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I raked a hand through my hair, pushing my wild, curly locks from my eyes. “Not so sure about the boyfriend thing.” I glanced in her direction, expecting to see annoyance at the fact that he was my boyfriend at all and she was the last to know. Instead, her patrician features were soft and empathetic. That sent my shame-o-meter into overdrive. I had no right to have friends like Megan or a boyfriend like Jacob.
I dropped my body onto the mattress. “I screwed up.”
She hesitated, clearly wanting to avoid contact with anything in the room. She drew a breath, steeling herself and surprised us both by sinking onto the bed beside me. She folded her hands in her lap. Ready to listen--if I was ready to talk.
I still wasn’t sure I was. With my thumb and index finger pinching the bridge of my nose, I tried to hold back the tears that lay waiting, threatening to rush past my defenses. I knew if I laid out all the dumb choices I made in the past twenty-four hours, there’d be no stopping them. Once I started crying, I’d be no good to anyone.
So I decided to go further back.
“I barely had time to catch my breath before I was whisked to the airport.” I paused, letting the subject change sink in. If she tried to steer us back on the road to why I was in a budget motel surrounded by Doritos and booze, I’d reluctantly veer back on course. I owed it to her because she was here on Saturday morning, there for me even when I was so wrapped up in Jacob that I kept her updated via scarce texts.
But she didn’t push. “You flew without having hours to psych yourself up?” She shuddered.
My mouth twitched, remembering our first (and probably last) flight together when she unwisely let me hold her hand whenever the plane hit turbulence. She’d compared the pain to having your hand run over by a car and my shrieks to a woman in labor.
“I know. But it was nothing like flying commercially. It was like a really big, comfortable car. Or a flying hotel.” And awesome metaphors like that were why I was NOT in marketing.
Still, she nodded like she could somehow picture it as I talked about the plush chairs that molded to the contours of your body and the sleeping chamber, leaving out the almost R rated activities Jacob and I engaged in.
I talked about falling in love with Venice. I even told her about Rachel Laraby and her mission to make my life miserable until I flat out told her that Jacob just wasn’t that into her.
She made a face. “You know, I never liked her. Even when she played a jilted bride or a survivor type, she just had this bad news vibe about her.” She gave me a grin of solidarity. “‘America’s Sweetheart’, my ass.”
I matched the grin, not fighting the better mood that was quickly taking the place of the rotten one I’d woke up in. That was the thing about Megan. It was impossible to stay blue when you were around her.
“You know what’s funny?” I continued. “I almost forgot about the rest of the world--until we went to the city and there were photographers everywhere, shouting questions, cameras flashing. It was a literal circus. I was so ready to be back, stupidly thinking that maybe things would be closer to normal in the states,” I picked at a stain on my skirt. “But my mother made sure that the paparazzi knew where I lived.”
Her emerald colored eyes glittered with surprise. “She didn’t.”
“She did,” I sighed. “And it’s been one thing after the other since then.” And we were back to the latest catastrophe. “Including Cade Wallace.”
“I remember good ole’ Cade.” She stretched her arms as wide as they could go. “Huge, life sized posters of this ‘roided up guy in your dorm room.”
“He’s not ‘roided up--” I stopped myself. Why was I defending him?
Megan looked at me sideways. “You and he didn’t…” She raised her eyebrows suggestively.
“No!” I exclaimed, my cheeks reddening. “I’m with Jacob! Or I was until I forgot to tell him I was meeting Cade for coffee.” I dropped my volume for the kicker. “And there was a photographer, snapping all kinds of pictures that made things look all kinds of bad.”
“By ‘forgot’ do you mean ‘conveniently forgot to mention’?” she smirked, proving she knew me, probably better than anyone.
“Well I didn’t lie if that’s what you mean.”
“A lie by omission is still a lie,” she said, shaking her head at the fact that such things needed to be said.
“It was just as friends,” I offered weakly.
She gestured around the room pointedly. “You’re not in some skeevy motel because you forgot to tell your boyfriend about meeting a friend for coffee.” She laid it out, not leaving one sad excuse untouched. “And as hardcore as your mom is, this isn’t about not wanting to face her. You don’t want to risk shots of going back to your humble beginnings with your tail between your legs.”
I opened my mouth to tell her it wasn’t true, but saving face was pointless. I was humbled, brought low, and there was no reason to pretend otherwise.
“I thought you were making mega money as his assistant,” she said quietly. “Enough that you could at least stay somewhere decent for a few days.”
I dropped my gaze to the floor. “I shouldn’t overspend.”
“In case of what?” She held up a hand as it came to her. “Hold on a second. You think he’s going to fire you over this?” She didn’t wait for my reply. “You said you were in love with him, Leila. That he was in love with you. If that’s true, there’s no way he would fire you.”
“Even if I deserve it?”
