Hello LAlaland (Lost in LAlaland) (3 page)

I felt my face heat and I spun around, almost running straight into the waiter who had returned with my drink. I took it, slipping him a ten-dollar bill from the hidden pocket in my outfit, and downed half the drink in a single gulp.

“Damn, woman,” Ashley said with a knowing grin. “You’re really making me miss liquor.”

Shrugging, I finished the drink and placed the empty glass on a blackjack table. “Would you rather play poker or dance?” I asked, ready to do something . . . anything . . . besides stare at Anthony Ricci all night long.

With an excited squeal—I’d forgotten how often she made that high-pitched shrieking noise—Ashley tugged my hand toward the middle of the tent. “Let’s dance!”

Though there was a dance floor, no one else was brave enough to get the party started. It was up to Ash and me, two former shy and awkward students, to do it. We made it to the middle of the floor as the deejay began to pump up the early 2000s music.
Stacy’s Mom
began to play over the speakers. It was the perfect song for Ashley, since her daughter shared that name. We burst out laughing and sang at the top of our lungs, jumping and dancing to the music.

By the time the song ended, we’d amassed a crowd around us. Everyone moved with enthusiasm, and I was transported back to the night of our senior prom.

The dress I wore was something I’d sewn myself, made of royal blue satin and black lace, and I’d opted for my new contacts instead of glasses. My body was starting to take a more feminine—and less boyish—form, and I was happy to have the opportunity to show off my newfound curves. Not surprising, no one interesting had asked me to the prom, and Ashley was in the middle of one of her many splits with Matty, so she, our friend Marci, and I decided to be each other’s dates. We’d even rented a limo and gone all out to get a hotel room at the Beverly Hills Hotel where the prom was being held.

The dance floor was packed with bodies, making it very difficult to squeeze in. Somehow, we worked our way to a corner and began to sway to the music, trying to be as invisible as possible. The music was loud and perfect—a variety from Gwen Stefani to Weezer to Nelly.

Just when I was ready to call it a night and rest my tired, sore feet, the deejay put on a new song. With the first notes of
All For You
by Janet Jackson, I was shoved right into the front of none other than Anthony Ricci. He caught me in his arms, steadying me against his chest. Oh sweet goddess Janet, Anthony
did
have a nice package, and I
did
want to ride it all night.

“I’m so sorry, Anthony,” I apologized, horror radiating in my voice more from the embarrassment of my erotic thoughts than the fact I’d fallen against him.

With a laugh, he shook his head to ward off my apology. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. Ashley Gard pushed you right into me,” he said with a laugh. I paused and looked up at him, hoping I wasn’t acting as ridiculous as I felt. “Are you okay? You didn’t twist your ankle, did you, Wini?”

“I’m fine,” I told him, though I knew I wasn’t. I could feel my ankle swelling more the longer I stood.

With a shrug, Anthony began to release me, but as soon as I put weight on my left foot, a sharp, shooting pain zipped through my leg. Fuck. I grasped his tux jacket to steady myself.

“Ah, shit,” he mumbled under his breath. “You can’t walk like this.” I tried to tell him I could, but he wasn’t buying it.

Bending down, he grasped under my knees and behind my back, scooping me into his arms. I was high off the ground and being whisked off the dance floor before I realized what had happened. I tried desperately not to grope at his muscled shoulders, but how could I not? I’d watched every ball game he’d played and had seen him shirtless several times, so I knew all the goodness of what was underneath that suit—a dusting of dark chest hair and a smooth, flat stomach.

When we reached an empty table, Anthony placed me in a chair and knelt before me, slipping my high heel off my swelling foot. “You’ve got a pretty nasty sprain, Wini,” he informed me, concern filling his beautiful eyes. “Let me go find you some ice.” Before I could beg him to stay with me and send one of his little jock groupies to fetch the ice, Anthony was off.

Ashley sidled over to me with a knowing smirk and a shake of her hips. “I’d apologize for shoving you, if it weren’t for the blush and goo-goo eyes you’ve been flashing since he saved you,” she bragged.

