Free Aimee and the Heartthrob by Ophelia London

for breath, with a huge smile on his face, as he left the stage. The show had gone off without a hitch, rain dance and all. Nate was the one to tear off his shirt at the end this time. He’d gotten bigger cheers than Trev, and when he’d tossed it into the crowd, mad mayhem had broken out. Good for baby brother.
    After changing out of their wet clothes, they had to get through one quick round of interviews before their work was officially over. Miles felt his smile quirk up a notch as he neared the interview room and saw Aimee. She wore jeans and a plaid top; not a dress this time, and he caught himself being bummed about that. She really did have great legs.
    As he got closer, his smile dropped, because Aimee had the classic deer-in-the-headlights expression going. In fact, she looked cornered…because she was literally being cornered by that reporter from lunch.
    “What’s going on?” he said, breaking from the guys.
    When Aimee saw him, her face went pale, and then splotchy pink. “Nothing.”
    “Ah, Miles. We were just talking about you.” The reporter nodded at Aimee. “Well, she was.”
    “You were?”
    “No,” Aimee said. “I mean, I didn’t mean to say…anything.”
    “What did you say?” Miles shifted his weight, not liking how concerned Aimee looked, but since when was it his job to protect her from reporters?
    And what could Aimee Bingham say, anyway? He’d never had any drama with her, nothing embarrassing or tragic that she could spill to the world.
    Or wait. Maybe she did know.
    Maybe she knew about what happened way back five years ago, all the trouble he’d been in. Nick swore he’d never told anyone but his parents, and Miles believed him. But Aimee could’ve found out somehow. Was that what she’d just told this hounding magazine writer? Had yet another girl in his life burned him, turning his private business into a Yahoo! news headline?
    His stomach dropped. Not again.
    “She said you were an assjacket to her.”
    Wait. Which part about him getting arrested had to do with being an assjacket to Aimee? “I was?” He peered at Aimee, who was looking even more embarrassed. “When?”
    She shrugged. “Before.”
    “Today at lunch?” he asked. “Or last night?”
    “Last night?” the reporter repeated, perking up.
    “Sorry, Aimee, I couldn’t see in the dark. Did I leave a mark on you, or a bruise on your, um…” He shot a quick glance directly at the area in question, making his entire body flush hot. “Or scratch you there—”
    “No!” Aimee blurted, crossing her arms. Her cheeks were two dots of red and spreading fast.
    “Scratching each other in the dark.” The reporter was writing in her notebook and grinning. “This is great stuff. Though I believe her assjacket comment had to do with something you did to her when you lived at home. Since she swears she hasn’t seen you in two years.”
    “Because that’s the truth.” Aimee sounded defensive, which made Miles defensive.
    “Then when was I an ass to you?”
    “Ass jacket ,” Ryder corrected, then nodded at Aimee. “Nice one, sweetheart.”
    Aimee’s face went redder. “Never mind, it was nothing, forget it.”
    “I think you should tell him,” Deb, one of the makeup girls, said. Miles hadn’t realized they had such a big audience. “Therapeutic, remember?”
    “Tell me what?” he asked Aimee.
    But she wouldn’t look at him. She glared at Deb, then threw shade at Ryder when he snickered. Then she dropped her gaze to her shoes. This was going nowhere.
    “Come on.” Without thinking, he took Aimee by the hand and tugged her away. He had to tug more than he expected, because she didn’t seem to want to go with him. He didn’t care, he needed to get to the bottom of all these questions.
    While breezing past LJ, he said, “That reporter back there”—Miles nodded behind him—“make sure she knows anything Aimee says is off the record.” He didn’t wait for LJ to reply; his manager would take