Sweet Little Lies Read online

  Jane shrugged and smiled at him. “That’s what I like about you—you’re very obedient.”

  “Seriously. I mean, what other guys are cool with being miked every time they walk into a place with you? You’re lucky I’m so understanding,” Jesse teased her.

  “Yeah, it’s such a huge burden, having to be on TV all the time,” Jane teased him back.

  Jane watched as the camera guys hauled their equipment through the dining room and out the door. She and Jesse were now officially off-camera—at least for a “min.”

  There was something she had been meaning to talk to him about. Maybe this was her chance.

  Or maybe she should just drop it.

  Just do it, she told herself. She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “So there’s something I have to ask you. I’m really sorry to have to bring this up. But it’s about those pictures.”

  Jesse’s smile vanished, but Jane forced herself to go on.

  “Madison thinks either you or Scar gave them to Gossip magazine. Which is crazy, I know, but—”

  “Madison?” Jesse cut in. His jaw clenched angrily. “She said that? Are you fucking kidding me?”

  Jane was stunned by Jesse’s furious response and wished she could go back to three minutes ago, before she had said anything. “Okay, okay,” she said, holding up her hands. “I’m sorry I brought it up.” She had been 99.9 percent sure of his innocence before. She was 100 percent sure now.

  “Madison’s the one who should be sorry. She’s lying to you; don’t you know that? She’s the one who gave the pictures to Gossip. Didn’t Scarlett tell you?”

  Jane sighed. Obviously, Jesse and Scar still shared the same delusional ideas about Madison. Just as Madison had her delusional ideas about Jesse and Scar.

  This was getting to be too much. Her friends had to stop fighting and making up horrible stories about one another. Besides, Jane was more convinced than ever that the pictures were the work of some random (evil) photographer. After all, Madison had totally been there for her through all the recent craziness, proving she was too good a friend to do something so low. And Madison was so wrong about Scarlett (and Jesse, too). Even though Jane and Scar weren’t exactly getting along these days, Jane knew Scar would never do that to her.

  Jesse was still bad-mouthing Madison when Jane interrupted.

  “Okay, okay,” Jane said, giving Jesse a look that (she hoped) conveyed to him that the subject was now off-limits. Forever. “Can we just go?”

  Jesse’s expression stayed stern. “Sure,” he said coldly.

  As Jesse paid the check, Jane peered at her phone and saw a text from Dana, saying that the camera guys were ready. Jane slid her phone over to Jesse so he could read the text, too.

  Jesse rose from the table, helping Jane out of her chair and then taking her arm and leading her to the door. As they wove through the dining room, a group of young women snapped pictures of them with their cell phones. Jane heard one of them say, “I thought they broke up?”

  Outside, she saw the L.A. Candy guys in position, filming her and Jesse’s exit—and then, a few feet behind them, the paparazzi. Dana was standing there, not yelling at them to scram as she usually did, but simply watching Jane and Jesse and talking quietly to someone on her headset. What, had the L.A. Candy crew formed some sort of an alliance with the tabloid photographers? As soon as she and Jesse walked out of frame, the paparazzi came toward them at once.

  “Save me,” Jane whispered to Jesse, who nodded and handed his ticket to the valet, then placed his hand protectively on the small of her back. Jane felt, as she sometimes did, trapped, as they stood on the sidewalk, waiting for Jesse’s car while the paparazzi’s cameras circled them, recording her every move. The weird thing was, she was good at this. She knew, without being told by Dana or anyone else, to do exactly what she was doing: fake-smiling, making small talk, pleasantly and patiently killing time until she and Jesse could escape in his Range Rover. Scar, on the other hand, would have lost her temper by now, or given someone the finger, or made some funny, sarcastic comment and stormed off.

  Not Jane. She knew enough to smile and be polite, even though it terrified her to be surrounded by flashing lights and faceless photographers who had no respect for her personal space.

  “Car’s here,” Jesse announced. More flashbulbs popped as he helped Jane into the front seat.

  “How ’bout a kiss, Jesse?” one of the photographers shouted.