While I was pissed as hell about the ridiculous amount of pain swirling up my leg from my ankle, I was sort of liking where this was heading. “Do you think Anthony knows yet?”

“Do you think
I
know what?” Anthony asked with his sultry smile, which should’ve been illegal for any eighteen-year-old boy to possess, and pulled up a chair, taking his place in front of me. He lifted my swollen ankle onto his lap and pressed the cold compress, wrapped in a dish towel he’d procured from the catering staff, to my bare skin. My foot twitched, an involuntary response to the shock of the ice, and rubbed against what I could only assume was his dick—it was the right spot, anatomically speaking. He stilled and his grip on my leg tightened. Our eyes met in the dimly lit room, flickering back and forth between colorful irises and delicious-looking mouths.

“So,” he finally spoke, clearing his throat. “Do you have a ride home tonight?” I snapped my eyes away from his lips to see him looking a little guilty and more than a little turned on. He pressed the ice to the other side of my ankle, and the chill made my foot twitch again. This time, when my foot rubbed over his now hardened dick, I was almost convinced he’d done it on purpose.

“Um, Ashley, Marci, and I are staying here,” I uttered as my breath came out in sharp pants. The smile dropped from his face.

“Oh, okay . . .” he mumbled, trailing off and looking down.

“Thank you, though, Anthony,” I told him, offering the most confident smile I could manage when he looked back up. “You’re very sweet to help me like this.”

With a shrug, he found a bit of his grin once more. Damn, if he wasn’t the most beautiful guy on the planet. Anthony was Italian and unafraid to show it. Even his strong, Roman nose showed the world that he demanded respect. I’d love nothing more than to dance around the room with him like a princess at a grand ball with a handsome prince. He’d make all my dreams come true. For heaven’s sake, I’d been in love with him for four years! Four long years.

“Don’t worry about it,” he assured me. “Anything for a friend.” He added a wink at the end, and I wasn’t sure how to take it. He probably meant that we weren’t really friends, which was true of course.

“Baby?” a nasal voice spoke up behind him. We both cringed at the same time. Samantha Braden had a particular way about her that made girls want to slap her and guys want to screw her—or something like that, anyway. “Are you done helping her? I’m ready to dance again.”

Part of me wanted to snap at her that she should go dance by herself, but it wasn’t my place to do that. She was his girlfriend, after all. I pulled my leg back from his lap, and let my eyes fall to his crotch. The hard dick must have just been my imagination, or maybe Samantha’s sudden appearance had made it shrivel up instead. I liked to think it was the latter.

I was such a child then. Why would a girl want a prince to make her dreams come true when she could be Queen of her own destiny?

“Winn! Ash!” Our names were cried out in glee before we were wrapped up in a tight embrace. Marci Levine was my favorite person on earth. Even though she’d grown up in the exclusive Hidden Hills community, she had attended Westlake High with us. Born into money, Marci had lived in comfort her entire life and had never wanted for anything—as was the story of most of our lives here in exclusivity.

Marci was the only friend from high school with whom I still kept in touch, and she often came to New York to visit me. A professional socialite, Marci was a spectacular advocate of my work, sporting my label in her daily life. She was a walking, talking, paparazzi-attracting billboard for me, and I loved her even more for it.

She and her boyfriend, Astin, had moved to West Hollywood a month ago and were loving life together. He’d earned his fame as a singer on Broadway and had recently been cast as the lead in a movie. Marci had been so excited when she first met him that she called me up in the middle of Fashion Week in Paris to tell me. I hadn’t had a chance to meet him yet due to our conflicting schedules, but I was promised a chance during this visit.

“Mars!” I exclaimed, clutching her close to me. It had been a few months since I’d seen my girl, and I was so happy that we were together again. Ash wrapped her arms around us both, hugging tightly to the bond of old friendship that would never be what it once was.

“You girls have been dancing without me?” Marci questioned with faux anger, jabbing at us with her perfectly manicured nails. I laughed in relief at our easy banter and joyful reunion.

“How’s Astin, Marci?” Ash asked her with a suggestive smirk. Marci blushed scarlet to the tips of her bleached blonde hair before releasing a wail of excitement and thrusting her left hand in my face.

