No Strings Attached (34 page)

Jared snapped his fingers. A waiter materialized. “We need a couple chairs.” Like he'd let Lindsay sit between obnoxious Austin and lecherous MK.

Once they were settled at the end of the booth, Jared was happy. Lindsay, Julie, Caitlin, and Ava traded fruity martinis
and girl-talk—shopping, designers, and who-was-screwing-who gossip. Lindsay fit in as if she'd never missed a beat.

The guys, meanwhile, sucked down shots of Patron and debated cars, clubs, clothing, the Bruins, the Trojans, and who had seats nearer to Nicholson and Spike Lee for the Lakers this year. The winner should have been Jared: Galaxy owned an entire row. But since Austin's dad had a hit movie, and MK's banker-mom had just struck foreign gold, it was likely he'd be grubbing off them.

“How's summer school treatin' ya?” MK asked. “Making up those suck-grades?”

“I'm multitasking,” Jared replied, “making up the grades and making deals for my dad's agency.”

Hearing him lie so smoothly, Lindsay pursed her lips and playfully pinched his cheek.

Jared was about to kick her, but just then, Julie got their attention. “Guys, look who's on the dance floor! She never comes here. Must be celebrating something.”

Eight heads turned. The
Sports Illustrated
cover model and a few girlfriends were dancing to the Black Eyed Peas' “My Humps.”

“She's
so
had work done,” catty Caitlin sniffed. “Check the forehead.”

Ava wasn't sure. “No wrinkles, but isn't she, like, twenty-two?”

“Your point?” Caitlin was clueless.

Jared chuckled. Ya gotta love superficial, especially here in Hollywood, where it goes deep.

Lindsay, quaffing apple martinis, sparkled, burbling about her coup, unearthing this amazing script
and
going for her audition next week.

“You rock, girl!” Austin cheered her on.

“That's our Linz, right back in the game. You are so my hero.” Tripp waved his arms worshipfully. Bro was drunker than usual. That's what ticked Jared, not the fact that a girl Tripp hadn't mentioned once in three years was suddenly “our” Lindsay. He ordered another Patron.

Julie, suffering attention deficit disorder
and
acute affluenza, was over the actress on the dance floor and on to the Birkin bag on the floor by Lindsay's feet. She gushed, “I am so all about that Hermès! That's the ostrich leather in African violet. It's, like, seven thousand dollars, but the waiting list is impenetrable. How'd
you
get it?”

“I actually got it for free, off my agent,” Lindsay said brightly, ignoring the implication.

“Amanda Tucker just
gave
you a seven-thousand-dollar bag?” Caitlin said suspiciously. “No way.”

Ava arched a designer-plucked eyebrow.

“Amanda used it as a dog carrier,” Lindsay breezily enlightened them. “Yesterday, the fart-faced runt took a dump in it. She
was gonna throw it out. Instead, I had it cleaned.” She hoisted the bag onto the table and unclasped it. “Smell anything?”

The group burst out laughing, Lindsay the loudest. Jared hugged her impulsively. Only later would he figure out how she'd “had it cleaned.” She'd talked Sara into doing it.

More celebs, starlets, rappers, hip-hoppers, heiresses, and scions arrived. Lindsay kept an eye on the door, making sure everyone who used to know her saw that she was back. And in fine form!

She was flirting when Jared got up to let Austin and Ava get by—they were going to table-hop, glad-hand everyone they knew—and a stab of dread shot through him. What the hell was Adam Koenig, the kid he was paying to do his school assignments and take his tests, doing here? He was a nobody! The nobody who, if he came over to their table, could blow his cover to all his friends who believed he spent his days in summer school.

Jared stalked over to him. Best nip this little glitch in the bud, keep his secret tucked safely away.

Austin and Ava were in the deejay booth by the time he got back to their table, the dance floor was jammed, the music crankin'. A couple of semiclad women had already begun high-stepping on the tables as the dance version of a Christina Aguilera song came on.

Lindsay, totally tipsy by that time, massaged the back of Jared's head with her fingertips, bleating her rendition of the song into his ear. “‘You are so se-
duce
-able, baby.'”

