Heartthrob

Chapter One Jericho Beaumont used the pay phone outside the Aardvark Club to call Chaslyn. He automatically hunched his shoulders and turned his face away as a car pulled into the lot and parked, its headlights illuminating him like a follow-spot before being shut off. As the phone rang, he turned up the collar of his jacket--added protection against being recognized by the college-age kids getting out of the car. But he needn't have bothered. "Isn't that ...'" "Doesn't he look like ...'" The flurry of whispers were drowned out by a louder voice. "Nah, it's only Jericho Beaumont. Hey, Beaumont, where you been? I keep expecting you to do a guest spot on the new Loveboat. Haven't they called you yet?" Anger flared, but Jed crushed it, stuffing it deep inside, locking it tightly down, ignoring it as completely as the laughter that echoed in the night. And when Chaslyn's roommate Lisa picked up the phone on the fifth ring, his voice was even and perfectly in control. "Hey, Lisa. It's Jericho. Has Chas left for the wrap party yet?" Silence. Then Lisa laughed nervously. "Um, Jericho ...Chaslyn left for London five days ago. She got cast in that Linda McCartney bio-pic, remember?" Her voice became tinged with pity. "Didn't she tell you she was leaving?" "Yeah," Jed lied. "Yeah, she told me, and I, um ...I must've forgotten." "You didn't know she was gone, did you?" Lisa saw right through him. "You know, she told me you wouldn't notice if she suddenly disappeared. And it took you five days just to wonder where she was, didn't it?" What could he say? It was the truth. "Yeah." "God," Lisa continued, "and I was about to be mad at her for dumping you that way. You're such a loser, Beaumont." She cut the connection without even saying good-bye, and Jed slowly hung up the phone. His girlfriend had been gone for five days. And he hadn't even noticed. It would've been funny--if it weren't so damn pathetic. The music inside the club was blaring, and Jed worked his way through the sea of humanity to the bar at the back, where the cast and crew of Mean Time were having their farewell bash. Rhino and T.S. were sitting at the bar, a bottle of Jack Daniel's positioned strategically between them. "Where's Chaslyn?" Melanie, the makeup head asked as he moved past her table. Jed didn't stop. "She's not coming. She's already flown to London for her next project." "Poor Jericho--you're all alone. You must be so sad." He took the stool next to Rhino, trying to feel sad, trying to care Chaslyn was gone. But the only emotion he could muster up was a vague sense of frustration. And maybe a little envy. Chas had a next project to go to. So far Jed had nothing lined up yet, and the truth was that that hurt worse than her leaving. He dug deeper, staring into the shot glass filled with golden brown whiskey that Rhino had pushed in front of him, but he still felt nothing more profound than a sense of relief. Chaslyn had left, which meant he no longer had to worry about hurting her. She had truly cared for him. And he ...He'd liked the sex. Bernie O'Hara, the character he'd played in Mean Time, had loved Chaslyn's character, Lulu Jerome, with an obsessive passion. It hadn't taken long for the line between reality and make-believe to blur, and five days into the six-week shoot, Jed had wound up in Chaslyn's bed. It should've been no big deal. They were both adults, both unattached. But Chas didn't realize the heat they generated belonged only to Bernie and Lulu. She didn't realize that underneath Bernie's volatile character, Jed felt damn close to nothing. That he rarely felt anything at all. He pBrockmann, Suzanne is the author of 'Heartthrob' with ISBN 9780345466082 and ISBN 034546608X.