Map to the Stars (8 page)

Jet lag from inhumane flight times, bruises from jostling elbows, hearing loss from high-pitched screams, and now potential scarring from errant thrown pistachios. My hazard pay list was getting longer and longer.

And that was
before
I factored in the medical implications of boiling blood caused by one incredibly maddening, two-faced jerkwad.

One thing that made trying to forget a certain hurtful guy just a tiny bit difficult was eleventy million teenage girls outside one's window chanting “Graham, Graham, Graham, Graham” at the tip-top of their lungs. Just saying.

Even with a body clock that was still totally out of whack, I should have been exhausted after the day I'd had. Mom had given me a reprieve from anything work related, probably taking into account my utter uselessness or possibly worried about the ramifications of another attack of killer pistachios, so I'd spent my second day in London actually experiencing the city, with not one nutty shopping mall in the mix.

Actually I started it with an über-long email to Wynn where I filled her in on all the events leading up to that morning. I went way heavy on the celebrity angle, knowing how much she'd eat it up. But some instinct had me avoiding any mention of the real stuff: my conversations with Graham and how pissed I was at him. I told myself it
was to keep the tone funny and light, but I knew if I was honest with myself it was because Wynn has always been able to see right through me and she'd read between the lines and look directly into my heart.

I
didn't even want to be rooting around in my heart, much less have Wynn spelling anything out for my benefit. It was way easier to stay pissed at Graham than to admit how much his whole like me/ignore me act had me shaken up. Plus, I didn't want to shatter her crush just yet.

Denial is my friend these days anyway. Like the incoming emails from Dad I hit delete on without even bothering to open. I definitely didn't need his endless apologies and pleas for forgiveness reaching across the ocean.

After I'd snapped the screen on my laptop closed, I made good on my promise to myself to see London in all her glory. The concierge hooked me up with a double-decker bus tour that let me hop on and off whenever I needed more time to sit and stare at all the pretty, pretty buildings.

Seeing Big Ben in person was like stepping into a postcard. The state of Georgia comes up fairly short on buildings in the neo-Gothic style and I hoped before we left I'd be able to convince Mom to come back with me so I could see the clock face all lit up and let her feel how the chimes reverberate through your chest. Too bad the architect went crazy and died just after he submitted his design for it.

I walked slowly around the whole outside of Westminster Abbey and rode the elevator to the seventy-second-floor observation deck of the Shard, marveling at how it was so modern and yet somehow fit
into the London skyline. That was the thing I loved most about architecture—the way architects had to find a way to fit the new into the old and somehow have it blend seamlessly.

In life, I was definitely failing at that one.

I watched the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, fed the pigeons in Trafalgar Square, and even stopped for fish and chips on the way back to the hotel. Definite tourist bonus points for me.

The only thing I wished I hadn't done was keep tabs on a certain visiting movie star. I convinced myself I just wanted to see what Mom was up to, but checking Graham's Twitter account on the hour had definitely not done anything to sort out my jumbled mess of feelings. It certainly didn't help that every picture from every fan event showed him with his arms around a different girl and a megawatt grin plastered across his face.

So fine, I was going to have to work harder at ignoring him, but really it would be far easier if the bevy of girls outside my window would STOP SCREAMING HIS NAME. OVER. AND OVER. AND OVER.

I had to admit defeat after about twenty minutes of progressively turning up the volume on a BBC
Jane Eyre
remake. Instead I tugged the zipper on my suitcase open to hunt for my bathing suit. According to the binder of hotel information on the nightstand, there was an indoor pool in the basement and it didn't close until midnight. I just had time to get in a quick soak in the hot tub. I was hoping the chanting would be muffled underground, but if not, I planned to stick my head under the water for as long as I could stand it.

I scribbled a note to Mom, who'd gone out for drinks with Melba (
note to self: find out from Mom what Melba's actual name is again
), after we'd had dinner together, then jerked the plush monogrammed robe off the hanger in the closet and stuffed my feet into the spa slippers I found in its pocket. If not for the welcome committee outside, I could definitely get used to traveling in style like this.

