21. Sunny
“ H ow was your weekend?” Jeremy asks when he sits down next to me in Criminal Law.
“It was good,” I tell him. “I flew to LA to visit my boyfriend.”
Dex started his new job two weeks ago. And getting a glimpse at his life in LA was even harder than I expected.
He took me to see the studio and the set.
I met his co-stars, who are all insanely gorgeous.
He introduced me to everyone as his girlfriend, but still, I couldn’t help feeling threatened.
I was a fish out of water among these impossibly beautiful people.
But Dex wasn’t. He fit in perfectly. And, more importantly, he looked so comfortable and happy.
Meanwhile, it was everything I could do not to run away screaming.
What does it mean for our future if I can’t see myself in his world?
But when it was the two of us, alone…the fireworks…
I can’t think about that now, though. Jeremy’s nodding at me.
“The actor,” he says. “How’s he doing out there?”
“He’s doing really well, actually. He’s going to be on a soap opera.”
Jeremy raises an eyebrow. “A soap opera ,” he repeats slowly. “You’re joking, right?”
I shake my head. “It’s true. He got a starring role on Passions .”
Jeremy chuckles into his coffee tumbler, then takes a long sip. “A soap star, huh?” He clears his throat. “I bet he’s a real dreamboat. Rock-hard abs? Smoldering eyes? Is he harboring a deep dark secret?”
I laugh. Jeremy has a pretty sarcastic sense of humor, so I’m not surprised by his response. “Pretty much,” I reply. “Not the deep dark secret part. But the abs and the eyes? Definitely.”
Jeremy smirks as our professor walks in and the din around the classroom settles to a hush.
About a month after I visit Dex in LA, his episodes begin airing on TV.
And right away, people start talking about him.
There are interviews on entertainment shows and in soap opera magazines. They call him things like “sexy newcomer” and “hunky soap star.” No surprise there. But it does surprise me that they refer to him as “Dex Oliver.”
“Yeah, my agent thought that Oliver Dexter sounded like an accountant,” he says to me, laughing over the phone.
God, I wish he were an accountant. Like Evan. Mia’s so lucky.
The next thing I know, I’m at the Starbucks in downtown Bloomington one morning, waiting to order a chai latte, when I hear two undergrads in line ahead of me talking about Dex.
My Dex.
“So I have a new crush,” one girl says to the other.
“Oh my god, the cute guy who sits next to you in Econ, right? I knew it!”
“Nope.” She giggles. “Dex Oliver. He’s so hot…I’d literally let him do anything to me.”
“Oh my god, same. I read he has a girlfriend from back home, but I bet that won’t last long…”
My stomach churns. I feel sick. I leave the shop without ordering.
When I get back to my apartment, I watch Dex’s show for the first time. I have every episode recorded, but I’ve been too nervous to watch them before now. Too afraid they’ll confirm what I already know is true. That Dex really is a star…
And it’s only a matter of time before I lose him.
Ten minutes into the first episode, my heart sinks.
Somehow he’s even better than I expected.
He stands out. And it’s not only because he’s shirtless half the time, which is so strange for me to see.
My boyfriend’s body on TV. The same abs and pecs I’ve brushed with my fingertips a million times, the neck I’ve bitten, the lips I’ve kissed—oh god.
I turn off the show before I have to watch him kiss the hot blonde who’s making eyes at him.
How will I ever get through this?
The only solution I can come up with right now is to pour myself into law school.
I meet Jeremy at the library most nights.
He’s so smart, I doubt he even needs to be there, but he says he enjoys studying with me because I keep him disciplined.
Apparently, if it weren’t for me, he’d be out at the bars a lot more often, and then he’d start slacking off in school, which is what happened to him in college.
But the truth is, I like studying with him too. It’s like having my own private tutor. People should be fighting to get him into their study groups, but Jeremy jokes that I’m the only person in our class who can put up with him.
I’ll admit he’s a troublemaker. Whenever he raises his hand to speak in class, students roll their eyes with a wry smile because they know what’s coming.
