Chapter 3

“So I have an enormous favor to ask you,” Brianna said as I threw some shrimp into the skillet already filled with vegetables.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” I said in response as I began to stir the mixture.

“Well, Ryan called me. He asked me to go to the game tomorrow night and I don’t want to go alone.” I spun around to look at her.

“Are you serious right now? Did you forget lunch the other day? I don’t exactly get along with Ryan’s teammate.”

“I know and I still don’t understand exactly what’s going on there. I’m not convinced it’s all that you say it is. Why would he care so much that you broke up with a guy he used to play with? And why would you get so mad at him about it?” she asked. I wasn’t about to get into it with her. At least not right now.

“We just don’t like each other, that’s it,” I said and went back to cooking up the stir-fry.

“But you’ll come to the game with me?” she asked.

“Brianna, there is absolutely no way you will get me to go to that game with you,” I told her.

About 24 hours later I was getting out of the car and walking into the box office with Brianna to pick up the tickets Ryan had left us. Apparently after I had stormed out of lunch the other day Brianna had stayed and spent two hours talking to Ryan. They’d exchanged phone numbers and had been talking every day since.

We got to our seats and sat down. It felt like I’d hardly had time to sit down before someone recognized me. For the next 20 minutes I signed autographs and took pictures with Ducks fans. Luckily when the game started the autograph seekers returned to their seats to watch the action. About halfway through the first I noticed a small group of attractive women sitting down in the same row as us. They were the wives and girlfriends. I could spot them without any hesitation. I had been one of them after all. All four were obviously disinterested in the game and spent the better part of the second half of the period talking to each other. At intermission they noticed us.

“Omigod, are you Amelia Larson?” one of them screeched coming down the row to sit next to me.

“Yes, I am,” I said to her.

“I absolutely loved your movie and I can’t wait to see the one that’s coming out soon. You’re so pretty even off the screen!” Oh my, she was annoying.

“Thank you, that’s so sweet.” I smiled at her and pretended to care what she had to say.

“So, I’m curious. What exactly are you doing at an Anaheim Ducks game?” she asked. I leaned back and pointed to Brianna.

“My friend Brianna is sort of seeing Ryan Getzlaf and he left us both tickets for the game,” I explained. Now Brianna was really going to be in for it.

“Oh, nice! Brianna, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Ileana, Corey Perry’s girlfriend!” she exclaimed.

I just about choked on the sip of water I had just taken. Was this blonde Barbie serious? She was the exact opposite of Corey’s taste in women. Was he seriously dating this bimbo? Wait, why did I care? I smiled and nodded a lot as Ileana introduced the other girls to us and spent the better part of the rest of the game listening to Ileana talking to Brianna and telling her what a great guy “Getzy” was. Apparently Corey and Ryan were “the best of friends!” I was in desperate need of a major painkiller to get rid of the headache after listening to brainless Ileana all night. The girl did not shut up.

When the game ended Ileana led us downstairs to the wives’ room that every NHL team had for family to wait in until the guys came out after the game. While Brianna was just happy to be talking to anyone, I found myself moving towards the older wives.

“So you’re friend is dating Getzlaf?” a woman introduced to me as Maureen, Chris Kunitz’s wife asked me.

“Well, they only met recently so we’ll see what happens,” I responded.

“It looks like she’s getting an earful from Ileana,” another named Caroline, wife of Todd Marchant, said nodding over in their direction.

“I think I might have to shoot myself if I have to listen to her talk much longer,” I said before thinking. As soon as the words were out of my mouth I began to try to come up with something to say to backtrack a bit. Before I could, a couple of the women that were around started to laugh.

“Don’t worry about it, we all feel the same way,” the wife of Brendan Morrison, named Erin told me.

“We’re not sure how she’s still around. It’s obvious she’s only with Corey because he’s a hockey player with money. Rumor from our husbands is that Corey’s just looking for a hot piece of ass because some girl he was in love with broke his heart a few years ago,” another named Amy Moen said.

