Celeb Crush (21 page)

Three minutes and thirty-seven seconds later, Megan finally winds down.  She’s doing this weird little hiccup-y thing that I bet others would find cute.  Of course, she’s one of those pretty cry babies.  Her eyes are all sparkly, and her nose and cheeks are adorably flushed.  I try not to hold it against her.

“I’m sorry,” she says miserably.  “It’s just that everything is so stressful right now—with mom and the baby, and the wedding, and…god, I feel like I’m losing it.”

“It’s going to be fine,” I say awkwardly.  I hand her an oven mitt, which she takes with a confused look on her face.  I was thinking she could use it to wipe her face, but that’s a really stupid idea. 

Megan carefully wipes her eyes with the tips of her fingers.  “I don’t know if I can handle it,” she admits tearfully.  “Any of it.”

“Well, you don’t have to do it by yourself,” I point out.  “We’re all here to help.  Your only job is to take care of yourself so just concentrate on doing that.  As for your mom, well, she’s one of the strongest people I know.  She’s going to be fine.  In fact, I think she’s been looking a lot better lately, don’t you?”

Megan gives me a strange look.  She drops her eyes and toys with the oven mitt that she’s still holding.  “Yeah,” she says softly.

“Also, I accept your apology.”  My smile is stiff, but not completely fake.  “Let’s just consider this…talk as closure, and leave it as bygones.  Agreed?”

She doesn’t say anything at first; then she kinds of laughs and rolls her eyes.  “It’s a deal,” she agrees, still smiling.  “Thanks, Andi.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, it’s getting really late.  I guess I better wake Bran so we can get going.”

Finally!  “He sleeps like the dead when he’s really tired,” I say, fondly remembering the time I kicked him out of bed and he did a face plant on the carpet, still snoring away.

“You should have seen him when he was taking pain meds for his leg.  I had to hold a mirror over his nose to make sure he was still breathing some days.”  Megan shakes her head as she climbs to her feet.

“Do you really think I treated him that badly?” I blurt out.

She seems to freeze for a second.  Her shoulders hunch together uncomfortably.  “Um…” she stalls.  “I’m sorry I said that.  But…you do have this tendency to push people away.  Bran used to worship the ground you walked on…and it was pretty obvious that you couldn’t stand it whenever he touched you.”

“That’s not true,” I start to say.  But then I think about it.  Maybe she’s right.

“You’re different with Lucas,” she offers while unconsciously rubbing her barely there baby bump.  “You guys are so in sync. It’s like you’re connected, or something.”

Me and Luke, connected?  Ha, I don’t think so.  But I do my nod and smile bit.  Megan goes to wake Bran, who doesn’t rouse until I pinch his Achilles tendon—my favorite way to wake him up back in the day.  He still screams like a girl.

It’s three in the morning and here I am, still awake.  I’ve been texting Nate for amusement.  He wants me to call him and pretend to be his irate girlfriend so some poor girl he hooked up with will get the hint and get out of his bed.  I ask him if I can do it with a Russian accent and he says yes, so I do.  It’s fun.  I didn’t know
nein
was German and not Russian until Nate’s hook up schooled me.  Also, it means “no” and not “shut up” like I originally thought.  I tell Nate she sounds like a keeper, and he hangs up on me.  Rude.

Shoot, I was going to ask Nate if he heard from Luke.  Not because I want to ask if he said anything about me—I’m just curious how the fundraiser for the foster kids went.  I know he was planning on surprising them with a trip to Disneyland.  Knowing Luke, he’ll be on every ride and attraction with those kids.  But that doesn’t make him super awesome or anything.

I toss and turn in my bed for the next hour.  Finally, I grab my phone and swipe it open.  I compose a resignation email to Ivan and send it off before I can change my mind, or check for spelling and grammatical errors.  I’m not at my professional best at nearly five in the morning.  I also send an email to Luke, explaining my reasons for quitting.  How can I continue to receive a paycheck from him when our employer/employee relationship has gone to the dark side?  It’s just wrong.  Luke rarely checks his mail but that’s not my problem.  Besides, I did tell him I was quitting.  It’s not my fault he didn’t believe me.

