April sat forward, clasped her hands around her beer glass. “Does she still notknow?”
“Know what?” Leigh asked.
“That Ramona here is a costume design hopeful,” April said.
“Of course she knows,” Olive said. “How could she not? She’s your girlfriend.”
Ramona sat back, huffed a breath. “That’s the third time I’ve heard that word today, yet Dylan and I have never used it.”
“But she is, right?” Olive said.
“Summer fling?” Leigh asked.
Ramona sighed. “I don’t knowwhatDylan and I are exactly, and now, with this assistantship, I just…” She took a sip of beer. “It feels complicated.”
“What’s complicated?” April said. “You like her, she likes you, and you want to work in costume design.”
“Which I very pointedly hid from her when we first met,” Ramona said, “because I’m an idiot and had no idea I’d be making out with her a few weeks later—”
“More than making out,” April said, waggling her eyebrows like a cartoon character.
“And now, if I tell her the truth,” Ramona barreled on, “it just looks like I was hiding it.”
“Youwerehiding it,” Leigh said. “Pointedly.”
“Yes, thank you,” Ramona said.
Leigh lifted their glass in salute.
Ramona rubbed her temples. “I need to tell her, but she’s sensitive about this.”
“About what?” Olive asked.
Ramona let her hands flop to the table. “About people she dates using her for her fame and connections.”
God, it sounded so horrible when she said it out loud. She’d told herself a million times over the last few weeks—and at least a thousand since this afternoon—that she wasn’t doing that. Yes, hanging out with Dylan might have started like that, a way to possibly meetNoelle, but then Dylan asked her out and they kissed and slept together and went on dates and Ramona had barely thought about costume design in the last few weeks.
Barely.
“You mean like Jocelyn Gareth?” Olive asked.
Ramona frowned, Dylan’s most recent ex’s name settling heavy in her stomach. “What about Jocelyn?”
Olive rolled her eyes. “You need to read PopSugar more often.”
“I’d say less is best,” Leigh said.
“Jocelyn got a recording deal with Evenflow Records,” Olive said. “Jack Monroe’s label? And she did it all behind Dylan’s back. I mean, allegedly. But that’s what the whole rooftop party and helicopter mess was about. At least, that’s what social media says.”
Ramona just blinked, glanced at April. “Did you know about that?”
April shook her head. “No. I mean, I knew about the helicopter—everyone knows about that—but I never heard about the record deal thing.”
Ramona felt sick. A few weeks ago, on that walk through the woods, Dylan had talked about people using her—even lovers and friends—but she hadn’t mentioned any specifics. Ramona had no clue it was Jocelyn. And she had no idea it had anything to do with Dylan’s father.
Suddenly, Dylan’s reaction to her parents showing up a couple of weeks ago made a lot more sense.
“Oh my god,” Ramona said, her throat going thick.
