HDU (38 page)

“Oh.” Dylan’s mouth parted slightly.
 
He looked off to the side as he
stretched his lips into a shamefaced smile.
 
“Brilliant.
 
Then
I believe I just jumped to a conclusion and needlessly revealed my crush on
you.”

So he
had
implied that.
 

Amanda froze for a minute out of pure shock and
disbelief.
 
Since moving to New
York, she’d experienced a decent amount of surreal moments, but this one most
definitely took the cake.
 
Dylan Hardy
had been her crush since seventh grade.
 
She had been a sarcastic thirteen-year-old with blue braces and he a lanky
rising star at eighteen – and the only reason Amanda had gone to see a
political biopic that she understood literally nothing about.
 
But Dylan, playing a teenaged William
Westmoreland, looked like a young prince and it didn’t matter that Amanda knew
nothing of military colleges or the Vietnam War – his smile alone made
the movie worth it.
 
From that day
forward, she happily watched Dylan grow several more inches, fill out his
suits, become a sexy leading man, and nab an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in
a Leading Role.
 
Her love for him
was closing in on a decade.

And now he stood before her, nervous and bumbling as
he confessed to his crush on her.
 

“Please say something,” he laughed uneasily.
 
“Anything.”

Amanda could only erupt into giggles.
 
Such a fit of them that she forgot why
she was even feeling stressed in the first place.
 
“I don’t think the crush you’ve had on me,” she
started.
 
“Is
any
thing compared to the one I’ve had on you.”
 
His eyebrows shot up, making him look as
surprised as she’d been.
 
The
reaction prompted Amanda to laugh even more.
 
He’d been named to People Magazine’s Most Beautiful People thrice
now.
 
Surprise over being crushed
on was almost stupid, but then again he was known for being an unassuming
gentleman.
 
He smiled.

“I’ll admit that makes me happy to hear,” he said.
 
“Even if I’m not allowed to pursue
you.”

Oh, yeah.
 
That
.
 
His admission had stunned Amanda so much that she’d forgot
she was a devoted girlfriend, or at least supposed to be.
 
She covered her mouth with shame.

“Right,” she murmured.
 
“Liam.”
 
Suddenly, the stress was back.
 
Dylan looked down at his shoes.

“I won’t tell if you won’t tell,” he said.
 
“Actually, I wouldn’t tell anyway.”

Amanda laughed.
 
“I know.”
 
But her smile
faded as she continued to think about Liam.
 
The memory of the fight upstairs came crashing back with a
force.
 
She suddenly stood up from
the chaise, tense again.
 
“I should
probably go.”

“Oh.
 
Of
course.”
 
Dylan moved to open the
door but of course, it was still locked from outside.
 
But after a few rattles and a pound with his fist, the door swung
open, Casey standing on the other side.
 
To Amanda’s surprise and relief, no one else was there.

“Open sesame,” Casey grinned, holding up a ring of
keys that she’d no doubt sweet-talked some staffer into borrowing.
 
She glanced at her phone.
 
“Ten whole minutes before either of you
really started trying to open this door! I guess you two were fine with being
locked in there,” she mused with an arched eyebrow.
 
“Wonder what you did to pass the time.” She turned
around.
 
“Don’t you, Liam?”

Amanda’s heart dropped.
 
Only then did she see that behind Casey, Liam sat on a bench
against the wall, waiting for her.
 
His jacket was off and his tie was undone.
 
Had he been there the whole time?
 

“Liam!” Amanda rushed to him.
 
“
Liam
.”
 
She tilted his face towards her in an
attempt to direct his stare away from Dylan.
 
“Listen, I’m sorry about – ”

He interrupted her, finally looking at her with what
looked like total disappointment.
 
“Let’s
just go, Amanda.”

- Chapter 12 -

IAN MARSH
LOSES FANS, SANITY

Celeb-o-Matic

February 10

What a rough 48 hours it’s been for Ian Marsh.
 
On Wednesday, the Hollywood party boy
lost a good chunk of fans after his second film debuted as a flop.
 
Called out for being “try-hard,”
“pretentious” and “sleazy,” Marsh went from filmmaking prodigy to pariah.
 
According to witnesses at the Critics’
Choice after party, guests were dismayed to see Marsh in attendance as actress
Desiree Silver’s date.

“Nobody thought he should be there,” one source
said.
 
“His videos aside, he looked
strung out and ready to go off on someone.
 
He was trying to get to Casey before going for Amanda.
 
Everyone knew he was going to cause
trouble.”

And trouble he did cause.
 
After approaching Amanda Nathan, boyfriend Liam Brody asked
Marsh to leave, which was when Marsh flew off the handles.
 
He charged at Brody and later swung a
glass bottle at his head.
 
Luckily,
Brody avoided the swing and escaped the altercation without injury.
 

“Everyone was rooting for Liam to hit the guy.
 
Before that situation happened, Ian had
been picking fights with people and mouthing off,” the same source told us.
 
“We were all happy to see him get
bounced from the party.”

Safe to say, they’ll be happy to see Marsh get bounced
from Hollywood altogether.

LIAM
BRODY: NOW EVERYONE CAN LOVE HIM

Pop Rock Gossip

By Jessie O.

February 12

A few months ago, Liam Brody’s fan base consisted mostly
of men.
 
The tough guy actor was
known for sleeping with every swimsuit model to grace the cover of Sports
Illustrated in recent years – and then cruelly dumping them after getting
bored.
 
