James doesn’t think,’ Blake said. He might have been quiet but he was clearly furious. ‘I think. That’s my job. He acts, I think, you ask questions and then you go home.’
Apparently he would argue regardless.
‘And while you might not care about your job, your boyfriend and all that other crap, it is also my job to ensure that James keeps the things that important to him.’ He paused. ‘Don’t make it my job to ensure that you lose the things that are important to you.’
Meep. ‘Blake I—’
‘No,’ he went on. ‘I said from the beginning that this was a bad idea, and if Monday night wasn’t bad enough, here you are again with your slutty friends, all over James. It’s pathetic.’
OK, now I was annoyed. ‘Firstly, it was never my intention to end up splashed all over the internet with my knickers on show, you know; and secondly, please don’t call my friends slutty. You don’t know them, how dare you call them slutty?’
Blake leaned his head to the left to look around me and laughed.
I span around. Jenny was safely positioned within an inch of the Joe-a-like’s lips and Daphne was dancing with her man. Well, she was dancing; he was sitting. She was dancing in his lap. Oh my God, she was giving him a lap dance.
‘No, not slutty at all. You’ve been here, what? Twenty minutes?’ Blake curled his lip. ‘Yeah, I know you. I know all of you. Do you think you’re the first nobody to ever make a play for James?’
‘Blake, this is really boring. I’m getting very tired of repeating myself.’ I turned my back on my slutty friends. Couldn’t really fight him on that front. ‘No one is making a play for James.’
Trying not to wobble in my five-inch heels, I stood up quickly. ‘Jenny,’ I barked, not taking my eyes off Blake’s smug face. He wasn’t quite so handsome in the middle of a row. ‘Jenny, can I please have a word?’
She looked up, eyebrows knitted together in a silent plea to stay where she was.
‘Jenny. Bar. Now.’ I turned and marched. Perhaps it was a bit slow and, well, very uneven, but it was still a march.
‘Angie, honey, what are you doing to me?’ Jenny groaned, straightening her hemline as I dragged her through the crowd. For some reason, it didn’t magically part for us.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked, wrestling for an inch of the bar. ‘I’m there having a screaming row with Blake, he’s calling us a bunch of slags and I turn around and you’re practically at it with a stranger. And Daphne actually is.’
‘Damn,’ Jenny whistled, looking back at Daphne. A small crowd was forming around her, obscuring my view. Thank God. ‘She’s so sexy. It’s such a shame she didn’t keep up the burlesque.’
‘Jenny, pay attention, that is not the point I was getting at,’ I said, ordering a Diet Coke but knowing full well I was past the ability to sober up with the help of one soft drink. ‘I’m going to find James and say goodbye, then I’m leaving. I’ve got enough on my plate at the moment with Blake actively trying to ruin my life.’
‘Angie, I’m really sorry but I’m gonna have to go Oprah on your ass.’ Jenny pressed her lips into a thin line. ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’
I stared, a little bit shocked. ‘What’s wrong with me? I’m not the one getting off with a stranger in the middle of a bar—’
‘And I am, so what’s the problem?’ she asked, hands on hips. ‘And that’s not where I’m going so shut up and listen. Yeah, I get that those photos of you and James were hard to see but they weren’t real and everyone will get that. Your magazine, your mom, Alex. And I will not get into an argument about this, but if he doesn’t get it, if he never speaks to you again, then he is not worth getting this upset about, honey. Fact.’
‘But—’
‘No, I’m not done,’ she grabbed my Diet Coke and took a swig.’I have two more very important points to make. Firstly, what the hell has happened to my Angie? Why are you walking around whining and snivelling because your boyfriend is being an ass and a hot movie star is trying to get in your pants? Where’s the girl who broke a guy’s hand when she found out her boyfriend was cheating on her? Who got on a plane to New York without even giving it a second thought?’
‘Don’t know.’ I always had been very eloquent.
‘And secondly – and it is very, very important that you think about what I’m about to say.’ Jenny grasped my shoulders a little too tightly. ‘Your mom lives a long way away so she’s not here to explain one of life’s fundamental lessons to you. When a real-life hunk of a man makes a move on you, you let him. You know I like Alex, when he’s not being an asshole at least, but Angie, this is a genuine movie star. A drop-dead-gorgeous, prime specimen of a man. And he obviously wants you. What is wrong with you?’
‘Jenny …’ I protested feebly.
‘Has Alex called you?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I said.
‘And have you called him since I last asked you?’
‘No,’ I sipped the Diet Coke innocently.
‘Have you texted him?’
‘Yes,’ I admitted to the floor.
‘Then you have no excuses. You have to do this for me.’ She looked as though she meant it. I couldn’t think of a time I’d seen her look so committed to a cause. ‘OK, so you don’t have to sleep with him, but where’s the harm in dancing with him? Maybe making out a little? Alex will never find out. And besides, you’re in the middle of an argument, you’re practically on a break.’
‘Jenny, if I learned anything from Friends, and I did, it’s that being on a break doesn’t mean anything.’ I pulled my left foot out of my ridiculously high shoe and rested it on the cold floor for a moment. Ahh, sweet relief. ‘And besides, I told you, I’m going home. I have had far too much to drink tonight.’
‘Just dance with the man and let me watch,’ she pleaded. ‘If you’re going to guilt-trip me about making out with that guy back at the table, at least let me live vicariously through you.’
‘If you can tell me the name of that man, I will book you the honeymoon suite at The Hollywood.’ I gave her a moment.
‘John?’ she shrugged.
‘Not even close.’
‘Whatever, Angie.’ Jenny pointed to James as he wandered through the bar, looking for us back at the table. Looking for me. ‘Just one dance. And then you can leave. I’ll even take you home myself.’
‘Maybe that’s the problem though,’ I said, feeling a familiar tickle in my stomach. ‘If I dance with him, I don’t know if I’ll be able to go home.’
‘Awesome,’ Jenny grinned, pushing me away from the bar and pulling me back over to the table; in these heels, I was in no position to try and stop her.
Either the music was getting louder in the bar or I was getting steadily drunker, Diet Coke be damned. The bass pounded through the floor and up the slender stems of my heels. I really wanted to dance with James. Or go home to bed and conduct the rest of my interview with James over the phone. Or dance with James. Which was how I knew it was definitely time to go home. But Jenny dragged me onwards, back to Blake, ‘John’ and some random tiny brunette sat awfully close to my James. Not my James. Just James.
‘Angela,’ James held out a hand and pulled me down into the seat next to him with a bump. Jenny sashayed past Blake and set herself down, returning his filthy look with her own killer stare. I loved that girl. ‘Angela, Jenny, this is my friend, Tessa.’
The new girl, clad in denim hot pants, big boots and a baggy white T-shirt held out her hand, but it was so tiny,