Good Girl (Love Unexpectedly 2)

“I know. But it is.”

See what I mean about Amber being the tough-love kind of friend?

“It’s happening, honey, and here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to bring in the cavalry. You hang up with me and call everyone. Candice, Barb, the label. Have them bring in the attorneys who can start screaming defamation, and—”

“I don’t want to play the game,” I interrupt.

“What game?”

“The he-said/she-said game,” I say quietly as I scroll through the rest of the article with a new sense of calm…until I find the tearful selfie of Shawn’s wife.

She looks sweet. That’s the crappy part. Kayla Bates looks sweet and heartbroken, and my heart aches for her too, even though she’s sort of just ruined my life.

“You have to,” Amber argues. “You can’t just let them walk all over you.”

“You know how this works,” I say. “People like to believe the worst. It won’t matter what I say.”

“Okay, true, but you can’t just ignore this, Jenny. This one’s not going away on its own. Not for a long time. You saw the headlines…America’s good girl just went bad.”

I wince. I hate that label. I hate that a halo’s been thrust atop my head simply because someone somewhere decided that I have an innocent-looking face.

I hate even more how easy it is for that halo to be knocked off.

“Los Angeles will eat you alive,” Amber says, trying again with that unfamiliar gentle tone.

“I know,” I say as I turn off the iPad screen with quiet purpose as the reality of what I need settles in. “I’m not staying.”

“Thank God,” Amber says with feeling. “Come home. Stay with your folks or with me or with Kelly—”

“I can’t go home to Nashville,” I interrupt. “They’ll find me there. Heck, they were camped outside my parents’ house after the burrito baby incident, and this is bigger.”

“Where will you go?”

I smile grimly as I begin to formulate a plan. “Let’s just say that it’s off the grid. Like, all the way off the grid.”

Noah

“Dude. Are you holding a wrench?”

I glare down the length of my body as a tasseled shoe kicks lightly at the sole of my work boot. “Well, how the hell did you think a sink got fixed, Vaughn?”

My best friend—one of them—kneels down so that a preppy, Kennedy-esque face comes into view along with the tasseled shoes. Somehow I’m not even the least bit surprised to see that friend wearing a suit, even though we’re currently in a decrepit mansion about forty minutes outside of Baton Rouge.

This place doesn’t have a single bar of cell service, but Vaughn’s wearing a purple tie.

Purple.

For God’s sake.

“Here’s the thing, Preston. I don’t think about how sinks get fixed. People do that for me,” Vaughn says.

I grunt. “Don’t call me that,” I say, directing my attention back to the rusty pipe directly in front of my face.

“Why shouldn’t I call you that? It’s your name,” Vaughn counters.

“Teddy, Teddy, Teddy. We’ve been over this. My boy’s name is Noah.” This from my other best friend, Finn Reed, who’s right about most things, but not the name.

Well, he is right. But not entirely so.