“My Little Pony,” he decided. “You adore My Little Pony toys, and you make videos that act out their adventures. You have over twenty-one million followers on YouTube. Your favorite pony to be is Fluttershy, because she’s shy but really damn cute.”
Delilah’s mouth dropped. “Look at you dropping My Little Pony knowledge.”
“I’ve got a little sister who’s into the show. And maybe I watch it sometimes, too. You know there’s a whole subset of us guys who watch it, right? Bronies?”
“I definitely need to have you on my channel. You can be my special Brony guest, if you play your cards right . . .” She trailed off. “What’s your name?”
“Jack,” he answered. “For real. And yours?”
“Delilah.”
“Delilah,” he repeated. “Pretty.”
Chills traveled up her arms. He hitched forward until their knees touched. He was so close she could see the gold flecks in his eyes. Oh my God, she thought. Are we going to kiss?
There was a noise behind them, and Jack bolted up. No one was there, but he seemed unruffled. He checked the time on his phone. “Man. I have to be somewhere.” He reached into his pocket and dropped a few twenties on the table. “I’m sorry to cut this short.”
“Oh . . . can I follow you . . . I mean . . . on YouTube . . . not . . . ?” Delilah heard her voice wobble. Mortifying.
“Definitely.” He blinked his long lashes. “I’ll find you, okay? I promise.”
He hurried out the revolving door to the street. Maybe he was just a guest at the hotel? Maybe he was on YouTube but had a teensy account?
But then she heard whispers. “Did you see who that just was?” And “I wish I’d gotten a picture.” A girl chased him out the revolving door. “Jack Dono! Love you!”
The guy Delilah had been talking to saluted the girl. It felt like someone had poured a bucket of cold water over Delilah’s head. Jack Dono? As in the comedy YouTuber? Busy adored him. He mostly filmed silly pranks, like driving his parents’ beat-up Honda into a big pond in his backyard, or rigging a giant chariot for his two Greater Swiss Mountain Dogs to pull him on in the snow. . . .
He was the most famous guy around.
Except there was something else Delilah was pretty sure she should’ve known about him. Over the years, Jack’s posts changed. Many were still a mix of adrenaline sports goofs, but they were also about his girlfriend. There was a whole fan base about their ship. Rabid fans created accounts re-posting adorable photos of them, images of what their babies might look like, and any scrap of couple gossip they could find. They even had a ship nickname. It was . . .
Delilah gasped. It was Jacklet. Jack plus Scarlet, aka Scarlet Leigh from Scarlet Letter—the intimidating girl Delilah had seen in the lobby. They were the most famous ship around.
She needed to get out of here.
Ducking her head, she ran into the lobby and out the front door. “Whoa, that was quick,” Bethany said as Delilah threw herself into the backseat and exclaimed, as though she’d just robbed a bank, “Drive, drive, drive!”
Thank goodness she did. Because just as they pulled out of the lot, Delilah’s phone began to buzz. Breaking news. She noticed Jack’s name. And the caption: IS JACKLET OVER?—and a blurry picture of Jack sitting on a very familiar banquette . . . smiling at someone across from him. The girl’s face wasn’t pictured, but Delilah knew exactly who it was.
Her.
JASMINE
Jasmine Walters-Diaz settled into the back of a Cadillac Escalade and rolled up the windows, cutting the fluorescent California sunlight to a thin, anemic glare. It didn’t quite block out the image of the people lingering on the curb, though, so she blew her fans one last kiss. An admirer with a T-shirt with Jasmine’s face on it and a pin that said she was from Utah looked like she was about to faint.
“Jazz.”
Fingers snapped in Jasmine’s face. Jasmine’s twenty-three-year-old sister, Ruby, sat across from her with an iPad in her lap. “Let’s run through your itinerary for the afternoon.”
Jasmine shut her eyes. “We already did that at the salon.”
“Yeah, but you hadn’t had your cold brew yet. Let’s do it again, just to make sure.”
A soft brush touched her cheek from the left. That was Angie, Jasmine’s makeup artist. Sometimes Jasmine had her hairstylist, Carina, in the car as well, but she’d just had a blowout, so lucky Carina had the day off.
As Angie brushed Jasmine’s cheeks with highlighter, Ruby began to recite. “We’re going to the shoot with Nike for your rainbow line.”
Jasmine glanced down at her outfit. As usual, she was dolled up in a rainbow-themed dress and high white heels, with big, blown-out hair. It had been her look for eight years, since she was eleven and played Lulu C on That’s Hot! on Lemonade. Surprise, more rainbows, she thought sarcastically. Anyone who wanted to do a capsule fashion or makeup or hair accessories line with Jasmine never deviated from the rainbow idea. If she were known for playing Batman, maybe they’d always go with a black, leathery theme. People didn’t like thinking outside the box, apparently. Though to be fair, it was a box that had changed her family’s life for the better.
“Then it looks like you’re free from three until four, but I’d use it to catch up on your video content and replying to some of your DMs. Unless you’d like Sasha to do it?”
“That’s okay.” Sasha was Jasmine’s assistant, and though she was great at impersonating Jasmine in DMs, Jasmine felt bad fooling her fans into thinking they were talking to her when really it was someone else.
“And then you have to approve designs for your label—they’re in already, which is awesome. After that, we have to swing by the Brandy Melville flagship because we haven’t been giving them very much love. I’d also really like to stop by Children’s Hospital and get a few key photos with some of the kids in treatment because I think that really humanizes your page.”
“And it’s nice to see the kids,” Jasmine added as Angie swiped mascara over her lashes.
Ruby paused from tapping her phone. “Huh?”
Jasmine didn’t bother repeating. One of her favorite things to do—besides lying around her bedroom and reading, or checking her own private social media accounts, which she only shared with a select few—was spend time at Children’s Hospital. Years ago, she’d lost her best friend, Lucy, to leukemia; she’d been barely there for Lucy because she was in the middle of filming That’s Hot! The kids she now visited in the cancer ward didn’t jostle her for a photo or shame her for designing ugly clothes. They were just happy someone was chilling with them.
“But it looks like your evening is free.” Ruby’s brow wrinkled. “Well, there’s always the party at the Pier—they’d be thrilled if you came. Or—aha. There’s that thing Cosabella is sponsoring . . .” But then she seemed to second-guess this. “Actually, never mind. Über-sexy lingerie might freak out some of your sponsors.”
Jasmine peered at the huge billboards whipping past. Famous faces were frozen in all kinds of expressions—joy, anger, intensity, longing. “I could just do my own thing tonight. I could call Fiona, we could order smoothies . . .”