Luckily, the decibel level had shot up to deafening, so no one else heard. Jared, a little sloshed and a lot relieved that he'd taken care of his problem—Adam and friends were gone—gazed into her smoked-glass eyes and touched her soft dusty-pink pillow lips. She licked his finger and giggled. “‘Yes, just
so
se-
duce
-able, baby…'”

“Linz!” Julie bopped up on the booth cushion and hoisted her skinny bod onto the thick glass tabletop. “Come dance with us.”

Caitlin followed, and soon the two of them were shimmying to Rod Stewart's “Hot Legs.” Lindsay was into it. Her skirt, Jared couldn't help noticing as he helped her up, was awfully short.

As if magnetized, their table was instantly surrounded by a dozen guys. “Shake ya tailfeathers,” someone yelled out, clapping as the music morphed seamlessly into tunes by Mariah Carey, Akon, Kanye West.

“Go, ladies! Go, ladies!” MK stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled.

Outkast's “Hey, Ya” came on, and a girl atop a table across from them shouted, “Hey y'all—what about us? Can we get some love?” She and her girlfriend, in matching booty-shorts
and sky-high Jimmy Choos, bumped hips together as the room egged them on and the song encouraged.
Shake it, shake it, shake it like a Polaroid picture, shake it, shake it!
And to the guys' delight, the dancers did just that.

“Oh, yeah?” Caitlin crowed. “Watch this!” She, Julie, and Lindsay did a highly suggestive bump and grind.

“Chick dance smackdown!” someone yelled.

From the far side of the room, another trio wanted in on the action. The group on the dance floor didn't want to be left out. For the next frenzied half hour, Spider Club became an elite rave scene with the whole crowd sweatin', singing, doing shots, and mostly dirty dancing at the urging of dance club favorites.

Lindsay was having a blast. Her rat-ta-tat-tat howl pierced the room.

God, Jared had missed her.

Out of nowhere, a lace thong flew through the air. He grabbed it. Linz—? But no, it belonged to Julie, now crooking her finger in a come-to-me motion.

Never gonna happen,
he thought, pitching the panties to Austin, who'd come back to support his “team.”

Caitlin had ripped off her bra and tossed it into the air. MK caught it and hung it on his ear, like a doofus. Lindsay wasn't wearing a bra. Jared hoped she wasn't drunk enough to—

“Your ex-girlfriend is smokin'!” raved Tripp. “Just how ex is she?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Tripp leaned in, “can I have a go?”

“No!” Jared exploded.

Tripp held his palms up. “Whoa, sorry, bro, no need to get your boxers in a knot. I thought you two were over—”

“We are!” Jared shouted over the music, “But … she's … plastered! I don't want her taken advantage of, that's all.”

“Help me up, you guys!” It was Ava, a little late to the dance party, now wanting in on the tabletop action.

If he hadn't been so pissed at his friend, Jared might've thought twice about the wisdom of four girls on one glass table. Ava, it turned out, didn't “go lightly” at all.

A half second later, she was up.

The table? Not so much.

A loud crack blasted through the room, accompanied by panicked screams. The table split in half, as if someone had karate-chopped it down the middle. Shrieking, the four girls slid to the center, crashing into one another. Julie's heel hit the halved glass first and hardest, sending shards flying in all directions. Her left leg folded under her and she grabbed at the air, trying to stop plummeting. But Caitlin had already fallen on top of her, pushing her down farther. Ava grabbed at Lindsay's hair, causing Linz to holler even louder and topple right into the Julie-Caitlin tangle.

Amidst the flying legs, arms, and butts were martini
glasses, since the girls had been toasting themselves while dancing. Splinters of colored glass sprayed the room, nicking them even as Jared, Tripp, Austin, and MK rushed to extract the girls without embedding any glass into their skin.

The Spider waitstaff rushed over. They got Ava off first, then Lindsay, Caitlin, and finally Julie, who was sobbing hysterically. “My leg! I broke my leg! Get an ambulance!” Between sobs she managed to insist she'd only go to Cedars-Sinai, not St. John's.

Caitlin and Ava, suffering cuts and bruises, would accompany Julie in the ambulance. Cait was already demanding plastic surgery because a few splinters had scratched her face. Ava, feeling guilty that she'd caused the landslide, wouldn't stop crying long enough to see if she'd actually gotten hurt.

