Chapter Five
My head was a million miles away as I wiped down one of my tables. Well, that wasn't the only problem. Firstly I was so distracted that I'd managed to break a dish and nearly spill my customer's drink down their front. Dee had already caught me the first time I messed up and I knew her eagle eyes didn't miss the angry way I'd been hissed at by the woman sitting at table number five. Still, I didn't take her up on her offer of going home earlier. I was fully capable of completing my shift and considering it was the weekend, I wasn't in the mood to give up tips.
Pity my brain didn't get the memo because all I could think about was Kyler. Last night was definitely a first for me and maybe I could chalk it all up to getting some much needed male attention. But Kyler hadn't just been a guy I'd made out with. I kept going back to our conversations, the way he'd genuinely seemed interested in getting to know more about me and the way he'd eaten up everything I'd told him. None of the guys I had been out with more were that curious and it'd been refreshing. A part of me wondered if being such an attentive listener had been a ruse, that he just wanted to get me in his bed but a larger part couldn't reduce all of last night to something ugly. I had pretty good instincts when it came to people and my instincts about Kyler were good, all good. The sudden departure aside, he'd been nothing but wonderful to me the previous night and that's just how I'd like to remember him.
I also wasn't going to be forgetting that kiss any time soon. Just thinking about what went down in that hot tub made me blush and then want to do again. I absentmindedly touched my lips and remembered the feel of his hands on my body, the noises he'd made and the way he'd held me afterwards. It made me wonder if I'd ever experience that again and then I immediately felt bad for placing Kyler on such a pedestal. There would be other guys and surely one of them would have his kissing abilities or so I hoped but at least now I had something to compare them to.
"You've got a little drool on your face Ells. Watcha thinking about?" I snapped out of the trip down memory lane to find Ree sliding into the booth. She grinned at me looking way too well rested for someone who'd consumed the equivalent of a small liquor store last night. But she was also one to recover from hangover quicker than I did, which explained why I never drank.
I glared at her and continued wiping the table, a little more vigorously than before. "Glad to see you're up. What finally did the trick? Was Mom singing in the shower again?"
She shuddered because lets just see Mom could rival the Fat Lady from Harry Potter in terms of her ability to damage one's hearing, sadly she still didn't realise that particular talent of hers.
Since Ree had crashed at my place, I'd let her sleep in after unsuccessfully trying to make her get up. Some cruel twist of fate had me taking an early shift today so I was sleep deprived and groggy still even after my coffee IV. I blamed Ree for this because not only had we gotten home after midnight but she'd made me regale the entire night's story for her and that I watched as she dissected it piece by piece.She'd arrived to the conclusion that Kyler had either been recruited by the CIA and that explained why he was so cagey about his past or that he was in the Witness Protection Program. Of course, it wasn't very likely that I was going to accept the theories of someone so drunk they tried to wash their face with toothpaste.
"Actually it was a text from Carter. He wanted to know how I was doing. Isn't that sweet?" She swooned.
"It is and it's also only the decent thing to do."
"You're so romantic." She rolled her eyes at me and grabbed a menu from Tricia, one of the other waitresses as she passed by.
"I texted you a bunch of times before coming here. Carter also mentioned that Kyler had my car dropped off at your house first thing in the morning with a full tank of gas." She went through the options like she'd actually order anything other than the waffles. "Why didn't you answer them? You could send him a thank you text as a way to start a conversation."
Even though the mention of his name made my heart stutter a little bit, I grabbed my notepad from my apron on the pretence of taking her order because I knew any minute now Dee would come grab me by the ear and I'd be chastised for 'yapping' on the job. She'd already tolerated two of my screw ups and not even her fondness for mine and Ree's friendship would stop her from ripping me a new one.
"My phone was dead when I woke up this morning and I didn't have time to charge it when I woke up. And, no I'm not reaching out to him like a level ten clinger."
She thumped her fist on the table, "You're not clinging! He was clearly into you last night and something forced him to leave early. Maybe if he'd stayed longer he would've just given you his number himself. Take some initiative Ells."
