I’m not sure what to do. Ignore him? Say hi? We should’ve discussed this before I left his house. Harper’s waiting inside her SUV and even though it’s dark out I’m sure she sees it’s Garret who pulled in next to her. I walk to the side of the SUV. Garret’s standing there, pretending to look at his phone.
“New outfit?” he asks, his eyes still on the phone.
“Yeah. It’s from Harper.” I smell his cologne and out of habit I step closer to him. He shouldn’t be allowed to smell that good when we’re not dating.
“I like it.” He’s trying not to look, but I catch him staring at my bare legs, then up to my fitted sweater and it totally turns me on.
“Kensington!” a guy yells out. He’s standing on the sidewalk in front of Garret’s car. “I gotta hear about Bermuda. Two girls at the same time? Was that shit true?”
Obviously the fake stories about Garret are already spreading.
“I should go.” I put my hand on the door handle but don’t open it.
“Hey, Shane,” Garret says to the guy. “I’ll tell you about it upstairs.”
Garret’s hand brushes the back of my skirt as he walks away.
I quickly get in the car before I lose all control.
“What did you say to him?” Harper whispers as if the people outside could somehow hear us talking in the car.
“Nothing.” I put my seatbelt on.
“You saidsomething. The way he was looking at you I thought you two were going to jump in his car and do it.”
“He just hadn’t seen me wear this before so he asked if it was new.”
She starts the car and backs out. “I don’t know how this fake break-up is going to work. It’s obvious you two can’t get enough of each other. Maybe I need to give you some acting tips. I took lessons growing up. It’s basically a requirement for a kid in LA.”
“Yeah, I think you might have to. This is harder than I thought.”
Our brief encounter in the parking lot just proved it. Being forbidden from Garret made me hyperaware of everything about him. The pitch of his voice. His scent. His proximity to me. He barely touched me and my body got all hot and tingly.
“Jade.” Harper says my name in a way that sounds like she’s already said it several times.
“Did you say something?”
“I was thinking of going to Fresh, that organic restaurant. But it’s like 20 miles away. Are you in a hurry to get back?”
“No. That sounds good.” The farther away I am from Garret right now the better.
By the time we drive there, eat, and drive back it’s 9 o’clock. I thank Harper for dinner, then go to my room and watch my new TV. It’s still strange to have a TV in my room but I’m really glad Garret got it for me. It’ll hopefully take my mind off him.
Or maybe not.
As I’m flipping through the channels, I see a photo of Garret on Hollywood Today, a celebrity news show.
“Garret Kensington, on-again, off-again boyfriend of Ava Hamilton, star of The Prep School Girls’ Reunion, had quite a spring break,” the perky blond show host says. “Rumor has it he traveled to Bermuda on his father’s jet and hooked up with numerous women, despite recently getting back together with Ava. Fans of the reality show are saying Ava deserves better, but for now it seems that she and Garret are still together.”
They cut away to Ava walking through a parking lot wearing big sunglasses, tight dark jeans, and a low-cut black sweater.
“Garret’s always been a bad boy,” she says, tossing her hair around as she walks. “I can’t change him. It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with him. I’ve always been attracted to bad boys.”
“So you’re still dating him?” someone off camera asks. The camera shakes a little as the cameraman tries to keep up with her.
“Yes.” She gets into a black SUV and drives off.
They cut back to the show host. “Sources say Kensington nearly destroyed the house he rented in Bermuda and trashed the beach behind the property.”
