The Happy Ever After Playlist - Abby Jimenez Page 0,103
said. “We’ll start calling hotels. I’ll see if Courtney can go to the airport and look for her there. You stay where you are in case she comes back.”
If she was in the city, we’d never find her. It was Vegas—there were literally thousands of hotels. She might have gotten a car and driven back to California. She’d go to Kristen’s, but I didn’t have Kristen’s or Josh’s number because my fucking phone was in a million pieces. I couldn’t remember where they lived either, I’d only been there once.
The phone rang and I dove for it. It was Ernie. “Did you really stomp a fucking fog machine to death last night? What’s next? Trashed hotel rooms?”
“Ernie, I can’t find Sloan.” I dropped into a chair and put my palms to my eyelids trying to catch my breath. I told him the whole story. I hadn’t thought to call him, thinking there was nothing he could do, but he offered to track down Kristen and go over there and look.
At least I felt like something was happening. I didn’t even know if Sloan was texting me or leaving me voicemails because I didn’t have my cell.
I was afraid to move in case someone got a lead on her, so instead I paced like a caged animal, dialing her number, hoping one of the calls wouldn’t go straight to voicemail.
I was pulsing with anxiety. It was almost unbearable. I had a deep, gnawing claustrophobia about the walls around me.
She had no house, no job. She could disappear into the world without a trace, and I wouldn’t know where to find her.
Two hours later and nothing.
I was sitting in the desk chair just waiting when someone pounded on the adjoining door from Jessa’s room.
I got up quickly, hoping it was news. When I opened the door, Jessa looked up at me wide-eyed. “Jason, Lola’s in the bathroom and she won’t come out.”
I stared down at her. “Are you fucking kidding me? Do you think I give two shits about what she’s doing at the moment?” I went to close the door.
She threw herself against the knob. “Jason, I know you’re pissed, but you seriously need to come. Like, it’s bad. Just come on!”
“No.” I pushed again.
She braced herself against the door. “Jason!”
I gave up and let go, throwing out a frustrated hand, and Jessa stumbled into the room.
This was all I needed. I didn’t even have the patience or the energy to process what it meant that Lola was here in the first place. Was she on my tour now? Was this how they were letting me know? Just dumping her in my damn lap to babysit without so much as a fucking phone call?
I couldn’t even care. All I could care about was Sloan. That was all I had in me. “Have somebody else deal with her,” I said, dropping tiredly into a chair. “I can’t fucking do this right now.”
She bounced nervously. “Jason, come on, stop being a dick. That court thing with her manager happened yesterday. She’s totally triggered.”
I rubbed my brow. “What court thing?”
She huffed impatiently. “It was all over the news? He stole all this money from her? Yesterday they ordered him to return it, but it’s already gone. He had like a gambling addiction or something. She’s never going to get it back. She’s all broke and bankrupt and she’s totally fucked. I left for like twenty minutes, and I came back and she was locked in the bathroom. And look.” She darted into her room and returned a second later with a handful of long red hair. “She cut her hair off. Like, all of it.”
I scoffed. “A publicity stunt. What’s new?”
She scowled at me and smacked the hair onto the TV stand. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I glared up at her. “What’s wrong with me? I don’t know, let’s see, she wrote a fucked-up song about me and then set me up for paparazzi photos, groped me on a red carpet after harassing me for months, and now this shit with Sloan? She’s tried to ruin my life a hundred times over. She can go fuck herself.”
Jessa snorted indignantly. “A song she never once said was about you? And what, you don’t write about real life? I didn’t see you complaining about those red carpet photos when you were trending on Twitter. She made every woman in the universe wanna know what your name was. She was trying to help you.”