I felt a pang of guilt hit me at the statement. I drove him to that? I could understand him wanting someone that didn’t remind him of me, but that was a little extreme. He was the guy that used to make fun of the girlfriends that didn’t really seem to care about the guy they were dating. He swore that he could never be with someone like that, but now he was, and it was my fault.

As time passed I felt like I became just a little more stupid just hearing her voice. She was like a train wreck. I just couldn’t take my eyes off of her or stop listening to the dumb things she was saying. I even overheard her talking about how Corey had taken her shopping the day before and spent a lot of money on her for bringing him to pick up his car. That was absolutely ridiculous. How could anyone even ask their significant other to do that for them? Hearing that she had no idea Corey had an assist that night just put the icing on the cake. She wasn’t right for him, at all.

At that point I was just praying that Ryan would get there soon so that Brianna and I could leave. The longer I heard Ileana talk about money and all the nice things Corey got her, the angrier I got. He didn’t deserve to be treated that way. I never would have thought about asking him to buy me anything in exchange for doing something nice for him. In fact, I couldn’t remember ever asking him to buy me anything at all.

I was steaming and having a hard time keeping my mouth shut when Corey walked into the room. His eyes locked with mine before he even saw Ileana. I felt like he had just sensed that I was there. He had an uncanny ability to do that while we were dating. Even though he never knew where my seats were he always found me at his games. He could also find me in seconds in the most crowded location saying that he just felt where I was.

Ileana jumped up when she saw him and ran over to hug him, breaking his gaze on me. She then introduced him to Brianna even though I had distinctly remembered Brianna telling Ileana that she’d met Corey when she met Ryan. Then she pulled him over to introduce him to me. My jaw clenched as I waited to hear what scathing remark he was going to have this time.

“Nice to meet you, Amelia,” was what he said instead. He held out his hand to shake mine just like he’d done with Brianna seconds before. I put my hand in his and it lasted just a little bit too long.

“Nice to meet you too,” I replied pulling my hand out of his grasp. I caught the confused look on Brianna’s face at the exchange. If we knew each other why were we pretending we didn’t in front of his girlfriend? I only wish I knew.

“Are you ready to go, hon?” Corey asked her pulling her to him and planting a kiss on her forehead. He did it on purpose to upset me and I knew it. It also worked.

“Hey, Ileana, I’ll bring Jordan sometime so you can meet him,” I told her like we were friends. We’d discussed the fact that I was dating Jordan during the game and she had gushed about how cute he was.

“Who’s Jordan?” Corey asked before Ileana had a chance to respond. I heard her giggle.

“Jordan Kellar. He’s Amelia’s gorgeous movie star boyfriend, silly,” she explained to him. I saw the anger and the jealousy cross his face and smiled at him with self-satisfaction at getting him back. He’d clearly had no idea I was dating someone like he was.

“Nice meeting you, Amelia,” he said tightly. Then he turned to look at Brianna. “Ryan said he’ll be out in just a minute. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again soon.” He smiled at her and then turned, practically pulling Ileana out the door behind him.

“Okay, something is going on between the two of you,” Brianna said to me the minute they were out the door. “Are you going to tell me why he pretended not to know who you were in front of his girlfriend?”

“You’re guess is as good as mine.”










She had a boyfriend? Well wasn’t that just fan-fucking-tastic. She’d obviously moved on with her life, but what did he expect? She obviously hadn’t cared about him nearly as much as he’d cared about her if she’d been able to just up and leave without a word. Corey scolded himself for being as upset as he was. Didn’t he have a girlfriend? Yeah, one who thought Amelia’s boyfriend was “gorgeous.” It made him want to vomit.

“Are we going to stop someplace to get something to eat?” Ileana asked breaking into his thoughts.

“I’m not hungry,” he said to her. They rode in silence for a few minutes, which was odd because he never knew Ileana to run out of things to say.