When I swiped my room key and clicked open the door to the pool area, the first thing I noticed was the definite lack of background noise. The hotel was playing some underwater whale sounds or something, but those were definitely preferable to the mating calls of the fangirl variety I'd been subjected to all night.

The room echoed softly with the sounds of just one figure cutting back and forth across the pool in strong, steady laps. I couldn't make out much of the person, aside from brown hair and shiny goggles. Turning my back on the swimmer, I made my way over to the far corner, where rising steam made the hot tub look like a piping pot of witches' brew.

Bring it.

I shed my robe and dipped one toe in the churning waters. A moment later the jets were soothing tension from my back and shoulder blades. Closing my eyes, I forced my thoughts far, far away from Graham.

“Excuse me, is this seat taken?”

Ha! I'd done such a great job forgetting him, I was now projecting his voice onto the figure that loomed over me through the mist. Great. I squinted through the steam at goggles dangling just above sculpted
chest muscles that looked achingly familiar. Familiar as in, perhaps I'd seen them before. Maybe plastered all over the side of a city bus.

I sat up abruptly.

“Graham?”

“In the flesh,” he answered, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying, “I'll say!” The boy rocked some swim trunks, one could argue.

He slipped into the water across from me and losing sight of his bare torso snapped me back to reality. A reality where I was not only hurt by Graham's behavior, I was pissed. Really, really pissed.

I angled away from him and closed my eyes, pretending to be abnormally absorbed in my soaking experience.

He took the hint. “Look, we don't have to talk, if you'd rather not.”

“Cool,” I answered.

I heaved a giant sigh and wiggled my shoulders back and forth to settle into MY hot tub. I was here first and he was not going to ruin my whole “escape from Graham Cabot” experience, thankyouverymuch.

“I'm sorry.”

Apparently he
was
going to ruin it.

“What?” I asked.

“I was just, I mean I'm, well, I'm sorry, okay?”

“For what?” I asked, as nonchalantly as possible.

“Annie. You know for what.” Hearing him say my name sent weird shivers up my spine, even though I was in 104-degree water.

“Not really,” I said, in my best “I'm breezy” voice.

He sighed, clearly frustrated. “Wow, you're not gonna make it easy on a guy, huh?”

“I'm sorry, do you need to call a screenwriter to help you craft your message?” Yeah, no, I wasn't going to make it easy.

“Maybe. Damn, for a
hot
tub, it sure is cold in here.”

That did it.

I had my response all formulated in my head. It was deadly, with just a hint of arsenic. Here's how it went:

“You want to talk about hot and cold? How about you? One minute you're Mr. Flirty, trying to make me laugh at the press junket, and then you blow me off totally the next day and at the airport. Then on the plane you're Mr. Concerned, all worried about my fear of flying and trying to come to the rescue and almost ki—well, whatever. And then we get here and suddenly I don't even exist again unless you're rescuing me from flying nuts? And yes, I realize how absurd that sounds. But it's like you're method acting for some psychopath role or something. Except I'm not starring opposite you in a movie. I'm a person. I know
nothing
about the world you live in, so I'm sorry if none of this makes a whole lot of sense to me and I'm not cool enough to just roll with it. And you know what? You're not selling it real well either.”

Oh, but wait. Of course I said not one single word of that. Not one. Shocker. Instead I studied the water pulsing out of the jets. At least
it
didn't have a problem erupting.

Finally Graham said, “Can I tell you something and you promise not to laugh? I know you might not want to hear anything I have to say, but . . . I think it might help you get to know me better.”

Which was probably the last thing I
should
have wanted to do. Except curiosity got the better of me. “Go ahead,” I said.

“I've never had a girlfriend,” Graham said. He exhaled softly.

Of all the things he could have said right then, that was absolutely the last thing I expected to come out of his mouth. I peered through the steam tendrils at him, but he'd sunk low in the water and closed his eyes.

“Seriously? But you're Graham Cabot,” I told him.

He laughed, though it wasn't a happy laugh. More of a snort, really. “Yeah, that's exactly the problem.”

