The Hollywood Effect (5 page)

“Wake up, sleepy head.”
 

I groaned and rolled over, pulling the doona cover over my head.
 

“Here, I made you breakfast.” A deep, rumbly, sexy, familiar voice reached me through the pile of blankets. Liam. Here. I still didn’t open my eyes or push the blankets off me. My mouth was dry and parched. I really needed some water. Last night flashed through my mind. Coming home from the pub, finding Liam waiting for me. The gossip about him and Holly being true. My long simmering feelings bubbling to the surface at an inopportune time. I closed my eyes tighter.
 

“Come on, get up. Your hangover can’t be that bad. I drank more than you.” Cajoling. He was cajoling me.
 

“Burnsy, you’ve always been able to drink me under the table.” I still remembered trying to keep up with him, drink for drink the night we celebrated him getting a call for his first major role. It wasn’t the best memory to put it lightly.
 

“I have pancakes. And bacon.”
 

That made me throw the blankets off my face. I squinted in the too-bright light. The bastard had opened my blinds.
 

“Ugh,” I pulled the doona back over my face. “Where’d you get bacon from?” I didn’t have any in the house, I knew that much at least. I hadn’t eaten bacon for three years.
 

“Mum made an early morning delivery. Well, it’s not exactly early morning anymore you lazy piece of shit, it’s almost noon and I got sick of waiting for you to get up. I’m surprised you slept through her visit.”

“What? Your Mum was here? Ugh. And give me a break, we were up until 3am and besides, I haven’t slept in past 6am all week.” I wasn’t sure if he could understand all that through the muffled blankets.
 

“Can’t hear you, take the bloody doona off your face,” he laughed.
 

“No. It’s too bright. And I look hideous.”
 

Liam just laughed, and I felt a heavy weight on my feet as he sat down on the end of my bed.
 

“Jen, I’ve seen you worse than this, give it a rest.”

I sighed.
 

“Fiiiiine. But only because there’s pancakes. I hope your Mum brought maple syrup, I don’t have any.”
 

“Nah, sorry. Just bacon and orange juice and coffees… but I drank them both already, sorry.”
 

“Well, that explains the energy…” I grumbled. “No maple syrup? I can’t have pancakes without maple syrup!” With that I threw the blankets off me and got out of bed.
 

“Your own fault,” Liam smirked at me. “Your house after all.”
 

“What?” I demanded. Liam was looking me up and down with an odd look on his face.
 

“Huh? Oh. Nothing. Come on. I’m hungry.”
 

I followed him out, grabbing my old Monash University hoodie and some pyjama bottoms out of my wardrobe. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and felt my cheeks burn. How could I have let him see me like this? My hair was a mess, mascara smudged under my eyes, and worst of all I was wearing barely anything. I was just in a singlet and undies. You could see my
nipples.
I hastily pulled the hoodie on and pulled up my pyjamas, and gave my hair a quick brush - that just made it look greasy and like I hadn’t washed it for a week, so I messed it up again. Stupid hair.
 

I quietly followed the tantalising smell of frying bacon to my kitchen. Liam had managed to find his way around my kitchen (which I admired but would never tell him - I didn’t know my way around my kitchen yet) and set a table for two. There was a pile of pancakes to start with, and more batter on the counter. Two glasses of orange juice sat on the table, along with
flowers.
 

“Flowers? Really, Burnsy, you shouldn’t have.”

“Oh. Yeah. Mum brought those too. For you. For having me last night.”

I laughed. “Oh, Linda…”
 

“Seriously though,” he said as he piled a few pancakes onto his own plate. “Thanks.”

“No problemo, amigo. What are friends for?”

Liam smiled his award winning smile at me. Literally award winning. He’d won some teen choice award for cutest smile or something weird like that. I’d told him he could quit acting now and retire. He’d reached his pinnacle.
 

“How much bacon do you want?” He poked at the sizzling strips of meat in the pan. I sniffed longingly. Bacon was the hardest to resist.
 

“All yours, mate.”
 

Liam turned to look at me quizzically.
 