He’s loud, argumentative and—infuriatingly—always right.
He loves to start debates, play devil’s advocate.
Stir the pot. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that a fair number of our classmates truly despise him.
If law schools have bad boys, Jeremy is ours. Once, he got another student so riled up in class that our professor threw his hands up in defeat and dismissed us early. We also think he made a teacher’s assistant cry one time—although she claimed her watery eyes were due to allergies.
Yes, Jeremy’s an instigator. But it isn’t just for show.
He’s so smart, you actually want to hear what he has to say and, by the end, you almost invariably agree.
He finds every loophole. He makes us all better law students, I think.
That’s why I study with him. If I’m going to do this law school thing, I want to do it right.
And Jeremy and I make a good team. He helps me tighten up my legal arguments, making sure no stone is left unturned.
And I help him organize his writing, which is as untamed as he is.
Before I know it, my first semester’s over.
I won’t get my grades back until after winter break, much to my mom’s dismay.
But I don’t have the energy to worry about her because Dex is in town .
We spend the holidays in Beachwood. For the first time in years, our families celebrate together at his house.
And this time, Luis, Lily, and Elena join the party.
It’s a perfect evening. While we’re at the table enjoying Mrs. Dexter’s feast, Dex barely stops kissing me.
A peck on the cheek, one on the hand, one on my ear.
Several on my lips. My mom is seated on the other side of me, so we’re safe from her glaring disapproval.
Anyway, she’s busy talking to Lily, who’s in the first year of her neurosurgery residency.
They’re discussing surgical techniques, like two peas in a pod.
After dinner, when everyone’s distracted by football, Dex and I sneak upstairs to his bedroom and he has me for dessert.
For a moment at least, everything is exactly as it was over the summer—with the exception of the photographers hanging out on Dex’s front lawn.
One week later, our families toast the New Year with a catered meal at my mom’s. As I sip my champagne with my boyfriend’s arm draped around me, I can’t help but reflect on everything that’s changed in the past year.
I was with Asher last winter. Now I’m with Dex.
I started law school. He’s becoming famous…
Nerves flutter in my stomach as I wonder what 2003 will bring.
Back at school in January, I get my first-semester grades.
I’m stunned. I got As in all my classes.
Studying with Jeremy definitely paid off.
For the first time since I started law school, I feel like I belong here.
I raise my hand a lot more in class. I feel calm and prepared walking into exams. I do so well that, before the end of the school year, I’m offered a coveted spot as a summer associate at one of the best firms in Chicago.
Law school summers are when the firms wine and dine you, and give you a nice big paycheck in hopes that you’ll sell them your soul after graduation.
I’m not convinced I want to work for a big firm, but Jeremy, who’s at the top of the class with me, thinks it’s too good an opportunity to pass up.
He’ll be working in Chicago this summer too, at a different but equally prestigious firm.
“Just give it a try,” he says. “See how you like it.”
Well, I do like it. Maybe because, for the first time in my budding career, I’m getting a taste of how it feels to be a VIP, like Dex.
I don’t pay for a thing the entire summer.
Everything is on the firm. We eat dinner at all the new hot spots, enjoy drinks at the swankiest bars.
We get premium seating at every sporting event—luxury suites and skyboxes wherever we go.
I’m seduced by it all. And it’s not just the recreation I find so exciting.
The attorneys I work with are litigators, and they’re cool, confident and fast on their feet.
They’re actors, essentially. It’s thrilling.
Speaking of actors…Dex’s career is really taking off.
He’s a soap opera “fan favorite,” so they give him a bigger and better story line—an evil twin, of course—which means double the screentime and an opportunity for him to really show off his talent.
He plays the brothers so distinctly, so convincingly, that they truly seem like two different people.
Between filming, and photoshoots, and interviews, Dex’s free time is limited. He flies me out to LA a couple of times. He tries his best to make plans for us to see each other.
But he cancels on me. A lot.
I can tell it’s the last thing he wants to do, so I try my best to hide my disappointment. After all, what did I expect? I always knew this would happen.
I just didn’t think it would happen so fast.