Sugar and Spice_ An L.A. Candy Novel - Lauren Conrad [29]
But why was he asking her about some guy?
“I had a dentist’s appointment this morning,” Liam explained.
“O-kay. Are we subject-surfing now?”
“I was reading this magazine in the waiting room. There was a picture of you and Jane leaving some restaurant with two dudes.”
Uh-oh. “Um, don’t you remember?” she said casually. “That was the dinner you bailed on because you were meeting some director. Those ‘two dudes’ are Caleb and Naveen. Janie and I went to high school with them.”
“Oh . . . right.”
“I told you about it. Naveen’s the one who goes to UCLA. I told him you went there, too.”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry, sweetie. Just forgot.”
“Anyway, I haven’t seen the picture, but you know those stupid photographers. They love to take something totally innocent and make it look like something totally scandalous.”
“Yeah, I know. I guess this means you don’t have a secret boyfriend, then.”
“Nah. I can only handle one secret boyfriend at a time,” Scarlett joked. She reached over and kissed his cheek, then his ear, then let her lips trail down his neck.
Liam grinned. “If you don’t stop that, I’m going to crash the car.”
“Mmm, whatever.”
“Okay, I’m stopping the car right now.”
As Liam put the car in park and pulled Scarlett into his arms, kissing her, she felt a little bad that she still hadn’t told him the whole story about Naveen. But maybe she had missed her window of opportunity? Liam had just asked her about Naveen, and she had just told him there was nothing going on (which was true), and if she brought up the Hendry’s Beach incident (which was ancient history) . . . well, it might sound like a bigger deal than it was. Better to leave that story where it belonged: in the past.
Chapter 11
Boys
Jane sat at the bar of Dominic’s, twirling the cherry around her Dirty Shirley and staring absentmindedly at the Dodgers game on TV. Caleb was meeting her at six, and she was early. Which was good, because it gave her some time to sort out her thoughts. She felt more scattered than usual lately, with everything happening at work, on the show, and with all the boys she’d sworn to take a break from (but hadn’t).
Like Caleb. What was she doing, meeting him for a drink? He had texted her this afternoon, asking if she was free tonight, and she had replied yes without thinking. She’d told herself later that it was just a drink, no biggie, and that she would go home afterward, alone, so she could take a long, hot bubble bath and turn in early in preparation for two work events over the weekend and a business trip to Las Vegas on Monday. She hadn’t seen Caleb since dinner with him, Naveen, and Scarlett two Fridays ago, although they had talked on the phone and IM’d. Unfortunately, he had managed to get on Trevor’s radar, probably because of those tabloid pictures from STK—Trevor had asked Jane about him and whether or not they were “reconnecting” these days, which translated into “can we send cameras to get some footage of you flirting (or more) with your very attractive ex-boyfriend?” Jane had no interest in dragging poor Caleb into the wonderful world of reality TV, so she would hold Trevor off for as long as possible.
As for Braden . . . she’d gotten a couple of friendly (just friendly-friendly—not romantic-friendly) emails from him since he left for his shoot in Banff. Their night together had been amazing—they’d made out and watched silly movies on cable and fallen asleep in each other’s arms, and woken up at 6 a.m. so he could pack for his trip and race off to LAX. Their good-bye had been short and sweet, with no what does this all mean? or where do we go from here? analysis. As always with Braden, it was all unspoken . . . below the surface . . . and so incredibly complicated.
Of course, since then, Jane often found herself wondering: What did this all mean, and