Just Like the Movies Read online

  Just Like The Movies

  Natasha Preston

  Contents

  Also by Natasha Preston

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Epilogue

  Read My Mind

  Waking Up In Vegas

  Acknowledgments

  Keep in Touch with Natasha Preston

  Also by Natasha Preston

  THE SILENCE SERIES

  Silence

  Broken Silence

  Players, Bumps, and Cocktail Sausages

  Silent Night

  THE CHANCE SERIES

  Second Chance

  Our Chance

  THE ONE SERIES

  Waking up in Vegas

  Just Like The Movies

  STAND-ALONES

  Save Me

  With the Band

  Reliving Fate

  Lie to Me

  After the End

  YA THILLERS

  The Cellar

  Awake

  The Cabin

  You Will be Mine

  The Lost

  The Twin

  Copyright © 2020 by Natasha Preston

  All rights reserved.

  Visit my website at www.natashapreston.com

  Cover Designer: LJ Designs

  Editor: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing,

  www.unforeseenediting.com

  Proofreading: Victoria L James,

  www.victorialjames.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Kim, Spencer Lowe is for you.

  One

  Indie

  Spencer Lowe.

  I hate him.

  Except that, actually, I don’t. Not even close. He’s my best friend of almost ten years and, unfortunately for me, the love of my life.

  “Yeah, LA is a lot different to my small hometown in England, but I love it here.” Spencer smiles, his bright white teeth gleaming at me from the TV screen.

  I hate Hollywood, and actors, and friends who leave you behind.

  But I’m also proud of him. So incredibly proud every time I think about how far he’s come, from high school drama classes to Hollywood’s latest golden boy.

  More than anything else, though, I miss him. I miss him so much, I feel like there’s no air in the room.

  “It’s been great to have you with us this morning.” Judy Pierce turns to the camera. “Quarantine is out November twentieth, and you don’t want to miss it. That was Spencer Lowe, who plays hunky bad boy Jack Miller. And yes, Spencer is even hotter in person!”

  Ugh. I jab my finger on the red button, and the TV switches off.

  When was the last time I spoke to him? Has it been two weeks? Three?

  He was supposed to stay in contact. That’s what we promised each other the night we got soaking wet, standing outside his house in the rain, trying to say goodbye.

  It wasn’t always this bad. At the start he called a lot. We were seventeen and joined at the hip. Then his life transformed overnight. Now, three years on, we’ve both left our teen years behind, and he’s left me.

  I want to be angry. I long to feel something other than complete devastation.

  It’s nine in the morning. I’m tired and about to leave for my nine-thirty lecture. It only takes fifteen minutes to get to the university, so I chose to live at home. Sort of chose, anyway. My university is only small. I did have my heart set on a bigger one in the city. I wanted to go where no one knew me, so I could blend in. That wasn’t ever going to be an option.

  It worked out in the end because my little uni has small class sizes, which means I get more time from my lecturer.

  Putting my breakfast plate in the dishwasher, I grab my bag off the counter and head out to my old, red, 1998 Vauxhall Corsa. It’s probably the worst car in the world, but it’s grown on me over the last three years.

  I jab the key into the lock—yes, it’s that old, it doesn’t unlock with the click of a button—and get in. The door makes a tinny thud every time I close it, and the engine rumbles like it’s struggling.

  Wiggling the gearstick into first, I pull out of my drive and make the cold journey to uni. It’s early November, and unseasonably cold today.

  As I drive through the forest, yellow and orange leaves glide to the ground. This is the best time of year, when everyone wraps up cosy, and the first wave of Christmas excitement hits.

  I don’t much like Christmas, but I see why others do. For me, I’m just happy that people are merrier. My besties Mila and Wren go crazy for it, but they have close families and big gatherings, so I guess they would.

  I pull into the car park and cut my engine. Sia stops singing about chandeliers, or whatever the message of that particular song is.

  One day, I’ll have a new car with heated seats, electric everything, and power steering. One with Bluetooth so I can play whatever I want from my phone.

  “Morning,” I greet Ellie. She’s a girl studying drama who I don’t really know but always say hi to. We met at orientation and have barely spoken properly since those first few nervous days. She probably knows that I was friends with Spencer Lowe. At one point, for about five minutes, we were more than friends.

