Free Messy by Heather Cocks, Jessica Morgan Page B

looked up at him. To her surprise, he was actually not a man, but a boy about her own age—he had gray eyes and dark hair and was sort of on the short side, for a guy (although he still had several inches on Max).
    “Can you breathe?” he asked.
    Max took a deep breath.
    “I meant through your nose,” he clarified.
    Duh. Maybe I have a concussion.
    “Here, let me look,” he said, pulling her toward him and prodding at her nose a little. He pressed on it carefully. “Does that hurt?”
    “No, actually,” Max said.
    “Does it feel like your nose is stuffed up all of a sudden?”
    “No.”
    The guy threw out his hands in a “ta-da” motion. “Excellent! I think you’re still in one piece,” he said.
    “Are you some kind of boy-genius doctor?” Max asked. “How do you know so much about broken noses?”
    He grinned. “This is Hollywood. I’m just
acting
like I know about broken noses. Also, I had mine broken at drama camp three years ago when part of the set for
Platoon: The Musical
fell on my face.”
    “Wow. War
is
dangerous.”
    “Apparently, so is going to the bathroom.”
    “I couldn’t figure out where the ladies’ room was,” Max explained, nodding out the kitchen window toward the still stagnant queue. “And I couldn’t handle the crowd anymore. I kept getting shoved up next to this pathetic actress who’s trying to sleep with her gay friend.”
    The boy shook his head. “Actors are so irritating.”
    “Tell me about it,” Max said. “I go to school with a girlwho actually entered our Speech Day contest with a monologue about flutes that her character delivered in
The Pied Viper
.”
    His mouth fell open. “You go to school with Jennifer Parker?”
    “You
know
her?”
    “I’ve seen that movie like three times,” the boy said. “It’s what I watch if I’m depressed about my life. So that I know things could always be worse.”
    Holy crap, it’s like I’m talking to myself
. “I’ll be sure to tell her you said that.”
    As they smiled at each other, Max became aware of the longish silence that had descended.
    “I guess I should get back to my friend,” she stammered. “I ditched her as soon as the pole-dancing wrapped up.”
    “At least you didn’t abandon her in the middle of it,” the boy said. “I’m only here because Moxie and my roommate share a manager. He ran up to her as soon as the spotlight came on. I spent the whole time wondering where I was supposed to look.”
    “What did you land on?”
    He wiggled his iPhone. “Angry Birds,” he said. “But I should probably go back to being a wingman. It was nice to meet you… um…?”
    “Max,” she said, sticking out her hand.
    “Max,” he repeated. “Explains why you were in the men’s room.” And with a wink, he hopped down and jogged outside, knocking into the door frame a bit on his way.
    Max chuckled to herself and gave her nose one final, gentle squeeze. It seemed to be in working order, or at least it hadn’t fallen off. Apparently this was a night of firsts for her: first insane Hollywood party, first time passing herself off as the namesake of a rare dairy product, first potential broken nose, first encounter with someone who similarly appreciated the awfulness of Jennifer’s résumé. All that was left was her first Brooke Berlin blog entry. If only she could figure out how the hell to pull it off.
    “I hope you had the tiiiime of your liiiiives,” she could hear Moxie Stilts rapping from the guesthouse, in a megaloud, mega-misguided cover of the Green Day high school graduation favorite.
    With a bolstering nod, Max shoved her way back into the drunken abyss. Whatever she was going to write, it was probably going to start in there.
    OPENBRKE.COM
    MARCH 12
    If you’ve found this blog, chances are—unless you were looking for information on German bodies of water and you’re really terrible at Google—you already know a few things about me: I’m Brooke Berlin, I’m sixteen, my father is