"I'm not becoming that girl who speculates what even a single twitch of the eye means from a guy okay? Now why don't you put away that menu and tell me you want waffles?"
She pouted, "Waffles please."
I nodded and turned to find my boss's eyes narrowed at me so quickly shuffled away from Ree. Literally, there was no way I could afford to be fired today, hot guy or not.
***
My back ached and my eyes struggled to stay open as I took a lunch break. Rarely did I do late nights and going through a full shift on three hours of sleep had me dreaming of my bed and getting out of this starchy uniform. But just a couple more hours and I'd be free to go home and snooze in a giant t-shirt. Plus Ree kept me company as I worked, recounting something or the other about last night while I waited tables and served. Today's crowd was definitely rough, lots of families with little kids who liked to make a mess. I'd spent more time on the floor, finding stray french fries than I had standing upright.
It was during one such clean up session that the bell above the diner's entrance chimed and I heard a chorus of voices. Great, more stingy customers who'd leave behind a generous two dollar tip. Finding the one rogue french fry, I got up from beneath the table and had just picked up the food tray when the huge group of girls, who I knew went to school with me and were probably freshmen, looked in my direction and started giggling like crazy.
Huh.
Ignoring them, I took the dirty dishes back to the kitchen and stopped to briefly check my appearance in a mirror. I looked fine, tired with massive dark circles but there was nothing on my face. My clothes were clean and ketchup free and I didn't have pieces of food stuck in my hair. So what was that about? Still confused I went back to take another order and found that the group of eight girls had found themselves a table and their eyes latched onto me as soon I as I walked back in. Heads turned in my direction and they began whispering amongst themselves, not even trying to hide the fact that they were blatantly pointing at me. Unfortunately they'd been seated in my section so I was forced to attend to them but I checked in with my best friend first anyway who had an equally annoyed expression on the face.
"Do we know them?"
She glared in the general direction. "Freshmen, the blonde with the crop top is my cousin's friend. Want me to have a word?"
If by word she meant pulling their hair and kicking them out of DeeDee's then no, I didn't want her to have a word. Ree was amazing but also had the mama bear tendencies of just that, a bear protecting her cubs and I didn't want to unleash her on those girls annoying as they were.
"No, it's fine. I guess I'll just find out when I take their order."
"Okay but I'm watching them." She narrowed her eyes and pointed two fingers towards them and then at her eyes. "They better not try to pull anything. Wait did that one just try to take a photo of you?" She nearly shrieked.
Sighing, I moved my tired feet towards the table where all the girl were busy typing on their phones and surely one of them had the phone up, like she was trying to take a photo but I couldn't be sure. So I plastered a fake smile on my face and took out my notepad.
"Hi, welcome to DeeDee's. What can I get you today?"
Silence. Okay then.
"Can I recommend our special triple cheese lasagne?" They looked genuinely offended by that so I tried suggesting cob salad instead.
They all just stared at me and the one who'd taken the photo early aimed her phone at me again and I was too taken aback to stop her.
"W-what are you doing?" I stepped back as the perpetrator went back to furiously moving her thumbs across her phone.
"I can't believe you got to make out with him?" One of them, the friend Ree had mentioned leaned forward and stared at me like I had a bad perm. "How'd you even get to meet him?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about?"
I knew we had some attention on us because Ree was watching and Dee's eyes were like a hawk, she never missed a thing, especially if she felt her staff was being harassed.
The little twerp rolled her eyes at me and nearly shoved her phone in my face. "It's all over TMZ's snapchat. You made out with Kyler Blackwell last night."
I thought she was kidding at first because surely, the words that came out of her mouth were too absurd to be real. Maybe she was at the party last night and had a crush on Kyler or something. I ignore the warning bell blaring inside of me . "Yeah right."
But then... sure enough there it was, a grainy photograph of me wrapped around Kyler's body with my tongue down his throat and his hands down my swimsuit. And all I could do was stare, look at myself like I was staring at a stranger because how could that be me?