  I cross the small quad and jog up the steps to my building. I’m fresh into my third year of studying Psychology and Counselling. Maybe I’ll buy a new car when I get my first job. After moving out of my parents’ house, of course.

  They weren’t up this morning, which isn’t unusual. I’ll check on them again when I get back, but I heard a lot of snoring. That means they’re fine.

  I push open the door to my class, and I find a seat on one of the dark wooden chairs. The building is old, and the lecture room I spend most of my time in smells a bit like a used book shop.

  Our lecturer, Grant Hawthorn, is a middle-aged man wi
th a black hipster beard and a kind heart. He’s one of the nicest people you’ll meet, and he’s determined to have a full house of firsts. So am I.

  “Good morning, Indie. First again, I see,” he says with a warm smile. He’s holding a Starbucks takeaway cup and sitting on the desk.

  “Better to be early than late, right?”

  He laughs. “Do you spend much time at home?”

  Not if I can help it.

  “Do you want me to get a first?” I counter, and he laughs again.

  “Touché. Have you finished the reading on forensic mental health? I know you’d gone on ahead of the others.”

  I wince. “Last night, yeah. I couldn’t help it. The re-offending rate is crazy high.”

  “The world needs more people like you going into counselling.”

  It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I want to work primarily with adults who have grown up with childhood trauma, but that would lead to more questions, no doubt. Grant always asks why when we’re discussing the particular field we want to work in.

  Working in a prison setting does interest me, though.

  The room soon fills, and Grant begins his lecture. My pen flies across my notebook as if possessed. I scribble down everything he says, knowing that I’ll read it over and over again later to make sure it’s engrained in my mind.

  Uni is my ticket to a better life. I won’t let anything come between that. I must be the world’s most thorough note-taker, never missing a single word. Not even the people running about throwing a ball in the cold outside distract me. We’re lucky to have a room that gets a lot of natural light, but the downside is that it faces the quad.

  They could be having an orgy and I wouldn’t stray from the development of forensic mental health.

  Grant finishes the lecture by assigning us some reading for later. Reading that I’ve already done. He smirks at me knowingly as he assigns it. I’ll read it again, and he’s more than aware of that.

  “I’ll see you this afternoon,” he says, sitting behind his desk.

  The room files out. Maddi is hot on my heels.

  “Do you want to grab some lunch at Starbucks?” she asks, tucking her folder under her arm.

  There aren’t too many people I like on my course. Not because they’re horrible but because I don’t know them. If people get close, they ask personal questions. I’ve managed to keep my private life mostly private from Wren, Mila, and Spencer, but it’s exhausting. I can’t add anyone else to that.

  The one person I do get along well with is Maddi. She isn’t nosey, and she shares my cappuccino addiction.

  “Sounds good,” I tell her as we walk out of the building, into the ice-cold winter air.

  There is a Starbucks about five minutes away from campus, so we walk.

  “This year is kicking my arse,” she says as we huddle together against the bitter wind.

  “It’s full on.” So full on that I barely have time to work anymore.

  Laurel still gives me a few shifts at The Waffle House, but I’m on a zero-hour contract now. It has to happen. I won’t save as much money this year but uni comes first.

  “Can we cram for finals together like we did last year?”

  I nod. “Absolutely.”

  Maddi is a good study partner, taking the course as seriously as I do.

  We rush though the door and my shoulders sink against the warmth of the heater blowing above. Maddi orders a cappuccino and a toasted cheese sandwich. I have the same, and we find a table.

  I check my phone quickly to see if I have any messages.

  There’s a text from Mila to our group asking if me and Wren want to get together soon. And a Google Alert.

  I take a breath and open the alert, grateful that Maddi is distracted with replying to her boyfriend.

  An article, or many articles covering the same topic, fills my screen. Spencer was out partying last night. I don’t open the article but the headline reading: GOLDEN BOY SPENCER LOWE GETS COSY WITH COSTAR ELLA MILLS, and a picture of them laughing together is enough for me.

  I swallow the burning heartache and place my phone face down.

  He’s single. He can do what he wants.

  How many celebrity relationships start with being co-stars?

  Is he with her?

