Sunset Boulevard (28 page)

red face under the lights.

"Kind of cool? I'm
beyond
cool," Daisy said, raising one freshly plucked eyebrow at him.

"Okay, maybe you're right," he said, almost able to feel her lips as she spoke. Mick Jagger

yawled on behind them, and Daisy started to sing along in a doleful voice. "'I don't need no

beast of burden... I need no fussing, I need no nursing... Never, never, never, never, never,

never, never be.'" She giggled. "I hope I haven't made you feel like my beast of burden." She

looked right into his eyes, a look so direct and earnest it surprised him with its intensity. He

tried not to think of Myla telling him to kiss Daisy. Daisy had enough problems without being

dragged into one of Myla's crazy schemes.

When he was silent, she whispered sincerely, "I don't want to be a bother." At that moment, he

couldn't picture ever thinking of her as a bother. He stared into her feather-gray eyes, wishing

he could look away. But he couldn't.

He leaned in and kissed her. The music disappeared, replaced in Ash's head with Myla's

words,
"Kiss someone else, and you'll see it means nothing."

Daisy's lips were soft and inviting on his. She twirled a strand of his hair around her finger,

sending a shiver up the sides of his neck to the nooks behind his ears. It was like music. Great

music.

Maybe it wasn't exactly like kissing Myla.

But it definitely didn't feel like nothing.

WORKING ALL THE ANGELS

"Amelie, new pages are ready," one of the student production assistants called through

Amelie's thin trailer door.

He could have been saying,
Amelie, puppies! For you!
The effect was roughly the same.

Amelie fluttered to the door, knocking over a pile of J Brand jeans the company had sent her.

Grinning like a madwoman, she flung open the door but reminded herself to act professional.

The PA was a scholarly-looking BHH senior who always wore a suit jacket and who'd become

Gary's favorite of the student hires. She wanted to snatch the pages from his hands and hurry

back to her bedroom to read exactly how her first kiss with Jake would go.

"Hi, Amelie," he said, watching Amelie's eyes cut to the manila envelope under his arm.

Patience,
she told herself. "Um, sorry, my name's Rush. Baxter?" He said it like a question.

"Oh, I remember," she lied. "It's crazy we're shooting another ending, huh?" Luckily, Devin

and Sanjay didn't want her to tell anyone she'd come up with the new scene. The last thing they

needed was word getting out that one of Transnational's stars had gotten an ending change.

Kady, and most important, Jake, wouldn't suspect a thing.

"Yeah, totally," he said, waving the envelope back and forth. Amelie grabbed it as casually as

she could, resisting the urge to rip it open this second. She hadn't been this excited to read

anything since the last Harry Potter book.

"Gary wants to know if you could be ready for hair and makeup in an hour. We're going to

shoot this today. Jake has a lot of scenes with Grant tomorrow," Rush explained. He looked

bashful yet proud. A few weeks on a movie set and the guy was trusted with the kind of

information the assistant director usually doled out. Shooting a movie at BHH had led to big

changes for everyone.

Amelie wanted to squeal and hug Rush. She'd be kissing Jake in a few hours and afterward,

she knew everything would be different. Maybe he'd dump Kady on the spot, and they'd have

their first date tonight. Amelie wouldn't drag Jake to hot spots and nightclubs. That stuff was

for the Kadys and the Hunters of the world. Not that Amelie hated Hunter or anything. She

could just see clearly now. Before, she'd been trying to change herself to fit into Hunter's

world, while all the while she and Jake had already been living in the same one.

"Thanks, Rush," she said. "I can do an hour. I just better read these." She shook the envelope

meaningfully and Rush hurried off.

She flopped onto the IKEA couch and fished out the pages. There was a note from Sanjay

scrawled on a Post-it stuck to the cover. "Amazing idea, Amelie. This might draw the
Cruel

Intentions
crowd to a teen romantic comedy!" She rolled her eyes. The studio execs only saw a

business gain, not a victory for true teenage love.

The dialogue wasn't great. It had that weird, stilted quality of a dream. But the exchange she

wanted was there: Class Angel told Tommy who she was, and that she could become human

with just one kiss. Tommy would take off Amelie's halo--a true bonus in Amelie's mind--and

lean down to deliver her eternal life-altering smooch.

Maybe someday she'd tell Jake what she'd done to land him. She could picture her tell-all

interview with
People
about how she'd gone behind the scenes to get a first kiss with Jake.

And how years later, they were still living their own happily-ever-after.