I swayed on my feet a little.
"Did you know he's already got a girlfriend? They're costarring in their first film." Another one sneered.
"Everyone's talking about how he's going to get kicked off the film for cheating on Alyssa. I can't believe he'd do that."
I felt Ree's hand on my arm but I was too busy snatching the phone from blondie and taking a closer look. My hands shook as I pulled up the story that'd come up with the photos and felt bile come up my throat. It was indeed posted on TMZ about an hour ago and I struggled to make sense of the information. Words like actor, Hollywood, rising star and film franchise and lastly cheating popped up along with more photos of me in the hot tub, in various angles of the same position. One of them showed me rising out of the water and you could definitely see some butt cheek.
"What's going on here?" Dee's voice boomed as she came to stand next to me. "Are these girls bothering you Ella?"
It was the weirdest feeling, to see myself in those pictures and to see the way I'd latched on to Kyler and the possessive way he was gripping me. The fact that for some reason these pictures were circulating all over the internet made me feeling sick and the entire experience felt like an out of body one. I must have handed the girl her phone back and walked away quickly heading to the restrooms. I wasn't even thinking, just moving as I opened up one of the stalls and leaned over the toilet.
"Ella, hey are you okay?" Ree's concerned voice came from the other side of the door. "Let me in."
I felt absolutely gross and violated and thought I'd throw up but nothing came up. I found myself dry heaving and then sank to the floor because I felt so faint.
"Ells," She knocked against the door a few times, "let me in or I'll break down the damn door."
I leaned my head against said door and took a few deep breaths.
"Ree just call Carter and find out what the actual fuck is going on."
***
Carter paced back and forth in my living room and let out a few choice curse words that I wouldn't expect to come from his mouth. Curled up on the couch next to me, Ree watched bug eyed as he talked to whoever it was on the phone with him and squeezed my hand.
In the fifteen minutes it'd taken me to get out of the diner and drive home with Ree, Carter had arrived looking guilty and wrecked. It was only natural because the moment I'd seen him I'd nearly lunged at him trying to find out where Kyler Blackwell was so that I could kill him with my bare hands.
"Fucking drones." He slammed his phone on the table, "They had fucking drones over you guys."
I felt myself turn a little green. "But why? What did I do to deserve to have half naked photos of myself being circulated on the internet? And why are people calling me a home wrecking tramp?"
He cursed again and shot me an apologetic look. "I should've told you guys who exactly was throwing the party."
"You think? You said it was your uncle's house, not that your uncle owned one of the biggest production houses in Hollywood and that Kyler had just been signed on to act in one of the biggest film franchises since Harry Potter?"
I flinched, clearly she'd been doing her research while I was moping around.
"I had no idea that Ella and Kyler would..." he stopped himself from furthering my humiliation.
"Were you blind? Did you not see the two of them together? Couldn't you have warned me at least so that I could save my friend from a lying, cheating piece of crap?"
The harsh words made me flinch and the part of me that wasn't wallowing in embarrassment and hurt wanted to defend him but mostly I agreed. He was a lying, cheating piece of crap.
"Ree I'm so sorry, I had no idea it would get out of hand like this. We did everything to make sure there wouldn't be any paparazzi."
"Well, you should've worked harder because my best friend's face is currently splashed on every filthy gossip magazine there is and that's not okay. They can't spread shit like that about her."
"Guys please, stop fighting. That's not going to solve anything." Plus I hated that there were arguing because of me because they obviously genuinely were crushing hard on each other. "Can you just get on the phone with your cousin and ask him to get those photos taken down?"
"His phone's powered off and I've only managed to get through to his agent. None of them are picking up, Mason, Izzy or Uncle Matt."
"Is his mom okay?" I hated myself for worrying about him.
He shook his head. "She had a seizure last night and they're keeping her in the hospital for observation while she gets her scans done. That's what Robin, his agent told me."
