Page 7 of Claim to Fame

Hannah snorted. “Who are you kidding? You and Daemon probably still have more sex than I do, even with kids in the house.”

Liv smirked and shrugged in a way that completely confirmed the accusation.

“Give up the details, Han. I haven’t had sex in weeks,” Jennifer complained. “Though those audiobooks you recommended have definitely been helping to take the edge off.”

“Clearly you had a good time.” Liv gestured vaguely to the spot at the edge of the neckline to Hannah’s shirt where a bright red patch of beard burn was visible.

“Shit.” Hannah tugged her shirt over to cover the offending mark.

Jennifer laughed and swiped a roasted potato from Hannah’s plate, popping it into her mouth as though it didn’t require a twenty-minute internal argument to decide to eat a starch. “God, I miss carbs,” she groaned.

“We shouldn’t even be talking about this in public,” Hannah said, turning her plate so the potatoes were closer to Jennifer. “If someone overheard and word got back to Jackson and his team—”

“No one cares about your fake boyfriend’s little publicity stunt,” Jennifer said as Hannah shushed her.

“Someone cares,” Liv said, gesturing towards the growing number of photographers lingering at the front window.

“It’s only until after the release of the pro shot. We’ve managed to fool everyone for the last six months,” she said, tilting her chin towards the paparazzi. “So I need you both to keep this to yourselves for the next few weeks. Then Jackson and I will issue a joint statement about an amicable split and we can get on with our lives.”

“Does that mean you’ll be going to the premiere with Jackson?” Liv asked.

“You should totally take Ethan,” Jennifer said.

Hannah frowned and poked at her potatoes, willing the noise in her brain to calm enough to let her eat one. “Ethan doesn’t even know I’m an actress. We don’t really tell each other much of anything.”

“Except ‘harder’ and ‘faster,’” Jennifer said with a snort.

“Could you not?” Hannah hissed, glancing over her shoulder at the older couple at the next table who were a little too close for her friends’ style of postmortem.

Jennifer stole another potato, gesturing with it still speared on the tines of her fork. “Shouldn’t you be more relaxed? If some guy banged my brains out—”

“Jennifer!”

“—I sure as hell wouldn’t still be strung this tight. Unless it wasn’t as good as you remembered.”

“It was better,” Hannah sighed, squeezing her thighs together to feel the pulse of soreness there.

“Then what’s the problem?” Liv asked.

“You mean aside from the fact that as far as the rest of the world is concerned, I’m in a relationship with Jackson Hayes? There’s no problem.” Her friends exchanged an incredulous look. “I’m not really supposed to be doing the casual sex thing,” she whispered.

“Says who?” Jennifer asked.

“Says me.” Hannah pushed her eggs around with her fork. “I haven’t always made the best decisions about how to take care of my body. Putting a moratorium on casual sex is part of my recovery.”

“But sex is more like self-care than self-destruction, at least the way you two did it,” Jennifer said.

Liv considered for a moment. “Is it really casual sex if you bang the same guy in the same hotel every couple months? That’s more of a sex tradition.”

“Nothing casual about traditions,” Jennifer chimed in.

“That’s not how recovery works,” Hannah reminded them.

Jennifer set her fork down and leaned towards Hannah, finally lowering her voice to an acceptable level. “Did you sleep with him to avoid binging?”

Hannah shook her head.

“To avoid eating?” Liv asked.

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