“You’ve been a jerk lately,” she finally said. He rolled his eyes even though he knew he had.

“I’m sorry. I’ve just been playing poorly lately,” he lied.

He knew he’d be able to get away with the lie. Ileana never paid attention to the games and even if she did she’d have no idea what was going on. If he’d tried to lie to Amelia about his play she would have jumped all over him. She knew the sport and was always willing to talk to him about games afterwards. And more often than not her assessments of the game were spot on.

“I thought you had an assist tonight,” Ileana said obviously confused. “Isn’t that good?” He looked at her surprised that she’d noticed. It was more likely that someone had mentioned it to her and that was the only reason she knew.

“Yeah, but I played poorly defensively.”

Another lie. He’d actually played a great game but seeing Amelia again had upset him and it was easier to blame a part of his game that Ileana didn’t understand than to go into his history with Amelia.

“So Amelia is so pretty. I can’t believe I got to meet her tonight. She’s such a sweetheart. Sometimes you wonder if someone who is famous is going to be nice or just completely stuck on themselves, but she was so nice,” Ileana babbled.

She continued to talk about spending the game with Amelia but he tuned her out. It was bad enough that he’d run into Amelia twice this week. He didn’t need to hear about how much his current girlfriend liked his ex too.

Chapter 2

I got into my car fuming. Who the hell did he think he was? It was so unlike Corey to pull a stunt like that. Sure, I disappeared from his life without an explanation but it was three years ago! There was just no reason to embarrass me like that in front of Brianna and that Ryan guy. Obviously Corey had changed and not into someone I wanted to know.

My phone rang as I was pulling out onto the street. I looked down and saw that it was Brianna. I didn’t know what I was going to say to her and I knew I should probably calm down before I started spouting off about what an asshole Corey Perry was. My stomach grumbled and reminded me that I’d barely eaten any of my lunch when I left. I shrugged it off and thought about Corey again. How had I been in love with that man? He really should have just sucked it up and been nice and talked to me in private after instead of practically airing our dirty laundry for everyone in the restaurant to hear. Just then my phone rang again and I saw that this time it was Jordan.

“Hey, sweetie,” I answered.

“Lia, hey, are you done with that sky diving thing?” he asked.

“Yeah, I finished about an hour ago. What’s up?”

“Come over, I have a surprise for you,” he said then hung up.

I looked at my phone confused. Now that was strange. I turned around on the street and headed in the opposite direction towards Jordan’s house. He had the gate open for me when I got there. I pulled in and walked to the front door. Before I was even up the stairs he flung the door open and waved me in.

“You look excited,” I commented giving him a kiss as I walked through the front door. It was then that I heard what sounded almost like a baby making some weird noise. I froze in place and looked at Jordan confused. “You want to tell me what’s going on?” Instead of responding he grabbed my hand and pulled me down the hall into the living room. Sitting there in the middle of the floor was a golden retriever puppy.

“Isn’t he awesome?” Jordan asked kneeling down on the ground and petting the puppy. I dropped down onto the floor as well and picked the puppy up. I was definitely a dog person.

“He’s adorable!” I exclaimed. “What’s his name?”

“I haven’t decided yet. I was thinking of Jax. What do you think?” he asked looking at me.

“I think Jax is a cute name. Hi, Jax!” I called looking down at the puppy squirming in my arms. I let him down and watched him bound around the room stopping to smell just about everything he came to. “So what made you decide to get a dog today?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about getting one for a while and I just happened to see an ad in the paper today and thought ‘what the hell’ and went and picked one up.”

Jordan was a big time impulse buyer. He never thought or planned on getting anything but if it popped into his mind and it sounded good, he bought it. He had a room full of crap that he’d gotten and then never touched again.

“Yeah, you would,” I said laughing at him.

“Anyway, how was the sky diving thing?” he asked.

“It was good. Fun. I’m glad I did it,” I replied. He put his arm around me and hugged me to him.

