CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

      I hadn’t expected to be sad to be checking out of The Hollywood, but after Jenny and I had bundled all of our bags into the back of the Mustang, I felt strange walking out of the doors for the last time.

      ‘Are you sure you’ve got everything?’ I asked a very hungover Jenny, who nodded back and draped herself delicately across the back seat, in between her cases.

      ‘Angie, I’m only moving, like, ten minutes up the road,’ she said from behind her hair. ‘If I forgot something, I think I can come and get it when I turn up for work here tomorrow.’

      ‘Did you speak to anyone about last night? Is everything still OK about you working here?’

      ‘Everything’s fine for me,’ she said, sipping from a bottle of water. ‘Joe got his ass fired so I don’t imagine I’m gonna have any hassle.’

      ‘He got fired?’ I hissed, watching Alex wander outside, looking around for us. ‘How come?’

      ‘I don’t think the management really like it when the staff get into a bar brawl with really famous movie stars. Or when they sleep with the guests.’

      ‘But he didn’t sleep with the guests,’ I said quickly as Alex waved and started over to the car. ‘And it was James that hit Joe. Not that I’m defending him, obviously.’

      ‘Obviously,’ Jenny said. ‘And, don’t get mad, but they think that because I told them he did. And it really doesn’t matter who started or finished the fight, this is Hollywood: celebrities are never guilty. He deserved it, Angie. Don’t start feeling all guilty now.’

      ‘I don’t.’ I was as surprised as she was. ‘He’s a complete shit.’

      ‘Yeah, he is.’ Jenny gave me a feeble high five. ‘Hey, Alex.’

      ‘Hey.’ He stood by the driver’s door. ‘Am I driving?’

      ‘Well she’s not.’ I looked back at Jenny, who was getting greener by the second. ‘And if I’m being totally honest, I don’t really fancy it. I have no idea where we’re going.’

      ‘Then I’m driving.’ He opened the door and dropped in beside me. I hadn’t ever really thought about it, but living in New York, I’d never seen Alex drive. I didn’t even know that he could, but as if he wasn’t amazing enough, he put on a pair of Ray-Bans, turned over the engine and pulled out onto Hollywood Boulevard.

      ‘What?’

      ‘Nothing,’ I smiled happily. ‘I just didn’t know you could drive.’

      ‘I guess there are still lots of things you don’t know about me,’ he said, slowing down for a red light. ‘And I guess there are lots of things I don’t know about you.’

      ‘Guys, pull over,’ Jenny groaned, batting me on the back of the head. ‘I’m gonna be sick.’

      ‘Well there’s one less thing not to know about, Jenny,’ I said, stroking her hair while she threw up into her handbag, trying not to think about what Alex could mean.

      ‘So, I’ll call you when we get back?’ I said to Jenny, carrying her bags into the living room. Daphne’s place was beautiful, all open plan, big windows and a terrace with a view out over LA. Maybe there was something to be said for having a sugar daddy.

      ‘Yeah, call me when you’re back at the apartment.’ Jenny propped herself up against the doorframe. ‘I guess I might need you to send some stuff.’

      ‘I suppose so,’ I said, thinking how weird it would be to walk in without her, not knowing when she would be home. If she would be home.

      Jenny slipped down the frame, buzzing her own door bell. ‘I have to be sick again.’

      ‘Do you want me to stay for a bit?’ I risked her puking down my back and went in for a hug. ‘I can stay if you want?’

      ‘I’m cool, go get your flight,’ Jenny said, falling on the bell again. ‘What is that noise? Angie, say you don’t hate me for staying here?’

      ‘Of course not, I do get it,’ I said reluctantly. ‘I just wish you didn’t have to be so far away to sort your head out.’

      ‘You could always move here with me for a while?’

      I looked back out at the car. Alex’s head was bobbing along to whatever he was listening to on the radio.

      ‘Or you could stay in New York with him.’

      ‘If he still wants me to after all of this,’ I said.

      ‘Jesus, Angie,’ Jenny let go of the doorframe long enough to slap me round the side of the head. ‘I’m gonna have to get more minutes on my call plan if I have to talk you out of this every time you guys have a row. You’re just gonna get in the car, fly back home, maybe fool around a little on the plane and then pretend that none of this ever happened.’

      ‘Sounds like a plan,’ I said, letting her out of the hug. ‘I love you, Jenny, you always know what to say.’

      ‘Yeah, well, that’s my thing,’ she said. ‘Love you too, Angie. You always know how to mess up and make me feel needed.’

      Walking back to the car, I tried not to cry but I couldn’t help it. When everything else had gone wrong in my life, Jenny had always been there to help me make sense of myself. What would happen now? And why was it so easy for us to throw around the reasons why we loved each other when I couldn’t say to the person who needed to hear it the most?

      ‘She OK?’ Alex asked, turning