The F List: A celebrity romance Read online

  24

  MTV Gift Bag* Contents

  - Limited Edition Beats by Dr Dre Headphones

  - Sardina Bath Robe by Sferra

  - DJI Mavic Pro Drone

  - White Desert’s ‘Greatest Trip’ to Antartica

  - GG Marmont Small Leather Matelassé Shoulder Bag

  - Kindle Oasis

  - Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey

  -Yeti Rambler Insulated Tumbler

  - Mophie 3-in-1 Wireless Charger

  - Apple Watch with 3G

  - Nintendo Switch Lite

  - Oculus Quest All-in-One VR

  - Avalon Eiderdown Winter Comforter

  - Electric Hydrofoil Surfboard

  *Bag is given to nominees only. Nominees must pay taxes on the value of the gifts. If nominees would rather donate the bag to charity, please let MTV know two weeks before event.

  25

  #redcarpetready

  The MTV Movie Awards was the first thing I was a diva about. I wanted a ticket to the actual event, and I wanted to be seated somewhere near Cash. I told Vidal that I needed to talk to him, to smooth things over after our failed date and that video where I picked him apart. I insinuated that I wanted to apologize to him, and Vidal picked up the football and carried it all the way to the goal line.

  I don’t know why Vidal wanted us to make up. Everything positive in my career—literally everything—had been kickstarted by negativity with Cash. But that was Vidal. He was uncomfortable with anyone disliking him—or anything associated with him, which was probably why he was so obsessed with making his clients popular—his zest at an unnatural, almost psychotic level.

  “He just got back from the UAE,” Vidal said, pulling at the ends of his bright white sleeves, getting them to lay properly beneath the green velvet jacket he had pinned tight to his chest. “You can ask him about that. He stayed at that hotel with the world’s longest pool.”

  I yawned and nodded as if I didn’t know every excruciatingly perfect detail of his trip—from the camel ride at sunset to the hot tub and champagne on the balcony of his six-thousand square foot suite. NetJets had sponsored his flight, the return leg done while sprawled on a leather couch, a sleep mask playfully crooked over one eye, the other connecting playfully with the camera. #Jetlag.

  “And don’t forget your red carpet rules.” Vidal’s piercing gaze focused on me. “Please behave. I had to pull major favors for your seat.”

  “I’ll behave,” I promised him, and I meant it. It wasn’t just his reputation I needed to protect. I also wanted to get on better footing with Cash. As I had grown closer with Wesley, I had become increasingly uncomfortable with the turbulent history I shared with Cash. I leaned forward and brushed my cheek against Vidal’s, careful not to get my bold red lipstick on him.

  “You look beautiful,” he said, giving me a proud smile. “Sizzling. Don’t let the man fall in love with you.”

  “Ha.” Him falling in love with me wasn’t a risk, though him breaking my heart was a strong possibility. The limo slowed beside the white tent that housed the red carpet area.

  Vidal’s hand tightened on mine. “Ready?”

  It was just after noon in June in LA, which meant ninety-degree temperatures and a balmy thickness to the air that instantly caused beads of moisture to collect in the dip in the small of my back. I carefully touched my upper lip, verifying that it was sweat-free, and cursed my decision to wear a high-necked gown. Holding my arms slightly out from my body, I prayed the extra-strength clear deodorant would work.

  Vidal, in his green velvet jacket, had to be boiling. He held a stack of one-sheets with bullet points listing my accomplishments, which were comically weak, but this was an awards show hosted by MTV, he had reminded me. This wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of talent, and as long as you could entertain, you had a shot at the press.

  That’s how those first two hours went. Me, awkward and alone, in four-inch heels that were already rubbing a raw spot on the back of my left foot, listening as Vidal tried to sell me to anyone in the press crowd who would listen to him. A few bit, and I had five interviews in total, the questions short and basic, nothing that I could twist into a semi-interesting reply. I shifted onto my toes, hoping for relief, and felt my stomach cramp in hunger. Vidal had granola bars for us both, and I fought the urge to dip my fingers into the edge of his pocket and pull them out myself.