  Yeah, right. Jane waited for Jesse to close her door and go around the car to the other side. But instead, he leaned in and kissed her on the lips—not just a quick, friendly kiss, but a long one. The cameras went crazy.

  It was so nice kissing Jesse again…or it would have been, anyway, if it weren’t for the fact that they were not alone. They were the absolute opposite of alone. Guess Jesse knows exactly how to act for the cameras, too, Jane thought.

  18

  WHO SAYS WE’RE DATING?

  Sitting cross-legged on her bed, dressed in nothing but a white tank top and black boy briefs, Scarlett hurled another pair of rolled-up socks at the TV screen. It was laundry day (at this point, laundry night), and as always, Scarlett had sorted and folded all her clean clothes in neat piles. Unfortunately, the neat piles were quickly coming apart. And it was all Trevor’s fault.

  The sock hurling had started when she made the mistake of turning on the TV during the sorting and folding part, to watch L.A. Candy on TiVo. It was the “Christmas Eve with the Harps” episode (or that’s what she called it, anyway), and it was really, really pissing her off.

  After their initial, deer-caught-in-the-headlights silence in front of the cameras, her parents had warmed up to them and started opening their mouths.

  Mom: So how was your first semester at USC, darling?

  Scarlett: It was okay.

  WTF? Scarlett threw another pair of socks at the screen. She recalled exactly what she’d said in response to her mother’s question. It wasn’t, “It was okay.” It was, “It was okay, if your idea of a good education is being taught by professors who have lower IQs than you do.” Sure, maybe that was a little harsh and not totally true, but why had Trevor reduced her sentiment to, “It was okay”? Was he trying to make her sound vapid?

  The painful scene droned on.

  Dad: Have you thought about your future?

  Scarlett: Sure. I guess.

  More socks. Except that Scarlett had run out of socks, so she hurled some rolled-up panties instead. Sure. I guess? What she had said to her father was, “Sure. I guess. I was thinking I would drop out of school and maybe go back to my old job grilling chickens at El Pollo Loco or maybe dance at a strip club.” Now she was sure Trevor was trying to make her sound vapid.

  Mom: Oh, by the way, I meant to tell you we ran into your old boyfriend Dave the other day. He was asking about you.

  Scarlett: Really?

  Panties, tank tops, hoodies. They hit the TV screen and fell in a soft heap on the floor of Scarlett’s otherwise tidy room. This one was the worst bit of Trevor-izing yet. Her mother—her real mother, her off-camera mother—knew better than to bring up the subject of her love life, such as it was. Dana had obviously told her to do so.

  What Scarlett had said was, “Really? You mean Dave, Jenn Nussbaum’s boyfriend? I just hooked up with him at her eighteenth birthday to piss her off. Yeah, well, be sure to tell him hi the next time you see him. Where is he these days—working in the surf shop and living with his parents? He didn’t strike me as the Most Likely to Succeed type, at least from what I could tell during the twenty-three minutes of our relationship.”

  Okay, yeah, so maybe that wasn’t exactly PG-rated material. Still, did Trevor have to chop her words to the point of making her sound like a lobotomized Barbie doll?

  “Asshole!” she yelled.

  The doorbell rang.

  Scarlett sat up abruptly. She glanced at the clock. Crap! That must be Liam. And she wasn’t even dressed. It wasn’t like her to lose track of
time like this. Jane must be rubbing off on her.

  Liam had texted her that morning, asking if she wanted to check out a French double feature at the New Beverly Cinema, and she had replied, SURE, before she’d had a chance to think it through. She hadn’t seen him since leaving (or rather, catapulting out of) his apartment last Friday. She had hoped and prayed that he wouldn’t call her or text her after that, telling her how much fun New Year’s Eve had been and could they do it again and all that BS. And he hadn’t. Which had been kind of confusing. By Sunday night, she had actually found herself checking her phone to make sure she hadn’t missed any messages. This morning, when she saw his text pop up, she had actually giggled—giggled!—responding to his invitation.

  What was wrong with her? Scarlett Harp didn’t giggle. She laughed, usually at the expense of other people.

