HDU (22 page)

“Everyone’s leaving now,” Ian pointed out flatly,
appearing exhausted.
 
His eyes were
barely open, but his observation was correct.
 
The crowd was waning and Dylan Hardy had probably left
already anyway.
 
Amanda’s shoulders
slumped.

“Okay, you’re right.
 
It’s late,” she conceded.
 
It wasn’t as if she had any sort of plan for if or when she
bumped into Dylan.
 
And she was
absolutely drunk from all the champagne that had been shoved into her hands anyway,
so it was probably best to avoid an encounter.
 

Along with Jaime, Ben, and a few others, the three
exited through the heavy steel backdoor, though of course only to be greeted by
a pair of photographers.
 

“Nice fire dance – you looked
hot
up there!” one called out to Amanda,
holding up a YouTube video of her stage appearance on his iPhone.
 
She wanted to laugh at his compliment
but was too in awe of the fact that footage had already been uploaded
online.
 
She let herself take a
closer look at his phone – of course, it had been uploaded by the user
FilmFreak
.
 
And in three hours, the video had garnered almost five
thousand views.
 
Ian had probably
blogged and tweeted about it.
 
Knowing that, she felt suddenly compelled to check her phone, which she
had neglected all night.
 
As usual,
texts from old friends, classmates and neighbors flooded her inbox, but she
only checked Liam’s.
 
Hot stuff
, it said simply.
 
Amanda snorted, instinctively reading
it with his sarcasm.

“I need some shawarma in my stomach before I go
home,” Ian announced in a gravelly voice, walking next to Casey in
zig-zags.
 
He was in the heavily
intoxicated state that Amanda had only witnessed the after effects of.
 
Ian drunk, she noticed, was far less
bright and jovial than Ian sober.
 
In fact, he was sad, even moody.
 
While Casey, Jaime, Ben and others started hailing cabs to go home,
Amanda opted to follow Ian to Orchard Street and join him in his late night
bite.
 
She was feeling the odd but
somewhat familiar compulsion to stick with him while he was drunk, convinced
that for some reason or another, he was better off with company.

“You’re not coming with me?” Casey called from her
cab, her Nolita apartment on the way to Amanda’s hotel.
 
When she shook her head “no,” Casey
jogged over from the street to give her a goodnight kiss on the cheek.
 
She then held her arms out for Ian, who
paused before trudging over.
 
Amanda took note of the irony – the celebrity groveling for
his
attention.

“Don’t look so excited,” Casey said, hugging him
around the waist.
 
Ian gave a lazy
smile and kissed her on the cheek.

“Oh, I’m excited,” was all he said, making her
giggle.
 
Along with moody and sad,
Ian was apparently also a better flirt when drunk – though perhaps only
for girls who liked their men brooding.
 
Whatever it was, she suspected it was earning him another evening with
Casey, who peered back at him curiously as she got into her cab.
 
The fact that he was already looking
elsewhere only worked to his advantage.

“So… everything okay with you?” Amanda asked hesitantly.
 
Ian kicked an empty Snapple bottle on
the ground.
 

“Yeah, why?”

“Because you seem super moody.
 
Despite having just hung out with Casey
Mulreed who was
flirting
with you for
most of the night.”

“Right.
 
That happened didn’t it,” Ian mumbled, fumbling with a pack of Marlboros
and sticking one between his lips as they reached the dingy Turkish restaurant.
 
Amanda plucked it out from his mouth
and stuck it back in the box.

“We’re indoors,” she said.
 
Ian looked up and around, seeming to only just notice.
 
  

“Oh.”
 
He
blinked in the fluorescent lighting.
 
“Do you want shawarma?” he asked.
 
When she took more than a second to answer, he went ahead and shuffled
off, saying, “I’ll just get you one.”

“Oh… kay.”
 
Amanda backed up, taking a seat at a booth against the window.
 
She was too tired to stake out the
farthest table from the paparazzi.
 
The camera flashes barely registered to her anymore anyway, with her
eyes so tired and foggy.
 
As Ian
waited in line, she took the time to check her new text messages.
 
At the top of her inbox was an
unexpected name.
 

Megan.

“Oh, what the hell now?” Amanda mumbled aloud,
clicking on the message.
 
It was lengthy.
 
She squinted as she read it.

Hey Mandy… Been
thinking about you a lot this week! I’m embarrassed by how I left off with u, I
want you to kno I am actually so happy for u!! I have always wished u the best.
Anyway I am visiting NYC on Feb 3rd to meet with a possible agent!!!… Will u be
free to show me the city since u r suddenly a city girl? lol. I would love to
catch up over a nice dinner :-)
 
U
should invite Liam!! :-) Let me kno babe, miss u.

Amanda stared and reread, processing the information
as thoroughly as she could in her state.
 
Megan was city-bound.
 
She
was apparently job-hunting in the area.
 
And she was looking to make amends.
 
Or was she? Without thinking, she responded with whatever
her fingers had the capacity to text.

“Here.”
 
Ian sat down as she sent the message.
 
“It’s lamb,” he said, handing her the massive, stuffed pita.
 
Amanda stared at it.

“Megan’s coming to visit me again,” she blurted, prompting
Ian to suddenly bury his face in his hands.
 
“What? She’s my nemesis, not yours.”

“I called Natalie today.”

“What? When?”

He avoided her eye.
 
“An hour ago.”

Oh… no
.
 
Amanda barely needed an explanation to envision
what had probably transpired.
 
Bold
and cocky had to be one of Ian’s many drunken stages, because he had very
probably called Natalie amidst a phase of bravado sparked by a few solid hours
of rubbing elbows with celebrities and enjoying Casey Mulreed’s affections.
 