Suddenly I felt horrible for wishing all the hell in the world onto Kyler Blackwell and said a little prayer for his mother. It didn't change the fact that because of him I'd suddenly gotten three thousand more followers on Twitter, all of whom were extremely descriptive in telling me what they'd do to me if they ever got a hold of me.
Of course, I deleted the app immediately.
"So he doesn't know about any of this?"
"Chances are he doesn't, not if he hasn't looked at his phone at all. It won't be in the tabloids till tomorrow so..."
"Basically I'm screwed."
"Robin's on it, he's contacting the site and threatening to sue them if they don't take the photos down. Apparently someone sold them to TMZ so he's trying to track down the photographer. Don't worry, he's just as invested in getting them taken off as we are. The production house will be pissed if this gets out of hand."
"And his girlfriend, don't forget the girlfriend." Ree added, muttering scumbag under her breath.
Carter opened his mouth to reply then closed it, the poor guy looked knackered. "Ella, I promise everything's going to be fine. This will all die down by tomorrow, all Kyler needs to do is be seen with Alyssa and people will stop talking. I'll stay in touch with Robin and see where we're at with the photos. Call me if you need anything." He looked pleadingly at Ree who chose to ignore him and I nudged her knee with mine because this wasn't really his fault.
"Fine. I will." She said as though she'd rather screw nails into her eyes and he left, shoulders dropping in defeat.
***
"How come we had no idea who he was?" I stared at my ceiling at the rotating fan and wondered for the thousandth time that day how I'd become that person who was completely out of touch with the world of pop culture. Sure I fangirled here and there, usually over Beyonce or Adele and that was pretty much it. I spent so much time working and studying that the only recreational time I had was devoted to my Kindle. Still, I wasn't blind to who was the current boyband of choice or which singer had the most stans. Music, I still kept in touch with but I couldn't say the same for movies.
"Because," Ree sounded as frustrated as I felt, "he hasn't actually starred in anything big yet. According to Wikipedia, his dad owns A&M Productions which is the studio behind everything from the latest Marvel Comics film to that show we were binging on,on Netflix. He's a pretty big deal."
"Okay."
"And his mom's a former model from the 90's turned fashion designer. Again, the label has underwear they sell for $900 so of course we don't know her."
"Obviously."
"Then there's the sister, Izzy, twenty-four years old, graduated from Columbia and currently works for her dad. There's nothing about Mason though, he's still in school but Kyler..."
"What?"
"He's had a few acting jobs ever since he was a kid, nothing major. Apparently his parents didn't want to detract him from his education. But he's done some commercials and a few guest roles. He didn't get his major break until last year when he starred in a Broadway adaptation of Orwell's 1984. The directer who was in the audience had just been signed on to direct a screen adaptation of a popular dystopian romance series."
I scrunched my nose, "Like The Hunger Games?"
She shook her head and pulled up her phone. "It's more like Twilight meets Divergent." She explained using examples of the few dystopian novels I'd read and I hadn't read many. "There's a love triangle but you also get divided up into factions depending on how pure your bloodline is and the girl, who's a direct descendent of the king falls for someone who's related to the king's slaves. It's all very tragic but Kyler managed to bag the lead role of Damian, the slave descendent."
"Wow, sounds complicated and cheesy."I found myself scrunching my nose and remembered why I didn't read more from the genre.
"It is and these girls are losing their minds over it. Not only that but ever since Alyssa Hargrove, the lead actress playing Simone and Kyler started hanging out, the entire fandom has gone into overdrive. The film's not even coming out till next year and it's already a trending topic on Twitter every other day."
"Huh, I guess I should read more dystopian novels."
"You could say that again."
"So what do you think's going to happen now?" I straightened up and leaned my back against the headboard, clutching my furry white throw pillow to my chest. "Will I have twelve-year olds coming after me with pitchforks?"
