Friends with Benefits by Melody Mayer Read Free Book Online Page B

nodded. “My great-aunt has a farm near Rochester, Minnesota. She grows wheat, mostly.”
    â€œThen you know what I’m talking about. Like, you told me your dad works at a brewery? I bet people make judgments about him because of that.”
    In my dad’s case, all those judgments are true.
    Kiley changed the subject again, not wanting to discuss her alcoholic father. “Tell me about the other stars. What are they like?”
    â€œI get wiped out early on by locusts, so you can’t really count me as any kind of star. Owen Wilson is great—loves to play jokes. Tara Reid is wild. She could do promos all day and still party all night.”
    â€œAre we going to her place?” Kiley asked lightly. She still didn’t know their precise destination.
    â€œI didn’t tell you? It’s Marym Marshall, the model. You’ve heard of her?”
    Of course Kiley had heard of her. You had to be dead not to have heard of her. Marym was
the
hot teen supermodel, just seventeen years old. A native of Tel Aviv, she was everywhere, her image even more ubiquitous than Tom’s bare torso on the Calvin Klein underwear billboards. VH1 had even thrown together a special about her life, complete with fifteen minutes of thong bikini footage from beaches the world over.
    Kiley had seen the VH1 special, where Marym confirmed that her real name was Miriam Mendel and that she had been visiting cousins in South Africa before starting her mandatory stint in the Israeli defense forces. On a Cape Town beach, a vacationing
Vogue
photographer had spotted her playing Frisbee with her cousin’s whippet and asked if he could take some shots.
    Marym hadn’t thought anything of it, until the publisher of
Vogue
called her a week later and said she could have a major career if she would just come to America. She came, bringing her father with her as her chaperone. Within three months, she appeared on consecutive covers of
Vogue,
had signed with Ford for modeling and Endeavor for everything else, and was tabbed as a thinner, taller, and more beautiful version of the young Elizabeth Taylor.
    â€œOf course I’ve heard of her,” Kiley confirmed. “She’s amazing-looking.”
    â€œThe whole stardom thing happened so fast for her—it’s hard to handle, especially when you’re seventeen.”
    Boo-hoo, poor Marym.
    Kiley knew it was a little petty, but she couldn’t help thinking that here she was, almost the same age as Marym. She had also uprooted her life. Not to be photographed and be put on the cover of fashion magazines, though. Instead, she had bet on herself so that she might—it wasn’t a sure thing, after all—have a chance to get accepted and pay in-state tuition to a school where she could study advanced oceanography. She was willing to work. Marym was willing to get paid for the looks that she’d done nothing to earn. There was something very unfair about it.
    â€œAnyway, this is Marym’s eighteenth birthday party, and she just bought this place in Malibu—she’s been living with her dad in a rental in Encino.”
    â€œSo, it’s a birthday party for a supermodel,” Kiley declared, trying to sound chipper as Tom drove through Pacific Palisades. “Wow.”
    Tom reached over and tugged gently at Kiley’s ponytail. “Don’t worry about it, kid.”
    Kid?
Had he just called her
kid
? What was she supposed to be, his little sister? Ugh. Maybe it was true—he had only invited her to this party to be nice, because she was new in L.A., or because he hadn’t been sure when his press junket would be over and knew she’d be available on practically no notice.
    â€œMarym and I got together for a little while, a while back,” Tom added casually.
    Got together?
What did “got together” mean?
    Then it hit Kiley. Holy shit. The screams of pleasure she’d heard that night coming from Tom’s