“Uh oh, I might know,” Brook said, obviously eavesdropping.
“What’s going on?” Chloe asked.
“Dad, I’m going to put you on speaker. One of the girls with me knows why David picked two supermodels.”
“Hi, Mr. Knaggy. I’m Brook Davis. I dated David in high school.”
“Call me Kendrick.”
Even Crystal cringed when her dad said that. He sounded like the pompous ass he could be when he did stuff like that.
“David collects mentors when he’s doing something new.
When he got into modeling, he was at an event put on by Ford Models. Adrienne was one of their featured people, and she agreed to have some pictures taken with David.
There’s actually a video of the whole encounter on social media,” Brook shared.
“Found it,” Kendrick said.
He invited them to join him on video chat and changed the view from him to his monitor. He played the video.
“Wait for it,” Brook said, holding up a finger.
“Oh, wow. That’s hot,” Chloe said.
“I guess they have chemistry,” Kendrick conceded.
“Adrienne liked David from that moment forward and became his mentor. They’ve done a lot of modeling together. The funny thing is, Adrienne has a girlfriend, and she’s not into guys,” Brook said.
“She fooled me,” Kendrick said.
“Dad!” Crystal warned.
“Just saying. That looked real,” Kendrick said to defend himself.
“Now, Kate is David’s not-so-secret crush. He started a campaign early on to convince her to go to his prom with him. I guess she and Adrienne are close friends …”
“Wait?! What?!” Kendrick asked.
“Adrienne and Kate Upton know each other very well,”
Brook said.
“That might explain some of what’s going on.”
“Dad, we’ll get back to that. I want to hear about stalker David,” Crystal said.
“He finally convinced her to go to prom with him.
Unfortunately, something came up, and Kate had to bail, but guess who took her place … Adrienne,” Brook said.
“Wasn’t Kate in one of his movies?” Chloe asked.
“The Secret Circle,” Brook said.
“That’s right. She played the hot teacher,” Kendrick said.
“Dad!”
He didn’t even look embarrassed.
“So, you said there was a problem,” Brook said.
“They both instantly said ‘yes,’ so I called the studio and told them I’d gotten them. My next call was going to be to David when Kate called me. She said there was a problem with the contract. She needed a trailer on set and a nanny to watch her daughter.”
“She has the cutest baby girl,” Chloe said.
“Then Adrienne called. She also wanted a trailer and said this kind of stuff made her nervous, so she would need a personal masseuse. She said that when she was in LA, there was a gal there she loved. She was only ten grand an hour,” Kendrick said.
Brook began to laugh.
“What?” Crystal asked.
“David is having fun with you. I bet their demands kept getting bigger with each call,” Brook said.
“How did you know?” Kendrick asked. “Kate said that she could only ride in a Rolls Royce because it has some kind of special leather in it.”
“I bet if you asked, they would both simply agree to do it or tell you ‘no,’” Brook said. “David is having fun with you.”
“Does he know who he is …” Kendrick began, but Brook cut him off.
“Take it as a compliment. David would never mess with you if he didn’t like you.”
“Oh.”
“Is David still into Kate? She isn’t on his list,” Crystal said.
“That’s because she’s married to ‘some baseball guy,’ as David calls him. You have nothing to worry about unless her husband gives David the okay. Even then, he would
want to talk about it. I would bet he would ask your permission, too,” Brook said.
“Oh,” it was Crystal’s turn to say.
He did like to overtalk some stuff.
“Something I do know is that David would never have suggested those two if he didn’t think they could do the actual work. If I were you, I might call their bullshit, and you’ll look like a rock star for delivering them. They would probably draw a ton of male viewers who don’t usually watch,” Brook said.
“The studio was excited when I gave them the names,”
Kendrick admitted.
“Plus, I bet you can get them to pull pranks on David,”
Brook added.
“I could send David an estimated bill for all the extras they want and tell him if he wants them, he has to pay it,”
Kendrick said.
“I bet he would pay if you got them,” Brook guessed.
“He has it bad for both of them, but he’ll never admit it.”
“I think you just became my new best friend,” Crystal decided.
“You can call me if you need advice,” Brook said.
“Crystal, get her number for me,” Kendrick said and hung up.
“What just happened?” Brook asked.
“Knowing my dad, he’ll want to call you to get ideas on how to ‘handle’ David,” Crystal said with air quotes.
“Maybe don’t give him my number,” Brook said.
Crystal had to agree.
◊◊◊
Chapter 22
Emily closed her laptop and shook her head. How pathetic could she be? It was a Saturday afternoon in Southern California, all sunshine and gorgeous. Here she was, sitting alone in her dorm room, contemplating doing her Lit paper on Victorian women or watching streaming video while the Phi Sigs were having a cookout and party.
Lars and Chuy had both offered to come over and walk her to the frat house.
But after the ‘incident,’ as she was now calling it, frat parties had lost some of their luster.
From the hall, she heard muffled, excited voices. Then there was a knock at the door. She opened it and found Lars giving his devil-may-care smile that had caused the stir from her dorm-mates. She grabbed his wrist and pulled him into her room before one of them decided to join them.
Lars strode in and sat in her roommate’s desk chair, then twirled it around so he could face her. She couldn’t help but think he looked like that guy who played Thor in the movies. The only difference was that he was thinner and better looking.
“As your big brother, it’s my job to make sure you’re not sitting around in your sweat pants and grungy t-shirt all weekend,” Lars said.
He’d just described her attire. But she wasn’t falling for it because she caught a whiff of beer on his breath. They must have gotten started early, but he didn’t seem drunk—
just relaxed.
“I have homework to do.”
Even she heard the lie in her voice. She tried to convince herself that she had a life, but ‘doing homework’ didn’t sound like much of one.
“Everyone needs a break. Come on over and let me grill you a burger.”
“No.”
“No?”
He raised his eyebrows. Her heart was pounding as they locked eyes. After a minute or so, she finally broke the silence.
“Why are you inviting me over when you’ll have to babysit me the whole time?”
She found herself looking at her shoes.
“I’ve seen how you watch me,” Lars said, which caused her to look at him.
Blood rushed to her face.
“I don’t mean to. You’re my big brother,” she whispered.
“Your big sister is off with David. I won’t tell her if you promise not to, and we can have some fun. Now put on some sexy jeans.”
Emily blinked because he was probably used to ordering people around. She could imagine him telling girls what to do and them falling all over themselves to comply. The easy way he had made her worry. It wouldn’t take much for him to talk her into going.