Lindsay was strangely subdued. Wrapped in Jared's jacket—her clothes had ripped to shreds, seemingly the worst of her injuries—wobbly on her feet, she refused medical care.

Jared was truly worried for her, but the best she'd let him do was carry her to the car. He seat-belted her in and took off. Spider had insurance, and there were enough “names” there to deal with any consequences. His didn't need to be among them.

“You sure you're okay?” he asked every few blocks.

Lindsay leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes. He wanted to warn her that her head would start to spin
if she closed her eyes. But when he glanced over, she was … smiling? “Some comeback,” she mused.

He felt himself relax. “Some girls just know how to make a lasting impression. No one's ever gonna forget your first night back on the scene.”

“Jared?”

“Yeah?”

“I really, really,
really
—”

“You really what?”

He signaled left at the light at Highland and went to face her, but Lindsay had turned her back to him. She was leaning out the open window. Hurling her guts out.

“Oh, my God, Linz, why didn't you tell me to pull over?”

After a few heaves, she turned back—wiping her face on his jacket sleeve. “I really am happy to be back.”

It was the sloppiest smile he'd ever seen. “I am too, Linz,” he said softly. And it was true. She had him at hurl-o.

“What were you
thinking
?” Jared's voice scaled up an octave as
he leaned in over the poker table. “Bringing a homeless person into this house?” His disgust and fury were aimed at the one person
least
likely to cause controversy: Sara.

It was Lindsay, martini glass in hand, who giggled, “A homeless ho. Does that make her a ho-ho?” She slapped the table with delight; her pile of poker chips went flying.

No one amused Lindsay more than herself, Eliot realized.

Unamused, Sara raised her finger to her lips. “Shush! She has a name. It's Naomi Foster, and she can hear you!”

And no one was more righteous than Sara.

Eliot shuffled the deck of cards. The housemates, who'd been together just under a month, had fallen into weekly Thursday-night poker sessions. Lindsay had started it, which
was ironic, since she was the worst player. And that was quite an accomplishment, since Sara had never played in her life.

Linz could not keep a straight face. When she had a good hand, she got so excited, the table shook. When she was trying to bluff, the giggles began. Signaling raises all around.

Eliot dealt two cards facedown, then an exposed card to each of them.

Jared's jack of diamonds was the high card, but his focus was squarely on Sara. “I want her out. End of story.”

“You gonna bet?” Nick motioned.

Jared tossed a one-dollar chip into the center of the table. “And I don't care if she can hear me!”

“Well, you should,” said Sara, coolly studying her cards. “I raise you a dollar.”

“I raise both of you!” Lindsay, who was showing a lowly three of hearts, declared.

“Check.” Nick tossed in enough chips to stay in the game.

Not Eliot. He wasn't getting into this pissing contest. He had crappy cards, and the chances of winning this hand were on par with those of the homeless girl staying at the share house.

Sara had brought home a “stray,” as Lindsay callously declared. Jared may have been loudest in his censure, but truthfully, no one was thrilled.

“Naomi,” Sara said steadily, as Eliot dealt another round
of cards, “is goin' through a rough patch right now. A little Christian charity wouldn't hurt any of you.”

Charity, Eliot could have said, wasn't just for Christians. It was part of every religion. In his house at the Passover seder, the silver cup symbolized that the door was always open to anyone in need. But in his experience, it was theoretical. No homeless person ever came to his table.

“Charity?” Jared said. “Fine. We'll give her money”—he threw five dollars' worth of chips into the center of the table—“then she can leave.”

Sara pressed her ruby lips together and raised Jared again. “Money isn't what she needs. She needs someone to care about her, help her get her life together. Why can't y'all see that?”

“We do.” Nick stepped into the uncharacteristic role of peacekeeper, a role no one else, including El himself, wanted. “Jared has a point. This girl, this Naomi, could be a criminal. She could steal from us, or worse, hurt us.”

Sara smiled. “Have y'all seen her? She's tiny. She hasn't had a hot meal in weeks. I couldn't just leave her out there.”

There were many things Sara could just not leave. Like cleaning the house. The tall, shapely pageant beauty believed it was wasteful to spend money on a maid, so she assumed the responsibility.