Between the Lines by Tammara Webber Read Free Book Online Page B

very well. She’s like a guy with boobs.”
    He laughs. “Sorry, Reid, but in my world, the primary aspect being a guy is not the having or not having of boobs. I’ve seen Brooke’s Life’s a Beach promos—her swimsuits are a couple of ribbons tied together. If she has underlying physical features of which I’m unaware, I’d like to know where she’s hiding them.”
    “Aaaand thanks for that mental picture,” I say. “What I mean is, she thinks like a guy. She’s detached. Calculating.”
    He closes the laptop and puts it aside. “So you screwed her and she didn’t love you back? Aww, that’s so sad.”
    “Fuck off, man.” Laughing, I shove him and he rolls off the bed.
    “What I mean is, she sounds perfect! You can screw each other’s brains out and just walk away.” He sits back down on the bed, his eyes on mine. “Or is that pretty much what already happened…”
    I forgot how good Tadd is at digging deep fast. “Something like that. I really don’t care.” And I don’t.
    “Then who cares what she and Graham are doing?” he says, making all sorts of sense.
    I think about Emma. “You’re right. I’ve got better ways to spend my time.”
    *** *** ***
    Emma
    I raise my voice above the music so MiShaun can hear me. “I can’t believe we all got in.”
    “Get used to celebrity, baby!” She clinks her glass to mine. Once the guy at the door got a look at Reid, we were all escorted inside without an eye-bat at anyone’s ID.
    Our group takes up a corner near the bar plus half of the tiny dance floor, and our brawny bodyguards look like they’re standing inside a child’s playhouse. While I sip my drink, we examine the rest of the cast. Jenna, Meredith, Tadd and Reid are dancing. Brooke is seated on a velvet sofa with the guy I’d seen leaving his hotel room in his pajamas two nights ago.
    I lean to MiShaun. “Who’s the guy sitting next to Brooke?”
    “That’s Graham Douglas.” Though he’s twenty feet from us and can’t possibly hear, his eyes snap up. He smiles and tips his chin back like guys do to indicate a sort of non-verbal hey , and MiShaun raises her drink in his direction. When Brooke turns to see who’s taken Graham’s attention from her, I develop a sudden and intense interest in the dance floor.
    Running through the cast names in my head, I realize Graham is playing the part of Bill Collins, one of the nerdiest guys in literature. I slide my eyes back to him. In close conversation with Brooke, he leans in as she speaks, one arm draped across the back of the low sofa. “Do you know him?” His dark hair is on the longish side, swept back except for errant sections that fall forward. Unlike the other guys in our group, who are fashionably disheveled in t-shirts and jeans, Graham wears black slacks and a blue button-down, top buttons undone, sleeves rolled up.
    “I’ve never worked with him. He’s done mostly indie stuff. He was in something that did well in Sundance this year…”
    Graham Douglas is nothing like I would picture Elizabeth Bennet’s ridiculous cousin. “He’s sort of, I don’t know—too good-looking to play Collins?”
    “A fellow Jane Austen fan!” MiShaun puts a hand up for a high-five. “Don’t worry, once he gets into makeup, they’ll do ghastly things to that handsome mug.”
    I can’t help thinking that will be a shame.
    Dragging my gaze from Graham, I notice that Reid has gathered a small harem of locals on the dance floor. The bodyguards hover, not interfering, but ready to at a second’s notice. MiShaun follows the direction of my gaze and shakes her head. “That boy is such a player.”
    In everything I’ve ever heard about Reid Alexander, one thing he hasn’t done is sustained a relationship past a matter of weeks. Player is right, and I shouldn’t expect anything more from him, chemistry or no chemistry. Even still, I don’t think he’s looked at me once since we arrived.
    Quinton Beauvier, whose role is the notoriously