Sugar and Spice_ An L.A. Candy Novel - Lauren Conrad [20]
The guy ran a hand through his curly auburn hair and smiled shyly. “Sorry, I should have introduced myself. I’m Oliver. I just started today, as an intern.”
“Cool. I’m Hannah, and this is Jane,” Hannah spoke up. “How’s it going so far?”
“Great. Except I screwed up Fiona’s coffee order this morning. I have to remember that she likes it half-caf, half-decaf—”
“With a touch of soy milk and a level, not heaping, teaspoon of raw honey,” Hannah finished. She and Oliver laughed.
Jane laughed, too—she’d started out as Fiona’s intern herself, and she’d been there, done that—except that Hannah and Oliver suddenly seemed barely aware of her existence. They were looking at each other and happily sharing what had become their private joke, in that electric, intimate way two strangers had when they were . . . well, connecting.
Hmmm, Jane thought. This might actually be a good thing. As far as Jane knew, Hannah needed a love life. . . . And then Jane remembered that the cameras were still rolling. Was Oliver miked? Had he signed a release agreeing to be filmed? Did he realize that his little flirtation with Hannah would air in front of millions of viewers?
Poor guy, he probably has no idea what he’s in for, Jane thought.
It was almost six o’clock when Jane found herself stuck on Sunset Boulevard, fighting bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic. Braden had texted her earlier and asked if she had time to meet him for a “good-bye drink.” The good-bye part of it had almost made her heart stop (she hadn’t heard from him since they spoke on the phone during the PopTV party last week, and she had no idea what was happening in his life), but then she had read further and seen that he had scored a role on a feature film. He was flying out to Banff in the Canadian Rockies for the shoot tomorrow and wouldn’t be back in L.A. for a couple of months.
Now, heading over to Big Wangs, the dive where she (and Scarlett) had first met Braden last summer, Jane thought about him and the stormy path their friendship had taken since that time. That first time they met, Jane had felt that same immediate connection between her and Braden that she had sensed between Hannah and Oliver—a connection that never went away, even after she found out that he had a sort-of girlfriend, Willow, and even after Jane started dating his best friend. Still, it was no excuse for her to cheat on Jesse with him, and she would never forgive herself for that, not only because of the pain she caused Jesse but because of the insane media frenzy that erupted afterward. Jane had been publicly humiliated by the awful headlines and the pictures, and Braden even stopped speaking to her for a while.
Now, finally, she and Braden were back on track as just friends. (Or whatever they were.) He had been kind to her during her last, really awful weeks with Jesse when Jesse was drinking so much and treating her so badly. He hadn’t tried to take advantage of the situation or the situation afterward, when Jane and Jesse were officially broken up. Jane had been on her own for over a month now, and Braden hadn’t made a move. Not even close. They’d continued to exchange phone calls and emails and texts, but they hadn’t met up.
Did that mean Willow was still in the picture? Or that Braden simply had no interest in Jane “that way”? Why did she even care? She was happy being single; it was soooo much easier than having a guy in her life.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden, unpleasant jolt; someone had bumped her car from behind. “What the hell?” she exclaimed, whirling around. She saw a flash of bright light, and then another—and then she realized that a guy in the passenger seat of the car in back of hers, a black SUV, was snapping her picture. He had a professional-looking camera and lens. God, he and the driver were paparazzi!
She turned back to the wheel, prepared to step on the gas (the traffic was starting to clear), when the SUV bumped her car again. Feeling a surge of panic, she picked up