  I smoothed a hand down the front of my flat and empty stomach, the black sequined surface of my dress reminding me of those pillows that changed colors depending on which way their fabric lay. I twisted to one side, feigning nonchalance, as if I always stood by myself, both wanting and not wanting a chance to be seen, and that’s when I saw Cash.

  He had dark jeans and a faded dusk-gray t-shirt on. His hair was tousled, and getting a little long on top, the ends beginning to curl—a hint of what would come if he let it continue. His facial hair was a few days old, dusting across his strong jaw, and the short sleeves of his shirt showed off the tattoo that ran along the inside of one forearm. He crossed his arms, tucking both palms against his ribcage as he bent slightly forward, trying to hear what the petite interviewer with the giant microphone before him was saying. Beside her, two others jockeyed into position, anxious for their shot at him. I took the stolen chance while his attention was captured and stared.

  He was painfully good looking. The kind that took your breath away so quickly that there was a sharp pain in your lungs from the absence. And effortlessly cool. While Vidal wiped at his glistening forehead with his monogrammed handkerchief, and I gnawed away some of my lipstick in a dress that had been cinched painfully tight around my ribcage, Cash was entirely at ease. He laughed, and I looked away, second-guessing my plan.

  He probably hadn’t even seen the video I had made—the one that had coasted up a small ramp of viral, but nothing compared to his average post. It would be ridiculous for me to bring up the jokes I had made at his expense, the snarled insults I had flung freely into the black eye of my camera, the story of our date that I had recapped in almost excruciating and embarrassing detail.

  “Emma, this is Rae Micks with Self Magazine.” Vidal thrust a short girl with coke-bottle glasses in front of me. “Rae thinks that reality tv is dead. What’s your take?”

  I caught a faint whiff of coconut and sunscreen and would bet you, without needing to look, that Cash had moved closer.

  “Reality tv is my favorite kind of tv.” I fought the urge not to lean back into the smell, the gravel of his voice sounded from behind me and to the left. “I like the ugly side of things, and the truth shows that.”

  That quote later resurfaced, once the show came out, once the lawsuits happened and the tabloids went nuts. It was thrown back in my face, like I knew anything about reality tv back then, like I had been anything other than a scared girl, standing in front of a reporter, hoping she would love him.

  Yeah, I stole that from Notting Hill. So?

  I was already in my seat when Cash paused, mid-aisle, and considered me.

  “Oh.” I stood, my knees knocking against the seat in front of me, and flattened myself back, trying to give him room to move by and to his place.

  He faced the stage as he passed, the fit tight as he moved by and folded down the seat next to mine, settling in and keeping his arm off the rest.

  I was right about the scent—definitely him. I shrugged not to bury my face in his shoulder and inhale deeply, like a crazy person.

  There was a long period of nothing, where I rearranged the cross of my legs, and he stared down at his program.

  “Hi,” I managed.

  He lifted his head and looked at me. “Hi.”

  Direct eye contact with Cash Mitchell was a powerful thing. It knocked my next words loose from my head. I looked down at the thin black clutch I held on my lap and fingered the ornate silver clasp of it, wishing for the distraction of my phone.

  “This is my first award show.” I didn’t look up, keeping my focus tigh
t on the purse. Why had I told him that? The point was to be COOL, and I’d already flunked that. I’d failed that the minute I’d stepped onto the red carpet and realized how MF hot it was outside.

  He didn’t respond, and my mouth diarrhea continued. “It’s a little nerve-wracking, talking to the reporters.”

  He flung his arm out and across the back of the empty spot beside him, and I wished I’d waited until right before the show to take my seat.

  “You have lots of experience with it. Obviously. I guess you’ve been interviewing from birth.” I tried to laugh, but he only looked at me.

  “I watched that video you made.” His shirt was stretched tight over his chest, and the hint of an expensive and intricate silver chain peeked out of the distressed scoop neckline of his shirt.

