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Bram’s glittering good looks, cocky manner, and street tough’s attitude stirred all her fantasies. She’d never known anyone so wild, so free of the need to please. She laughed too loud trying to get his attention. She bought him presents—a new CD he had to hear, gourmet chocolates that were the best ever, funny T-shirts he never wore. She saved up jokes to tell him, agreed with all his opinions, and did everything she could to make him like her, but unless the cameras were rolling, she might as well have been invisible.
The contrast between his rough upbringing and the polished preppy he played fascinated her, and she pieced together his history from his hometown buddies, loudmouth jerks who hung around the set.
Bram had grown up on Chicago’s South Side. From the time he was seven, when his mother died from a drug overdose, he’d had to look out for himself. His irresponsible father, a sometimes house-painter who relied on his girlfriends for beer money, had died when Bram was fifteen. Bram had dropped out of school not long after and started hustling. One day a wealthy forty-year-old divorcée spotted him while she was doing volunteer work and took him under her wing—maybe into her bed—Georgie had never been sure about that. The woman polished up his rough edges and talked him into modeling. After a high-end Chicago men’s store snatched him up for an ad campaign, he’d dumped his benefactor, taken some acting lessons, and eventually landed a couple of parts with one of the local theater companies, which led to his audition for Skip.
The show’s fourth season began. Georgie promised herself she’d make him see that she wasn’t a nuisance but had grown into a desirable eighteen-year-old woman. They started work in July, shooting on location in Chicago. One of Bram’s loser friends mentioned that Bram was chartering a yacht for a Saturday-night drinking cruise on Lake Michigan. Since her father was going to New York for the weekend, Georgie decided to crash the party.
She dressed carefully in a leopard-print halter dress and little platform sandals. As she stepped on the yacht, she noticed most of the women wore short shorts and bathing suit tops. R. Kelly blared from the boat’s sound system. The women were all in their twenties with gleaming hair, long legs, and sexy bodies, but Georgie held the fame card, and as the boat left the dock, they detached themselves from Bram’s homeboys to talk to her.
“Could I have your autograph for my niece?”
“Do you take acting classes and everything?”
“You’re so lucky to be working with Bram. He’s like the hott
est guy on the planet.”
Georgie smiled and autographed, all the while keeping an eye out for Bram.
He finally emerged from the cabin. He wore rumpled shorts and a tan polo shirt. He had a woman under each arm, a drink in his hand, and a cigarette dangling from his lips. She wanted him so badly she hurt.
The moon came up, and the party got rowdier—exactly the kind of party her father had always kept her away from. One of the girls took off her top. The men hooted. Two of the women started kissing. Georgie would have been okay with it if they’d been lesbians, but they weren’t, and the idea of women making out just to put on a show for men disgusted her. When they started rubbing each other’s breasts, she slipped inside to the salon, where half a dozen guests were hanging out around the bar and lounging on a horseshoe-shaped white leather couch.
An air-conditioning vent sent a chilly blast over her ankles. She’d nurtured so many hopes for tonight, but Bram hadn’t even spoken to her. Above her head, the sound of catcalls grew louder. She didn’t belong here. She didn’t belong anywhere except mugging in front of a camera.
The door opened, and Bram ambled down the steps. This time he was alone. The hope that he might have followed her blossomed as he slouched into a bucket chair not far from where she was standing and looked her over. The combination of his preppy Skip haircut, golden beard stubble, and a brand-new tattoo circling his thin bicep just beneath the sleeve of his knit shirt thrilled her. He draped one leg over the chair arm and took a slug from his drink, his eyes still on her.
She tried to think of something clever to say. “Great party.”
He gave her his familiar bored look, lit another cigarette, and squinted at her through the smoke. “You weren’t invited.”
“I showed up anyway.”
“Meaning that Daddy’s out of town.”
“I don’t do everything my father says.”
“That’s not the way it looks to me.”
She shrugged and tried to look cool. He flicked an ash on the carpet. She’d never been able to figure out what she’d done to earn his dislike except get paid more, and that wasn’t her fault.
He pointed his drink toward the deck. “Party getting a little too wild for you?”
She wanted to tell him that watching girls demean themselves depressed her, but he already thought she was a prude. “Not at all.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t know me. You only think you do.” She’d tried to sound mysterious, and maybe it was working because his eyes slid over her in a way that made her finally feel as if he was really seeing her.
Her orange curls had gone wild with the humidity, but her makeup looked good. She’d used bronzy shadow on her eyes and nude-colored lipstick to downplay her mouth. The leopard-print halter dress wasn’t anything Scooter Brown would wear, and she’d emphasized the difference by sticking cutlets in her bra, but as his gaze came to rest on her breasts, she had the feeling he knew they were fake.
He blew a thin ribbon of smoke. “I bet you’re still a virgin.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m eighteen. I haven’t been a virgin for a couple of years.” Her heart began to pound at the lie.
“If you say so.”
“He was an older man. You’d know who if I told you, but I’m not going to.”