“Then why do you look so down?” I buried my face in his shoulder and sighed. Exactly how much detail did I want to get into with Jordan?

“I ran into someone from my past that I don’t completely get along with today,” I told him choosing to keep basically everything from him for now.

“Aw, I’m sorry, sweetie. At least it’s over with now, right?” I nodded even though I had the feeling that this was not the last time I was going to see Corey.










Who the hell did Amelia think she was? How dare she just blow him off? He’d been really thrown when he saw her standing next to the table Getzy was sitting at. He knew she was probably living in LA somewhere when he saw her in her first movie, but he never thought he’d run into her. LA was a big city and he didn’t even live that close. He never expected her to be in his neighborhood. He was still slightly in shock over having seen her. The conversation had even left him a bit shaken.

The conversation hardly went the way Corey had envisioned it when he’d thought about what he’d say to Amelia if he ever saw her again. He’d imagined asking her how she’d been, where she’d been, and why she’d just left him like she did. He thought he’d be able to stay calm about it and show her that he had in fact moved on. Unfortunately that’s not the way it went. His shock had triggered a flood of emotions and having a bit of an audience in Ryan and that other girl wasn’t ideal. Instead he’d panicked and pretended like he’d only known her through a friend. The angrier she got, the angrier he got.

She was so flip about it, and that bothered him. He’d loved her. He went over to the dresser in his house and opened the top drawer. He moved aside his socks and pulled out the small box he still had and couldn’t bear to get rid of. Opening it, he looked at the engagement ring he’d picked out just the week before she’d left. He hadn’t even gotten around to telling anyone that he’d planned on asking her to marry him. They were young, really young, and he wasn’t sure how people would take it. But they had been together for five years and had lived together for two. If you didn’t know by then that you wanted to marry someone then maybe it wasn’t meant to be. He’d blown a lot of his signing bonus on that ring. He closed the box and put it back in the drawer.

He wanted to cry. He couldn’t, wouldn’t let himself cry over her. He’d done that enough when she disappeared out of his life. He’d called her parents more than once trying to find out what happened but they just gave him the run-around and told him that it was between him and Amelia and they wouldn’t get involved. God, it had been frustrating to not know what happened. It was still frustrating.

He wanted to hate her, and seeing her today showed him that he did. She’d made it really easy. But damn, did she look good. Her hair was different. She always used to wear it long but now it was to her shoulders and she had bangs swept to one side. What he’d do to her - no. He pushed those thoughts out of his mind. He’d done them before with her and it was good. It was really good. If only he could get Ileana to be more like Amelia in the bedroom. As if on cue he heard his front door open.

“Corey!” Ileana called through the house. He let out a sigh, not really in the mood to be around Ileana and headed downstairs.

“Yeah, I’m here. Is my doorbell broken?” he asked giving her attitude even though he knew she didn’t really deserve it.

“Geez, sorry. I’ll use it next time.” He walked past her and sat down on his couch. Grabbing the remote he flipped on the television and started flicking through channels. “You’re back early from lunch. I thought you would have been gone longer.” He turned and looked at her as she walked into the room and sat down next to him.

“If you thought I’d be gone longer, what are you doing here?” he asked.

She just shrugged and took the remote off of his lap. She turned off the show on Discovery he’d stopped at and put on some stupid chick flick. He groaned and made fists trying to keep from taking his encounter with Amelia out on Ileana.

“So I was thinking that we could go shopping today,” she said turning to look at him. Shopping? Why the hell would he want to go shopping? “You know, you owe me for the other day.”

“Ileana, what the fuck are you talking about? I owe you for what?” he asked baffled.

“You said that you would owe me for taking you to pick up your car when you were having it fixed,” she explained.

“I didn’t say I’d take you shopping. I meant I’d cook you dinner or something!”

“But Cooooorey, I want to go shopping!” she whined. He threw his head back and made a mental note not to tell Ileana he owed her ever again.

