Page 33 of My Charming Rival (Stars In Their Eyes 1)
Another buzz.
HBG: I’m still replaying that kiss.
My skin was hot again, and before I could dunk my head once more I replied.
Me, too.
WEDNESDAY
WEDNESDAY
Weather: 70 degrees, Sunny
14
Jess
At seven twenty-five, I ordered a plain coffee from a rather peppy coffee purveyor at the counter who asked me twice if my name was Jess or Jeff.
“Not that you look like a Jeff,” he said hastily. “But I thought it would be a fake name. Right? Because people use fake names for coffee all the time.”
“Actually, my coffee shop name is Fred,” I said in a deadpan voice.
He wrote Fred in Sharpie on the cup.
I added sugar to Fred’s coffee and headed outside to keep my eyes peeled for Keats. I had no idea what he looked like, but I had a hunch he’d be able to find me, especially since there was only one other person at the outside tables, and she was doing a series of sun salutations in her maroon yoga pants while playing tic-tac-toe on her smartphone.
At seven thirty on the dot, an egg-shaped, mint-green electric car pulled up, the driver parking by the curb. A red-haired guy with ruddy cheeks and a small, pert nose got out and walked towards me. He carried a silver coffee thermos in one hand and a tablet computer in a faux black bamboo case in the other. He wore a pink button-down shirt, crisp and untucked, but a size too large. I was willing to bet he’d borrowed it from an older brother. He had on shades. His were small and mirrored. He whipped them off as if he practiced the move in the mirror each morning, then flashed a whitened and brightened grin at me. He placed his tablet on the table.
“Jess Leighton, I’m Keats Wharton,” he said, and extended a hand.
“Pleasure to meet you. Do you want to get a coffee?”
Keats tapped the side of his silver thermos. “I went on a caffeine-free diet a year ago and have literally never had more energy. I have my chia seeds mixed with unsweetened cherry juice right here.”
I stifled a gag. I might be all about healthy eating, but there is just something patently wrong about the juxtaposition of unsweetened next to cherry juice. He settled into the empty chair, flicked open the tablet case, and plucked out a business card.
“A Thousand Words is a good name. What’s your story?”
“I graduated from UCLA last fall. I started my agency a few months ago and we’ve done well so far. Let me show you some of our placements.”
He tapped on the browser and showed me an image that I’d seen run yesterday in In The Stars. It was a shot of the bleached-blond Jenner Davies serving meals at a soup kitchen, part of the actor’s efforts to rehabilitate his image after the whacking he’d bestowed on the front desk clerk at the hotel during his Planet Patrol tirade.
“One of my photogs landed this shot last week of Jenner.”
“Nice,” I said because it wasn’t a bad photo. It was probably planned—I suspected Jenner’s publicist had arranged and ensured that photographers were on hand to capture the young, embattled actor’s suddenly selfless ways. “And necessary,” I added.
“Totally,” Keats said, then scrolled to a few other shots—images of TV stars posed on red carpets and unposed on Melrose as they shopped. When Keats stopped his show-and-tell, he took a long swallow of his chia-seed-festooned beverage and gave a satisfied smack of the lips. “But as for the job for you, I came to you because of the shot you took on Monday on Venice Beach. Of a certain starlet, her cherished dog, and her supposed new beau.”
“Supposed? Miles is a ‘supposed’ for Riley?”
“Or simply one in an assembly line of beaus. I have it on good authority that the little Miss Riley Belle is not only dillying with Miles Sterling, but she’s also dallying with the director of the film.”
I didn’t act shocked. I didn’t let on that I was surprised. But I was. Riley didn’t seem the type to get a little something going on with a director. She was talented, successful, and, well, smart. A smart girl wouldn’t get involved with a notorious ladies’ man who was also twice her age. Of course, being twice Riley’s age only meant that Avery Brock, the English-born director of The Weekenders, was thirty-six.
The real issue, though, was that Avery Brock was taken. Married to a leggy Brazilian supermodel, he’d reportedly strayed from her before. There had never been photographic evidence of his past dalliances, but it was Hollywood’s worst-kept secret that he liked his ladies of the spring chicken variety and had been rumored to have romped with a few other young stars. Would his wife take him back after yet another fling? He had a boyish face and the sort of moppish hair and sweet brown eyes that could make you want to forgive him if he gave you his best puppy dog look and a self-deprecating line.
