Starfire(7)

Adrian: I’m trapped. Trapped by customers.

Me: Pick the most trustworthy one and tell them they’re in charge for ten minutes.

Adrian: That’s no way to run a business.

Me: A business makes profits. Peachtree Books is more like a cultural institution.

Adrian: Come help me. You owe me.

Me: Owe you for what?! For ditching me last night? I only wanted you to come upstairs and talk.

Adrian: Your hands were not interested in talking.

Me: Oh, please. I barely touched you. Not like when you were playing Hide-n-Seek at my parents’ house and you pulled me down onto the bed on top of you.

Adrian: That was an accident.

Me: Last night was an accident, too.

Adrian: You regret kissing me?

Me: I don’t like labeling things.

Adrian: I enjoyed kissing you. No regrets. You have really soft lips.

Me: Stop thinking about my lips, because you had your chance and you blew it.

Adrian: You mean last night? I told you. I don’t want to be with a drunk girl unless she’s my girlfriend. I’m not that kind of guy. Don’t say I blew my chance, because that’s not fair.

Me: I meant you had your chance in high school. Back when I was in love with you and you were in love with Chantalle Hart.

Adrian: I’m not in love with Chantalle Hart. She’s pretty, but she doesn’t have a lot of character.

Me: You’re weird.

Adrian: Come visit me. I need five-dollar bills. And I want to see how hungover you are.

Me: I’m really busy. I’ve got a lot of stuff to do at my house.

Adrian: I know you’re at Pancake International. That’s three blocks over. Just come by when you girls are done demolishing the chocolate fountain.

I looked up from my phone and glanced furtively around the small restaurant. Who told him I was there?

Paparazzi, I thought with horror. They’d followed me here from LA, and now they were taking pictures of me with food crumbs on my chin, and uploading the images from the restaurant. Within minutes, “hilarious” trolls would be using their limited intellect to cobble together misspelled words, making memes of me for Tumblr.

Across the table from me, Golden laughed, her gaze down on her phone. Was she blushing? And twirling one of her pretty blond ringlets with her little hand? Yes, she was. And lately she’d been doing that whenever she flirted with Adrian Storm, which meant… there was no paparazzi stalking me after all. Adrian was two-timing me on the text messages.

I was both relieved and disappointed. I had my privacy, but only because I was just a regular girl.

“Sounds like a plan,” Shayla said to Golden, in response to a text Golden must have sent her from two feet away. That’s the danger of texting at a restaurant—it’s hard to stop once you start.

To me, Shayla explained, “Adrian needs a favor, so we’re going to swing by Peachtree Books after here.”

“Sure,” I said, pretending I hadn’t been talking to him myself.

Both of the girls stared at my hand, which was twirling my own blonde hair. My face burned with embarrassment.

“Who were you talking to?” Shayla asked.

“Keith Raven.”

“Isn’t it the middle of the night in Italy?”

I quickly pulled up his Instagram page on my phone and showed it to them. “We weren’t talking. I was just stalking his photos. Like a stalker. Feel free to make fun of me.”

“Who’s that chick?” Golden asked.

I glanced down at the photo. “That’s Tabitha,” I said calmly.

“One of the bag-of-hair girls? His sister or his ex?” she asked.

My mouth went dry, but I tried not to let on my surprise. “His girlfriend,” I said, my words sounding strained as they came out of my tight throat. “I totally predicted they were getting back together, which is why I wouldn’t go to Milan with him. I didn’t think it would happen so quickly, but she’s a model, too, so… it’s only natural… and stuff…”

Shayla reached across the table and patted my hand. “I’m sorry, P.”

“Don’t look at me like that. Nobody died, okay?”

Golden said, “If you don’t mind me asking, why were you sleeping with that Keith guy when you were in LA?”

To answer her question, I scrolled back through a few of Keith Raven’s photographs and showed Golden one of him wearing nothing but a pair of tattered jeans, his chiseled torso catching the light and shadows like a sculpture.

“Oh,” she said, nodding.

“His personality is just as nice,” I said.

Her face scrunched up. “Didn’t that feel weird, being naked with a real model? I know you did the underwear thing, which makes you a real model, too, but…?”