HDU (29 page)

Liam was murmuring something in her ear now but she
couldn’t bother to listen with his hot breath tickling her skin.
 
The red lights of the restaurant flared
in her eyes and for a moment, she was convinced that they
were
an uninhibited and ferociously passionate couple.
 
Without thinking, she put a hand on
Liam’s thigh, tilting her head up to give a look that said,
kiss me
.
 
He did.

“Excuse me, I need to use the restroom,” Megan decided,
her face bright red and splotchy as she slid out of the booth.
 
Amanda heard her leaving, but she didn’t
truly register it until a little bit later, Liam’s lips still on hers and her
hand on his –
oh my God.
 

Amanda jolted away from him and snatched her hand off
of his inner thigh, where it had somehow migrated while they were making out.
 
We
were making out
, she realized, her heart pounding and her head dizzy.
 
For
how long? How long ago did Megan leave?
Her lusty actions rewound and
played again in her head.
 
She had
practically grabbed his crotch.
 
Oh my God, Amanda
, she berated
herself.
 
Who’s the horny one now
?

She heard Liam let go of a huge sigh as he leaned
back against the booth.
 
Through
her peripheral vision, she could see him running both hands up his face and
through his hair.
 
She waited a few
moments before peeking over at him, mortified to find him already looking at
her.
 
His expression was
unreadable.

“Hey,” he finally said.

She blinked and shook her head in confusion.
 
“Hey?”

He broke into a small laugh.
 
“That wasn’t nice.”

“I…” Amanda stammered.
 
“You started it.”

He didn’t respond, though he still stared at her,
head resting against the back of the seat as if he were exhausted.
 
Oh
my God
, Amanda thought.
 
I just blue-balled Liam Brody.

They sat there in silence for the next ten minutes, Liam
intermittently breaking it with a tortured grunt or groan.
 

“Should we go?” Amanda asked apologetically, feeling
suddenly awful about his sexual frustration.
 
“We should go,” she said.
 
He could at least go home and take a cold shower.
 
Megan probably wasn’t coming back
anyway.
 
They had kind of shown her
up and purposely made her feel beyond uncomfortable.
 
It was definitely obnoxious but in Amanda’s eyes, totally
called for.
 
The girl was blatantly
hitting on her boyfriend and hinting at some very sexual things.
 
She couldn’t have possibly been more
shameless.

Or so Amanda thought.
 

Suddenly, the curtains on their booth tore open and
Megan reentered.
 
Her hair was down
now, her face back to its usual color.
 
She looked normal again – better than before, actually.
 
Amanda and Liam watched her together,
their eyes following her curiously as she retook her seat.
 
She threw back the rest of her drink
before looking up.
 
A bitter laugh
escaped her pursed lips to break the stony silence.

“I know she can’t keep you.”
 

Amanda squinted.
 
“Excuse me?” she asked.
 
Megan reluctantly turned to her, her expression hard.

“You couldn’t even keep
Brandt
, so how could you keep
him
?”

Liam laughed derisively before motioning to the
waitress for the check.
 
Megan was
undeterred.

“She doesn’t deserve you, I’m just being honest.”

He ignored her as he took out his wallet.
 
Megan persisted.
 

“Let’s pretend you’d never met either of us before,”
she said, leaning forward on the table so that her cleavage plunged.
 
“And you saw me and Amanda.
 
Who would you go for, realistically?”

Oh man
.
 
It was officially a train wreck.
 
Even Amanda was beginning to get chills
from secondhand embarrassment.
 
Liam hastily grabbed the check from the waitress when it arrived, grateful
for something to do besides listen to Megan, who, judging from his sudden
flinch, was trying to play footsies under the table.

“We all know the answer,” she said with a curl of the
lip.
 
“You’d never look at her and
choose her over me.”
 
In the
silence that followed – Amanda too stunned to speak, Liam apparently too
uncomfortable – Megan searched herself for her best final argument.
 
“I just want you to know that
I’d
do
anything
for you,” she finally said, clasping both hands over
Liam’s.
 

Whoa
.
 
Amanda stared in sheer amazement of her
audacity.
 
Was she actually
appealing to be Liam’s…
one-night-stand
or
other woman
? He looked up at her, wordless
as he stared.
 
Megan breathed
heavily as he did, her endowed chest rising and falling, rising and
falling.
 
Amanda shifted
uncomfortably in her seat.
 
Liam’s
eyes were really starting to wander about Megan.
 
What is he doing
?
Was he
really
so sex-starved that he
would consider her offer?

Just then, Amanda’s phone vibrated.
 
She jumped, staring at it resentfully
for bothering her at such an inopportune moment.
 
The fact that it was Ian calling barely affected her.
 
So
he’s alive.
 
I’ll call him back
later
, she decided, trying to turn her attention back to Liam and Megan.
 
But her phone rang again.
 
It was Casey this time.
 
Amanda ignored it, but no matter how
many times she let it go to voicemail, Casey called back.
 
In less than a minute, she had racked
up four missed calls.
 
Amanda
frowned.
 
What is going on
? She picked up, irritated.
 

“Hello?” Through the din of the restaurant, she could
only faintly hear Casey’s voice, though it sounded like she was urgent.
 
Yelling, even.
 
“Casey, what’s wrong?” Amanda asked,
suddenly stricken with worry.
 
Ian
overdosed on something – that was her first thought.
 
