Page 4 of The Publicity Stunt

The rain subsides to a light drizzle and I close my umbrella. My phone buzzes again. This time it’s a calendar reminder:Meeting with Zawe tomorrow @9am.

Nuh-uh. Not today. I stuff my phone into the pocket of my blazer. Out of sight, out of mind. Procrastination at its best.

The pedestrian signal turns white, a ten-second timer for a road that’s clearly a twenty-second minimum, and I step off the sidewalk.

It’s right about then that my whole world comes to a standstill.

“April?”

The eerily familiar voice pins my feet to the ground. All the blood from my toes rushes up to my face. What … no. April’s a pretty common name. I shake my head and take another step, but the voice speaks again.

“April Moore?”

Fuck.

That voice. I could be lying in a hospital bed, suffering from amnesia and trying to remember my own name, but I could never ever forget that voice. Deep and husky, capable of making my skin tingle. Very slowly I turn around, movie style, and sure enough, it’s him.

Brown hair so messy you’d think it’s on purpose and razor-sharp cheekbones. My mouth gapes.

Hayden Parker.

ChapterTwo

Sixteen Years Ago

HAYDEN

There’s a girl with her head in the toilet bowl. Her red hair hides most of her face, but I’m almost sure she’s sleeping. Or passed out.

I take a few steps and bend down to nudge her shoulder. “Hello?” All I get is a soft muffled groan. Not a response. I poke again. “You okay?”

Another groan. But this time she sits up, strands of her hair sticking to her face. I recognize her instantly. April Moore. We’ve been in the same class since first grade, but apart from assignments and the occasional small talk, we haven’t really spoken to each other outside of school.

She makes another retching sound. Shit.

“Are you okay?” I take a step forward.

Wiping the corners of her mouth, April squints at me, her makeup in tiny black smudges around her green eyes.

“Do you need me to get someone?” I ask. “A friend?”

She opens her mouth to say something but instead takes a detour back to the toilet bowl. Jesus, how much has she had to drink tonight?

I bend down and hold her hair back. All I wanted to do was lie in bed and read my comic. Instead, here I am, at Tyler Hockman’s house, my shirt still soaked from the beer he spilled on me, sitting on a sticky bathroom floor, helping this girl puke her intestines out. Fucking aces.

April coughs into the toilet bowl and I gently rub her back. “Need some water?”

She sits back up and nods. I grab a red plastic cup from the corner of the sink, swirl out the remnants of beer, and fill it with tap water. “Here you go.”

April hurriedly gulps it down in one go. I lean against the wall and watch.

God, she looks horrible. Her makeup is running all over her face, her hair’s all messed up, and if it wasn’t for me, she would probably curl up in a corner and spend the night in this very bathroom.

She sets the empty cup down on the bathroom floor and lifts her gaze to meet mine. “I can’t go home like this.”

“Yeah, probably not a good idea.”

“What do I do?”