SLEAZE: A Hollywood Comeback Story (Book #1)

Chapter 18

“I was twelve,” I grumbled, my gaze fixed on the tan carpet beneath me.

“Hey, to each his own,” Scott said with a teasing waggle of his eyebrows. I picked up a video game controller lying near my foot and chucked it towards his head. He ducked and as the device clattered to the ground, he asked, “Is that your way of saying you hate your gift?”

“There’s really no good answer to that question, is there? Nah, it’s pretty funny. Thank you, man.”

“Awesome,” Scott said, grabbing the creased poster from my hands and holding it in front of his face. “It took me two weeks to find this print, you know. It’s out of circulation, I had to order it off eBay.”

“Why not get a different one, then?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Scott gestured towards the form fitting black dress that the actress was wearing as she lounged on a couch, pink lips curved into a mysterious smile. The photo looked like it had been taken recently and I wondered if it had been one of the promotional images for the movie that she’d been dropped from earlier in the year. Scott looked at the picture again and shook his head. “I’ve got to admit that if she was a brunette, she would be ridiculously hot.”

I rolled my eyes and wondered what Sophie would say if she caught me coming home with the massive poster. The thought of her stumbling across it and having to deal with her mocking jeers—or worse, having her think that I was some sort of pervert—was enough to make me consider chucking it on my way into the city.

“So what are we doing?” Scott asked, changing the topic. He rolled the poster into a neat cylindrical tube before retrieving the controller that I’d flung at him. “I bought the new NFL game if you want to continue your losing streak.”

“Works,” I said, powering on the sleek, black video game console that rested on Scott’s television stand.

And yet, three failed touchdown attempts and a string of expletives later, I began zoning out, more worried about the errand that I’d have to run after leaving than leading a team of graphics to victory.

“What’s up?” Scott asked, eyes never looking away from the screen as his kicker lined up for a field goal attempt. A pixilated referee raised his arms to signal that it was good and I looked at my controller in disgust. Down by twenty-five points in the second quarter, my enthusiasm for the activity had waned to next to nothing.

“I don’t know what to get Sophie,” I admitted, chewing thoughtfully on a nail as I prepared to begin my next drive.  

My confession seemed to startle Scott, who missed tackling my running back as he made his way down field on a kickoff return. I managed to get my character to Scott’s forty-yard line before being dog piled by computer-controlled defensive linemen. Even the virtual rendition of the act made me cringe as I imagined lying at the bottom of the heap, nothing more than a mess of jumbled bones.

“I didn’t realize you two were so close,” Scott said, pausing the game to study me. “Now I almost feel bad about the poster.”

“We’re not.” I grunted as I shook my leg, a million invisible needles alerting me that it had fallen asleep. “But, you know, since she’s staying with me I figure it’d be weird not to get her anything.”

“Yeah, I don’t really get that, either,” Scott replied, scratching his mop of sandy-colored hair. “Why didn’t Michael just set her up in a hotel nearby if he’s so worried about her?”

“I’ve been wondering the same thing for three weeks,” I grumbled. “My mom’s completely sold on the whole thing, though. She’s been treating her like the daughter that she never had.”