Page 3

I mean, I knew it was only a matter of time before it did but that doesn’t make it suck any less.
Suck because I’m in the home stretch—the last month of my senior year in college and until now, even though there’s no real way of hiding who I am, I’ve managed to fly below the paparazzi radar, more or less, for the last four years.
Sucks because up until yesterday, I’d at least been able to pretend that my life is normal. That I’m just a regular guy with a normal, mediocre future ahead of him.
I mean, I’m not delusional—I know my future was never going to be normal. I’m a Hawthorne. I grew up in a network of luxury, high rise hotels all over the world that, since our grandparents’ death a few years ago, my sister and I now own. Last I heard Delilah and I are worth somewhere north of four hundred billion—and that doesn’t even include our own personal trust funds. Normal isn’t something we get to have—but it was nice to pretend.
That all changed when I met Lexi Chase.
“Maybe it’s not as bad as you think,” Cramer says before shoving another serving spoon-sized bite of Fruit Loops into his mouth while he watches me pace from one end of the living room to the other. “I mean... Lexi’s parents aren’t exactly A-list. Chances are no one even cares—”
Stopping in front of the coffee table, I snatch up the remote and point it at the giant television mounted on the wall to turn it on. Talking heads from the local news channel appear on screen.
LAPD reports that Lexi Chase, daughter of soap opera star, Julia Chase and stepdaughter to Brent Chase, former member of the singing group, 5Sides, has been arrested for DUI and drug possession after losing control of her car and colliding with a City of Los Angeles bus bench, early this morning. The man sleeping on that bench, Brian Maxwell, forty-seven, was rushed to a nearby hospital in critical condition while Chase was treated and released at the scene before being taken into custody.
When police arrived, Wentworth Fiorella, heir to the multi-billion-dollar Hawthorne Hotel fortune, was also there. Even though Fiorella denies being with Chase at the time of the accident and allegedly submitted voluntarily to a drug test, speculation about his presence on the scene and his involvement in the accident continues as the investigation is ongoing. Next up on Good Morning LA, is your local dog park—
Lifting the remote again, I jab my thumb against the power button, turning it off. Tossing the remote back onto the coffee table, I shake my head. “She almost killed someone—that’s making the news whether her parents are A-list or not.” Before I can say anything else, the cell phone in my back pocket starts to buzz. It’s been ringing all morning, one tabloid reporter after another, trying to get a voice recording of me losing my shit or admit to something that will incriminate me. I almost ignore it like I have the rest but because it might be the nurse I paid off at the hospital to keep me updated on Mr. Maxwell’s condition, I check anyway.
Not the hospital.
Not a tabloid reporter either.
“I gotta take this,” I say, turning away from Cramer who just gives me a shrug before lifting his bowl to his mouth to slurp down sugary milk and soggy cereal. We’ve been roommates since our sophomore year and I’ve always liked him well enough but I’m suddenly glad that the year is almost over and I’m almost graduated because if I have to listen to him eat cereal one more fucking time...
Back to him, I take my ringing phone down the hall to my room and shut the door. “Hey.”
“Seriously?” Conner Gilroy, the only real friend I’ve ever had, gives me a low, humorless chuckle. “Your drugged up girlfriend nearly kills a homeless man and that’s your opener—hey?”
“Okay...” Sitting on the edge of my bed, I swipe a rough hand over my face. “I guess what I have to say next depends on who I’m talking to—my friend or my lawyer?” Con’s my age. We met a few years ago at the tattoo shop I apprentice at over the summer in Boston. He earned his law degree at seventeen, according to him, out of sheer boredom.
“Let’s get the lawyer shit out of the way,” he says on a sigh. “Were you involved in the accident in any way?”
“Shit...” I close my eyes before giving my face another rough swipe. “No—no. I wasn’t even there when—” I can still see the demolished bus bench. The man who’d been sleeping on it sprawled out on the sidewalk, several feet away from it. “I wasn’t there, I swear—Lexi called me after the accident.”
Con’s quiet for a moment. “She called you instead of 911?”
“Yeah—I mean, I guess...” I nod even though he can’t see me. “She called me screaming about how she messed up her car and her dad was going to kill her. She begged me to come get her. She was only a few blocks from my apartment so I did.”
“So, you weren’t in the car with her,” he summarizes. “She called you after the fact?”
“Yes.”
“Alright,” he says, his tone suddenly serious. “Walk me through it.”
Shoulders slumped, I stare at the ground between my bare feet, trying to will myself to remember everything that happened because I know Con—details matter to him.
“We were together earlier in the day. We hit the farmer’s market and had lunch at The Ivy. Went back to my place to hang out by the pool,” I tell him, starting at the beginning. “She started making plans to meet up with friends to grab dinner and hit the clubs at around eight or nine and I told her I didn’t want to go. She got pissed even though she knows clubs aren’t my scene. We fought—and I broke up with her.” I don’t tell him that I’d been heading in that direction for a while. That I’d been waiting for a reason and when she called me a boring, no fun, lump of bullshit, she basically handed it to me on a silver platter.
“You broke up with her?” He sounds doubtful. Not like he doesn’t believe me. Like he’s not sure he heard me right. “You broke up with her and then, when she calls you several hours later, for a rescue, you drop what you’re doing and put on your cape.”
“She’d just been in an accident, Con,” I say it slowly because we’ve crossed into territory he doesn’t understand. When it comes to women, Conner Gilroy is as ruthless as they come. Hell, unless the person in question happens to be a blood relative, there’s a good chance Con would let them die in a ditch. “She was hysterical. I couldn’t just—”
“Okay.” Cutting off my reasoning with a frustrated huff, Con continues. “She called you, hysterical, asking you to come help her, so you do.”
“Yeah.” Squeezing my eyes shut I see it again. “When I got there, her car was on the sidewalk and she was still behind the wheel. Her airbag had gone off and her face was pretty banged up. I was about halfway to her car when I saw him.”
“Brian Maxwell.” It’s more of a statement than a question but I answer him anyway.