Amelie was out of hair and makeup, pacing near the empty stairwell where they'd shoot. She

furtively used a tissue to blot away excess lip gloss. She wanted this kiss to be perfect. And

she wanted to get it right on the first take, before Kady returned to the set.

For the scene, Amelie would get to dress completely normal--no white, no frills, and minimal

glitter. She wore knee-high white boots, a short white denim skirt, and a white baseball-sleeve

tee. As the kiss happened, her white clothes would burst into color, and the heavenly aura that

surrounded Amelie's character (thank you, postproduction) would fade: Through true love,

Class Angel would become human. Gary had told her that
Class Angel Goes to High School

was already in development, thanks to Amelie's idea.
If only getting the powers-that-be to let

you actually go to high school were that easy,
Amelie thought.

Jake sat in his canvas chair, watching as the crew hoisted a boom mic out of shot range. He

looked infinitely calmer than he had his first day on set, and it almost bothered her. When had

he become Mr. Cool? And wasn't he a
little
nervous about their kiss?

"Places, please," Gary finally called. Amelie's stomach coiled like one of Shirley Temple's

ringlets.

Amelie leaned against the stair railing, where Class Angel was supposed to lie in wait for

Tommy. Jake took his time, thumbing out the last few words of a text message before finally

sauntering over. He took his mark at the top of the staircase. His dark curls had been tamed

with gel, and one stubborn lock of hair hung sweetly over his right eye. Amelie had almost

forgotten how tall he was, and not just compared to petite Kady. Even at five foot six, Amelie

would only reach his clavicle. But in heels, she'd be the perfect height to rest her head on Jake's

toned shoulder.

"And, action," the AD called.

Action? No problem,
Amelie thought, already feeling a frisson under her skin as Jake walked

down the stairs, Tommy's letterman jacket slung over his shoulder.

Tommy stopped to ask if she needed help. Amelie nodded her head coyly.

"Yes," she said. "But not the help you think."

Tommy eyed her quizzically. "Are you new? Or waiting for someone?"

Amelie turned the full force of her aquamarine eyes on him. "Waiting for you, actually."

Tommy scrunched up his face in confusion. "I don't think we've met."

"We have, you've just never seen me," Class Angel said, leaning slinkily on the wall. She

explained, in the same odd dialogue, who she was. Jake registered Tommy's reaction perfectly,

going from skeptical to startled to intrigued.

"So if we kiss, you stay?" he asked, already lifting the ruffled halo from her head. For once, it

hadn't been pinned down. Amelie almost melted as Jake's fingers brushed her scalp.

"Yeah, I think you're getting the idea," she said, parting her lips as Jake moved closer.

He leaned in and--with his fingers still woven through her hair--softly, gently placed his lips on

hers. Amelie felt her nerve endings ignite, a hunger gnawing at her insides. Who knew Jake

could kiss like this? His lips seemed made for hers as the kiss grew in force and intensity.

Amelie reached for the back of his neck, lightly running her fingers over his hairline. She ran

her other hand down his arm. It was like her lips were a pointillist painting, and every dot that

made up her mouth was fizzing. If Jake was feeling half of what she was feeling, they'd have to

head to one of their trailers to pick up where the scene left off.

"And, cut," Gary said, too soon. "That was perfect, you two."

Amelie took her time opening her eyes. But as soon as she did, she wished she'd kept them

closed. Kady was bounding over to them without a care in the world. "You guys looked hot. I

don't get this ending at all, but that kiss was spectacular."

Amelie forced a grin. She took a step back, hoping to give Jake a little privacy so he could tell

Kady he'd just discovered his deep feelings for Amelie. Instead, Jake broke out in a relieved

smile. Kady immediately gave him a long kiss, right in front of Amelie. The one-two punch

knocked the wind out of her.

"You ready?" Kady asked him. "I put us on the list for the Vampire Weekend show at the

Wiltern."

"Cool," Jake said, slinging his arm around her. He might as well have been slapping Amelie in

the face. They were supposed to have tutoring today.

Amelie forced herself to smile. "You guys have fun. Jake, we'll do tutoring another time." That

had been the knockout blow: He'd completely forgotten.

Jake could see the hurt in Amelie's eyes. He hadn't actually forgotten tutoring. But after seeing

the pages of their new scene, he'd made plans with Kady so he wouldn't have to be alone with

Amelie. He'd been terrified that the kiss would be bad, or worse, that by kissing him she'd

somehow know exactly how badly he'd crushed on her when they'd first met.

