“Okay, well, he didn’t answer...” I gulp, anticipating how she’ll react to the next part. “So I was walking back to my room… and he came out of Brooke’s room.”
“Hold on. Brooke Cameron, aka Kristen Wells—evil incarnate?”
“Emily, you know she’s not as horrible in real life as her character on Life’s a Beach.”
“Yet she’s got this Graham guy in her room. Why?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.” Wow, that sounds even worse out loud than it did in my head.
“Emma, what?” She sighs, and I know she’d shake me if she wasn’t several hundred miles away. “This kiss took place after he emerged sans explanation from Brooke Cameron’s hotel room?”
I take a deep breath and leave out the humiliation of him seeing me run back to my room like a frightened rabbit scurrying for a hole in the fence. “He came to my room, and we were talking, and then playing around, and somehow we ended up kissing.”
“Somehow you ended up kissing.” I see her dubious expression in my mind’s eye—mouth in a grim line, one eyebrow raised just so.
“I know. It sounds ridiculous...”
Emily is quiet, except for the sound of her tapping a pencil against her front teeth, which drives her mom insane. “Well, which of these two guys are you interested in?”
I think about Graham pushing a strand of hair behind my ear when we’d ducked out of the rainstorm, the feel of his fingers sliding over my skin, how he listened when I talked about losing Mom. I think about the hunger in Reid’s beautiful eyes, the heated difference in his off-screen kiss, and the way he teases me. “I like them both. They’re just… different.”
“Well that complicates matters. What happens after this film? Do you see either of them being in your life after it’s over? Do you want that?”
“Oh my God. I kissed two guys within 24 hours of each other—one in my hotel room and one out in public, and now it’s all over the Internet. What am I gonna do?” I don’t really expect an answer. I’m thinking about running away to join the Peace Corps, which seems more appealing every minute.
“Emma. Besides looking a wee bit slutty, and let’s face it, most of Hollywood is a little slutty, what are you really worried about?”
My answer surprises me. “I guess I’m worried that Reid will think we’re a thing… and I’m worried that Graham will think that, too.”
“So you don’t want Graham to think you and Reid are hooking up...”
“I think I’d feel the same if it was the other way around,” I say, while my brain goes you sure about that? and I think YES a little too forcefully and Emily would say methinks thou doth protest too much to if she heard me having this conversation with myself.
“Even though Graham and Brooke might be hooking up? Hmm.”
“Uh, one more thing. Graham left Austin sometime during the night after that kiss, and I haven’t seen him or heard from him since then. Some family emergency, I think. But he hasn’t called or texted or anything.”
“Weird,” Emily says, pencil going tic tic tic. “What else do you know about him?”
“He’s older.”
“How much older?” I hear a prepared-to-be-horrified note in her voice.
“Two and a half years.”
“Thank God, I thought you were gonna say he was like thirty or something. Look, I think the reason you’re in this predicament now is you’re letting them determine everything. Maybe you should decide what you want, Em.”
“Right now I want to come home and hide in your closet.”
She laughs because that’s exactly what I used to do when Chloe came to pick me up and I didn’t want to go home. “Look, you don’t need either of them. Don’t do anything else until you figure out what you want. Or who you want.”
I’m suddenly extremely homesick for my best friend, my usual routine, and my uncomplicated life—which didn’t include photos of me, locking lips with a bona fide teen idol, splashed across the Internet.
Chapter 22
REID
John arrived last night. Picking people up at the airport is starting to feel like a second job. Quinton tagged along and we all went out for a late dinner, then back to my room to plot the trip down the Guadalupe, which Bob is none too happy about. He came by the room to tell me he’s sending Jeff and another security guy with us. “If anybody drowns, it had better be that guy,” he said, pointing at John.
“What the hell, man?” John blinked. Bob growled at him as he left the room.
At this point, we’d already put down a load of whiskey sours, so this exchange was hysterical as far as Quinton and I saw it. Tadd joined us around midnight after some don’t-ask-don’t-tell activity, which he usually tells anyway. Especially if we ask.
I’d intended to be awake early enough to see Emma before we left, but given the level of inebriation that occurred and the fact that it was three a.m. by the time everyone left my room, that didn’t happen. I texted her once we were underway, and she answered when she was on lunch break. I’m less worried about competing with Graham than I was before I kissed her. Never hurts to draw an obvious contrast to potential rivals, though. Especially if it seems to be unintentional:
Reid: Going tubing for a couple of days with quinton, tadd, and a friend from home. Thought I would tell you and not just disappear. :)
Emma: What’s tubing?
Reid: Basically you get in a huge inner tube and float down the river. I will def bring you along next time.