Ree did look slightly worried but what kind of friend would she be if she didn't lie to make me feel better. "Of course not. It'll all be fine," She waved her hand, trying to dismiss my worries. "All scumbag has to do is kiss his girlfriend in public and people will forget you even existed."
But life? Life was never that simple.
***
The next day was my only day off from DeeDee's so I took complete advantage of it by turning my phone off and hiding inside my blanket fort. Hopefully by the time I went back to work tomorrow, all evidence of my brief acquaintance with the famous Kyler Blackwell would either be gone from the internet or would be forgotten about in favour of an image of Kim Kardashian's butt or boobs or whatever part she chose to grace the internet with next.
When my stomach growled for sustenance, I made my way downstairs to scrounge up some breakfast and found Mom sitting on the kitchen island, holding up pieces of paper to her face and squinting painfully.
"What's up Mom?" She jumped at the sound of my voice, dropping the paper to the ground and clutched her chest.
"Don't sneak up on me like that?" She shook her head and took off her reading glasses. "You realise that in my old age, my heart doesn't do well with someone sneaking up on me."
I rolled my eyes as I bent down to gather the documents. "Please, you're forty-six, that's practically the new thirty and who else did you think it could be besides me?"
Wrong question.
We experienced that awkward lapse in conversation whenever I stuck my foot in my mouth and brought up my father, her husband and the man whose presence was very much felt in the house even after he'd left. It was harder on Mom than it was for me, possibly because she'd seen him be a different person than the one I'd been exposed to since birth. I didn't like knowing that she still missed him because he wasn't worth a second of her time.
Trying to get past that little faux pas, I glanced at the documents in my hands and felt my stomach plummet. The print was bold and clear, underlined for the purpose of clarity I suppose.
My hands shook as I continued to read, "Mom what is this?"
She sighed and her voice quivered, sounding watery as she tried to take the piece of paper from my hands. "Ella, honey."
"What is this?" I bit out the words.
I knew what it was, especially considering that I wanted to major in Finance and had taught myself enough to get the basics. Yes, I knew what foreclosure meant, I just hoped with everything I had in me that we weren't about to lose our house.
"How did this happen?"
Mom's face was as white as a sheet and her shoulders sagged with complete defeat as she leaned her elbows on the counter and bowed her head.
"I just can't do it anymore Elle. We bought this house relying on your dad's income. With him gone and this suddenly becoming a single parent household...I just don't make enough to pay the bills and cover the mortgage. This house, it's too much for us Elle and I tried so hard to make sure you didn't have to leave the only house you've ever known but I don't know how to get the money." Her shoulders start shaking and the sound of her quiet crying filled the room. I moved to comfort her despite all the emotions raging inside of me and tried telling her that it was all going to be okay. That we'd be fine, that it was okay if we had to move into a smaller place, this house was too big for us anyway. I tried to tell her all this but all I could do was wrap my arms around her.
So when the doorbell rang, I missed it the first time. When it rang repeatedly and Mom picked up her head and wiped her face, I unfroze and got back into problem solving mode. Okay, it was okay. I'd been here before and I could do it again. We'd nearly gone bust when I was a kid and we'd survived, Mom and I were capable of surviving anything if it came down to it.
I squared my shoulders, "Why don't you go splash some water on your face and I'll see who it is?"
She nodded, looking a little dazed and took some clumsy steps towards her room. I turned on the kettle for her to make some tea and collected myself.
The bell had been ringing persistently and added to my bad mood. "I'm coming would you stop for the love of God..."
I threw our door open and felt struck by a sucker punch and might possibly have swayed on my feet a little. Because surrounded by a sea of people in suits, stood a very dishevelled and tired looking Kyler Blackwell.
I blamed it on the fact that I'd just learned I was about to be homeless. No one really saw it coming, not even me because the next moment I found myself lunging forward and punching him right in the jaw.
I hoped it hurt him, scumbag.
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So the story's really going somewhere now! I apologise if the chapter seemed too fast paced but I don't want to drag the introduction out for so long. Predictions? Thoughts? Give me feedback <3
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Blair