Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 87933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
“Were you in the car, Jordan?”
“Are you okay?”
“If it wasn’t you, who was Benjamin Randt with? Did you two break up?”
“Can you tell us anything?”
Blake wraps his arm around me and leads me inside.
We’re recognized immediately by staff too, and hey, apparently celebrity status gets you some perks because they don’t ask us if we’re family or need permission to see Ben. They lead us straight back to his room.
Turns out the tabloids were wrong about the critical condition part, but the compromising position part? I get that answer when I pause at the threshold of his room.
It’s a shared room.
Lying in a bed next to the window is Ben, but the first bed is taken up by none other than the production assistant I saw leaving Ben’s house.
That gives me all the answers I need to know. I turn to leave.
“Jordy?” Ben croaks.
I spin back toward him and fold my arms.
The production assistant—I can’t even remember his name—looks like he’s scared I’m going to kill him. He wishes I cared that much about him. He’s nothing.
“Are you going to explain?” I say when Ben doesn’t immediately start groveling.
“I needed … there was a problem with the script. Chad brought it over first thing, and we were—”
“Seen in a compromising position at the accident scene.”
“I wasn’t wearing my seat belt,” Chad says. Of course his name is Chad. “I … landed that way.” He turns to Ben in a way that screams, “Is that what I was supposed to say?”
“Uh-huh. What way did you land exactly?”
Ben reaches his arms out toward me. “Please, come here. I can explain.”
I indulge him, but for only one reason. When I reach his bed, Ben breaks out into a half-smile, like he’s won, but then slowly, as I reach for his chart, he freezes.
“Something in here you don’t want me to see?”
His gaze darts toward Chad and then back to me. “No, wait.” Ben tries to sit up but then winces in pain and tries to curl into the fetal position before crying out more.
There’s a whole bunch of stats I don’t understand on the chart, but I do understand one thing.
“Oh, I see. Chad here wasn’t wearing his seat belt, and when you crashed, his teeth ended up on your dick. Got it. Man, I hate when that happens.”
A loud snort comes from the entryway, and when I look, Blake’s trying to keep a straight face. In his defense, this whole situation is absurd. He mouths, “Sorry,” to me.
I put Ben’s chart back and then level him with a look. “You wanted exclusivity. You. Not me.” Because I knew, deep down, Ben would never be mine. No one ever is.
“It’s not that,” Ben pleads. He’s sweating now, but I don’t know if it’s from the pain in his dick or because he’s about to lose me.
“So you’re not sleeping together?”
“We are, but it means nothing.”
“Give me clichés cheating assholes say for five hundred, Alex!”
“It’s … you know … I haven’t been with another man before. I feel like … like I need to …”
“Screw every man who’ll let you before you can settle down? You know who would have been on board with that plan? Me. You’ve known from the beginning I’m an open-relationship kind of person, but you know what open relationships have? Trust.”
“I didn’t … I don’t …”
I can practically hear the words he isn’t saying. “You don’t want me to be with anyone else, but you can’t pay me the same respect. Well now, you can both go fuck yourselves. Or each other. I don’t care. Let Jojo know when you’re home so she can go pick up all my shit from your house. This is done.”
“Jordy, wait,” Ben calls after me, but I’m already gone with Blake hot on my heels.
“I’m sorry,” Blake murmurs.
“I’m not.” I have too much anger inside me to be sorry. Anger, disappointment, shame … it’s all there. Only it’s not directed at Ben. It’s all on me. Because I’m suddenly twenty-two years old again, new to LA, with fame in my eyes and naivety in my heart.
I promised I wouldn’t let myself get involved with someone again, that I wouldn’t get invested in another relationship, and while I thought I was doing a good job of keeping Ben at arm’s length, somewhere along the way, I started to care.
I thought I’d found someone who wanted me and only me. Even if I thought we had an expiration date, Ben asking for exclusivity gave me a false sense of security.
And I fell for it.
“Where are we going?” Blake asks.
“To get really, really, really, really, really, really drunk.”
“Want to throw another really on there?”
“Really.”
Blake takes out his phone and starts tapping away. “My driver is at our service.”
“More drinks!” I demand and raise my hand with my empty glass in it. Or … not so empty. Liquid splashes everywhere.