Page 86 of Pucked and Pregnant

“So many things,” she says, her voice muffled against my shoulder, “but most of them have to do with Travis.”

“Is that bastard still bothering you?” Dimitri asks. He starts cracking his knuckles and I notice a muscle twitching in his jaw.

“Whenisn’the bothering me?” she sniffles. Connor brings her some toilet paper and she blows her nose. “But I want this damn job. I won’t let him scare me off.”

“Scare you off?” I echo, feeling my blood heat up. “Look, if he’s scaring you, we can convince him to leave you alone.”

“No, it’s okay,” she insists, shaking her head. I notice some color coming back into her cheeks. She seems to be feeling better. She eyes the banana in my hand, and I hold it out to her. Watching her eat it starts to make me think of other things she’s had in her mouth when the bathroom door opens again and Max walks in.

“Liv?” he said. “What’s going on?”

She starts crying again, throwing herself into her brother’s arms.

“What the hell?” he says to us with confusion as his arms come up to pull her closer to him.

I shrug and shake my head. It seems like there’s more than one thing going wrong for her right now but I don’t know what it is. I knew she had been collecting evidence to use against that bastard Travis, but I have a nagging feeling that something else is going on.

I glance over at Connor, who appears uncomfortable. He keeps looking over at Dimitri with a worried look on his face, avoiding Max’s gaze entirely. That isn’t like him, I don’t know what could be causing him so much concern.

I’m beginning to feel irritated. I like to be kept in the loop and usually people confide in me. I’m the kind of person you can tell tough secrets to and I keep them. I don’t like standing outside the circle, feeling so left out.

“Look, I can take you back to your place,” Max says to his sister as he rubs her back. “You aren’t feeling good and you’re upset. You should go home and rest.”

“No, no,” Liv insists, stepping back and swiping at her face. How does she manage to look so beautiful even when she has mascara running down her cheeks? “I’ll be fine. I’m just… emotional. That time of the month,” she finishes lamely.

I look over at Connor, who has a confused look on his face. He opens his mouth to say something then immediately closes it, shaking his head.

“Liv, I think you should consider?—”

“And I think you all need to stop babying me,” she snaps, cutting me off. She pulls out of her brother’s arms then grabs some paper towel to dap at her ruined makeup. “I’m a big girl. I’ve gotten by on my own just fine. I’ll let you know if I need to be saved, okay?”

We all exchange an uncomfortable look. Even Max looks a bit surprised at her sharp tone.

“Want me to walk you back out there?” Max asks her.

She sighs and shakes her head. “Can’t show any weakness in this business, you know?” She plasters a fake smile on her face in an attempt to hide the pain. I know it’s there though. I can see her worries and her suffering as clearly as if she had a neon sign over her head that declared, “I’m feeling really shitty about my life and the future right now.”

“See you later?” Max asks as she heads to the bathroom door.

“Yeah,” she replies hastily as she yanks the door open.

A moment later she pokes her head back in. “You guys had better get out of the women’s restroom before you all get labeled as weirdos or creeps.”

I catch a tiny hint of the usual vigor in her expression before she steps back into the hall and vanishes from sight.

“What the hell is going on?” I demand as soon as she leaves. I glance at my friends with annoyance. It’s like I’ve been left in the dark and everyone else knows what’s happening.

“I have a lot of questions myself,” Max says a bit darkly, glaring at all of us. “If I find out that any of you have let her down in some way, I’m going to be really angry. I do want to talk about all this bad press surrounding you guys about being at her place. I assume you were there being helpful, but it makes you all look bad and threatens her job when the media starts publishing pictures like that.”

“The media, wait, what?” I demand, totally confused now.

“You guys really need to pay more attention to like, almost everything,” Max says. “Check outThe Insidersite and alsoCelebrity Today,you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

We all pull out our phones and start Googling.

“Oh shit.”

“I’ll kill those fuckers,” Dimitri states in a flat, deadly tone.

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