“I’m really not in the mood. Can we go another day?” he asked giving in because it was easier than listening to her bitch and moan about it.

“I have things to do this next week and my day is wide open today,” she pouted. Things to do my ass, he thought. She was an ‘aspiring model’ that hardly did anything. What was he doing with her? He felt like she got on his nerves more than she made him smile. He felt her grab his arm and put her head on his shoulder. He looked down and she was looking up at him with a pleading look on her face. “Please?”

“Fine, lets go,” he said pushing her off of him and standing up. She jumped up with a large smile on her face.

“So what’s my limit?” she asked. He clenched his jaw and wondered how exactly he’d gotten roped into spending money on her.

Chapter 1

“No way, not a chance,” Brianna said peering over the plane floor and looking down at the ground a few thousand feet below. I turned to her, sighed, and rolled my eyes.

“It’s not even that high!” I exclaimed pretending it was really no big deal.

Then I turned and insisted my instructor check my harness for about the tenth time in the last few minutes. I may have been a bit of a daredevil, but I was also paranoid. I looked back at my personal assistant, who doubled as a friend, and held my hand out to her. She hesitated, but obviously seeing the look on my face thought better of arguing with me and took my hand.

“If I die I will come back and haunt you for the rest of your life.”

I laughed at her and told our instructors we were ready. A short time and intense adrenaline rush later I looked up at the plane we had just jumped off of. I smiled up at it, proud of myself for jumping. I had a major fear of heights and I constantly tested that fear. It was the only way to get rid of them.

“Amelia, can we please go now? I really have no desire to do that again,” Brianna said coming up behind me.

I had no intention of going back up to repeat what I had done either. We packed up everything and headed back to our cars. I thanked the instructors for bringing us out before we left. We stopped at one of my favorite café’s for some lunch. As I walked into the restaurant I noticed some flashes and inwardly groaned at having my picture taken. It was uncanny how the paparazzi always knew where you were. Brianna and I were seated and ordered salads.

“Darren Emerson is sending a screenplay for his new romantic comedy. He said he’s very interested in having you play the part. You are his first choice if you like the script,” she said to me after we ordered. She had spent the drive listening to messages on her phone and was now reporting them back to me.

“Any word on who else he’s considering?” I asked. She shook her head.

“He didn’t say. He said that Fabian Hodson will be playing the male lead.” I lifted an eyebrow and smiled.

“I wouldn’t complain about having to kiss him,” I joked. Fabian was an extremely attractive man with quite a following of female fans and a to-die-for Italian accent. “Anyway, you know I’m not quite in the position yet to be turning down scripts. I’ve only done two movies. It still feels like a dream that Eccentric was as successful as it was.”

I had moved to LA three years prior to pursue my dream of acting. On just my third reading I’d gotten the lead in a small budget comedy about an eccentric college student who decides to join a sorority to change her image. I jumped at the offer but never imagined that it would turn into what it had. The script was smart and clever and exceeded everyone’s expectations at the box office springing me into the public eye. It had led to another lead in a romantic comedy soon after. That movie, Stay Classy, was going to be out in theatres in just a few weeks and had created a lot of hype. It had also landed me hottie star Jordan Kellar as a boyfriend.

“Cosmo wants to put you on their cover for the December issue!” Brianna exclaimed excitedly listening to her phone again.

“What?!” I yelled in shock.

I couldn’t believe that this was actually happening to me. I was really doing it. As long as Stay Classy did well, that is. I knew that if it was anything like my first movie that I might be able to actually make a great career out of this. We discussed the Cosmo article and cover some more and then she finished telling me about the rest of my messages. So far this had been an unbelievable day and I didn’t think anything could possibly ruin it. I was so wrong.










“Fuck!” Corey screamed out breaking a stick over the boards.

He had a bad practice and he knew it. He left the ice and went back to the locker room where he silently undressed and showered. It was only practice, but he didn’t care. Nothing had been going right for him today and that was always frustrating.