“I don't get it. And wait a second, you have so . . . That Nicholas Sparks movie you did that was nothing but sappy makeout sessions until you died tragically? And then you were photographed everywhere with her after that. The tabloids practically had you proposing.” Thank you, Wynn, for that totally useless knowledge that just proved totally use
ful.

He snorted again. “Right. Because the tabloids never get anything wrong. Oh, and by the way, if you believe those rags, you should watch your back because apparently they've decided the shape of my belly button indicates I've been abducted by an alien and who knows what I'm capable of.” He waved his fingers through the air between us like they were claws and moved his head back and forth.

I fought the grin. He wasn't going to get me to laugh. Nope. No way. I directed the conversation back where it belonged.

“Well, what about the actress from that movie?”

“Merrie? She's a friend.”

Now I snorted. “Could have fooled me with all the tonsil hockey you two played. Seemed like you guys had real chemistry.”

He dunked his hands below the surface and scooped up some water that he splashed over his head, rubbing his fingers through his hair so that it ended up perfectly tousled. I tried not to drool. “That was
on a film set
with about a hundred crew members angling lights at me and holding boom microphones above my head. Some of the hottest on-screen couples despised each other in real life. Trust me, a movie set is far from real life. Anyway, we were photographed together around town because the producers thought that would help sell the film and I really needed that film to be a hit since I was up for
Triton
at that point. She was a good sport to go along with it. It happens all the time in Hollywood. Part of the business. That's not the real Graham Cabot.”

I hated to let on that I'd been paying any attention to it, but I needed to prove my point. “Okay, but take your Twitter feed today . . . it definitely looked like you, the real you, was having some fun of the lip-smacking variety with a number of your female fans. I can't imagine you'd have a hard time landing one of them as a girlfriend.”

Graham groaned and covered his eyes with his hand. “Number one: I've never once tweeted on that account. I actually don't even know whose job it is to do that, but it's someone's. Melba sends them my itinerary and pictures and he or she posts stuff to further the ‘Graham Cabot brand.'”

I sat up a little straighter to breathe in the cooler air above the mist. I needed it to clear my head.

“And number two?” I asked.

“Number two is: that also wasn't Graham Cabot. Well, it was, but it was Graham Cabot, Movie Star, not just regular me, Graham. I'm talking about Regular Graham when I say I've never had feelings for a girl.”

“Well, I still don't really see how that's possible. It can't exactly be hard for you to get a date.”

“I mean, okay, I'm not a total saint or anything. I've had a fling or two in my past,” Graham said, and my stomach did this uncomfortable squirmy thing as I fought to keep my face neutral. “But in terms of more . . . well, I'm tutored on a movie set where there's not likely to be another person within five years of me, and
if
there is
and
she happens to be of the female species, odds are good she's totally devoid of space in her brain for anything other than the locations of upcoming trunk shows and the phone numbers of producers pitching reality shows.”

I laughed, but not so loud that he could hear it over the noise of the jets. Still not giving him the satisfaction there.

He continued, “So, no school to meet the opposite sex. No afternoon job at the mall. Where else do kids hang out? Parties? Let's say I meet someone at an industry party. The last one of
those
girls, I found out later, was only interested in talking to me so I'd agree to sign autographs at her sweet sixteen because her best friend had Ian Somerhalder at hers and she wanted to one-up her.”

“No offense, but no chance you're topping the guy from
Vampire Diaries
,” I told him matter-of-factly.

He looked shocked for a second, then burst into laughter. “God, I
sound like a whiny movie star brat, don't I?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Meh.”

He turned serious again. “Okay, so this isn't exactly on a level of homelessness or sweatshop worker or anything. But you have to admit, a lonely seventeen-year-old movie star is a little pitiful.”

I could give him that. I couldn't even wrap my brain around it, really. Graham Cabot: lonely. Wynn would die! Only as soon as I had the thought, I knew I'd never tell anyone. Even Wynn. I could imagine what it took for him to tell me that. Why
had
he told me?