Page 78 of Fame & Obsession

He smiles. “Are we bashing religion, Miss Southern Bible Belt?”

“Are you serious?” I roll my eyes. “I caught half my town doing the motel drive of shame Saturday night, and then the same assholes would show up at church on Sunday morning, singing hymns about faithfulness and sin.” A shadow falls over the room. “People are such hypocrites.”

He watches me intently. “Hypocrites, how?”

I don’t like where this is going. “You know, always saying one thing and doing another—hypocrites.”

“You sound like you speak from experience.”

“What if I do?”

“Tell me,” he urges, reaching toward the coffee table and trailing his fingers up my leg.

I tuck my bottom lip tightly between my teeth as we gaze at each other. Something in his face hits me as familiar to what I’ve seen in the mirror the past three years. I carry around that guilt everywhere I go.

It both intrigues me and scares the hell out of me to see the same reflection in him.

I know he’s trying to coax a one-sided confession out of me, so I call his bluff

Reaching across the armrest, I cover the hand that rests on my leg and stand my ground. “I’ll tell you if you tell me.”

“You know I can’t do that,” he says, closing his fingers around mine.

“Why do you expect so much out of me but give me so little of yourself, Julian?”

“You don’t understand.”

I slant my body toward him. “My dad ruined my family when I was sixteen.” I blurt the words out, to my own surprise.

He averts his eyes. “Go on.”

A laugh bubbles through me. “I don’t think so, Julian. You can’t expect me to cut open a vein with nothing in return.”

“We’re just not at a place where I can talk about it,” he says stubbornly. “I’m sorry. It’s just what I have to do.”

“Fine,” I say with a quick, affirmative nod. Holding my dress together at the nape, I stand and face him. “You do what you have to do—and so will I.”

Twenty-Two

Phoebe

White light searsthrough my eyelids, burning my retinas. Groaning, I pull the comforter over my head and roll over.

I wonder what it would take to make NASA send a rocket to blow the fuck out of the sun.

Before I can think it over, the blankets are jerked off me.

Still face down, I reach for the sheet resting below my hip. “Hey! What the—?”

“Oh, no you don’t, Snoring Beauty. Sleepy time is over. It’s wakey time, and you, baby doll, have some in-depth dishing to hand out.”

I sigh into my pillow. I can’t deal with this right now. “Go away, Gage.”

The bed dips with his weight, and he scoots in beside me. “If you think you’re getting out of this after I had the starring role inDriving Miss Shameyat the crack ass of dawn, you are one queen short of a drag race. I had to borrow Parker’s mom’s car, you know.”

“I’ll pay you back,” I offer, my voice muffled. I roll my eyes into the pillowcase as he continues on about the car. “I’ve had a shitty night, Gage. I said I’d make it up to you, all right?”

“Geez, could you make getting pounded by a rock star sound less like a vagina mining?”