“Holy rocks!” I shrieked when my eyes landed on the humongous diamond that decorated her ring finger and yanked on her hand so Ash could see also.

“Well, he certainly knows what he’s doing,” Ash said, wiggling her eyebrows.

Marci’s smile lit up the room, and she threw her arms around us again. “I guess you have a wedding dress to design,” she said with sparkling light in her eyes.

I wanted to talk dresses, talk weddings, and excitement, but the school’s queen bees were still living in a past where they ruled the world. Control of the event’s proceedings was the name of their game. Samantha Braden took the stage and tapped the microphone, causing terrible, screeching feedback to echo in the room. Everyone cringed at the noise, and I stepped out of Marci’s embrace.

Samantha looked . . . different. She’d gained some weight, and there was no doubt she’d had plastic surgery done, which didn’t surprise me in the least. That was another thing about Westlake—people who stayed got lost in their routines and followed what their mothers had done and their mothers before them. It began with a nose job at sixteen and ended with a sixty-year-old who thought she looked thirty, but really looked sixty-five. It had been the same story for decades.

“Welcome to our ten-year reunion!” Samantha shouted into the microphone. A cheer rang through the crowd. Former jocks, cheerleaders, band geeks, choir kids, and drama clubbers all huddled together in the center of the dance floor. Lines and cliques had blurred with age, and I was beginning to feel excitement bubbling in me, belying the professional, successful woman I was. So I straightened my shoulders, cleared my throat, and pulled myself back to reality.

“Thank you all for being here. I know some of you had to travel a very long distance—I’m talking to you, Miss Amy Rogers, who has been on a humanitarian mission in Japan since the tsunami. Look at all you pretty people—yes, you, Tony Ricci! You know what I’d like to do to that beautiful face of yours?” I stifled a chuckle that threatened to escape my lips. Samantha was definitely on something. Maybe it was pain killers from a recent cosmetic surgery, or perhaps it was alcohol . . . maybe it was both. Probably.

Another woman walked onstage and tried to pull the microphone from Samantha’s grasp, and a light struggle ensued, but she finally got it away. “Hi, all,” the woman said with a sheepish smile. “Tiff Adams here.” Miss Second-in-Command to Samantha Braden. “Let’s just get back to dancing, shall we?”

The crowd cheered again as the energy returned. The girls and I, however, turned and found a poker table while everyone else danced.

As the night wore on, I decided to head back to my room. It was already eleven in LA, which meant it was two in the morning in New York. Exhaustion was overtaking my body, so I made my excuses to the girls, promising to see them the next day, and took the long way through the gardens toward the hotel doors.

The floral scents of the flowers were intoxicating and wafted on the light, calm breeze that ruffled my clothing.

“You know,” a rich, deep voice called out as I bent to inhale the scent of a peony—my favorite flower. I jumped and spun around. He walked over, studying my face closely in the faint light of the tiki torches lining the pathway. “I knew you were more familiar than just a picture in a magazine.” I raised my eyebrow in challenge and turned to walk on. “Why didn’t you tell me it was you, Wini?” he asked, his voice sounding hurt.

I glanced back at him with my eyebrow still arched. He was playing right into my plan. “I didn’t realize that we’d be at the same event,
Tony
,” I said, exaggerating the name that he’d told me. When he rolled his eyes, I knew he wasn’t buying my excuse. “Besides, why would I think that
you’d
remember me?”

“You’re hair has changed and you look different—sophisticated—but I don’t know why
you’d
think I’d forgotten you.” We stared at each other for several long moments, drawn into a world of memories and unknown answers. “The offer still stands, though,” he insisted. “Even if I feel like a prick for trying to pick you up at an airport.”

“Was that what you were trying to do? Pick me up?” I questioned with a laugh. He nodded and looked down, so I gathered up my courage from all the years of successes I’d had and put my plan into motion. As he tilted his head in the direction of the bar sitting just inside the hotel, I spoke up. “Can I buy you a drink?” I asked, hoping he couldn’t read beyond the overtly sweet smile I plastered to my face.