With that done, I turn my phone off and hide it under my pillow for good measure.  Then I grab my blanket and head to the deck to watch the sun rise.

Luke is going to be pissed.

Chapter 17

It’s a beautiful day today.  I’m sitting on a bench outside the medical building where Megan has her obstetrician appointment, and staring at the sculpture mounted in front of the building.  I’m trying to figure out what it is.  It kind of looks like a vagina with a little sphere in the middle of it.  Oh, maybe it’s an oyster.  How inappropriate.

Megan and Bran are hopefully going to find out the sex of the baby today.  Can you believe they invited me to watch the ultrasound?  I couldn’t even step foot in the lobby.  What if I accidentally see something I can’t un-see? 

So far, I’ve received phone calls and texts from Luke, Ivan, Nate, Jessica, Kelly—and even Micah.  I text Luke and tell him to read my email.  I decide to answer Nate’s call.

“What the fuck, Andi?  Dad’s been blowing up my phone—he wants me to leave this glorious paradise so I can go talk some sense into you!”

I sigh at his overly aggrieved tone.  “Don’t you dare come down here,” I say sternly.  “Look, all I did was quit, and everyone’s acting like I murdered someone.  Luke is a big boy; he can manage without me.”

Nate snorts loudly into the phone.  “What happened?  Did he finally confess that he’s ass over heels in love with you?”

“He is not,” I snap.  “And nothing happened.  I just got tired of being a paid groupie.”

“Yeah, right.  We have the best job in the world—all the perks of fame and fortune, and none of the pressure,” Nate retorts matter-of-factly.  “No, what happened is exactly what I warned Luke would happen if he told you how he feels about you.  You freaked and pushed him away.”

I grit my teeth and clench my phone so hard that I can hear its internal parts grinding together.  “Nothing happened!”

“Whatever, dude.  Luke’s all fucked up about it, so you better man up and talk to him before he does something stupid.”

“If it were anyone else, you’d advise me to run in the other direction,” I say with a sigh.

“Yeah, well, it’s not just anyone else.  It’s Lucas Greyson,” he says.  “And like it or not, you care about him.  So quit being a little girl, and bang him.”

Why did I think it was a good idea to talk to that dickhead?  Now I’m pissed.  And, look, here comes the happy couple with ear-to-ear grins on their faces.

“How did it go?!” I snarl.  “Did you find out the sex?!”

They both are taken aback by my vicious tone.  “It’s a girl!” Megan says happily, her eyes shining.  “We’re having a baby girl!”

She shows me a picture of a little hollow-eyed monster.  I’m not very impressed, but then I don’t like babies much.  Nevertheless, I extend my congratulations as we head toward the parking garage.

“Megan!”

All three of us turn toward the female voice.  It belongs to a tall dark-haired girl about our age.  She struts up to us with a fake shiny smile pasted on her face, and a big black binder in her arms.  She looks vaguely familiar but I can’t place her.

Megan obviously recognizes her, and baby glow quickly fades.  “Riley.  How’s it going?”

“Oh, my god, I haven’t seen you in forever!” the girl squeals.  “How are you?”

Blah, blah, blah.  Pleasantries are exchanged.  I begin to suspect I’m supposed to know this person from high school though I honestly can’t place her.  She’s talking to me like we were at least acquaintances, so I smile and nod along.   No one likes to feel like they’re forgettable.

“So, it really is true,” Riley says.  I suddenly start paying attention, alerted by the nasty tone in her voice.  She looks between the three of us with a smirk on her face.  “You really stole your cousin’s boyfriend—and now you’re making her be in your wedding!  How messed up is that?  I’m not surprised, though.  You’ve always been a backstabbing bitch.”

Bran quickly puts an arm around Megan, who looks like she’s been slapped in the face.  “Megan and I have been together for two years,” he says firmly.

Riley just looks at him like, “And?”  Then she turns to me with a raised eyebrow.  “You must be a better person than I am, Andi.  To stand up with someone who betrayed you like that?  But then Megan’s really good at getting people on her side.”