“Hey, Perrs, lunch?” Ryan Getzlaf called over to him as he was getting dressed. He thought for a moment and decided that doing something with Getzy might cheer him up, at least a little.

“Sure, just give me a few,” he replied.

He grabbed his phone and checked his messages. Just one from Ileana, his girlfriend. He hit delete and put his phone away. She’d sounded annoyed in her message just asking him to call her back. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with whatever complaint she had right now.

Ileana was not his type at all. He’d met her out at a club during last season. The fact that they met at a club would normally have caused him to run the other way but he’d decided to change his standards. After his ex had just disappeared from his life three years ago he’d tried, unsuccessfully, to find someone that made him feel the way she did. When the girls that were normally his type just didn’t compare to his ex he decided to change his standards.

While he normally went for dark hair, dark eyes, and dark skin he began looking at your typical blonde haired, blue eyed, Barbie doll type. Intelligence had been very important to him, but now he decided that intelligence was overrated. Give him hot and dumb and he was happy. Maybe looking outside the box would find him the girl that was right for him.

Ileana was the exact opposite of his ex and that’s exactly what he needed right now. He’d been with his ex for just over five years when she walked out on him. They’d met when he was in juniors and when he went pro she came with him. Everything seemed to be going great with them. She’d been the only girl he’d ever loved and he knew that he was going to spend the rest of his life with her. Apparently she’d had other ideas.

He was playing in Portland, Maine for the Pirates. They had a five day road trip just after she got into town before she’d even had a chance to meet anyone and they talked every day of it on the phone. He wasn’t prepared for what would happen next. He came home the night after a game tired and ready to curl up with her for the night but when he walked through the door he knew something was wrong. Upon further inspection he discovered that all of her stuff was gone. Every last piece of clothing or decoration had disappeared. When he called her phone he just got her voicemail. Without ever returning his calls she changed her number and he’d never seen or talked to her again. One day she was just gone like she’d never existed. He had been crushed.

He met up with Ryan while he was signing autographs for some of the fans that had been at the practice. He put on a fake smile and pretended like he actually wanted to chat with them. In all honesty he just wasn’t in the mood today. When they were finally done they headed out. All he wanted was a quiet lunch with a good friend to get his mind off of his bad practice. Turns out that the quiet lunch was not to be.










As I was chewing a bite of my salad I heard Brianna’s fork drop onto her plate. I looked up at her and was about to make fun of her clumsiness when I saw her eyes wide staring somewhere behind me. I turned to look but didn’t see anything or anyone out of the ordinary. When I looked back at her she still hadn’t moved a muscle.

“Bri, are you okay?” She didn’t respond. “Are you breathing?” She reached across the table and grabbed my wrist causing me to drop my fork.

“Do you have any idea who is sitting over there?” she asked me. Once again I glanced over my shoulder and looked in the direction she was staring. I still didn’t see anyone that would catch my attention.

“No, I have no idea who is sitting over there,” I responded confused. Her mouth was hanging open and it took her a minute to respond.

“It’s Ryan Getzlaf!” she gushed. For the third time I looked behind me hoping that the name would help me figure out who we were looking at but I had no luck.

“Okay, you’ve got me. Who’s Ryan Getzlaf?” I asked. She gave me a look like I was the biggest idiot in the world.

“He’s my favorite Anaheim Duck,” she said, like I should have known.

I knew Brianna was a huge hockey fan and she loved the Anaheim Ducks but I didn’t follow the sport, at least not for a few years now, and wouldn’t have known Ryan Getzlaf from Joe the Janitor.

“I have to meet him. Come with me?”

“Why do I have to go with you?”

“I’m nervous. I could use the moral support,” she explained.

“Bri, you’re a beautiful girl, I’m sure he’d be thrilled to have you go over and talk to him. He may even ask you to sit down with him,” I teased.

“Amelia, come on. Just please, please, please come over with me,” she begged. I groaned and reluctantly agreed. We walked over and I listened to Brianna introduce herself.

