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Authors: Tracy Tegan

Mr. Hollywood (9 page)

BOOK: Mr. Hollywood
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Chapter Nine

I was happy to be home. I missed Jennifer, and I missed my bed. The second I walked in the door, I expected Jennifer to be all over me, demanding I tell her every little detail but she wasn't. Instead, I found her sitting at the kitchen table on her laptop Skyping with Ethan Clarke of all people.

"Oh, yah she's home! I'll talk to you later, okay?" I had no idea what he said to her in response but whatever it was put a huge smile on her face.

“Okay, tell me everything,” she insisted as she bounced over to me.

I raised an eyebrow. “I think that’s what I should be saying to you.”

Jennifer couldn’t stop smiling as she dragged me over to the couch to tell me the whole story.

"Ethan's girlfriend has an arrangement with the studio. They don't want her to come out, and Ethan agreed to date her to boost both of their careers. Apparently they test well together."

“Test well together?” What the hell does that mean?

She shrugged. "I know. Stupid Hollywood stuff. But basically they are not a real couple, and he only has to be with her for a few more weeks, until her next movie comes out."

“So you are okay with all of this Jennifer?”

"Totally. She's a lesbian, so it's not like they are actually sleeping together."

“Okay, well, if you are happy then I’m happy.” I gave her a hug. “I mean it Jen, I love you like a sister. You deserve to be happy.”

"Stop it Alison; you are going to make me cry."

I giggled.

"Now tell me all about your trip and don't you dare leave anything out. You are all over the news and every celebrity website in like the world. What the heck is going on?"

"The trip started out great. We had a good time. The movie premiere was fabulous but exhausting. It turns out the red carpet isn't as wonderfully fun as it looks. It took us an hour of posing and answering question after question to get to the end."

“I watched the video on Radar Online and TMZ. You looked amazeballs."

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Only she would say something like that.

I took a deep breath and continued. "After the movie, things didn't go so well. Andrea went back to the hotel. She said she was tired. I should have gone with her. It was just awful,” I said as I started to cry.

“Oh my God, what happened?”

We went to one of those big parties, and Grayson took off with his friends and left me standing there for like forever all by myself. Then these three creepy guys came up and kept hitting on me and then decided the liquor they gave me wasn't enough to loosen me up, so they gave me a packet of cocaine. Well, I assume it was coke. It could have been meth or heroine for all I know. It was a white powder of some kind, in a little zip lock bag."

Jennifer just sat there with her mouth open, so I continued.

"I found Grayson, who was with a hot slutty girl, I told him I was ready to leave, so he called for his car to take me home. He, however, stayed at the party."

“Are you kidding me? No way. Not Grayson. No way, no how.”

“Yes way, yes how. That’s exactly what happened. I kid you not.”

“Not possible.”

“I’m serious Jennifer. That’s really what happened.”

“Did he at least try and explain himself or anything?”

"No. How could he possibly explain away that? The next day, Andrea and I did the whole tourist thing, so I didn't see him and then we came home today. He did try and talk to me as I boarded the plane but luckily, Andrea held him back and sent him on his way."

“I would have done the same thing. Screw that. What a dick. And here I was thinking how great Grayson Chase was. He just seemed so sweet and caring.”

“I know, right?”

“Just goes to show you don’t really know someone as well as you think you do.” She looked over at my luggage. “Let’s go get you unpacked.”

I still hadn't turned my phone on since I turned it off on the way home from the party that night in LA. I just wasn't ready to deal with all that yet. Not only did I not want to hear the voicemails and read the text messages, I was sure Grayson left me, but I also didn't want to put up with the calls from other people either asking about me being all over the internet as Grayson's new love interest."

Instead, I decided just to block out the rest of the world and concentrate on my studies. It was my last year in college after all, and in two weeks we had finals. That is where my focus and attention needed to be. Which is about how long it took for the attention on me to die down. It seemed everywhere I went, a cameraman or two or three followed.

Soon enough, though, I was yesterday's news and people lost interest in boring little old me. I then put all of my attention into my final exams, especially my Business Impact Leadership class, which required me to memorize a lot of stupid facts and statistics about core business principles and successful leadership techniques.

I was able to opt out of my Business Law final because I had a perfect score and those who had over a ninety in the class didn’t have to take the test. That at least was a relief. It was one of my harder classes of the semester.

I worked my ass off and in the end, I did it. I graduated college with a bachelor's degree in Business Management and an associate's degree in English. I would need to take a few more classes to get my bachelor's degree in English, but I didn't really need to. I didn't need a degree to write. What I learned so far taught me the fundamentals of what I needed to know to become an author. That was all I was after.

I even began my first romance novel, a thinly veiled story about my relationship with Grayson Chase. Only, in my version of the story, he didn't turn out to be such a jerk.

