closer and realized it was their apartment. Sure, a few photographers had figured out where they lived after following them home, but Trevor had always assured them that most people didn’t know.
Kate looked up. “Uh . . . Carmen?” she called.
“Brushing my teeth!” she yelled from the bathroom.
“Can you come out here and look at this letter?”
A few seconds later, Carmen came and took the letter and the map from Kate, her eyes quickly scanning the pages. “Oh no,” she said as she read. “Ewww.” When she was done, she handed the letter back to Kate as if it were contaminated. “You need to tell someone about this.”
“It’s not some random weird thing I can, like, ignore?”
Carmen shook her head. “That guy sounds like a stalker and he clearly knows where you live. Where we live. My mom’s had about five hundred stalkers, and trust me, they’re bad news. You need to get rid of him, stat.”
“Really? I mean, sure, it’s kind of weird,” Kate said. “But it’s not like he wrote ‘I’m outside your window’ or something.”
“Kate, people can be crazy. They watch the show and see you in your bedroom talking about your life and think that they know you.”
“I think you’re overreacting,” Kate said. “He’s just some weirdo—”
“Yeah,” Carmen interrupted. “He’s a weirdo. And angry weirdos are exactly the kind of people you want to be careful around. They can be dangerous.”
Kate, admittedly, had been sort of freaked out by the letter. But something about Carmen’s response annoyed her. Couldn’t she simply have a rabid fan? Why did he have to be some sort of threat?
“I don’t think—”
“You don’t need to think,” Carmen interrupted. Again. “Turn the letter in to Laurel and she’ll give it to whoever heads security at the network. If anything, they like to have these things on file.”
Kate couldn’t help herself then. She was annoyed and she lashed out. “Maybe you’re jealous,” she whispered. “Maybe you wish you’d gotten a letter like this.”
Carmen stared at her in disbelief. “Girl, if you think that, you are even more out of touch than the creep who wrote you that letter.” Then she turned and stomped away.
Kate looked at the letter again. It was written on scented stationery.
Love always,
J .B.
P.S. Hope to see you very soon.
She shuddered, and then pulled out her phone and texted Laurel. Immediately after that, she texted Drew. CRAZY FAN LETTERS. CARM SAYS I SHOULD WATCH OUT. CALL ME?
But Drew did better than call her. He left Rock It! right away and drove to her apartment, even though she tried to tell him that it wasn’t necessary.
The moment she opened the door and saw him, clutching a spray of daisies, standing there so tall and strong and reassuring, she couldn’t believe she’d tried to convince him (and herself) that he shouldn’t come.
It ended up being one of the best nights ever. They streamed Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash biopic, on Netflix, and cuddled on the couch. As Kate rested her cheek against Drew’s warm chest, feeling his arm tight around her shoulders, she thought about the irony of it all: how the very day that Carmen seemed to think she could be in some kind of danger was also the day that she felt the most taken care of. The most safe.
Kate looked up at Drew, and he looked down at her. They smiled at each other—wide, silly, happy grins. It was great.
And then they kissed, and that was even better.
In the parking lot of Hope Medical Center, the girls were miked and directed to stand near the building’s portico awaiting Gaby’s arrival. The sun felt blazingly hot; L.A. was in the middle of a freak January heat wave, and Carmen hadn’t dressed appropriately for it.
“I wonder if Gaby’ll get some kind of diploma,” Kate said. “My cousin’s kid got a diploma from her daycare.”
Wow. Was Kate trying to sound as dense as Gaby? “I got a diploma from driving school,” Carmen offered.
“All I got was a key chain that said ‘Stay Alive—Drive Fifty-Five.’ I mean, how old do you think that thing was? The speed limit hasn’t been fifty-five since before I was born.”
Carmen laughed. “It’s vintage! Maybe it’s worth something.”
“Doubtful. Anyway, I threw it away.” Kate squinted at the rehab. “When are they releasing Gaby?” she wondered.
“They probably already did,” Carmen said drily. “And Laurel’s making her wait on the other side of the door until Sophia arrives and we can film.”
“Did I hear my name?” Sophia hurried up to them in a cloud of lavender essence and kissed them both on the cheek. “So good to see you,” she said, giving Carmen’s arm a squeeze. “I wish Madison could be here, too.”
Yeah, I’ll bet you do, thought Carmen.
“This is such an important moment,” Sophia went on, beaming at them.
“Didn’t you spend some time in this place?” Carmen asked, referring to Sophia’s own rehab stint, which had begun not long after she’d joined the cast of L.A. Candy.
“No, I went to Promises,” she said breezily. “I learned so much there. It was a fantastic experience, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
“Any minute now, ladies,” Laurel called.
Carmen smoothed a strand of hair away from her face. She’d forgotten how much of filming was standing around, waiting. Movies were a thousand times worse in this regard, but at least you got a trailer to hang out in.
A long black town car pulled into the lot, right next to the PopTV van. A moment later, the back door opened and Trevor emerged. He gave the girls a nod and a half smile.
“What is Trevor doing here? He never comes to shoots,” Kate said.
“Only the really big ones,” Carmen corrected her. She wasn’t surprised to see their executive producer here. Not out of concern for Gaby, of course, but for the footage. This would be a crucial scene for the show, so it made sense that he’d want to keep a close eye on how it went.
She watched him as he walked over to Stephen Marsh, the new producer, and she was about to ask him if they could start filming before all their makeup melted off when she saw, out of the corner of her eye, a flash of red.
She looked back toward the town car and watched, in shock, as Madison Parker emerged from the backseat, in a fantastic scarlet Dolce, looking tan, thin, and triumphant. (A bit overdressed, but still—stunning.)
Sophia gasped.
Carmen watched with grudging admiration as Madison approached them. The girl sure knew how to make an entrance.
“Oh, shit,” Sophia whispered.
Carmen turned to her with a smile. She, for one, was glad Madison was back. They might not like each other that much, but no one could argue that Madison didn’t make things interesting. “Like my dad always says,” Carmen whispered back, “be careful what you wish for.”
“—And