HDU (36 page)

With Liam gone since the morning to conduct
interviews, Amanda was stuck alone at the hotel, which was no problem whatsoever.
 
She had a peaceful lunch alone on the
terrace, taking Liam’s iPad with her and telling herself that she would try to
write, though of course, she didn’t.
 
As she sipped her mimosa under the shade of an umbrella, she thought
about how she had woken up that morning.
 
It started out rudely, with the grating sound of a beeping alarm.
 
Amanda had been sure it was somewhere
around five in the morning considering what a deep slumber she was in, but it
was actually ten.
 
She had
forgotten where she was until she felt Liam rustling behind her.
 
His arms were still around her, his
hand on top of hers.
 
His warm
breath tickled the back of her neck before he rumbled, “I don’t want to get
up.”

“Then don’t.”

“I have to.”
 
He squeezed Amanda’s hip before flopping onto his back.
 
She followed suit and watched him get
out of bed.
 
Only then did she
realize that last night, he had gotten under the covers before she’d seen his
underwear.
 
The navy blue boxer
briefs were a new sight, and one to behold.
 
Her eyes followed his unclothed body until it was out of
sight and in the bathroom.
 
She
fell back asleep afterwards and wondered if she’d made up the memory of Liam
ruffling her hair and pecking her forehead on his way out.

“Another mimosa for you, Miss Nathan?” the waitress
asked, picking up her empty glass from the stem.
 

“Yes, please,” she smiled.
 
Once the waitress stepped away however, Amanda’s smile faded
at the sight of the girl standing behind her.
 
“Casey!” She blinked.

Casey laughed at her reaction as she took a seat at
the table.
 
“Hello, dolly
doll.
 
A little bird told me you
were sitting in the garden.”

Amanda slipped her phone into her pocket in case
Casey asked why she’d ignored her texts.
 
That way she could pretend she’d left it behind somewhere.
 
“What little bird?” she asked.

“Jamie.
 
She passed by.
 
We’re
staying here too, silly girl.”

Amanda blinked.
 
“Oh.
 
Of course.
 
And congratulations, by the way, on the
nomination.”

“Thanks,” Casey said.
 
She grinned mischievously, plucking away Amanda’s mimosa
when it arrived.
 
“You know who’s
presenting that category right?”
 
She sipped.
 
Amanda heaved a
sigh but smiled to make it look like a playful one.

“I think I can guess,” she said.
 
Of course Dylan was presenting Best
Actress.
 
Casey was a lock to win
and award shows just loved for actors to announce the good news to their
co-stars.

Casey ran her tongue over her lips.
 
“You know Place, where the after party
is this year? Chaise lounges in every bathroom.”

She wasn’t even trying to be subtle.
 
Amanda still tried to pretend
otherwise.
 
“So I can take a nap
after a particularly grueling pee?” she joked.
 
Ah fuck, bad joke
.
 
She wiped her sweaty hands onto her pants.
 

“Uh, no.
 
You know what I mean,” Casey said, taking a long swig of the
mimosa.
 
Amanda could feel the
diners around them staring at her, wondering why she was allowing Casey to
drink.
 
Amanda reached for the
glass and took it away.

“Casey… can I ask you a question?” she said
cautiously.
 
“I’m just wondering…
why is this so important to you? Me and Dylan.
 
Getting me to cheat on Liam.
 
Like, why is that… something you need to make happen.”
 
Amanda let out a big breath once she
was done with her fragmented sentence.
 
She hoped that she was simply paranoid, that Casey wasn’t trying to force
her to experience her own share of career-damaging headlines by facilitating
some sort of scandal with Dylan.
 
Casey
couldn’t possibly be so bitter, right? It wasn’t as if Ian’s film had ruined
her career – not even close.
 
America still loved her to death, they were just worried about her.

“I wouldn’t call it important,” Casey smirked.
 
She looked like a little doll in her
canary shift dress.
 
“I just think
it would just be fun to see you sweat.”
 
An evil little doll.

Amanda swallowed.
 
Of course it was just a game to her – a game that made
Amanda legitimately nervous because despite how much she cared about Liam,
Dylan Hardy had that stupid effect on her.
 
He made women swoon – like
actually
fall-on-the-floor swoon.
 
Amanda sighed again, but through flared nostrils this
time.
 
I should’ve listened to him
, she thought.
 
Liam had had several warnings about Casey.
 
She wished she could remember them now.

“Anyway, I heard about our old friend’s little sex
tape,” Casey said, snapping a flower off a plant and tucking it in her
hair.
 
“Aren’t you glad he ruined
his own career so I didn’t have to? I really hope he isn’t like, depressed and overdosing
in a hotel somewhere,” she giggled.
 
The word “overdosing” made Amanda’s stomach wrench.
 
She had tried not to panic over the
fact that he hadn’t responded to her worried calls, texts, and emails, but it
was hard not to at the suggestion of an overdose.
 
Her teeth ground at the sight of Casey’s pleasure and she
pounded the rest of her mimosa before responding.

“Yeah, it was a stupid video, but he’s at rock bottom
and he just needs a talk with someone who actually cares about him and isn’t
trying to leech off his fame.
 
He
was a partier before all of it happened, so it was bound to get worse once
people were inviting him to every club and offering him a bunch of free drugs,”
Amanda retorted.
 
The words had
just spilled out.
 
She wasn’t even
sure if the last part was true – she was sure Ian could afford a mountain
of any drug he wished for anyway – but Casey didn’t refute it.
 
She simply brought her legs up and
rested her chin on her knees.
 
