Jeremy blinked at this. “Taylor’s dating Scott Casey?” He began to laugh. He held up one hand, clutching his side with the other. “Wait, wait.” He gasped for breath. “This really is too good. I gotta write this down to use one day.”

Jeremy turned to his computer, reading out loud as he typed. “ ‘And then the evil, arrogant movie star learned that lying does not pay.’ ”

Jason glared silently as Jeremy leaned back in his chair, still chuckling.

“Ahhh . . . Scott Casey . . . now that’s classic.”

“Are you finished?”

Jeremy peered over innocently. “They say he’s the It Guy, you know.”

Jason’s eyes narrowed warningly.

“All right, all right, I’m done,” Jeremy finally acquiesced. “Tell me how this happened.”

Jason leapt out of his chair. “The hell if I know! Last night, I went over to Taylor’s apartment to tell her about Naomi, but the next thing I know, she’s talking about Scott Casey and how they have some date on Saturday.” Jason pointed. “He picked her up at my party.” Then he punched the air. “I knew I should’ve thrown that little punk out the minute I saw him.”

“Wow. That’s not exactly how you saw this playing out, is it?”

“No, it isn’t,” Jason retorted. He paced angrily. “What can she seriously see in that guy? He’s as dull as a lamppost.”

“A slightly younger lamppost,” Jeremy quipped.

Jason looked over, stung. That hit below the belt.

Jeremy immediately held up his hands in contrition. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry.” He got up and followed Jason over to the pool table. “So what’s your game plan now?” he asked as Jason picked up a cue stick.

Jason shook his head. “I don’t know. I can’t think straight. Something’s off.”

“Did you sleep last night?”

“Barely.”

“Are you mad at Taylor?”

“Yes. Definitely.”

Jeremy leaned against the pool table and lit up a cigarette as Jason racked the balls for a game. “Do you have any right to be?”

Jason glared at Jeremy for this. But after a moment, his expression softened.

“Probably not,” he acknowledged.

Jeremy nodded, rubbing his four-day stubble like a detective on the case.

“Yep, I’ve seen these symptoms before . . .” he mused. “I believe it’s called ‘jealousy.’ Something common men unlike yourself experience from time to time.”

“Yeah, well, it sucks,” Jason replied pissily. He aimed his stick at the cue ball and took a shot. He whiffed, missed the ball entirely, and hit the pool table face-first.

Jeremy barely stifled his smile. Ahhh . . . if only the paparazzi could capture moments like this.

“So I guess this means you and Taylor are friends now,” he said.

Jason scoffed emphatically while rubbing his nose. “Please—I’m never just ‘the friend.’ ”

“Scott Casey might beg to differ with you on that.”

Jason pointed at him. “You say his name again, and I swear I’ll get you fired off that vampire flick of yours.”

Jeremy was highly offended by this.

“Hey—let’s get something straight. It’s a vampire/alien/ zombie/warlock hybrid flick.”

Nineteen

AND JUST LIKE that, everything had changed.

On an impulse after losing three straight games of pool at Reilly’s Tavern, Jason had declared to Jeremy that they were going out for the evening. But now, as he sat in one of the booths at Hyde, he found that his heart just wasn’t into the whole West Hollywood nightclub scene that night.

Because everything had changed.

The bar was packed. Underneath the candles that hung from the club’s copper ceiling, Jeremy and the other guys they had come with—friends from Around—argued over which Ben Affleck/Michael Bay collaboration ranked higher in the biggest cinematic disasters of all time, Pearl Harbor or Armageddon .

Jason heard Jeremy’s irate shout over the music, obviously voting for the latter.

“Come on—that scene with the animal crackers? Are you kidding me with that shit? I almost gagged up my Jujyfruits.”

Now normally, Jason would have been tempted to enter this fray, especially since he not only enjoyed any opportunity to contradict Jeremy, but also because he personally thought that Pearl Harbor should be placed on the American Medical Association’s list of potential causes of eye cancer.

But tonight, he found he couldn’t quite muster up the enthusiasm. Tonight, there was no fight left in him.

She was going out with someone else.

Scott Casey.

Jason couldn’t imagine how the situation could possibly get any worse.

As he took a long sip of his drink, finishing off his fifth Stolichnaya Elit on the rocks that evening, he wondered how, exactly, things had gone so far awry. For the first time in over ten years, he didn’t know what to do.