“Excuse me, I’m so sorry to interrupt you at lunch, but I am a huge fan,” I heard her say.

I stood in the background and let her talk. I watched him check her out like he was deciding whether or not to give her the time of day. I assumed he liked what he saw when he smiled and told her it wasn’t a problem. She introduced me but I let her do all the talking as he autographed her shirt for her. I turned to look around the restaurant to see what was going on, feeling just a little awkward.

“Sorry about that. I just had to get that phone call out of the way,” I heard someone say approaching the table.

I turned to look at who had just spoken because the voice sounded so familiar. When I turned I couldn’t believe my eyes at who was standing there. My breath caught in my throat and I felt physically ill when we locked eyes.

“Corey?” I managed to choke out.

He didn’t say anything but continued to stare at me. I hadn’t seen Corey since I’d left him two years ago. We’d met in London, Ontario where I’d grown up and he was playing junior hockey. Four years later I moved with him to Maine as he began his pro hockey career. I’d had dreams of acting and couldn’t do it in Maine. I’d felt like Corey wasn’t supportive of my dreams but expected me to be supportive of his and I couldn’t do it anymore. While he was on a long road trip I packed up my stuff and left him. It was wrong and immature to change my phone number and not tell him why I was leaving but I’d loved him and was worried that I wouldn’t be able to go through with it if we stayed in contact.

“You two know each other?” Ryan asked obviously surprised.

“Yeah, we’ve met before,” Corey replied bitterly. He looked away and sat down. I didn’t even know what to say.

“Would you two like to sit and have lunch with us?” Ryan asked. Corey gave him a look that shot daggers and I started to decline but Brianna cut in.

“That would be great! Thank you so much for inviting us,” she accepted. Backed into a corner I sat down at the table with the three of them.

“So, how did you two meet?” Ryan asked trying to figure it out. He had known who I was from my first movie and was clearly surprised that his teammate knew me and hadn’t mentioned it.

“Well, we, uh-“

“Funny story, actually,” Corey cut in. I sucked in a breath worried about what he was going to say. It had been three years, but he was obviously not over what had happened. “She dated a friend of mine a few years ago and pretty cruelly ripped his heart out.”

Anger rose up in me at his comment. Both Ryan and Brianna looked over at me in shock while Corey stared at me, daring me to call him a liar. I didn’t even know how to respond. Instead I held my tongue and chose not to say anything in response. I didn’t want to come off as a bitch.

“Wow, how long ago was that?” Brianna asked.

“I don’t know, was it seven years ago or so that you started leading him on?” he asked never wavering in his glare at me.

“I didn’t lead anyone on. He just wasn’t right for me,” I said tightly.

“So I see that you’ve been in movies recently. You always did want to be the center of attention. Oh, sorry, I meant be famous,” Corey chirped. I forced a smile and a laugh.

“Yes, I have, but I doubt you’ll be watching the new one coming out. You’d have to have good taste to want to see it,” I retorted. I could see Brianna and Ryan looking uncomfortably back and forth between us wondering what was going on.

“You’re right. I obviously have terrible taste,” he said pointedly. I clenched my jaw and took a deep breath before responding.

“Speaking of taste, are you bitter much?” I asked.

“Whoa, okay, am I missing something here?” Ryan asked cutting in. Instead of continuing the fight I chose to bow out.

“No, nothing important. I’m sorry, but I’m not really hungry. I have a lot of things I need to get done so I’m going to excuse myself. Brianna, give me a call later and we’ll figure out what to do about everything we discussed earlier. It was really nice meeting you, Ryan.” I got up and left the restaurant. As I walked outside I felt a hand grab onto my arm.

“Are you going to tell me what the fuck happened three years ago?” Corey asked me as I spun around.

“It was three years ago, Cor. Get over it.” I pulled my arm out of his grasp and walked to my car. I got in and drove away leaving Corey standing on the curb staring after me.