HDU #2: Dirt (38 page)

I HATE TO BE THIS PERSON BUT
SERIOUSLY

Pop Rock Gossip

Posted by Jessie O.

October 26
^th

Someone get a toxicology
report on Casey Mulreed.

Now that we know she didn’t
write
Legacy
at all, it’s not
super
hard to believe that she asked Ian Marsh to
make that video exposing her “addiction.”
 
Sure, you may not find them to be very credible sources right now but
Amanda Nathan and Liam Brody
have
both come out to vouch for his story.
 
Plus, the girl
has
been functioning
very well without rehab, which isn’t unheard of, but come on.
 
Let’s just put an end to this question
but getting Casey to do a toxicology test.

Whattaya say Papa Mulreed?
Let’s just be sure you weren’t worrying for absolutely nothing and that your
daughter wasn’t making a mockery of the disease that put you and your sister in
rehab a combined five times and killed your father.

#ToxicologyTest, guys.
 
Spread the word.

Snuggled in the
heavy jacket that Liam had taken off, Amanda gathered her windblown hair,
watching him from the wooden rocking chair on the porch as he played the role
of human jungle gym to four-year-old Bryce and seven-year-old Sophia, who were
the spitting images of Logan and his wife, Heidi.
 
That should mean that
Bryce looks a bit like Liam
, Amanda mused.
 
It was interesting.
 
Logan looked everything and nothing like Liam.
 
He was similarly tall, perhaps just an inch shorter and a
little less built.
 
Amanda laughed
with Heidi as she peered inside the house to see her father in the living room
with Logan, doing exactly what she always figured he’d do if he ever met him

“God, he’s
talking his ear off,” Amanda snorted, giving Heidi an apologetic look.

“His father
fought in the Korean war so he thinks he knows everything about everything,”
Amanda’s mother explained.

“Oh, psh, no
worries at all.
 
I don’t need
Logan’s help right now, I’ve got my best babysitter on duty,” Heidi said,
nodding out at the snowy lawn at Liam, who managed to build a rather handsome
snowman despite the toddler sitting on his shoulders and drumming on the top of
his head.

It was the day
of their New Year’s Eve party, which also doubled as a housewarming, though
they had been in Bellevue Heights since Christmas.
 
On that day, Liam had presented Logan and Heidi a Campbell’s
Cream of Mushroom soup can — emptied out but heavily wrapped and
containing the little silver key to their new house.
 
The rest of the day was spent in Liam and Amanda’s house,
where Liam and Logan cooked while Amanda and Heidi chatted in front of the
fire, woven blankets in their laps and mugs of hot chocolate in their
hands.
 
The kids had napped after a
morning of playing with gifts from their new stocking stuffers, but upon
waking, they’d happily climbed onto the couch with Amanda’s parents and
listened to what had begun as story time with books and ended as gossip time
with Amanda’s mother about her old neighbors from Merit.

With Amanda
living part of her year in North Carolina — her peaceful place between
Missouri and New York — her parents had made the move as well, and to
Yorkville, the small town neighboring Bellevue Heights.

“Don’t worry,
we’ll limit our visits.
 
And if you
and Liam don’t want us, we’ll visit Logan and Heidi since they’re always
looking for a sitter,” her mother had said with sass.
 
“Besides, I know you’d pretend you’re in New York for the
weekend if you don’t want me coming.
 
I know you, Amanda Bree.”

Since quitting
ZINC in November, Amanda had returned to Manhattan a couple times.
 
Once to visit Ian and Harper and the second
time to move her things out of her Alphabet City apartment — and into a
new studio she had signed the lease on in a quiet part of the West Village.

“Not that I’m
not happy about having a not-disgusting place to visit you,” Ian had started
teasingly, “but why didn’t you just move into Liam’s apartment? It’s huge.”

He wasn’t wrong
but Amanda had come to decide that she’d need her own space to go with the one
she shared with Liam in Bellevue Heights.
 
Though she’d quit the show business and anything involving the game of
fame, she
had
come to realize that
she loved New York and always would.
 
“You’re based here in North Carolina, like me,” Logan had offered her an
explanation to give others.
 
“But
you work out in New York.
 
Those
are the battlegrounds.
 