  I lifted my gaze from the shirt to his face. “Did you like it?”

  I don’t know WHERE that question came from. Honestly. It just fell out, like an automatic response when someone asks how your week is going, and you say fine, even though your dog died three days ago, and you can barely function without tearing up.

  That was how the question came—light off my tongue. Almost, if I had known how to do it… flirtatious.

  He didn’t move, held my gaze, and said absolutely nothing for a good five seconds. I tried not to notice the thick fringe of his eyelashes. There was no way he wore mascara, but it was unfair for those to be natural. My own were extensions, a two-hour process where I had fallen asleep and woken up with gorgeously thick lashes and a thick line of drool coming down the left side of my mouth.

  “I can’t tell if you’re joking,” he finally managed.

  “I am,” I assured him, though inside, I did want to know. Maybe he had found it funny. It had been funny—Vidal had convinced me of that, the assertion backed up by the dozens of LOLs and emojis that were popping down the comments section.

  “Do me a favor,” he said, and I straightened in my seat, wary at the steel in his tone.

  “Stop using other people and find your own fame.” He ended the demand by settling back in his seat, his attention returning to his program as if he was a parent who had just dismissed me to do my chores, and was returning to his evening paper.

  “I’m not using other people,” I argued. “I gave my opinion of you. I told the truth about our date. I’m sorry you didn’t like it.”

  “Was that your plan from the beginning? Buy your way into lunch with me, then get your photos, intentionally piss me off, then brag about it on social media afterward?” He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Well done, Emma Blanton.” He emphasized my last name in a weird way, as if he knew it wasn’t real. “Exceptional value for your eight thousand dollars.”

  A woman in a dress patterned with Bob Marley’s face moved down the aisle, her eyes lighting up when she spotted the seat next to Cash. “49… that’s me!”

  He moved his arm off the back of it and shifted his weight toward me. His legs bumped mine, and his elbow brushed against my upper arm. We were suddenly much closer, almost intimately so, though the wall of ice between us had crystallized further.

  “I was concerned about your brother,” I hissed. “I wasn’t trying to get a story about it. I was just asking a question.”

  His jaw clenched, the flex of muscles visible beneath the thin layer of facial hair. I waited for an acknowledgment, but other than the rigid set of his face, he ignored me.

  My anger, which I’d never really had a great hold on—let’s be serious—burned, and I focused, tried to focus, on what I had promised Vidal. No scenes. No fights. An apology. I had done that, right? I had apologized? I thought I had.

  I reached out and grabbed his arm. It was warm and muscular, the faint dusting of hair along the surface lightened by the sun. He stared down at the contact, then reached over and carefully peeled back my fingers until I was forced to let go or break off my pinky.

  “Ow,” I said pointedly.

  “Don’t touch me.” He gripped my wrist and carried it over to the space above my lap, then let go of it as if it was a stinky diaper in a public restroom disposal. I quickly tucked my arms across my chest and glared at the Bob Marley fan, who was watching us with unabashed interest. Talk about D-list hell.

  “You—”

  “Don’t talk to me either.” He readjusted in his chair, angling his body away from me, and I didn’t understand why we had such an inability to communicate.

  “Stop telling me what to do,” I snapped. “You were a jerk. I told people about it. Stop sniveling about it and get over yourself.”

  At that moment, he stood up. I watched, surprised as he folded his program in half and stuffed it into his back pocket. Pulling his sunglasses from his shirt neck, he pushed them on and it was really annoying how cool he made everything look.

  Excusing himself, he squeezed past Bob Marley Lady and worked his way down the aisle, which was starting to fill up. I watched, waiting for him to look up, to glance at me, to say something but he just left.

  And I waited, and I waited, but then the show began and he didn’t come back.