The weird thing was, the kiss had been great. Like every fiber of his being had met its match in

Amelie's being. And he could tell by the way Amelie couldn't quite look at him directly that she

wasn't thrilled to see him ditching their session for another girl. But he couldn't imagine that

she'd felt what he had felt when they kissed. She was a professional--she was probably just

getting wrapped up in the energy of the scene. Plus, Kady was his
girlfriend
, on-and offcamera. Kissing her meant something way bigger. Right?

"Yeah, definitely," Jake finally said.

"You're welcome to come," Kady said charitably.

Amelie felt even worse. Jake was acting like their kiss was no more of an event than splitting a

craft services cupcake. And Kady was treating her like an unfortunate who needed a little TLC.

"No, thanks, I'm really tired, actually," she said.
Really tired of not living in the real world.

Maybe all those years in Fairy Princess's Enchanted Forest had gotten to her. She'd created an

elaborate fantasy version of Hunter as the perfect guy who would one day fall in love with her.

And now she'd believed Jake would fall head over heels after one kiss. A
scripted
kiss, no

less.

Kady rapped Amelie on the arm. "Maybe
someday
you'll hang with me," she teased, guiding

Jake out the door to their waiting car. For once, Amelie didn't care about being left alone. She

had all her delusions to keep her company.

BABY'S GOT A BRAND NEW D-BAG

"So, should we do Nobu or Katsuya?" Kady's glimmering blue eyes looked up at Jake

expectantly, waiting for him to make a decision.

"Nobu, definitely," Jake said, having no idea what cuisine was in store for him, but not caring.

He was an actor. Going to dinner with his girlfriend. Who was also a star. Who used the word

we
. And who was too cool to be jealous over the fact he'd had to kiss another costar.

His mind did keep wandering over to the kiss with Amelie. But it was only nostalgia--his crush

now seemed far in the past. Anyway, if they'd gotten together, the dynamic would have always

been off. He'd always be the tutor and she the starlet. Now he and Kady were equals.

"That's what I was hoping you'd say," she cooed, standing on her tiptoes to kiss him right

under his lips. Jake liked that they had a "thing"; Kady was tiny compared to him, but her chin

kisses meant she was ready for the real deal. He leaned down and kissed her, still feeling the

delightfully unfamiliar thrill of kissing a girl on school grounds. Jake never had expected to

kiss a girl within a ten-mile radius of BHH, because no girl would want to be seen kissing PG.

Since his paparazzi photo had emerged in the weeklies, though, Jake couldn't help but enjoy the

new sets of female eyes sizing him up with interest.

A blaring car horn yanked Jake and Kady apart as a gleaming black Escalade pulled up next to

them. It was a massive ESV with an evidently high-quality stereo--the Death Star theme was

radiating out to the curb through the tinted glass windows.

The car clicked off, the door opened and Miles jumped out, practically vibrating with

excitement. He stumbled slightly at the curb. With his huge Scott Pilgrim T-shirt and short,

unevenly cut black hair, he looked like a little kid getting off a nausea-inducing amusement park

ride. He tossed Jake a weighty Cadillac key chain.

"Dude, did I get it right or what?" He pointed backward at the car. "I texted you but didn't hear

back, so I just said, 'This is Jake's ride.' I signed the papers ten minutes ago. It's so easy to get a

car when you've got fat cash."

Jake nodded coolly, as embarrassed of Miles as he would be of his mom showing up to bring

him clean underwear.

"This is yours?" Kady strode down the length of the vehicle and in through the passenger door.

She opened the driver's side door and leaned out, her hand petting the dashboard. "Sweet ride.

We should go. Is Miles coming?"

She gestured to Miles, whose smile had faded slightly at Jake's lack of enthusiasm.

"Hey, we've got a date," Jake said, already climbing into the driver's side. "I'm sure Miles has

manager stuff he wants to take care of. He's a busy dude." He shot Miles a look and winked.

Miles didn't wink back.

Jake shrugged and started the car. He quickly spun the wheel on the iPod from the
Star Wars

sound track to a Hot Chip album. He shut the door, pulling away from the curb toward Nobu,

and his new and improved life. If he'd looked back at Miles, he'd have seen his friend

dumbstruck on the curb, stranded at school without a ride.

But Jake was a star now, so he didn't give it another thought.

Friday night, Jake dabbed some eye cream Kady had given him on his lower lids. He was tired

after last night's Nobu date and a Sony promotional party at Citizen Smith. Even in his fatigued