My eyes narrow in irritation.  Okay, I remember this bitch.  She was Megan’s biggest rival in high school, always coming in second place.  She was responsible for the vicious rumors spread about my cousin in junior year—and the reason why she almost quit cheerleading.

I pluck her binder from Riley and throw it in the nearby bushes.  She just stares at me in astonishment for…several seconds.  I raise an eyebrow, waiting for her to say something.  She just flushes and avoids my glare, deciding to venture into the bushes to hunt for her binder.  We leave her to it.

“Thanks,” Megan says softly, catching up to me.

“Yup.”

I wouldn’t say I was a bully in high school.  People left me alone because I had a reputation for being unpredictable, and surprisingly athletic.  I used to hang out with this girl named Lily Silva, who was two hundred and twenty pounds of awesome.  Together, we ruled the school.  Then towards the second half of senior year, Lily lost a ton of weight and got herself a stick of a boyfriend.  She was never the same after that, and we lost touch.  I kind of miss the way she used to pick me up and shake me around like a maraca. 

The ride home is quiet, all traces of joy now completely gone.  I don’t mind since I was already in a pissed off mood, but I guess I feel bad for the not-so-happy couple.  Instead of nodding and clapping along with Riley’s attack, I wanted to punch her in her perfectly pretty face.  But I refrained from doing so.  I think progress is being made.

My eyes pop open, and immediately land on the digital clock on my nightstand.  No one calls at two in the morning with good news.  I fumble for my phone and check the display.  It’s Luke.

“What’s wrong?  What happened?” I answer anxiously.

A long pause, and then:  “Hey, Andi.”  His voice is extra raspy and hoarse, the way it gets when he’s super hung over.

I sigh audibly, shifting into a more comfortable position on my bed.  “What did you do now, Luke?”

“I fucked up,” he replies, sounding absolutely miserable.  Another long silence.  “I slept with Kat last night.”

A lightning bolt of pain singes me through the chest.  It takes a few seconds for me to find my voice to respond.  “Why are you telling me this?” I ask coldly.  “It’s not my business.”

“Andi—”

  “No, just ‘cause you swore that I was your special unicorn a couple of days ago doesn’t mean you owe me anything.”  I chuckle bitterly.  “Good thing I knew you were full of shit, huh?  Or I’d be feeling pretty stupid right about now.”

“I wasn’t lying,” Luke says through what sounds like gritted teeth.  “I was drunk.  I don’t even remember how it happened…”

“Yeah?  Here’s the thing about drunks.  They start out knowing they’re going to do something stupid—then they drink so they can blame it on the alcohol.  Go fuck yourself,
Lucas
—or better yet, go fuck Kat again.  Thanks for pretending to give a shit.”

I turn off my phone, and toss it none too gently on the nightstand.  Then I just lie on my back, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling.  Ugh, it fucking hurts.  I can’t stop seeing him with her. I can picture what it must have been like because I’ve seen it on screen countless times.  Those love scenes keep playing in my head, haunting me.  Why do I feel so betrayed?

I roll over on my side and curl into a ball, suddenly feeling like I have the flu.  Screw this.  Not even dating and I’m already being cheated on.  Whatever.  It would never have worked out between us, anyway.  Whatever Luke thought he wanted from me, I wouldn’t have been able to give him.  So…good.  I’m sure he and Kat will be very fucking happy together, damn it.

Feelings are a dick.

I hate hanging out with couples that are still in that honeymoon phase.  Take for example Ellen and her boyfriend, Earl.  She invited him over for a late dinner tonight, and they can’t seem to keep their hands off each other.  Or off the booze.  Earl is surprisingly sexy for an older dude.  He’s a tough old biker guy with skin like brown leather, and a disturbingly deep voice.  He calls Ellen his “Ellie Pie,” and touches her constantly.  And inappropriately, some might say.

They’re kissing now—right in the middle of the meatloaf.  When Bran calls, I immediately pick up.  My relief turns to alarm when he informs me that Aunt Susan is in the hospital.

“She’s fine,” he quickly assures me.  “She had an allergic reaction to something she ate at lunch and started swelling up.  We took her to the ER and they gave her some medication.”