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Lowering the volume on his handset, he called his voicemail and listened to Antoine’s message. “Hey, big boy, Jules tells me you might have a little trouble paying up on time. If you need some wiggle room, I have a party planned in a suite at the MGM tomorrow night after the awards. Your participation would be…advantageous. Ta-ta.”
He didn’t need to listen to the voicemail more than once because the message was clear. Show up at the party, or else. Ethan had gotten away with skipping Julian’s last party in L.A., but he didn’t think he’d be able to pull off missing a second one.
He put the phone down and tried to focus on the TV but was suddenly a lot less interested in who made the best gazpacho. For a few hours he’d been able to forget his troubles, and that had been all due to Sam. Now his problems had found him even as she slept in his arms. He looked down at her, pushing her hair back so he could see her face, her lips parted in sleep as if waiting for a kiss.
Couldn’t he have this? This nice moment in time, without it being ruined by all the garbage Kelly had sucked him into? And when was he going to stop placing all the blame on Kelly? He’d known it was a bad idea to get into bed with Julian, and now he was proving himself right.
Sam opened her eyes slowly and looked up at him.
“That’s a serious face,” she observed, yawning and rubbing her eyes.
“I want to ask you something.”
“If it’s whether or not I’ve been a bad girl, I think you know the answer by now.” She smiled but was still half-asleep, giving the gesture an unhurried quality he found endearing.
“Tomorrow night is the AVAs. I want you to come with me. As my date.”
Her eyes opened wider, and she bent her neck to better see him.
“Say again?”
Ethan sat up straighter, turning off the television. Seeing his serious
ness made Sam sit up and wrap the blanket around her waist so only her bra-shrouded upper half showed. It was sort of cute that she wanted to cover up her lower body, considering he’d had his face buried in it only an hour earlier, but her modesty was one of the things he liked about her.
“Will you be my date to the Adult Video Awards?” he repeated, making sure he was clear about what he was asking.
“Isn’t that a big deal?”
He shrugged and angled his head side to side. “I mean, it’s not the Oscars or anything. It’s not a super high-class red carpet event, but it is covered by bloggers and some different websites. I don’t think your parents are going to see you on TV, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
She shook her head. “No parents.”
“Sorry.” And he was. Both his parents were still alive, and though they weren’t necessarily thrilled about him abandoning Stanford to star in dirty pictures, as his mom called them, they still loved him and made him come up to Palo Alto every December for Hanukkah. He didn’t know what life would be like not having parents care about you and all the stupid shit you did.
He briefly wondered if he might ask his parents for the money. They had it, he was sure of that. But even as the idea flitted through his mind he ushered it back out. There was no way he could tell his parents he needed ten grand to give to some nefarious money-lender. They’d never get over that, nor would they ever be able to look at him the same, and if he had to spend every holiday seeing more shame and disappointment in his parents’ eyes, that would be unbearable.
It was bad enough he had to tell his Jewish mother at frequent intervals that he was still unmarried and not meeting any nice Jewish girls in the industry.
He’d lost himself in thought to the point where he couldn’t recall if it was his turn to speak or if he was still waiting for an answer from Sam, so he asked, “What do you think?”
She seemed to be debating it, wearing her conflicting emotions all over her face. Finally she said, “Would I have to dress up? I don’t think I packed anything appropriate for an awards ceremony.”
He grinned and pulled her closer. “Like I said, it’s not a fancy event. Did you bring a dress?”
“Sure, but it’s just a plain one.”
“That’ll be fine. Believe me, you’ll look overdressed compared to some other people.”
“Oh?”
“It’s the Adult Video Awards, Sam. A lot of the girls…well, most of the girls are really comfortable being naked in front of an audience.”
Sam wrinkled up her nose. “They won’t actually be naked, will they?”
“They’ll be as close as is legally allowed by the state of Nevada.”
She rested her chin on his chest and gazed up at him, big green eyes suddenly full of concern. “Won’t it be weird? I mean, there will be a lot of women there you’ve slept with. Like…a lot.”
