I nod with feigned understanding, heart rate picking up speed. At least now I know this is my apartment. How I came to reside in it at this current moment in time—what even istimeright now?—is still anybody’s guess. Panic is a cauldron overflowing inside my gut, but I have to at least play along since I see no immediate way out of whatever this is. “Right, right. Of course. But, if you had to…in your own words, describewhywe weren’t to do this again, what would you say?”
Scrubbing a hand over his chiseled features, he says, “Because we’re in a bit of a personal and professional gray area, given that I’m your director.”
“Director for what exactly?” I ask.
He crosses the room in three impressively long strides (it’s abigroom) so he’s in my face. “Follow my finger.” Annoyed, but wanting this interrogation to be over with, I do as he asks, looking up and down and left and right as his pointer finger roves and circles. That’s when I notice more of my surroundings. Posters, pictures, dozens ofthem, with my face on them. Those dreamed-ofSOLD OUTbanners slapped across them. Is that me and Hannah Gadsby? Me and Ali Wong? Me and Nathan Fielder?
“What gives?” Adonis asks. “You look fine, but you’re acting weird. Can you stop being weird so I can stop panicking?”
Oh man, he thinkshe’spanicking?
I still have so many questions stacking up in my brain. My eyes are darting around the room taking in all the images of me that aren’t the me from last night but are various versions of me I’ve never seen and never been. But I must’ve been, right? There can’t be photographic evidence of a me that never existed.
My frazzled brain spits out only two explanations I haven’t yet considered:
I was drugged last night, dumped in a million-dollar fun house, and everything happening here is all an elaborate trick for which I’m being filmed to air on a prank show.
I’ve somehow time-jumped into the future.
It says a lot about me that the first option seems far more feasible and somehow preferable.
Adonis takes my blank stare for what it is and restarts his hunt for his phone, which he finds, inexplicably, in the Nutribullet on the counter. It says even more about me that I’m both proud I’m accomplished enough to own a Nutribullet and ravenous for a strawberry-banana smoothie.
“I’m not weird. I promise.” Though it’s a lie, and a promise I shouldn’t make, because clearly something is off in a major way, but this man does not seem like the right confidant for that information. I don’t even know his name, and asking seems like it would only rile him up more.
Looking unsure, but apparently willing to let it go, Adonis gets fully dressed and collects the rest of his belongings. “If you’re sure. You’ll call if you get blurry or dizzy or fainty or whatever?”
“If I check any of those boxes, I’ll be sure to call.” I won’t, because I don’t know if I have a phone, where I put it if I do, or what contact I should look under to call him if I found it. But fake reassurance seems like the safest bet in this unimaginable circumstance. While I don’t want to be left alone in a haze of panic, I don’t think I have a choice if I plan on figuring this all out.
He comes over and kisses me on my cheek, still smelling heavily of whatever debauchery we got up to last night. “I need to get out of here before Jessalynn comes to give you your rundown for the day. They’ll have my head if they see me.”
No more is said before he escapes around the corner and through the front door.
Finally, I’m alone. Still freaked out. But alone.
Creak. Cra-creak.
Well, not quite. I turn to find that ridiculously horny corgi going to town on one of the beige throw pillows that landed on the floor. He does his thing while staring right at me, almost defiantly.
“Guess it’s just you and me, Milkshake.” As soon as I say it, the corgi turns away and picks up speed. “Men,” I grumble to myself before navigating back to the bedroom. It’s a maze in here.
In my hunt through the main bathroom (spotless), the walk-in closet (bigger than my bedroom in Astoria), and the dresser drawers (who knew one person could own so many pleasure devices?), I abandon the phone altogether when I remember what I stuck under my pillow. With a loud “aha!” I rip the pillow off the bed, expecting to find those Doop crystals glinting in the sunlight pouring in from the ginormous, well-washed windows, but all I see is empty space.
And then a buzzer goes off.
Chapter Fourteen
When I open the door, I’m met with yet another recognizable face that I can’t put a name to until they open their mouth and a far-too-familiar voice pipes out.
“If you’re planning on denying it, save us both the time and don’t.” Jessalynn, the one Adonis was so hell-bent on avoiding, turns out to be none other than Jessie, my coworker at the Hardy-Har Hideaway, except older and without the buzzed hair and beat-up trainers. In their place, they’ve got a short, stylish haircut and red-bottoms that must have cost a pretty penny.
They push past me into the apartment, a whir of bags and brashness. Gone is the chumminess of two aspiring entertainment workers suffering through a poorly paying job. Jessalynn—clearly a combination of Jessie and their middle name Lynn—has a sleek business aura so severe it could poke your eye out.
“Let’s take the meeting up on the deck. The weather’s divine,” they say before gliding up the sweeping staircase with carpeting down the center and ivy growing up the railings. Milkshake follows me over, but as I begin to climb, he lets out a bark.
“Aw, such little legs,” I coo before hoisting him up. He’s heavier than he looks, but I’ve got strong biceps now, so it’s no big deal. This part I could get used to.
Outside, there’s another garden with an unparalleled view of New York City that makes me feel like I’m hanging out with the clouds. The sun’s only a shout away, bathing the rest of the skyline in late-morning light. My Astoria bedroom looked out onto a brick wall. This is…wow.