  Scarlett clicked off the TV, scrambled out of bed, and dug through the pile of freshly laundered clothes on the floor. She found a clean pair of jeans and a slightly wrinkled tee and pulled them on. She didn’t bother with makeup or her hair, because she never did (unless Jane forced her to, for a shoot). She grabbed her wallet and keys.

  The doorbell rang again. “Hang on!” she yelled. “I’m coming!”

  A minute later, she opened the door. Liam was standing there, looking…well, quite hot in a pair of distressed jeans and a blue polo that matched his eyes.

  He smiled at her. “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  “I’m not early or anything, am I?”

  “Nope. I was just finishing up the laundry. Ready to go?”

  “Yup. Car’s just outside.”

  A few minutes later, they were in Liam’s silver Prius, listening to the radio and driving along Beverly Boulevard with the windows down. Scarlett put her bare feet up on the dash and leaned back in the seat, enjoying the feel of the air tossing her long black hair. She was quite content. This was much better than staying at home doing the laundry (or launching laundry at the TV), moping because Jane had gone out to dinner with her loser boyfriend turned ex-boyfriend turned sort-of-boyfriend again, instead of hanging out with her. (It would have been on-camera, but still…it had been a while since the two girls had spent a night in together.)

  “So.” Liam turned to glance at her. “Not to get serious on you, but I think we should talk about something.”

  Scarlett stared at him. “What?”

  “Crew and talent aren’t supposed to date.”

  Scarlett arched her eyebrows. “Did you just call me ‘talent’? Besides,” she continued, hitting his arm playfully, “who says we’re dating?”

  “Yeah, well, whatever you want to call it. It’s just…I could get fired for this.”

  “So we’re not dating. They can’t fire you for being friends with me, can they?”

  “I’m not sure if the network makes those kinds of distinctions. Point is, I think you’re cool and I want to keep seeing you, but it would be better if we didn’t tell anybody about us.”

  Us? What did he mean by us?

  “I knew from the schedule that Jane was out tonight, which is why I was able to pick you up at your apartment,” Liam went on. “You can’t talk about this with anyone, okay? Not even Jane.”

  “No problem,” Scarlett said breezily. “I’m good with secrets.”

  “Yeah? Well, hopefully, you’re better at keeping secrets than you are at Wii tennis.”

  “What are you talking about? I destroyed you!”

  “You’re delusional.”

  “You’re delusional.”

  As they bantered, Scarlett thought about what Liam had just said. She was actually glad that she couldn’t tell anyone about him. Truth was, she didn’t want to tell anyone about Liam, because she didn’t even know what she would say. She had never felt this way about a guy before, and trying to explain it out loud would make it seem too real. She had no words to describe her emotional state these days (“irrational” and “unstable,” maybe?). She wanted to linger in this irrational, unstable, and, if she had to admit it, kind of awesome limbo of her noncrush on Liam for as long as possible—not going forward, not making a commitment, just…being there. She couldn’t see their relationship continuing, but she couldn’t see it not continuing, either. So for now, she would just enjoy whatever it was they had—without labels, without promises, and without telling anyone about it. Not even Jane. Scarlett had already not told her about New Year’s with Liam. Might as well keep the half-truths rolling—that was the state of their union these days anyway.

  Plus, the season finale was coming up soon. After that, who knew what the future held? Maybe Scarlett would leave the show. And then Trevor Lord couldn’t Trevorize her anymore, or tell her what to do, or who to date. She could just focus on school (classes were resuming next week) and make some decisions about the next academic year. Like, should she transfer to a different college? Or should she pursue another path altogether? The future was wide-open.

  “Ready to sit through four hours of subtitles?” Liam said, pulling into a parking space.

  “Who needs subtitles? I speak French.”

  “You do not.”

  “Oui, je parle français.”

  “Show-off.”

  Scarlett laughed at him and kissed him on the lips. She wrapped her arms around his neck. Just then, some guy passing by yelled, “Get a room!” through the open window. She and Liam pulled apart, laughing.

  “I thought we weren’t dating,” Liam said, caressing her arm.

