I laugh complacently and match her icy gaze. “There’s a reason they’re called rumors, right?”
She looks like she wants to bite me. And not in a good way. “What about now? Do you consider yourselves to be—friendly—now?”
What a bitch. I decide to throw her a fast ball, which turns out to have perfect timing. “Yeah. We hung out this past weekend, in fact.”
Thank God I’m occasionally truthful, because just as I admit this, she click-clicks and up pops a photo from three days ago in which I’m entering Brooke’s apartment. She’s clearly visible in the doorway, admitting me. I wonder if Brooke knows about this. I wonder if she even set it up with that photog girl she has on payroll. How else would this shot get into the exclusive hands of a common local news station when Star or Us would have paid a shitload of cash for it?
Wynona’s façade crumbles a little at the edges at losing the element of surprise, but she rallies and turns back to Emma. “So if you and Reid aren’t involved… is this due to your involvement with a—” she glances at a card “—Marcus Hoffpauer?”
The photo on the wall changes to Emma looking bored to death, arms crossed, standing next to that conceited prick at his prom. That must have been a pity date.
Emma is speechless, so I laugh and gesture to the photo, grinning conspiratorially at her. “Ah, I remember this—the community theatre guy, right?”
Emma nods, her lips compressing when she glances at the photo. “Yes, at his prom.”
I shake my head, smiling and staring daggers into Wynona. “If he wanted to score points, he could have—I don’t know—introduced her to his friends? That’s what we do when we invite non-celeb friends to our parties.” A glance at Emma makes it clear that she’s grateful for my interruption.
I turn and give Wynona a mesmerizing smile. “So, about School Pride. We’re both really excited about the upcoming release and ready to talk about the film. We brought several clips—I assume we can show your viewing audience a couple of them now?”
***
Emma breathes out a deep sigh the moment we shut the car doors and I start the engine, letting it idle and purr for a moment. “Wow, her face…” Her mouth turns up on one side. “I kind of expected her head to start spinning around at one point.”
Wynona was tough, but I’ve had more hostile question-answer sessions than that. No need to pass that info on to Emma, though. “Courtesy never works with people like her, so I don’t bother. If you want to shift topics, you have to force it. With a smile and an angelic look, of course.”
“Of course.”
We pull into traffic and I’m glad for the heavily tinted windows. The last thing either of us needs right now is more public scrutiny. “You looked miserable at that prom. Anyone talk to you at all?”
Shrugging, she says, “The waiters were nice.” I laugh and she gives me a grim smile in return, her head angled. “How did you know? I mean, practically everyone fell for the story that I’m so conceited that I wouldn’t lower myself to speak to regular people.”
I make a disgusted sound. “Please. You’re one of the least conceited people I know. Your best friend is a non-celeb girl—that’s evidence enough that you’re not above mingling with commoners.”
She smirks and I smirk back.
“Let me guess—you told him you’re moving across the country to go to school, so you can’t imagine a relationship between you going anywhere—something like that—and he got pissed. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted you to give him a leg up in the industry and he saw his chance at that falling away.”
She blinks in surprise, and her hands open on her lap. “I can’t blame him for being disappointed about that, if that was the case.”
I’m shaking my head before she stops talking. “Why should he put forth no more effort than cozying up to the right girl? Yes, there’s a lot of luck and who-you-know, but we both had to work like hell to become successful actors. We didn’t just get it handed to us. Even if you are planning to toss it all aside to become an ordinary little co-ed.”
She clears her throat, a light blush across her cheeks.
In the silence, I begin ruminating over John’s usual phenomenal luck holding steady with that under-aged girl. Once I was gone and he got her to wake up, she was more than happy to be given cab fare to get to a friend’s house so her parents wouldn’t find out she was at some strange guy’s apartment overnight.
“I’m 99 percent sure we all passed out when we got to my place,” John said.
“What about the other one percent?”
John sighs, passing on a rare piece of insight. “Dude, I hope we never have daughters.”
My best friend doesn’t know about the possible kid with Brooke. I love John, but unlike Brooke, I don’t trust anyone with that information. Thanks to her, Emma and Graham both know about it.
“Do you mind if I ask you about your relationship with Brooke?” Emma asks. I’m glad she can’t see my eyes behind these shades. I mean damn, does she read minds? “You don’t have to tell me anything. It’s not my business. But you guys weren’t friendly a few months ago and now you’re, uh, hanging out together.”
I shrug, exiting the freeway in a split-second decision that will keep her with me a little longer today. “You know that old photo of us that Wynona put up this morning?” She nods. “I guess I can’t blame either of those kids for what they did back then. Growing up in the spotlight, as you know, isn’t all that easy to handle.”