So why wouldn’t men love
him? He was a (totally sexist) man’s man, and nobody owned him.

Not that Amanda Nathan now owns him, but on Thursday,
the Missouri native demonstrated the surprising ability to wrangle her
boyfriend at the Critics’ Choice Awards after party.
 
After a verbal spar allegedly concerning her, Liam found
himself being foolishly charged at by wannabe filmmaker, Ian Marsh.
 
Though both men are approximately 6’3, Liam
has about a 30 to 40 pound advantage, not to mention combat training from
multiple films.
 
Thus, it was the
perfect opportunity for him to flex his muscles, lay Ian on his back, and
remind us that despite dating a non-model, he still has more testosterone than
the starting lineup of the New York Giants.
 

But he didn’t.
 
Why not? His girlfriend asked him not to.
 
That’s right, Amanda asked Liam Brody not to complete an easy
knockout of a total punk in front of a crowd full of expectant men, so he immediately
let go of his victim.
 
Meanwhile, I
can’t get my boyfriend to do the dishes when I ask him in front of our cat.
 
I’ll admit it – Liam won me over
with that one.
 
I can now
confidently say that I like the guy.
 
He’s painfully hot, is a decent actor, and has done a complete
one-eighty when it comes to respect for women.

And lucky for Liam, this incident hasn’t caused him
to lose his manly credibility because after obliging to his girlfriend, an
extremely trashed Ian swung his beer bottle at Liam’s head – and Liam
caught the
swing barehanded
, winning back his dude
fans before they were even lost.
 
So now, whether you’re a man or a woman, everyone can love Liam, and
everyone wins.

Well, everyone except for Ian Marsh.

Outside, there was snow.
 

Inside, the clock read 2PM.
 
Hugging a pillow with her sheets halfway up her head, Amanda
stared drearily at the time.
 
It
was kind of appalling that she’d slept in so late.
 
It wasn’t as if she and Liam had gotten into New York at an
ungodly hour last night.
 
They’d
left Los Angeles at 3:30PM, arriving in New York at 10:45PM and making it back
to their respective homes before midnight.

Still, Amanda felt like it was the right kind of day
for sleeping in.
 
She might not get
out of bed at all.
 
It was the only
way to ignore the worry pulling at her from everything direction.
 
As much as she currently hated him,
there was Ian to worry about.
 
According to the Pop Dinner website, he’d been last seen alone and
loitering outside his hotel.
 
Amanda wondered if he’d been locked out by Desiree.
 
She did hope that he at least had his
wallet on him to check in somewhere else.

Then there was also Liam.
 
After leaving the party together, Amanda had apologized
– for demeaning him in front of Hollywood, for what Ian tried to do to
him, for what it looked like she’d done with Dylan.
 
She expected him to be angry and irritated with her for
marring his trip to L.A. with Ian-related drama.
 
But his actual response was much worse.
 

“Don’t worry about it,” he said civilly, patting her
back before walking ahead of her to the car.
 
His formal tone was unrecognizable.
 
It made Amanda more uncomfortable than
the prospect of getting into an argument.
 
To make matters worse, after putting her in the car, he closed the door
without getting in himself.
 
“I’ll
be back at the hotel soon.
 
I’m
just going to see a friend,” he said courteously through the open window.
 
“You should go ahead and sleep.”

The car took off before Amanda could say anything,
but she didn’t have a response in mind anyway.
 
She looked up at their driver, who glanced at her through
his rearview mirror.

“Any idea where he’s going without you?” he
asked.
 
Amanda shook her head.
 
“Hm,” the driver said.
 
And with just one inflected sound, he
induced her into paranoia.
 

Liam was going to sleep with someone.
 
She was sure of it.
 
He was done waiting.
 
He hadn’t slept with anyone for nearly
three months, perhaps out of some kind of weird respect for Amanda.
 
Now that the respect was probably gone,
the only way to forget his frustrations was to relieve his sexual ones.
 
It was what guys like Liam did, so how
could Amanda blame him?
It’s not like
we’re actually dating, so what right do I have to be upset? None.

Though despite her rationalizing in the car, Amanda
was upset.
 
She tried to convince
herself that it was simple anger over the entire night, but that didn’t explain
why she waited up for Liam despite her heavy-eyed sleepiness.
 
He didn’t return until past five in the
morning, and by then, Amanda was only awake enough to get a good look at him
before drowsiness triumphed.
 
She
remembered him frowning at her with confusion, probably because she was sitting
in bed with the TV on while groggily gazing at the wall next to it.
 
He didn’t ask why she was up or say
anything at all, so she took one more glance at the clock, noted the time, and
then fell fast asleep.
 

Lying in her New York bed, she tried to remember if
Liam had slept in their hotel bed that night, or on the couch.
 
By the time she’d woken, he was already
up and ready to go.
 
He’d been
silent as she packed but the moment she finished, he clapped his hands together
and asked, “All set?” in a strangely cordial tone.
 
At the airport, he let her know that he’d be putting in
headphones before spending the whole flight listening to music.
 
It was weird.
 
He hadn’t even been that proper when they first met.
 
Amanda would have appreciated the act
then, but now she took it as an insult.
 
Whether they acknowledged it or not, she was certain their relationship had
long and far surpassed the point of being formal.
 
But then again, they were contractual partners.
 
Real boyfriends and girlfriends got
into fights after drama.
 
Apparently, fake ones reverted to frigid professionalism.