“I’m a vegetarian, you numbskull,” I said.
 

“Since when?”
 

“About three years ago.”
 

“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t… wait, I swear we ate steaks and hamburgers last time I was here.”
 

I shrugged. “I don’t really make a fuss about it. I probably got the veggie burger.”
 

“Huh,” was all he said.
 

“What?” I said, a little defensively.
 

“Nothing. Just something you and Holly have in common. She wouldn’t let me cook any meat in the house though. Oh - sorry - are you going to have to throw this pan out now?” He looked contrite and picked up the frying pan.
 

“Nah, it’s fine. If I’m being deadly honest, I sometimes fry my haloumi in Dad’s lamb chop grease… don’t judge me.”
 

Liam laughed and piled all the bacon onto his plate.
 

“Well, no complaints here then. More for me! Hey, I was thinking…”
 

“That’d be a first.”

“Exactly. That.”

“Huh?”

“I miss this - bantering, being insulted, being able to insult you. And you know I’m doing it in a loving way. America’s so different in that way. Everyone’s so bloody nice all the time. Holly would probably burst into tears if I called her a lazy piece of shit, and most of my mates would think I was upset at them if I called them dickhead or wanker.”

“Ah yes. Good old Australia where you insult your mates and call your enemies ‘mate’.”

“We’re an odd lot, that’s for sure. It’s good to be back.”

He put the pan in the sink and turned the tap on before I could warn him. Water splashed all over his top.
 

“Sorry! I should have warned you -“

“It’s okay,” Liam said and pulled his soaking hoodie and t-shirt off.
 

“I… uh…” I tried to think of something coherent to say. I guess those abs weren’t photoshopped in that last movie of his, after all. “Lemons.” I finally said. “I have a lemon tree outside. We need lemons. For the pancakes. Yeah. Lemons…” I made myself tear my gaze away from those gorgeous ripped abs and somehow managed not to reach out and stroke them. They’d certainly changed a lot since we were in our mid teens!
 

“All right, lemons. I’d forgotten how weird you are in the mornings.”
 

“Yeah… mornings. Let’s blame that…”
 

I got up from the table and led the way outside. The lemon tree was in the front yard. I stifled a yawn as I picked my way through the damp grass. I could feel Liam’s breath on the back of my neck, and tried not to think about the fact that he was topless.
 

We stood surveying the tree. There was only one ripe lemon on it, out of my reach. Liam reached up over me and grabbed it. Having tall males around was good for something after all. I let my gaze wander around the quiet street. Old Mr Moloney was trimming his hedges next door. Mrs Lewis was putting her bins out. I frowned. Her dementia must be getting worse. Thursday’s were bin nights.
 

“Oh shit.”
 

“What?” Liam demanded.
 

I pointed. Matt Rivers was sitting in the parked car on the opposite side of the street, camera pointed right at us.
 

Who is Liam’s Mystery Girl??
 

It seems our favourite Aussie hunk might have taken comfort in the arms of an old lover! Liam Burns, the on-and-off again finance of rising star, Holly Monroe, has been spotted back in his hometown in sunny Australia in the arms of a mystery young woman. We’re still waiting on reports of who this lucky lady is, but it could be safe to assume she’s an old flame from Liam’s pre-Hollywood days. Rumours are that Holly wants to reconcile, so we wonder how she feels about this new development!
 
Is it just Liam getting revenge for the whole Jack Lemon incident?! We don’t think Holly has too much to worry about - Mystery Girl has nothing on Our Holly! Check out the pics below and tell us what you think in the comments!
 

I peeked out from behind the curtains. It seemed like the paparazzi had bred. All of the ones who’d been out the front of Liam’s parents’ house yesterday were now on the nature strip out the front of my house, and then some.
 

“Why do they care so much this time? They don’t normally follow you home. Much.” I turned to look at Liam. He was sitting on my couch, cup of tea cooling in front of him on the coffee table and scowling at his phone.
 

“Holly,” he said miserably. “Break-ups. Misery. Scandals. It’s what they thrive on.”
 

