Four friends who happened to have red hair. They were always with each other, going to parties and restaurants and clubs together, being popular. Beingfamous.
I explained that much before I turned to a more difficult topic. “Annie and I were in Tintagel Studio’sCamelot Courtwhen we were kids. It was this time-travel show set in King Arthur’s court…anyway, Emma Dempsey was in another Tintagel show that filmed near our lot. She’s a natural blonde, but an agent made her dye her hair red to try out for some live-action remake of a cartoon. She got the part.”
Emma had started getting attention after that, picking up movie roles, and so she kept her hair red. Then Annie and Emma met Roxanne Rochford, another redhead, at some industry party. Roxy had made a name for herself in a bunch of teen urban fantasy shows, usually as the feisty frenemy. Annie, Emma and Roxy had posted a photo of them all together that night, and the photo went viral.
“‘Red-hot redheads,’ that kind of thing,” I snorted.
“And Connelly?”
“Harper Connelly came along a little later.” I paused, recalling Harper. She was so sweet.Toosweet to have been swimming with sharks like Annie and Roxy. But Harper had always been genuinely pleased to see me; she said I reminded her of her own brother, back in the hick town she grew up in. “She was a YouTube makeup guru, you know? Orwas… She was known for doing redhead-flattering looks, because she was one herself. She sent a DM inviting Roxy onto her channel one day, and Roxy agreed. She took Annie, and Annie took Emma, andthatvideo of the four of them together was the highest-watched thing on YouTube that month. I mean, it was huge.E! Newscovered it,People, you name it. After that…”
“They blew up together.”
“Harper got a makeup collab with this cool indie company. Emma got cast in one of those superhero movies, Roxy finally got the lead in a Netflix show, and Annie’s Q rating went through the roof.”
“Q rating?”
I stared at him. “Seriously?”
“We pause for you to mock me every time I don’t know something about The Biz, this is gonna take a long time.”
“I’m not mocking you,” I sighed. “Okay, a Q rating is like, your popularity rating. How much peoplelikeyou.”
“Who gives the Q rating?”
“No one. I mean, everyone. It’s kinda…nebulous.” I waved my hands around in the air, signifying mystic-woo shit, and got a blank look in return. “They do surveys about it, call up people and ask them what they think. Brands use it, especially after a hit to their rep, but the movie studios keep an eye on it, too.” I didn’t mention that my own low Q score in comparison to Annie’s had been a factor in not renewing my contract forCamelot Court.
In the series finale, my character, Griffin, had gotten tired of playing the jester and found a way back to the modern timeline. He chose to leave Camelot. Annie’s character, Gwen, decided to stay because she was involved in a love triangle with a teen King Arthur and Lancelot.
Queen of Camelot Courthad premiered the next season, and Annie got lead billing.
Jack had already moved on from Q ratings. “I noticed Dempsey and Connelly have been MIA from your sister’s public socials for a while. Rochford’s still around, though?”
“Yeah. They all had that brief It Girl period, and they were lucky to spin it out as long as they did. Twelve, eighteen months, they wereeverywhere. But people get tired of the same thing. Besides, the four of them, they weren’t really…” I hesitated.
“Let me guess,” Jack said. “They weren’t reallyfriends. They were associates. And once the association became less beneficial to one or more of them, they stopped hanging out.”
“Uh, pretty much.” I chewed my lip. “Emma was already starting to bail, not hanging out with them as much. Annie said it was because she was a fame whore who wanted to climb the ladder, but…” I hesitated again. This time, Jack just waited. “One day some shit went down between them, and that was the end of it.”
“What shit, exactly, went down?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “They never told me. Harper, well, shevanished. Maybe she went off to rehab or something, I don’t know. Her channel went stagnant. Emma stopped taking Annie’s calls. Roxy and Annie are still tight, but they always look like someone farted when you mention Emma or Harper in front of them.”
Jack gave a small smile and I thought about how close together we were, how easy it would be to lean in and kiss him. I’d been thinking about kissing him since the first moment he let me into his apartment.
Actually, I’d been thinking about kissing him since the moment his lips left mine for the last time yesterday. Even with all my growing concerns about Annie, when I’d needed to take my blood pressure down a notch, I’d thought about the evening I’d had with this guy, about the way he’d painted my art room wall with my cum, and felt my chest relax a little. He was the one thing I could think about that reliably took my mind off my worries.
His thigh was warm against mine. We’d gotten closer together during our talk, without me really noticing. And he was looking at me, deep and intense, his lips parted just slightly. I leaned in a little more, like a flower straining for the sun.
For a moment I thought hewasgoing to kiss me, slide his hand around the back of my neck just like he had yesterday, and wipe my mind for me.
Then he blinked and shuffled back in his chair. “Okay. Well. Like you said, sounds like what happened with the Flames has nothing to do with this. That’s it for now; I need to go to work.”
Disappointment speared through me, but I tried not to let it show. “Sure.” I stood, stretched, and was pleased at least to see that his eyes traveled my body as I did. “So what’s next?”
He stood. “Tomorrow we head to your sister’s place, have a look around. In the meantime, don’t do anything without me, you hear me?” He grabbed my shoulder as I turned to walk to the door. “I mean it, Trouble. Don’t be a fucking hero about this. Don’t stick your nose anywhere unless I’m with you.”
I frowned, taken aback by his intensity. “You think Annie’s in danger, don’t you?”
