I can’t maintain eye contact anymore, because I don’t have a different idea. I rub my throat and wonder how I lost my mojo.
If pretending to date a girl I don’t know, who doesn’t like me, gets it back, then I’ll be the best boyfriend that this chick has ever had.
Which can’t be hard considering her current one is named W.
*
I get home an hour later to find a half-dressed couple making out on my bed.
I stand there in the doorway for a second, trying to figure out what the hell is going on, but the skinny blonde on my California king mattress notices me and unleashes an ear-piercing shriek.
“Oh! My! God! You’re Oakley Ford!”
Then, wearing nothing but a short skirt and skimpy bra, she flies off the bed and launches herself at me.
My man Tyrese appears out of nowhere and steps in her path.
Anger and annoyance swirl in my gut as I peer at the guy on the bed. I vaguely recognize him—I think it’s one of Luke’s friends. But why is he in my bedroom?
He zips up his pants and scrambles off the bed. He’s either drunk or high or both as he slurs, “Oak, bro. You’re home early. Luke said you wouldna be back for a couple hours.”
As if that makes it okay that he’s fooling around on my bed?
I’m so disgusted I can’t even answer. I just jerk my head at Tyrese, who clamps one meaty hand on the girl’s arm and his other meaty hand around the guy’s shoulder.
“Time to go,” my bodyguard announces in his baritone voice.
“No, wait!” the blonde whines. “I just wanna get a picture with Oakley! Oakley, I’m your biggest fan! I love you! Can I please get—”
Her pleas fade away as Tyrese drags the couple down the sweeping marble staircase.
I hear a door click and turn to find a member of my cleaning staff stepping out of one of the guest rooms. “Is everything all right, Mr. Ford?” she asks with a timid expression.
“Everything’s fine.” I hook my thumb at my bedroom. “Burn those sheets,” I say curtly, and then I stalk past her toward the east wing, where Luke has been crashing for the past few days.
I throw his door open without knocking. “Get out,” I snap.
Luke was sprawled on the bed watching TV, but now he bolts to his feet, his panicky gaze finding mine. “Oak,” he says weakly. “You’re back early.”
“Yeah, I am,” I bite out. “And now it’s time for you to go.”
“But...” He’s visibly gulping. “Come on, man, I already told you, I’ve got nowhere else to stay while my place is being fumigated.”
“Not my problem anymore.”
“Oak—”
“Why the hell are there strangers in my room, Luke? We had an agreement. I give you a place to crash, you don’t invite people over without running it by me first.”
“I know, I’m sorry. It was a stupid thing to do, bro. But Charlie’s girl is, like, obsessed with you, and it’s her birthday, and Charlie just wanted to show her your room. You know,” he says feebly, “like a birthday present.”
I gape at him. Does he expect me to buy that?
“How much and how many times?” I ask in a flat voice.
Luke gulps again. “Wh-what?”
“How much do you charge ’em for the experience of screwing in Oakley Ford’s bedroom, and how many times have you done it?”
When the tips of his ears turn red, I know I’m right. And now all the disgust I feel is directed at myself. I should’ve known Luke would screw me over eventually. They always do.
I met him a couple years ago at the studio. I was rehearsing with the house band, he was playing bass guitar, and we hit it off instantly. We liked the same music, same video games, same everything. The two of us ran wild in the LA club scene for a while there. I invited him to go on tour with me. But these last few months, Luke’s turned into a leech. Borrowing money from me, getting me to sign stuff he can sell online.
And now this? Yeah. I think this “friendship” has run its course.
“Forget it, don’t answer that,” I mutter. “Just get your stuff and go.”
“Don’t be like that, bro.”
My patience is nonexistent. “D,” I call over my shoulder.
Big D appears behind me. He crosses his enormous arms over his enormous chest then proceeds to glare daggers at Luke until the bassist sighs in defeat and starts gathering up his belongings.
With my bodyguard handling the sitch, I march off and take the stairs two at a time. This day just keeps getting worse and worse, starting with the meeting with my new fake girlfriend, a chick with a smart mouth and a chip on her shoulder, and ending with yet another person I considered a friend showing his true colors.
I’m seething as I burst into the media room on the main floor and grab a beer from the fridge. Yeah, I’m underage, but there’s been booze, drugs and girls at my disposal for as long as I can remember.
I twist open the cap and heave myself onto the leather sectional. It’s only five o’clock and I’m legit ready to call it a day.
Tyrese pokes his shiny shaved head into the room and grunts, “All taken care of, Oak.”
“Thanks, Ty.” I take a swig of beer and click the remote.
“D’s heading out,” he tells me.
I nod. Both my bodyguards stick to me like glue during the day, but only Ty sticks around on the nights I go out or have people over. Big D actually has a wife and kid. Ty’s single.
“Lemme know if you need anything.”
“Thanks.”
After he disappears, I turn up the volume and do some channel surfing, but nothing holds my interest for very long. I watch ten minutes of a documentary about komodo dragons. Five minutes of some crappy sitcom. A few minutes of sports highlights. A few seconds of the five o’clock news, which is just long enough to bum me out, so I quickly change channels again.
I’m about to turn off the TV altogether when a familiar face catches my eye. The channel I’m on is playing TMI, a mindless show where two asshats watch paparazzi footage and offer color commentary on it. The screen shows a tall, willowy blonde in skintight jeans and a flowy blue top leaving LAX airport.
That blonde is my mother.
“—and not too concerned about her son’s latest scandal,” the male host is saying.
Wait, I have a latest scandal? I scan my brain trying to think of what I’ve done lately, but I come up blank.
A melodic giggle pours out of the surround sound. I know that giggle well.
“Oh, pshaw! My son is a healthy, red-blooded nineteen-year-old. If making out with a pretty and legal-age girl outside a nightclub is a crime—”
Right. That scandal.
“—then go ahead and lock up half the teenage boys in this town,” my mother finishes. Then she pops her oversize sunglasses over her eyes and slides into the waiting limo in the airport pickup area.