It’s where
the action happens ‘cause you’ll always need that style and that pace now that
you’ve lived it.
 
But once you need
the sanity again, you’ll have this place.”

He wasn’t
wrong.
 
Whether she wanted to admit
it or not, New York still did serve as Liam and her battleground.
 
The media and paparazzi had yet to
forget them — in fact, they paid more attention to them than ever, once
again following Amanda on her journey of looking for a new job.

“I don’t know if
you’ve noticed, but you’re kind of hyper-aware of all things
publicity-related,” Wendy had pointed out to Amanda on one of their brunches in
Chelsea.
 
“Half the stunts you did
to fix your own image were your own suggestions, not mine.
 
So if you ever want a job in PR, you
know where to look.
 
I know —
I have a feeling you have no interest in that whatsoever, but it’s nice to know
that you can do something even if you don’t want to, right?”

That was
precisely it.
 
It was nice to know
that she could do well in TV if she wanted to and perhaps in PR if she wanted
to.
 
But she didn’t.
 
So that was that.

Eyeing the Audi
struggling down the snowy road on Verbena, Amanda’s eyebrows perked.
 
She called out to Liam.
 
“Ian and Harper are here!” As the car
parked and someone got out of the backseat, Amanda let her shoulders slump,
though mostly playfully.
 
“And
Connor too, I guess.”

She suspected
there would always be a struggle with him, but since her decision to leave the
industry, Connor had at least apologized to Amanda.
 
They weren’t the greatest of friends but there was time for
that to change since, if she’d learned anything in the past year, relationships
never ended up quite like how they started.

“Hi, hi, hi!”
Running perfectly across the snowy lawn in her heels, Harper greeted Amanda
with hug.
 
“Tell Ian his hair looks
good,” she whispered urgently while bent over.
 
“The network asked him to cut it so they could see his face
better on TV and he’s all cranky about looking like a pretty boy.
 
Even though he’s always been a pretty
boy.”

Amanda giggled,
doing as Harper said upon greeting Ian, whose hair she actually quite liked.

Since his
“Jake/Quinn” video, Ian’s own celebrity had made a one-eighty.
 
While Amanda had decidedly removed
herself from it, Ian had finally made his real introduction to the industry
that he had dreamt of working in since even before meeting Amanda.
 
Seeing the interest that Ian’s video
had generated in Jake and Quinn as a real life couple, the teen network Tv8 had
offered Ian his own reality show series for which he produced hourlong
mini-documentaries of teens to twenty-something-year-old subjects on their
fights back from traumatic life events.
 
Thanks to the surrounding buzz — and certainly, with the help of
Ian’s looks and haircut — the show’s first episode had premiered to stellar
viewership.

“I have more
viewers than
Legacy
,” Ian had said in
singsong after the Agno after-party of his show’s premiere.
 
“But I guess that doesn’t mean much
when her show’s not on TV anymore.”

Having proved
Casey’s plagiarism of her pilot episode, Cinereel had canceled
Legacy
.
 
Somehow, the bad news didn’t end there for Casey.
 
After succumbing to pressure from bloggers
and Twitter users, Casey’s aunt, Neala Mulreed-Jennings, had broken down and
asked Casey to perform a toxicology test.
 
Because of her refusal to submit the test or go to rehab, Neala
officially severed ties with Casey — a decision soon followed by Casey’s
own father, Daniel.

And suddenly,
Casey was without her show or the power of her family name that she had relied
on so heavily the past ten or so years.
 
It was a fall from grace so hard that even Amanda shuddered over it at
some point.
 
But she didn’t allow
herself too much time to think about it.
 
Because unless it had to do with her friends, she had made a resolution
not to involve herself in anything Hollywood anymore.
 
Now, she was back to being Amanda, the small town girl from
Missouri who still had no idea what the hell she was doing yet.
 
But at least now, she was happy.

“Almost
midnight,” Liam said, approaching Amanda in the kitchen, a striped noisemaker
hanging out of his mouth like a cigar.
 
“What were you doing last year at this time?”

Oh God
.
 
Amanda flicked the end of it playfully.
 
“I was… reading.
 
A post on HDU.”
 
It wasn’t a complete lie.

Liam frowned,
backing Amanda against the counter.
 
