Page 41 of Overexposed

Surely by this stage the owners of these properties were decorating with Ikea. I couldn’t remember the last party I’d attended that hadn’t incurred heavy fees from damaged property by the end of the night. The thing about rich, famous celebrities? They had no respect for money. Or other people’s belongings. It was sickening.

It took a few minutes of searching the party before I found Ollie politely fending off the advances of an up-and-coming young actress. Way too young for him, which was probably why he was carefully holding her wrists to keep her at arm’s length.

“Bro, can I steal you for a sec?” I asked, tipping my head to indicate we step away.

The young actress shifted her glassy eyes my way, then gasped. “Ohmigod,Seven Harrison. I’m such a huge fan,” shegushed, her eyes wide and her cheeks rosy. Fucking hell, she couldn’t be more than eighteen…if that. She was making her big break in the newly popular “sexy thriller” genre.

I gave her a tight smile, not caring to correct her. “Thanks so much. Tina, right?”

She pressed her hand to her chest. “You know my name?” Her voice had gone all squeaky and breathless. “Ohmigod, Seven Harrison knows my name!”

Holding back my laugh, I clapped a hand on Ollie’s shoulder. “You don’t mind if I borrow my friend here, do you? I’ll bring him right back, I promise.” We didn’t wait for her reply before walking away, chuckling quietly under our breath.

“Dude, she’s going to be telling all her friends about how she met Seven Harrison tomorrow,” Ollie snickered, shaking his head. “Poor thing looked like she was going to faint when you said her name.”

I huffed a laugh. “She’s so high right now, I’ll be shocked if she even remembers in the morning. Clara is here, by the way, and she’s wasted. I might head out…unless you wanna stay longer?” Seeing as we’d driven my car from Beverly Hills, we had to stick together.

Ollie shook his head. “Nah, I’m good. Let’s get out before this turns into a fuck-fest like the last after-party forMesozoic.” He shuddered. “I’ll never get the image of Henry Duvalle’s saggy balls slapping against a sound engineer’s ass out of my mind, I swear to fuck.”

I gagged a little because Henry was at least seventy and not in good shape. He was a hell of a director, though. “I’m so glad I didn’t attend that one.” Then I paused as we approached the front entry. Distinctive flashes of cameras alerted us to the fact that at leastsomepaparazzi must have been tipped off. “Should we duck out the back?”

Ollie quirked a brow at me in suspicion. “You don’t wanna see if your girl is working out there?”

I glowered. “She’s not my girl.” His grin turned…pleased. Motherfucker. “Bro…you can’t seriously be thinking of tracking her down for yourself. She’s not interested in dating an actor. That much wasabundantlyclear with how she left our house the other day.”

Ollie just shrugged. “She’s not your girl, Gem.” Like that was all the permission he needed to do whatever the fuck he wanted. “But yeah, we can dodge the paps if you wanna be a pussy about it. I’ll get the car sent around to the side gate.”

I sighed, handing him our claim check and he moved over to speak with one of the security at the door to arrange for our car to be moved around the block to the service gate.

It took another twenty minutes or so for us toactuallyescape, and even then we discovered we weren’t the only ones with the same plan. Basically anyone who’d attended the wrap party but didn’t want to beknownas attending the after-party was using the service gate to avoid press.

Except, of course, some sneaky photographer had worked it out and a camera flash lit up the night in an almost strobe-light effect as Jennifer Crosse and her porn star boyfriend headed out ahead of us.

“Oh, you’re sneaky!” Jennifer called out to the photographer with a laugh. “I love it. Here’s one just for you.”

Ollie and I slipped out of the ivy-covered gate just in time to witness Jennifer tongue-fucking her man’s face while he dipped her dramatically. The camera flashed again, and I instinctively ducked my face to avoid looking directly at the lens. I hadn’t thought to grab my usual baseball cap out of the car earlier and now regretted that decision.

“Give us a smile, Gemini!” the photographer called out after Jennifer and Johnny slid into their waiting SUV, and my headjerked up in the direction of the camera. “You look prettier when you smile!”

Ollie laughed, his hands in his pockets as he swaggered across the road to where the woman of my dreams sat on the trunk of a classic car with her camera in hand. She’d parked in someone’s sloped driveway, giving her a fantastic viewpoint of the service gate, and I tried to pretend I wasn’t thrilled to see her.

Slick… Fucking hell, my fantasies weren’t doing her justice at all. She was sexier than I remembered, even as she sat there in what looked like an imitation valet uniform.

“So you took my advice after all,” Ollie drawled, boosting himself up to sit beside her on the trunk. “Did you get some good shots?”

My brows rose in shock. “You knew she was here?”

My best friend just smirked. “Of course. I sent her the address this morning and even marked the service gate on a map.”

“Thank you for that,” Slick responded, offering Ollie a soft smile. “I hope you don’t mind, I tipped off a colleague. Figured it’d incentivize people to sneak out the back if they knew the front was being smashed with paps.”

“You figured correctly,” I murmured. “When… Wait, how’d you send her the address?” I directed my question to Ollie with suspicion.

He just shrugged. Mysterious fucker. I rolled my eyes, knowing he wouldn’t fess up when he was in that sort of mood. Besides, Slick was right here and I couldn’t let a third chance slip through my fingers.

“Are you doing anything right now? Can I take you for coffee maybe?” As soon as the suggestion left my lips, I winced. It was nine at night, not exactly coffee time.

Her lips quirked like she was fighting a smile as she stared at me. The angle of her car and her position on the trunk put her nearly at eye level with me, and my hands twitched with the need to touch her. It’d be so easy to just step forward and wrap my hands around her, for her legs to slip around my waist and?—

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