“Is it Riley and Miles? Riley and Nick? Or Riley and Brody?” I asked, peppering J.P. with questions. “I bet it’s Riley and Miles.”
He pointed at me. “Option #1 it is.”
“I knew it,” I said, pumping a fist. I’d been tracking Riley Belle’s career for years, as a fan, and as a photographer. Riley was a darling of all directors after she earned an Oscar nod for her turn as a runaway in an indie breakout hit a year ago. “Miles has been vocal about having a crush on her since they met at the party for his wolf-turns-into-an-angel movie last year.”
“That tanked.”
“Obviously,” I said, in the off-hand, casual cool of the Hollywood insider that we all thought we were. “Everyone knows angels are so last year.”
“But the cheerleader and jock from The Weekenders are so this year. Perhaps even this day.”
“Where? Now? I want in,” I said, my fingers clutching the desk like I was ready to pounce.
Hookup shots were close to gold. In the pantheon of payouts for photos it went like this: playground shots were at the bottom, parking ticket and pedicure shots were located a notch above, then night-on-the-town pics landed a bit higher up. They were followed by hookup shots, which rocketed the shooter to another pay range altogether that could only be topped by the image of a celebrity unraveling by food. The people loved a public pigout more than just about anything. I’d managed to earn enough to cover a handful of college classes with a tidy triumvirate of meltdown-by-food shots about a year ago, including a rather embarrassing one of a former child star downing a key lime pie in his car when he thought no one was looking.
But even though the photographic evidence of the most-shunned Hollywood possession of all—an expanding waistline—had graced my portfolio, I hadn’t grabbed the brass ring yet. Because there was one kind of picture that trumped them all. The most priceless and rare.
The wedding shot.
I’d never come close to a wedding shot and probably never would. But a hookup shot of someone from The Weekenders could net a whole handful of bills, so I wanted that pic to be mine.
“Venice Beach. Riley and Miles have been seen taking sunset strolls as they walk her dog together,” J.P. said, and when I stood to go, he held up his big hands to slow me down. “Let me get the Treadman shots first, Jess.”
“Come on, come on,” I said, rolling my hands in the speed-up gesture. “I’m not about to let Criminally Handsome get the first shot of the cheerleader and the jock,” I said, my territorial instincts kicking in. I protected my turf like a mama bear, and that deliciously handsome British boy would not get in my way.
“Treadman’s looking good, and such a good guy,” J.P. said and licked an approving lip at the photos on his screen. “The Strip will run these,” he added, referring to one of the online sites he fed his photos to. Then he fed himself, popping a biscuit into his mouth. I dug around in my backpack for my gum. It would distract me from the tantalizing look of that biscuit.
“Treadman’s always a good guy. That’s why he’s only worth one hundred dollars. But Up Close will run hook-up shots of Riley and Miles.”
“God, I love Up Close and its millions of readers,” J.P. said.
“It’s a deep and meaningful love for me, too,” I said, as he slapped a cool bill in my palm. I slipped the Andrew Jackson inside my bra and headed for the door.
“Wait,” he said, as I turned the handle. I looked back. “Want to know what else I’m hearing related to the Belle family? And this isn’t something I’d share with anyone but you.”
My ears pricked, and a smile darted across my lips. Insider secrets made me tick. “What else are you hearing?”
“I got a little tip on a wedding date,” he said, sucking all the letters of the last two words as if they were juicy and delicious, “for the hottest wedding in town, that of Riley’s older sister Veronica.”
A shiver of excitement raced through me. Veronica Belle and Bradley Bowman were Hollywood’s hottest young couple these days. They had gotten engaged six months ago. Guessing where and when the wedding would be was the parlor game of Hollywood.
“What’s the date?”
“Supposedly this weekend. Somewhere on the beach.”
“The beach? That could be anywhere.”
“I know. Better start asking around. I want you to be the one to nab the shot.”
“I will be the one. Even though security at the wedding will be insane,” I said.
“It will be. Absolutely one hundred percent insane. So insane, that a picture would be worth more than a thousand words. A picture would be worth many, many thousands of dollars.”
My heart skipped with a sick kind of longing. That would cover a lot of semesters of med school. I needed that photo desperately, and I needed it before the first bill came due in two more months.
“I’ll ask around,” I said, like the eager beaver I was.
“That’s my bloodhound.”
Or maybe that was the better comparison.
Chapter Three
Jess
I popped a piece of spearmint gum into my mouth and chewed ferociously as I knitted my way through the cars. On the route to the beach, I ran through the possibilities for getting into the wedding.
Bradley Bowman and Veronica Belle were the toast of the town, their sweet romance eliciting oohs and ahhs from onlookers. The young twentysomething stars had fallen in love last year during the shooting of Griffin Studios’ SurfGhost, a tale of a come-back-from-the-dead wave rider who falls in love with a girl afraid to swim. It was a megahit, with women of all ages swooning over their star-crossed love story.