My graduation ceremony would be in two weeks. I had no idea what I was actually going to do with my life. I supposed I would continue to work at the bookstore while I wrote my first novel and then try to find a publisher. The problem was since Jennifer and I lived in student housing, we would have to move out this summer. We were no longer students and that meant the house was no longer available for us to rent.

I went to talk to Jennifer. I needed to figure out what her big plans were now that she had her degree. Maybe she had thought of a place for us to move to already.

“Now that we are finally graduating, Ethan helped me get an internship at the firm that handles his PR.”

“In LA?” I asked in shock. I had no idea she was thinking of moving out there.

“Yes, of course in LA.”

"Have things with you two gotten that serious? I knew he's flown here a few times to see you, but I didn't realize …"

“I’m not moving to LA to be with him silly. I mean sure that’s an added bonus. But I’m moving to LA to get the opportunity to work at one of the best PR firms in the country, not to be with some guy.”

“I had no idea you were even thinking about moving to California. I’m so excited for you.”

"Why don't you come with me, Alison?"

“LA? Seriously? No. I couldn’t.”

“Why not? You can write from anywhere, so why not there?”

That was a good question. The short time I was there with my sister, I did love it, well what I was able to see of it. The weather was incredible; the palm trees were beautiful.

“I don’t know Jennifer. That’s so far away.”

"What's keeping you here Alison? Your sister is going to be busy now that she's out of law school. Why would you not come with me? We are starting a whole new chapter in our lives and this way we could do it together."

“Where would we even live?”

“I was looking at some apartments online near where I would be working and found the rent ranged anywhere from $2,000 a month to over $20,000. Of course the $2,000 a month places were more like drug dens or crack houses, so those were out.”

I looked at her in stunned silence. She just smiled and continued.

"But after having an all-out heart attack, I found out that one of the perks of my job at Ginger Flora is an apartment. It's not fancy, but it's got two bedrooms and is near downtown, right by where I'll be working."

“I don’t know. What would they say about you having a roomie who doesn’t work for them?”

"In hopes that you would consider coming with me, I already talked to them about it. Listen Alison, let's be real. You and I both know the only reason they are giving me a two-bedroom apartment near downtown LA is because of Ethan. He’s like their biggest client so obviously they want to make me happy.”

“Are you sure about it?”

"Hell yeah, I'm sure. The place is ours for a year, and it will be ready for us moving in on the first of next month, just a little over a week after graduation."

I eyed her wearily. Still unsure about all of it.

“What if you and Ethan break up, then what? Not that I want that, obviously. But it’s something we should consider. I don’t want us to get all the way to LA and then be stuck because you know …”

"I already thought of that too. Ethan and I talked about that in detail, and so did me and my future boss. She gave me a guaranteed one-year contract for both the job and the apartment. Just think about it. While I’m at work all day, you can be home writing. You won’t have anyone to bother you.”

“Okay, fine. You win. Let’s do it!”

Jennifer squealed in excitement. “I can’t believe it. I had this whole speech worked out in my mind to talk you into it in case you said no.”

“How long have you been thinking about this? Not long really. I guess I’ve been going over what to say to you to convince you to come with me for a few days now.”

And so that was it. Just over a week after graduation Jennifer and I moved into what Ethan described to us as our
tiny
little apartment
in downtown Los Angeles. Turns out, however, the place was bigger than where we lived before. It wasn't a lot bigger than our house in Houston, but it was most definitely fancier.

The Parkway Plaza Apartments was in Culver City and was only about a twenty-minute drive for Jennifer to work each day. It was much closer than that, but with all the LA traffic, it took a while to get anywhere.

The only thing I really worried about was running into Grayson. We still hadn’t talked and if I had my way, we never would.

One day, Jennifer and I decided to join Ethan for lunch. He was filming some stuff at one of the studio sound stages, and he invited us to check it out. When we walked in we saw him lying on a bed with half of his face covered in these weird black dots. It turned out the movie he was making was heavy on the special effects, and when they were done with it all, half of his face would be turned into some futuristic robot and the dots were just markers for where the CGI would be filled in.

When he was finished, it took him about twenty minutes to get all cleaned up so we could head out. He was taking us to the Grove to eat for lunch that day.

When we got there, it was much like our time at The Ivy. We were mobbed by camera crews taking a zillion pictures of us. I overheard a few of them whisper “That’s her, that’s her,” but I did my best to pay them no mind. I didn’t care what they were talking about. I was old news and no longer in Grayson’s life. He probably had a new girl by now, some supermodel or up and coming actress.

When we got inside, I was noticeably shaken. Ethan and Jennifer did their best to cheer me up, but it still took a moment for me to pull myself together.

BOOK: Mr. Hollywood
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