Yes, call Us Weekly. Call Page Six, the Enquirer, and everyone else.

Jason Andrews had woman problems.

“Should I order us another drink?”

The question came from Jason’s right, from the ravishing blonde with fantastically long legs that sat next to him.

Hey—he was in a bar and he was Jason Andrews. Of course there was a ravishing blonde with fantastically long legs sitting next to him.

Jason turned his attention to the girl. He was a wee bit buzzed from the vodka and more than a wee bit melancholy.

“Do you have goals, Shyla?” He sighed. “Tell me what a woman like you wants to do with her life.”

“Shay-na,” the blonde corrected him.

Jason leaned his head back against the booth and closed his eyes. Suddenly, this entire conversation made his head hurt.

He opened his eyes to find Shayna sitting in his lap, leaning over him. From what Jason could tell, the woman already had two pretty nice assets working for her in life, and the push-up bra she wore shoved them straight into his face.

She whispered seductively in his ear.

“My goal is to blow you in your car tonight when you drive me home to fuck me.”

Jason sighed tiredly. It was always the same thing. Jason, I want to blow you. Jason, let’s go back to my trailer and fuck like wild dogs. Jason, I’ll bring my girlfriend next time, she’s in Cirque du Soleil and can do things to her body you wouldn’t believe. Blah, blah, blah.

With Shayna’s two ample assets presented right at eye level, Jason tried to muster some interest in her suggestion. But try as he might, it was a different pair of assets—a pair of lively green eyes to be exact—that he couldn’t get out of his mind.

So he shook his head.

“Sorry—it’s a guy’s night out tonight.” With that, he scooped the blonde off his lap, stood up, and turned to Jeremy. “Let’s get out of here.”

Jeremy glanced over at Jason and nodded. He disliked the L.A. club scene even more than the L.A. party scene, so it didn’t take a whole heck of a lot to convince him to leave. Besides, the guys they had came with were total friggin’ morons—one of them had just argued that Armageddon had strong “situational character development.”

Shayna, on the other hand, was not quite ready to call it an evening. She reached for Jason’s hand.

“Wait, what’s the problem?” She smiled invitingly. “You’re here with your boys; I’m here with my girls. Why don’t we leave with you and all party together?” She pointed to an attractive redhead seated at a table nearby. “That’s my friend, Eve. She and I love to party together.”

Jason sighed again. Ho-hum, another threesome. It was all so passé.

With an apologetic smile, he leaned down to give Shayna a polite kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, darling, I appreciate the offer. But not tonight.”

Suddenly, there was a voice from behind.

“Well, well, well . . . what do we have here?”

Jason closed his eyes. He knew he shouldn’t have come to this fucking club. It was like one big frat party for celebrities, the place they all came together to be misunderstood and put-upon by the exhausting demands of the outside world.

With great annoyance, Jason turned around.

Scott Casey stood before him, looking smugly at Jason and the long-legged Shayna. Jason checked out Scott’s entourage and immediately dismissed them all. The only one he even vaguely recognized was that Rob Who-Gives-a-Shit Jeremy had pointed out at the Lakers game several weeks ago.

“Hello, Scott. Funny seeing you here,” Jason said, keeping his voice calm.

Scott smiled magnanimously. “I’d just thought I’d say hello—I didn’t get a chance at your party. You may have heard, I was a little busy that night.”

Jason knew he was being baited. But he was hardly about to let some pretty-boy wanker think he cared one bit about anything that had happened last Saturday or any other day. So his smile remained as smooth and cool as ice.

“Did I hear you’re chasing after Marty Shepherd these days?” he asked, faux-politely.

Scott’s smug expression faded just a bit. Then he recovered. “I don’t chase anyone, my friend.” He held his arms out wide.

“I just wait for them to come to me. Speaking of which . . .”

Jason looked up at the ceiling, knowing what Scott was about to say before the words even came out.

“. . . I’m going out with someone you know this weekend,” he continued. “A lawyer. Taylor Donovan. She tells me you two are business associates.”

Jeremy, who had been standing next to Jason during this exchange, whistled low under his breath.

“Business associates? Ouch. That’s worse than friends.”

Jason threw him a look. Perhaps they could do without the commentary for a few minutes.