“What do we do?” I asked. Liam just shrugged.
 

“Do you need to go anywhere?” he asked.
 

I thought for a minute. “No… but it’s such a nice day, I wanted to go for a walk up the mount, and go to the cemetery…”

“Oh yeah… it’s Grant’s birthday. I’m shit. I totally forgot.”
 

“You’re not shit. It’s been six years, and you’ve got other things on your mind. I’m sure Grant wouldn’t blame you in the slightest,” I said. “Plus, he never remembered anyone’s birthdays - he forgot his own mother’s one year, remember that?”
 

Liam laughed. “Yeah, we had to run and buy a bunch of flowers and some chocolates for him. She never knew.”

“Oh, she knew.” I grinned.
 

“Six years... god, has it really? Damn. It’s fucked up, thinking about all the things he’s missed. I was no-one back then.”

“You were never ‘no-one’, I don’t like it when you say things like that,” I protested.
 

“Okay, fine, I was just another regular Aussie kid working at the local supermarket stacking shelves coz he was too dumb to get into uni.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You didn’t even apply.”
 

“Yeah well, I didn’t want to go to uni, so what was the point?”

“Remind me not to get you to come in for Careers counselling...”

“Why not? I made a pretty good go of it in the end. They should know that you can be successful without getting a fantastic Year 12 result. I mean, it’s great that you got an awesome mark and you totally deserved it, but you knew you wanted to go to uni and study. I didn’t. All you guys did. You, Dan, Grant. You all studied your arses off and got great marks and knew what you wanted to do the next year. I had no freakin’ clue. I liked drama, I liked acting. I like writing sometimes, but I hated doing creative writing classes. I just kind of figured it out as I went along.”
 

“You did a pretty good job with that...” I murmured.
 

“Well, I didn’t exactly set out to be a movie star mobbed by paparazzi...”
 

“Mmm, sure,” I said.
 

“I didn’t, Jen. Things just kind of snowballed. You know that. One thing led to another.”

“You saying you wouldn’t be famous if you had your time over?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.” He rubbed his face. “Times like this, definitely NO. But it has its perks.”

“Yeah, I bet. That house of yours is pretty nice.”

“There is that.”

“And the car.”
 

“Well, yeah.”

“And being able to travel whenever you want.”

“Not true.”

“Sure.”
 

I moved from beside the window and over to the couch.
 

“Would they really follow us if we just went to the shops?” I asked. “I mean, no offence, but not even you can be that fascinating to make grocery shopping in Tarang news worthy.”
 

Liam scowled again. Even I had to admit, it was rather cute. “You’d be surprised at what they find interesting. Selena Gomez taking her garbage out is interesting to them.”
 

I sighed. You really could never pay me enough to be famous on this level. It was crazy.
 

“Maybe we could make a diversion, like on the movies, and get out of here. I’m getting kinda restless when I know I’m stuck here. If you were’t here, I’d probably spend all day in my PJ’s and not even brush my hair and binge watch some TV show and not even think about going outside... but now that I can’t, I want to leave.”
 

“Yeah, I know the feeling,” Liam said with a little huff.
 

We were silent for a few moments, watching the cartoons on the TV.
 

"Oh, fuck it,” Liam said suddenly.

I looked over at him as he stood up. “What?”

“Let’s go. Screw them. They know I’m here now, there’s no helping that. They can follow us if they want to. Let’s go up to the cemetery and say hi to Grant, and your mum. I’ll go to Mum and Dad’s after to give you some peace.”

“You don’t have to...”
 

“Nah, it’s okay. I should go see them anyway. Charlie’s coming down today as well. Mini family reunion.”
 

“Oh, cool. All right, let me get ready. I want to look nice if my photo’s going to be splashed around.” I groaned. “Damn it. I don’t want to go to school on Monday. My students are gonna have a field day. I was already being quizzed about you on Friday. Now there’s bloody pictures of us together and unspeakable insinuations! Ugh.” I threw my hands up in the air in only half-mocked despair.