  Vidal spotted Cash leaving the theater early and sicced our guys on him. We had two assholes with cameras who were great at peppering someone with questions and milking a reaction out of them. They followed him to his car, so close that one almost tripped over him, and asked over and over again why he was leaving so soon, and if it had anything to do with Emma Blanton. Cash said nothing, but it didn’t matter. We had the video footage of his annoyed face with the mention of my name, and that was all Vidal needed to hit the networks and fill the dead time between red carpet interviews and the start of the show. It lit up the gossip sites. During the broadcast, the camera panned to Cash’s empty seat twice before a seat filler magically showed up and wedged into the spot, the guy’s cheap tuxedo pants brushing against my leg with annoying regularity.

  By the time I left the show and met Bojan, my numbers had jumped to just over a million followers. We sipped tequila in the back of his limo, and he rolled his eyes as I refreshed the screen, shocked at how the numbers jumped up each time. Vidal had already posted on my feed, a shot of me that didn’t even look like me. I was standing at the top of the red carpet stairs and glancing over my shoulder at the camera, and the makeup and hair attendees we paid for were worth every dollar. I looked glamorous and expensive and beautiful. I lingered on the photo, certain that a dozen filters had been used, and that my makeup was already smudged, my skin no longer glowing, my hair frizzling in the summer heat—but it didn’t matter. I had this photo, and if nothing else ever happened, at least I had this proof. I was at the MTV Movie Awards. I was on the red carpet. I was, as fleeting as it may turn out to be, somebody.

  Bo pulled my phone away and put it in the pocket of his red blazer, one that was custom, with white stitching and gold buttons. He bit into a lime and pushed my tequila shot forward, his eyes dark and luminous, his smile full of mischief. I downed the shot and turned the face of his watch toward me, tilting my head to one side to properly read the diamond-studded dial. “We have to go soon,” I said, and he shrugged, reclining back against the booth as if he had all night.

  “The party can wait,” he said. “For now, a toast.” He lifted the heavy glass toward me. “Here’s to being newsworthy.”

  That night, Bojan got drunk at the Cosmopolitan after-party and punched Leo in the balls after he sent a drink to the model that Bo was flirting with. We both were kicked out of the party, our ungracious exit caught by the paps who got a beautiful shot of the middle finger I flashed the security team.

  Bojan did a line of coke along the limo’s armrest as the car headed to his bungalow, and I refreshed my accounts.

  1,419,200 followers.

  26

  #thedreamteam

  EMMA: 1,800,701 FOLLOWERS

  In the beginning, it was easy to hide my visits to the Ranch. But as my brand grew, my activities and time were more closely monitored. There were several times that I consid
ered telling Vidal the truth, but didn’t.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Vidal swung open the door to my house and glared at me from my foyer, a gold cell phone pinned to his ear. “You’re late.”

  I ignored the question and walked past him, stopping short when I saw the two strangers perched around my kitchen island.

  \Vidal barked a command into the phone, then used it to point to each of the visitors in succession.

  “This is Dion and Edwin,” he said smoothly. “They’re your new team. I’m pulling them off Danica Franks, so be grateful.”

  Danica Franks had just flashed a cop while carrying enough cocaine to feed the Oscars, so I was fairly sure this generous gesture was based more on her mandatory rehab and less out of the generosity of his heart, but I still nodded. “Hey.”

  “Dion is your new stylist and will handle your hair and makeup. Don’t leave the house, or take a pic, unless you’ve gone through her first.”

  Dion barely looked up from her phone. She wore a neon yellow tracksuit, which looked great against her ebony complexion but would make me look like a blonde banana. “That outfit is lame,” she mused.

  I looked down at the Beatles t-shirt I wore, one that paired nicely with my best skinny jeans and a pair of pink tennis shoes that Wesley had declared as “super cool.” “I was just running some errands.”

  “Yeah, you don’t want to do that anymore.” The second person at my counter stood up. He had coiffed blond hair with enough volumizing spray to make it stand an extra six inches up and wore a blue suit, the kind that was short enough to show a peek of his bright red socks. “Errands need to be brand specific and approved and coordinated with us. Nothing is going to piss a sponsor off quicker than you shopping at their competitor, so we need to make sure that there is a purpose for all actions.”