But why would Casey know? She was still
in London.
 
And she sounded more
angry than panicked, though Amanda couldn’t make out a single one of her
words.
 
“
Ugh
!” she practically growled, climbing over Liam and out of the
booth.
 
With her cell phone pressed
to her ear, she turned to flash him a look of warning.
 
“I’m going to be
right
back,” she said before running for the exit as fast as she could
in her heels.
 
Casey’s words began
fading in with every step closer to the front door.

“This is humiliating, Amanda… I can’t believe him!”

Shit
.
 
Ian had done something stupid.
 
She knew it.

“I didn’t think he would put it up on the Internet!”

Amanda’s heart nearly stopped.
 
If Ian had leaked some sort of sex tape
of himself with Casey, she would be just about ready to drop dead with horror,
confusion and disgust.
 

“What are you
talking
about, Case?” Amanda shouted as she burst through the metal doors.
 
“Tell me everything again, I can’t hear
you!”

“He made a short film about us, Amanda, you and me,”
Casey rasped, her voice hoarse and wretched.
 
So that’s what he was
doing
.
 
“And he made me look
like… some fucking…”

Amanda held her hands in the air, shivering on the
sidewalk as she waited for Casey to finish her sentence.
 
“Like
what
? What did he make you look like?”

“A fucking out-of-control, psycho, lunatic
drug addict
! And now the entire world
knows because it’s everywhere, it’s on every possible website! There’s already
news
about it!”

Amanda paused.
 
The appropriate question probably wasn’t, “But
are
you a psycho, lunatic drug addict?” so she didn’t ask it, but
she wanted to.
 
“Okay, just give me
a minute to process this,” Amanda said, walking left and then right and then
standing still again.
 
She had no
idea what to do.
 
She didn’t have a
smart phone, she couldn’t see the video, and she wasn’t about to ask anyone
about it.

“He’s
your
friend, Amanda, so tell him to take the fucking video down
now
! I swear to God he won’t get hired anywhere if he doesn’t do it
fast.”
 
Casey’s voice was shrill,
unrecognizable.
 
“I can’t even tell
you how easy it would be for me to end his career before it even starts.
 
And not just his –
any
career, for that matter.”

And… that was a
threat
.
 
Amanda tried to chalk
it up to Casey being upset.
 
“I’m
going to talk to him now.
 
Right
now.
 
I’ll call you when I get
home, okay?”
 

“
Fine
.”

“Bye.”
 
Amanda
hung up and ran back into the restaurant.
 
Beyond stressed at this point, she was certain she could throw a drink
or two if she returned to the table to see any hanky-panky going on.
 

But she didn’t even make it there, crashing straight into
Liam on her way back.
 
He barely reacted
to her barreling into his chest.

“We need to go home now,” he said, reaching for her
hand.
 
She held it away.

“
What did you
do
?” she asked, fired up about too many things to fake being calm for the
diners hawking them.

He paused, a tinge of disappointment in his
face.
 
“Are you serious, Amanda?”
When she persisted with silence, he answered.
 
“She made a move, I turned it down, she tried again, I got
up and left.
 
And now I’m
here.
 
Can we go now?”

Panting, Amanda stared at him and then past his
shoulder. A splotchy, red Megan was finally emerging from the booth in a huff,
looking partially livid but mostly mortified.
 
Okay, so nothing
happened
.
 

“We’re going outside,” Amanda said rigidly once Megan
was within earshot, practically ordering her to follow as she and Liam headed
for the doors.
 
Before she could
even deal with whatever mess Ian had just gotten them both into, she was
determined to rid herself of the one that had followed her to New York from
Merit.
 
But when they reached the sidewalk
outside, Megan stopped a few paces behind them.

“Whatever, okay, Amanda? You win, you’re awesome,
you’ll be famous for another fifteen minutes, congratulations!” she shouted,
arms out and loud enough to make a few people on the sidewalk stop and watch.
 
“I’m done, okay? Are you happy? I hope you
are,” she snickered.
 
“Because I give
this relationship another two weeks, tops.
 
He’s going to wake up and realize that you’re an ugly,
little nobody.”
 
Amanda blinked,
somehow taken aback by the words.
 
She could tell that her confidence had visibly wavered for a second
because Megan smiled with satisfaction.
 
“That’s right.
 
Ugly and
nobody.
 
You’ll be back in Merit
before you know it and the world will forget all about you.
 
It’ll be like you never left.”

Amanda eyed the lingering passerby.
 
None of them appeared to be paparazzi,
thank God, but she did spot a few pedestrians with their iPhones out, and she
doubted they were texting.
 
In her fury,
she didn’t give it much thought.
 
It could all end up on the Internet, but Amanda couldn’t help marching right
up to Megan anyway.
 

“Just stop for a moment,” Amanda hissed through her
teeth.
 
She was careful not to be
audible to anyone else, careful not to even let her lips be read.
 
“Now
I
get to say something because this will be the last time we ever
speak,” she said sternly.
 
“Stop wasting
your time, Megan, because I’m not going anywhere no matter what you say.
 
So, do whatever you can to be satisfied
with your own life instead of trying to rip off mine.
 
You took from me once, which I can live with now, but I
promise you will never ever do it ever again.”

BREAKING: CASEY MULREED A DRUG ADDICT, LIFE IN SHAMBLES!

Pop Dinner

February 3