’s done some crazy stuff… Tell them, Alec.”

“Yeah, Alec.” Angelica purred. “Tell them. Everything.”

“Alec?” Nat whispered.

Alec’s eyes glossed over. I remembered that look all too well. It was the look he had the day he told me our dad died. It was the same look he wore after he tried committing suicide. Blocking. He was blocking everything out, going into survival mode.

“Alec.” My voice was hoarse. I took a step toward him. “Don’t do this. Whatever happened, whatever is happening, you need to tell the truth. Don’t think about who you’re protecting or who you’re hurting. Just tell the damn truth.”

Angelica snorted. “The truth—”

“Angelica, I swear to God, if you don’t shut the hell up I will freaking slap you so hard across your face you’ll have to get plastic surgery to fix the mess.”

Face white, she stepped away from us with her hands up.

“Alec.” I put my hand on his shoulder. His muscles were so tense it seemed like he was going to snap at any minute.

“I gotta run.” He gave me a sad smile but refused to look in Nat’s direction. Instead he grabbed his keys and left.

The door closed quietly behind him.

Silence.

All I could hear was my own breathing and Nat’s soft sobs. What the hell was going on? And how was Jaymeson’s mom involved?

“Told ya so,” Angelica muttered under her breath.

Next thing I knew, Nat was on top of her pulling her hair.

“Aw, hell.” She got a few chunks of dark glossy hair in her claws before I could get her off of Angelica. It’s possible I let her stay on her a bit too long on purpose. The minute I pulled her off, I fell onto Jaymeson, who was clearly still pissed at my brother. So, yeah, it made sense that he needed something to punch. Or someone.

His fist came flying into my jaw.

I fell to the ground. “What the hell, Jaymeson?”

“Get up!” He slapped his hand against the counter.

“When the hell did I leave my old life and step into freaking Gossip Girl!” I stumbled to my feet and launched myself at him, tackling him to the floor.

I could hear Alyssa yelling behind me, Nat crying, Angelica crying. And of course, Alec was gone. Bailed. He’d freaking bailed. And all I could think of as I was punching my best friend in the face and possibly ruining his film career, was that this time, Alec left me to clean up his mess.

Chapter Twenty-five

Alec

I stared at the pill bottle in my hands like it was going to suddenly start talking to me and fix all my problems.

Right.

Pills never fixed anything.

Then again neither did alcohol, or sex, or… well, that list could go on and on and on.

I took a swig of the bottle of champagne I’d grabbed from inside and told myself crying was stupid. It wouldn’t accomplish anything. It probably wouldn’t even make me feel better about being an ass**le.

Nope, all it did was make me feel worse about everything. I was given the perfect opportunity to tell the truth and I blew it. Why the hell didn’t I say something? It was like I froze. Like no matter how badly I wanted to say, “Hey, I think I was drugged last year, and Jaymeson’s mom is a conniving bitch.” I couldn’t. I wouldn’t do that.

Was she innocent?

I had no idea.

But the pictures. Damn those pictures. I squeezed my eyes shut and groaned. Who the hell paid her to do that? I slammed my fist against the wall. I knew it was a set up. Ruben had to have known. But how the hell did he know? Angelica? April? I groaned. It looked so ridiculously bad I didn’t even know what to do.

With shaking hands I grabbed Nat’s phone and looked through the rest of the pictures. April had thrown me completely under the bus. Me and Demetri, but why? I couldn’t even deny anything. I was so caught up in my lies, I didn’t know which way was up or down.