Amanda could only guess whether the
call was for the purposes of bragging, rekindling, or both.
 

“Whatever I said, I probably sounded like an idiot,”
Ian said with a low groan.
 
“And definitely
killed whatever chance I had at getting her back.”

Amanda frowned.
 
“I kind of thought you hated her.
 
Well, because you flat-out said that you hated her.”

“I don’t hate her,” Ian said quietly.
 
“She’s the only person who never bailed
on me.
 
She cared about me.
 
She was the only one who visited me at
Lenox.”

Amanda paused, hesitant.
 
“Um.
 
What’s
Lenox?”

“Never mind.”

“Okay… well, what about your…” she trailed off,
deciding not to say “family and friends.”
 
Ian never seemed to speak of them fondly.
 
She scratched her chin.
 
“Well, you know,” she started before even knowing what she
was going to say.
 
She searched
herself desperately for words of wisdom or comfort.
 
“I’m sure it didn’t go as badly as you think.
 
Everyone drunk dials sometimes, it’s just…
a part of life,” she offered lamely, recycling the dumb words that she had once
heard Megan say.
 
She knew for sure
they were simplifying the problem, but she couldn’t be sure what the problem
had been or still was, and Ian wasn’t offering any details.
 
They were silent for a couple minutes.

“You know, it’s been a
long
week,” she finally said.
 
“And we’ve both gone through an abnormal about of changes during this
time.
 
We were bound to lose it
over something at some point, and tonight was our night,” she said genuinely.
 
It was the pep talk that she had prepared
to give herself at some point, but she realized that it applied just as well to
Ian.
 
“With the highs come the
lows, but it’ll get better again.
 
So don’t be sad.”

“Okay,” Ian agreed all too simply.
 
“Sorry about ending your night on this
note.”

“Psh, what note?” Amanda asked, theatrically
incredulous.
 
“Everything’s all
good.”

Though it wasn’t, and she knew that as she put Ian in
a cab to go home.
 
She also knew
that he would act fine the next time they saw each other and they probably
wouldn’t speak about the night for awhile, if ever again.
 
But it didn’t take away from her suspicions
that something was haunting Ian besides a famous ex-girlfriend.
 

Amanda heaved a sigh as she raised a hand to hail her
own cab.
 
It was 4AM and every
single one seemed to be off-duty or taken.
 
Nightlife was officially ending and partygoers were pouring
out of the bars on every corner.
 
She decided to walk back towards Roué and the less busy streets, finally
spotting an available cab and rushing in before anyone else could.
 

“Excuse me!” a voice promptly called from the
sidewalk.
 
“I believe you stole my
cab.”

Amanda let out a little gasp, though it wasn’t
because she anticipated a confrontation – she didn’t.
 
Not from that perpetually sweet voice
with its wonderful English accent.
 
She looked up to see Dylan Hardy laughing, hands in his pockets as he
approached her car.
 
“Hello.
 
I’m sorry those had to be the first
words I spoke to you.”

Amanda rolled the window all the way down and
smiled.
 
“That’s okay, I deserved
them,” she said, grateful to her heart for beating normally.
 
Her body was too exhausted to be
nervous, and she wasn’t a hundred percent convinced that she wasn’t
hallucinating anyway.
 
“Would you
like your cab back?” she asked, reaching for the door handle.

“Oh, no, no.
 
You’re the one who’s got on heels,” he said.
 
“And I suspect you’ve had a more trying
day, dancing in fire and all.”

“Ha, yes.
 
It’s… been an interesting one,” Amanda laughed wearily,
recalling it all in her head.
 
She
could hardly believe that everything – the free clothes, the fire dance,
Dylan, Megan’s text, Ian’s revelation and finally, Dylan again – had all
happened within the same twenty-four hours.
 
She realized that the kind of day was what made a week in
New York feel like a year.
 
But
before she could come to any more revelations, the cabbie honked his horn.
 
Amanda jumped.

“Oh.
 
I’m
sorry – Crosby between Spring and Prince,” she said to him before turning
back to Dylan.
 
“Um, do you want to
come in since it’s impossible to get a cab right now?” she asked.
 
“I’m not going too far, I don’t think,
and you can take the car wherever you’re going after I get dropped off.”
 
She paused.
 
“Right?”

“You are correct,” he said with a gracious smile,
opening the car door.
 
Amanda was
thankful for the lack of paparazzi as he slid into the backseat with her.
 
He looked like a Burberry model or an
old-time movie character in his olive trench coat and scarf.
 
He still managed to look perfect to her
as he hit his head on the way in, laughing at himself.
 
“I’ve got to work on my coordination,”
he joked sheepishly as he rubbed his head, mussing his hair adorably.
 
Amanda couldn’t help giggling as she
watched him.
 
She found that awkward
and clumsy paired with his incredible good looks was a very winning combination.
 
Okay, but stop staring and actually say something.

“So… where do you live? Nearby?” she asked.
 
Good,
sound like a stalker
.

“Not too far, but I live in Brooklyn Heights,” Dylan
answered, gesturing in what Amanda assumed was the way of Brooklyn, at least
until he said, “I don’t know why I’m doing this, I’m not sure I’m even pointing
in the right direction.”
 
He
laughed.
 
“I’ve only been there a
year and I haven’t been home much, so I’m not quite there with the geography
yet.”

“I see,” Amanda nodded, pretending she hadn’t already
known about his move from London to New York last year, or posted a huge story
about it to HDU titled “
REJOICE: DYLAN HARDY
IS COMING TO AMERICA
.”
 
She
played coy, making a concentrated effort not to let her excessive knowledge
slip.
 
“So what made you pick
Brooklyn?” she asked, already knowing the answer.