  She’s beautiful and talented.

  “You okay, Indie? You look pale,” Maddi says. Her phone is away now, and she’s looking at me with wide, concerned eyes like she thinks I’m about to be sick.

  “I’m fine. Is Paul okay?” I ask, knowing that she’ll get carried away with the latest boyfriend and forget what’s going on with me.

  Her face transforms, the smile lighting her eyes. “He’s great. He wants us to go away together next year.”

  “That’ll be amazing. Where would you go?”

  She shrugs. “Somewhere hot. I want to sit by a pool and do nothing.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  I would love a holiday. Wren and Mila want a girls’ week away, but I’m still saving as much money as I can to move out.

  “He’s so nice. I almost think it’s too good to be true. Especially after Marcus.”

  “Forget the arsehole ex.”

  She smiles again. “I will. How about you? Have you spoken to Spencer?”

  Okay, we’re going there.

  I shrug and tear off the corner of my toasted sandwich. The cheese is still bloody molten hot. “Not for a little while. He’s doing a lot of promo for his movie at the moment. He’s back after his premiere.” Once upon a time, I was supposed to go, too. We’ve not talked about that in over a year.

  He’s done countless appearances all over America, and some TV ads, too, apparently. He’s busy, busy, busy taking the acting world by storm.

  “Will he come home once that’s done?”

  “That was the original plan, but he’s going to be in demand now. I don’t think it’ll be long until he’s cast in another incredible movie.”

  He has to come back to do promo when the movie hits the UK. I just don’t know how much time he’ll get at home.

  “How do you feel about that?”

  My heart falls. Stop talking about this! “I’m so proud of him.”

  She raises her ginger eyebrow. “Really?”

  “I am proud of him.”

  I also miss him so much that I feel like I’m walking around with a hole in my heart.

  Two

  Spencer

  I wake with, what feels like, a mouth full of sand, and Metallica rocking away in my skull.

  Last night was awesome, but I wish I’d stopped drinking earlier. A lot earlier. Jesus. The movie was wrapped a while ago and is now ready to go. I’m doing a lot of pre-release appearances. I don’t know if I’m more exhausted from being on set all day or from being on every second I’m outside my apartment, shouting about the movie.

  There’s very little time to block everything out or have a bad day. I love my job. I wouldn’t want to do anything else, but it can be mentally exhausting. That part, I wasn’t prepared for. There was no easing into it. I had a baptism of fame fire, and I can’t pretend that I’m not a little bit burned.

  Back home, if I was having a shit day, Indie would come over and we’d watch TV together and eat snacks. I’m so far from home now that Indie feels like a memory. I haven’t seen her in almost year. We didn’t used to go a week without her staying over. I’ve been desperate for her to come here and visit for so long, but every time I ask, she says she’s busy with uni. I get it. I’m flat out, too.

  It sucks that our schedules conflict. There’s nothing I want more right now than to sit on a sofa with her.

  Rubbing my face, I roll onto my side and get out of bed.

  My apartment in LA is nice. It’s close to the beach in a part of town you want to be seen in. According to my agent Denny, anyway.

  I crick my neck and walk into my kitchen for Tylenol and coffee.

  As nice as the apartment is with open plan, white t
iled floors, and a fancy granite kitchen, it’s not home. I could decorate it to my own taste, but I know that wouldn’t help. I need Indie to make it a home.

  Being away from friends and family is hard but, fuck, I love what I do. The buzz of bringing a character to life and being a part of something that will be around forever is indescribable. I don’t even mind the long hours. Not really.

  My phone is on the kitchen counter. I have over fifty messages. I don’t even want to know about social media yet. Fuck looking at texts and WhatsApp right now. I scroll quickly, making sure I’m not missing anything or anyone important before I make my coffee.

  I have two TV appearances left, and then I’ll be on a plane home for a week. The plan was to take longer, but there’s an audition Denny got me, and I desperately want the part. The movie sounds even better than the one I’ve just done. It’s an apocalyptic, end of the world gig, and the part I want to play is a real arsehole.

  Those are the best roles.

  Two and a half years ago, no one knew my name. Now I’m getting job offers and auditions for major movies and adverts. I have more money than I know what to do with, and I live in LA by the beach.