The
pose made her appear calm and sweet despite the words that actually came out of
her mouth.

“Don’t make excuses for him, he deserves everything
he gets,” she said.
 
“And trust me,
he’s not even close to rock bottom yet.”

~

To Amanda’s relief, she and Liam were seated for the
awards at a table across the room from Casey’s.
 
Casey and the cast of
What
Was Left
were front and center for her Best Actress nomination and the
film’s Best Picture nod.
 
From
afar, Amanda was able to spot Dylan and absorb how gorgeous he looked so she
wouldn’t swoon or act like a total freak around him later.
 
He was wearing a sleek black suit and black
tie with his gelled hair reminiscent of the 1950’s.
 
He was adorable to watch even from a few hundred feet away,
politely standing every time someone approached to greet and introduce him to a
friend, which was pretty much every one-and-a-half minutes.

“My goodness, it’s truly amazing to be standing before
so much talent tonight,” said the barely B-list comedian, Kevin Heald, the show’s
host for the evening.
 
He began his
monologue with the usual weak cracks about skinny actresses, Hollywood diets
and valets mix-ups before getting into the portion that focused on goading nominees.
 
“Dylan Hardy is here tonight,” he said
as the massive screen behind him showed Dylan already nervously chuckling.
 
Amanda giggled.
 
“What a gentleman, this guy.
 
Sadly, Dylan is not nominated for his
role in the Best Picture nominee,
What
Was Left
, in which he plays Casey Mulreed’s fellow substance addict.”
 
The audience clapped at the mention of
the film.
 
“Which is a real shame
for Dylan, because between the two of them, he was the one who was actually
act
ing.”

The room paused for a moment.
 
Aside from one or two cackles, there
was a collective murmur of disapproval.
 
The screen showed a still and expressionless Casey among her stone-faced
table.
 

“Too soon?” Kevin grimaced at himself.
 
“I apologize, that was totally
classless.
 
Really.
 
Listen, Casey, I’m actually a huge fan
and I’d like to be here for you if you want to talk it out or share your
innermost thoughts and darkest secrets.
 
Just give me one second...” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled
out a camcorder, flipping it open and pointing it at her.
 
“Okay, go ahead and spill.”

More laughs now, though they quickly muffled with
guilt.
 
Wow.
 
They really just
referenced Ian in the monologue
, Amanda thought.
 
The big screen showed a half second of Casey’s downcast eyes
before switching to an audience member who laughed ruefully, though behind her,
the rest of the audience appeared displeased.
 

“The poor girl.
 
That was totally unnecessary,” a producer at Amanda’s table muttered
with contempt.
 
The table echoed in
agreement, several of them eyeing Amanda for her reaction.
 
She decided to remain as expressionless
as Casey so no one could tell what she was thinking.
 
Despite trying, she couldn’t shake her suspicion that Casey
wasn’t as wounded as she was acting.
 

By the time of the after party though, the monologue
jokes were an after thought.
 
Casey
was on top of the world again, having won Best Actress and
What Was Left
Best Film.
 
She and Dylan were off conducting interviews while everyone else,
including Amanda and Liam, got drunk.
 
They sat by Place’s famous fire pit with Liam’s
Soldier
castmates, Amanda the only wife or girlfriend among them.
 
Each of their designer ties loosened,
the rowdy men drank and laughed and speculated as to whether they’d be allowed
to do their own stunts in Jordan and jump out of airplanes.
 
Amanda of course had little to offer to
the conversation, but Liam kept his arm around her waist and gave it the
occasional squeeze to remind her that she wasn’t being forgotten.

    
“I
don’t know about you guys, but my wife would kill me if the jump didn’t, so I’m
out,” said Cameron Troy in his Southern twang.
 
He was set to play Liam’s brother in the film.
 
The men laughed and agreed except for Liam
who turned to Amanda.

“If I had the chance to jump out of a plane, would
you let me?” he asked.
 
She glanced
up at all his co-stars who stared at her with big, expectant grins.
 
Realistically, no one would be allowed
to do their own stunts, but everyone was drunk enough to just have fun and make
believe.
 

“Of course,” Amanda responded, prompting the men to
erupt into cheers so loud that half the party took notice.
 
They laughed upon spotting the handsome
fraternity of pretend-soldiers, the women cooing when they noticed Liam hugging
Amanda to his side amid the raucousness.
 
But just as Amanda was beginning to have fun, she was distracted by a blur
of someone’s sparkly dress as she rushed to whisper in a friend’s ear.

“He is
not
here, that is so wrong!
Where
?” the
friend gasped.
 
Amanda’s eyes
followed the direction in which the sparkle girl pointed, the direction being
right behind her.
 
She removed
Liam’s hand from her waist so she could turn around and look.
 
Her eyes widened when she saw a skinny,
sickly figure make a hobbling beeline towards her like a zombie.
 
She recognized his boozy smell and grip
on a beer bottle before his face.
 
It was Ian.

“
How did you
get here
?” she hissed, getting up just as the guys burst into a round of
laughter.
 
They didn’t notice her leave,
but Amanda was sure Liam would if he hadn’t already.
 
She rushed over before he could pull her away.

“
That’s
your first question?” Ian made a face.
 
His suit was fitted and crisp on his body but everything else about him
looked ghastly.
 
Heavy bags dragged
his eyes down on his colorless face.
 
His teeth weren’t remotely white anymore.
 
Amanda did her best not to look jolted by him.
 
“I’m here with Desiree, okay? I’m not
crashing.”