You Had Me at Hola(86)

Jasmine grimaced. “I swear I was going to call you when I got back to LA.”

Riley shook her head. “I don’t need you in LA. I need you here.”

Jasmine pursed her lips as something else occurred to her. “Speaking of, how did you know to find me here?”

“I follow Michelle on Instagram.”

Michelle looked up from where she was taking a picture of the flowers from an artful angle. “What, you didn’t know Riley and I are mutuals?”

Ava retrieved a bottle of water and a donut for Riley, who took them gratefully. “So, since you’re here,” Ava began, and glanced meaningfully at the still-unassembled centerpieces. “Want to help us with these while we help Jasmine make a decision?”

“I’ve already made a decision,” Jasmine said, although she was feeling less decisive by the minute.

“Your decision sucks,” Michelle told her. “Make a new one.”

Jasmine shot her a glare, but didn’t reply.

Riley wiped the donut crumbs off her fingers with a napkin, then took the cut ribbons Ava handed her. “While I would never tell you that you’ve made a bad decision,” she began, “it is my duty as your agent to remind you that you signed a three season contract, and to ask that you hold off on deciding anything just yet.”

“I guess this means you didn’t call Ben at Glamour Squad?”

“Ah, I did not, no. Because I was waiting for you to wrap Carmen before telling you I’ve had a lot of inquiries come in. People want to work with you, and they’re trying to get you on their schedules before Carmen gets picked up for another season.”

“We don’t know if it will,” Jasmine pointed out, but Riley cut her off.

“Oh, it will. Trust me, with the amount of buzz the show has been getting, they’d have to be stupid not to film more episodes.”

Jasmine frowned. “You mean all the stuff about me and Ashton? That’s not good buzz.”

“All buzz is good buzz. Haven’t you—oh, shoot.” She slapped a hand to her forehead. “I forgot you deleted all your social media apps. You really haven’t seen.”

“Seen what?” Bewilderment mixed with apprehension. Now what were people saying about her on the internet?

Riley pulled out her phone and navigated to Jasmine’s Instagram profile.

Jasmine blinked. “Holy shit. Since when do I have one hundred thousand followers?”

“Since the publicist for Carmen has been working her butt off to generate early buzz for the show.” Riley took her phone back. “Tanya’s been posting pictures and videos from the set since the beginning, playing up the Latinx angle and the rom-com angle. Rom-coms are huge right now.”

Jasmine shook her head in awe. “I had no idea. After McIntyre, I’ve been completely ignoring all that.”

“Stop saying ‘after McIntyre’ like he was some kind of natural disaster that destroyed your home,” Michelle snapped, slapping a rose on the table and sending petals flying. “He was one douchebag who broke your heart. He just happened to be a household name.”

“Michelle . . .” Ava raised her eyebrows in warning.

Michelle shook her head. “No, I’m tired of it. She needs to know.”

Ava sent Michelle a look and soon the two were having a whispered argument while Riley stuffed palm leaves into glass vases like her life depended on it.

But Jasmine ignored them because . . . Michelle was right.

What was next? “After Ashton”? While it had a nice ring to it, this wasn’t what Jasmine wanted her life to be. All it did was play into the myth society wanted her to believe, that her love life was the most important thing about her. And it wasn’t, damn it. She was a fully rounded person with hopes and dreams and fears—and a hundred thousand Instagram followers, apparently.

She could still be the Leading Lady in her own life.

What would that look like? How did she want it to look?

Your decision sucks. Make a new one.

What if it were really that easy?

Jasmine dug in her bag for her phone.

“What are you doing now?” Michelle’s voice was heavy with suspicion.

“Canceling my flight.”

Riley let out an enormous sigh of relief.

Some part of Jasmine’s brain must have known she was overreacting, because she’d gotten travel insurance on the flight. While she navigated the cancellation on the airline’s app, her mind whirled with everything her cousins had said, including some wise words from Ava . . .

Is it so unreasonable that he didn’t tell you he had a son?

At the time, yeah, it had seemed completely unreasonable. How dare he keep something like that from her? She’d shared openly with him about her own life.

But the truth was, she didn’t have any secrets nearly as big as his. Hell, her business was already splashed all over magazine covers. And Yadiel was a secret Ashton had fought hard to protect for good reasons. As much as it stung to admit, it made sense that he hadn’t told her. She shouldn’t feel entitled to every part of him, especially not so early.

They’d said some awful things to each other, but all relationships had ups and downs, right? She had minor tiffs with her cousins and siblings all the time.

Make a new decision.