I swallow nervously, thinking about the NDA he made me sign.
Is he talking about me right now? Does he think I’m just doing this because I want to be famous and I think I can use him to do it?
All of a sudden, I understand what people mean when they say their blood ran cold. I know this is purely a business arrangement, rather than a fledgling relationship, so it shouldn’t really matter what he thinks of me, but it does. It matters. And I don’t want him to think I’m using him when I know I’m not.
“I’d hate being famous,” I tell him, slightly more clumsily than I’d have liked. “I’d hate not knowing who I could trust.”
His beautiful eyes meet mine.
“That’s the worst thing about fame,” he says, bitterly. “One of the worst things, anyway. Being popular isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“Yeah, I know.”
He looks at me in surprise.
How could you possibly know that?his look says.What would you know about popularity?
“I’m notuniversallydisliked, you know,” I say, nudging him indignantly. “I might not befamous, but I was pretty popular back in the day. I had a lot of friends. Just… just not many who actuallyknewme.”
I falter, feeling shy.
That was a bitover-sharey.I’ve obviously been in California too long.
Jett, however, is nodding his agreement.
“I get that,” he says. “That’s my life, right there. I guess it has its compensations, though, so I can’t really complain.”
“Oh, I would,” I assure him, laughing softly. “I’d complain all the time. I love a good complaining session, though. It’s one of my toxic traits. Or so I’ve been told.”
“Who told you that? Your boyfriend?”
Okay, there’s no mistaking it this time. He’s definitely fishing for information. I mean, hehasto be, right? There’s no other explanation. And if he’s trying to find out if I’m single, then that must mean…
No. No, it can’t possibly. Youhaveto stop this, Lexie.
I take a deep breath to steady myself before I answer him.
“You don’t seriously think I’d have agreed to this… thisthing… if I had a boyfriend, do you?”
I speak teasingly, surprised by how steady my voice sounds given that my insides currently feel like they’re trying to learn the Highland Fling.
“No,” Jett says, equally causal. “But there could be someone back home waiting for you, I guess? Or someone you’dliketo be waiting for you?”
His gold-flecked eyes don’t stray from my face. I almost hate him for being so beautiful. It’s blatantly unfair. Having this conversation with someone who looks like him makes me feel like I’ve brought a knife to a gunfight. I should just put my hands up and surrender before he completely disarms me.
“There’s no one waiting for me,” I say, the hard truth of those words making them difficult to get out. “I’m not… well, I’m not very easy to fall in love with, let’s put it that way.”
I try to give the statement a definitive,let’s stop talking about thiskind of tone, but Jett isn’t done messing with my head just yet, apparently.
“I think it would be very easy to fall in love with you, Lexie,” he says, so quietly I think I must have misheard.
Before I can ask him, though — or even work outhowto ask him — he steps back from the wall, and puts his hands in his pockets, his expression giving nothing away.
“Come on,” he calls back to me as he walks away. “Let’s go look at the statue.”
Chapter 16
The statue Jett’s referring to is the disembodied head of James Dean, which sits off to one side of the Observatory, with the Hollywood sign providing the perfect backdrop.