“Are you sure you weren’t… posting it yourself? And that it wasn’t about
a womanizing douchelord? Named Liam Brody?” He broke into a laugh at the sight
of her blushing cheeks.
 
“In case
you don’t realize, the fact that I know about and remember that post is because
I was on it the same time as you.
 
For
different reasons though.
 
And on
my phone.
 
At a rooftop
party.”
 
He smirked at the
dull-eyed look he gave her.

“With like,
three swimsuit models on each arm, I’m sure.”

Liam gave her a
look as if that were preposterous.
 
“Just one on each.
 
Three
would be a pain in the ass.”

“Of
course.”
 
Amanda rolled her eyes,
plucking the noisemaker out of his mouth and tossing it aside, only to
accidentally hit Connor with it as he passed the kitchen with a laughing
Logan.
 
Liam shielded Amanda when
Connor chucked it back, catching it effortlessly.
 
“See that?” he smirked, cocking an eyebrow at Ian across the
room.
 
“Caught it with my bare
hand.”

Amanda raised
her eyebrows at the reference to the Critic’s Choice Awards after party in
February, where Liam had made a barehanded catch of the beer bottle Ian had
drunkenly swung at him.

“Oh Jesus.
 
I don’t think I’m comfortable joking
about this yet,” Ian said, pretending to massage his temples.
 
Amanda could tell that Liam’s ribbing
did make him actually nervous, but nervous was better than embarrassed or
scared, so it was an improvement.
 
Maybe the best friend and the boyfriend or
girlfriend aren’t meant to get along at first
, Amanda mused to herself with
a little laugh as she eyed Connor.

“Alright,
everybody.
 
Get your asses in front
of this TV!”

Logan’s booming
voice came from the sitting room, where Amanda’s parents had already gathered
with Heidi, the kids and the weird orange juice and seltzer “mimosas” that they
so loved.
 
Fortunately for them,
Ian and Harper were fans as well.

“Countdown
time!” Harper squealed, plopping onto Ian’s lap and straightening the hat on her
head before whipping out her phone to take a picture for every second that went
down on the clock.

Leaning against
the wall in the back, Amanda gazed out at the room before looking up at
Liam.
 
Like her, he was watching
their guests rather than the descending numbers on the screen.
 
When he caught her looking up at him,
he gave a charmed smile, holding her chin and tilting it up to kiss her lips.

“What the hell,
Liam, it’s not even midnight yet,” Amanda protested between kisses.
 
He laughed.

“Screw midnight.
 
I’ve waited enough all year.”

“Mm.
 
Fair.”
 
She sighed against his smiling lips.
 
“So, what are we doing tomorrow? Are we
going back to the city tomorrow with Ian and Harper? And Connor and Stella?”

“I thought we
had to.
 
Don’t you have like, nine
job interviews?”

Amanda
snorted.
 
She had five, so he
wasn’t that far off.
 
They were all
in separate fields too — retail, marketing, food and beverage, writing
and sales.
 
It was just part of her
attempt to figure out what might be best for her in terms of career.
 
She certainly wasn’t sure about any one
job just yet.

“
Happy New Year
!”

Their friends
and family shouted the words and, too busy giving their midnight kisses, paid
no attention to the fact that Liam and Amanda simply looked at each other,
laughing to themselves in the back of the room.

“Happy New
Year,” he said.

“Happy New
Year.”

Running a hand
through her hair, Liam gave Amanda a slightly belated kiss.
 
“I love you,” he said softly, his
little smile crooked.
 
“And I can’t
wait for this year.
 
To have a life
with you here and in New York and to just…
have
you, finally.”

Resting her
cheek in his palm, Amanda could only nod her agreement, too overwhelmed to
speak.
 
Liam gave a small, teasing
smile at the wet look in her eyes but said nothing, opting instead to kiss her
lips again instead of tease her.
 
She was grateful for it.
 
Thinking back on this moment a year ago, she could hardly believe how
much capacity she had had to change.
 
For both better and for worse, but eventually, better.
 
She had gone through all the motions of
fame and celebrity in just three hundred sixty-five days and she was grateful
for it all — especially since it convinced her she was done with it, no
longer in need of anything in her life but normalcy.
 
And Liam.