  “We’re not.”

  “Yeah? You always kiss your friends like that?”

  “Yep. That’s why I’m soooo popular.”

  As they walked into the theater, Liam took her hand in his. What the hell, Scarlett thought, and then let him.

  19

  CD U AND HANNAH PLZ TALK ABOUT SOMETHING????

  Jane took a sip of her Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf vanilla latte (yum) and jotted down a note to check out some roller-skating websites to get ideas for the Crazy Girl event. Skating to Valentine’s Day was a bit of a stretch, but she knew that Crazy Girl had sponsored several athletic events, so maybe there was something there? Although…roller-skating events sounded good in theory, but really, you ended up with a crowd of people drinking alcohol, with wheels attached to their feet. Injuries were inevitable. Love hurts, though, right? Hmm.

  “Good morning!” Hannah walked into the office, looking fresh and put-together in a cream wrap dress and camel-colored wedge shoes. “How was your weekend?”

  Jane noticed that Hannah didn’t even glance at the two PopTV cameras in the corners, which she used to do in the beginning. We’re all getting to be such pros at this, she thought. “It was fun. How was yours?”

  Hannah sat down at her desk and tucked her purse away in the bottom drawer. “Kinda quiet. I went to the movies Saturday night.”

  “Cool! Who’d you go with?”

  “A couple of friends,” Hannah said vaguely. Hannah never mentioned her friends by name. It was weird how she never opened up about herself. Jane really liked her, but she felt like she knew nothing about Hannah’s nonwork life. Was she just a private person? Or maybe the cameras intimidated her more than she let on? Jane had invited her out a few times, but other than coming to Jesse’s birthday party at Goa, and the Cüt launch at STK, she usually had other plans…with her mysterious friends/dates/boyfriends/ex-boyfriends, no doubt.

  “So what did you do?” Hannah asked her.

  Jane smiled and blushed. “Jesse and I hung out.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.” Since dinner at Beso last Monday, Jane had gone out with Jesse almost every night. They’d spent most of the weekend at his spacious house in Laurel Canyon, watching movies and swimming in his pool and cooking dinner together. When she and Jesse were dating before, she had been to the house only a couple of times, mostly because Braden lived there, and it would have been awkward running into him in the mornings, wearing nothing but one of Jesse’s white shirts. Even though
nothing had happened between her and Braden back then, there was that unspoken something between them, and besides, she knew he didn’t approve of her dating Jesse.

  Now Braden was gone, and Jesse hadn’t brought him up. Not once. Jane figured it was best that way. Even though she wished Braden would respond to her email (from nine days ago), already. Or was their friendship totally dead? The thought made her sad. Really sad.

  Hannah glanced at her computer monitor, then began typing. “So how are things going with him?”

  Jane frowned, confused. Why was Hannah asking about Braden? And then she remembered that they had been talking about Jesse. “Really great,” she gushed. “He’s so sweet to me. Do you know what he did Friday night? He TiVo’d The Notebook because he knew it was one of my favorite movies, and then he made me dinner and we watched it together. Seriously, things are better than ever with him.”

  “Wow, that’s amazing. I’m so happy for you.”

  Jane stared at Hannah. She didn’t sound happy. She sounded…worried.

  Jane turned back to her computer, biting back her disappointment. She wanted to share her good news about Jesse with a friend. One who didn’t hate him. Which left Hannah. But for some reason, Hannah wasn’t interested in talking about Jesse today. Maybe she was just in a bad mood?

  Jane began punching keys, checking out skating sites, when her computer made a little ding! noise, and she saw that she had an email from Sam. She opened it eagerly.

  TO: JANE ROBERTS

  FROM: SAMANTHA SUTHERLAND

  RE: THINGS ARE LOOKING UP!

  Hey, sweetie. Check out these links. We’re on a roll!

  Love, Sam

  The first linked to an item about Jane and Jesse going to a video-game launch party together. The next was all about Jane’s fabulous job as the assistant to one of the biggest event planners in the business. Then a picture of Jane attending a charity fashion show to benefit children’s leukemia.