Diving In Read Online Free

getting a raspberry lemonade from the
bar when we’re approached by Lexi Jaxxon and her buddy Tara Morgan,
who is slightly more famous.
    “Hey baby,” Tara says, grabbing me and
kissing me on the mouth. “It’s good to see you.”
    “We saw you over here lookin’ sexy and
wondered why you hadn’t come over to say hello to us,” Lexi ads
with a sultry purr.
    Both of them dig me and the three of us
hooked up last week after a shoot. They’ve been all up on me ever
since.
    They both don’t even say hello to Lola, which
is kind of rude, so I make a point to introduce her. I can tell
from her expression that she’s not exactly thrilled to meet them.
They act just a little bit arrogant and I know she doesn’t dig
their attitude.
    “You’re the high school girl, right?” Lexi
says in a vaguely condescending tone.
    “College, actually. A university,” Lola
smiles defiantly. Such a tough cookie, my girl.
    “Oh,” Lexi says like she’s a little surprised
that Lola checked her.
    “And you’re the one that’s known him since
you were kids, right?” Tara asks her in a way that seems kind of
like she’s talking down to her.
    I want to step in, but Lola’s got this. I’ve
seen her deal with this kind of girl rivalry bullshit before and
she’s no delicate flower when it comes to this stuff.
    “Yes,” she nods. “James and I have been best
friends since childhood. We grew up together. We’re practically
family.”
    “Closer than family,” I smile at her as I put
my arm around her and give her a wink to acknowledge that I see how
the girls are a little bit bitchy.
    They exchange those kind of fake pleasantries
that girls give to each other when they secretly don’t like each
other. I’ve never understood why they don’t just say what they
mean. Lola doesn’t like them, they have some kind of weird
mean-girl cockiness towards her and I don’t know why they’re even
standing here trying to pretend to be all polite to each other.
    I make up some excuse about wanting to ask
Rick something and I take Lola’s hand as we walk away from
them.
    “Ok, what’s up with those two?” she chuckles
when we get somewhere more private. “What’s their deal? They’re all
bitchy and combative.”
    “Who knows,” I shrug, “maybe they’re
jealous.”
    “Of what?” she scoffs with a laugh.
    “Because you’re prettier,” I say, kissing her
forehead, “and sweeter,” I add as I kiss her right cheek, “and
smarter,” I kiss her left, “and all-around cooler than they’ll ever
be,” I conclude with a kiss on the tip of her nose.
    “You’re such a charmer,” she says with a
giggle and an eye roll.
    “But I’m also honest,” I grin at her.
    As we’re walking back towards Chad and
Alejandro, I see Ethan Dane— my rival, my nemesis, the Newman to my
Jerry—walking towards us. He’s scoping Lola pretty hard and I can
feel my jaw clench as I step a little in front of her. It’s one of
those possessive displays of dominance a la Caesar Milan, but it’s
instinct for me at this point.
    “Hey, man. How’s it going?” Ethan smiles at
me.
    I give him a nod. “Great, dude, and you?”
    “Really great,” he says, cutting the
greetings and looking at Lola. “Hi,” he smiles flirtatiously as he
reaches out and shakes her hand. “I’m Ethan.”
    “I’m Lola,” she says. “Nice to meet you,
Ethan.”
    I’ve told Lola about Ethan Dane, but not a
ton about him. He and I are both the passion guys, the ones that
have a growing female following. He’s only about 5’ 10” but he’s
really buff and he’s got a tattoo on his shoulder of the lyrics
from a Bob Dylan song, which somehow makes him deep, I guess. We’re
always in the running for the same movies and we’ve had this
professional rivalry since my second or third movie. We started out
around the same time and both of us are getting pretty big, so
we’re kind of competitive. Right now, it looks like he wants to
compete over Lola. Little does