“Spill?” Aarav appears in the doorway by Meera’s desk, sneaking up on her just like Talia did moments ago. She really needs to be more vigilant. In his hands, he holds a roll of paper towels and a bottle of carpet cleaner.
“Yes, sorry, Aarav. That was me. You don’t have to clean it up—I can take care of it.”
“No, no. I will clean.” She watches as Aarav kneels on the floor and begins to soak up the milky-brown puddle. After a moment, he looks up at Talia, who smiles politely. Then he turns to face Meera, and in Tamil—so quietly she can barely hear him—he says, “Don’t worry. I won’t tell.”
Meera freezes. It’s unclear whether he’s referring to the coffee spill or the illicit snooping, but before she can ask for clarification, Talia speaks.
“Lunch later?”
“For sure, if I get this stupid MLOps-intern presentation done before then.”
“You’ll get it done,” Talia says. “You always do.” Ever the optimist.
Meera watches as Talia heads off to her desk, and then turns to find Aarav. But he’s no longer crouched on the floor beside her; only a wet splotch stinking of ammonia remains.
She’ll warn Talia about Townsend soon, Meera tells herself. The next opportunity she gets. She doesn’t relish the idea of breaking her friend’s heart, but telling her about Townsend’s Cuff profile is the right thing to do. Though whip smart and ambitious, Talia is also—in Meera’s opinion—a little naive.
And Meera knows just how easy it is for someone like that to get hurt by someone like him.
Chapter Four
Kaitlyn
Kaitlyn Reade has never broken into an apartment before—but then again, she’s never had good reason to do so before now.
She also never expected it to be so easy. All she had to do: Tell the landlord that she needed to water her sister’s plants and she forgot her spare key.
The landlord—a squat man with a wispy gray ponytail—squinted at her in response. “You’re Amanda’s sister?”
“I am.” Kaitlyn knew exactly what he was thinking, what everyone seemed to be thinking when they compared the two sisters:So how come she’s hot and you’re not?
Luck,she wanted to tell them.Good luck for her, bad luck for me.
“She’s months behind on rent. She’s going to get her ass kicked out of here soon.”
“Have you seen her recently?”
The landlord shook his head no. “She’s avoiding me.”
Join the club,Kaitlyn was tempted to say, but instead, she just followed the landlord up the stairs.
She hoped—perhaps naively—that she would find her sister still in bed, sleeping off a hangover. She hoped to hash out their issues and finally understand why she’d been cut out of Amanda’s life. But standingnow in Amanda’s empty studio apartment, it’s clear that her sister hasn’t been here in quite some time.
She’s only been to Amanda’s place in East Austin once or twice, but she remembers it being messy to the point of feeling squalid: crusty dishes stacked in the sink; clothes—both washed and unwashed—thrown over the furniture; rolling papers and parking tickets and crumpled wads of bills scattered on every surface, like proud evidence of a life lived fast. But surveying the four-hundred-square-foot space now, Kaitlyn can see little evidence of life at all—the place is immaculate. No dirty dishes, no unfolded clothes, no clutter.
She wonders, for a moment, whether the landlord let her into the right apartment, but then she notices the black-and-white modeling shot hanging in the kitchen: her sister, smirking at the camera lens, one hand cupping a bare breast and the other offering a middle finger to the photographer. Yes, this is her sister’s apartment, all right.
Of course, Amanda isn’t a real model, just as she isn’t a DJ or makeup artist or aspiring fashion designer or any of the things she claims to be. And even with the tens of thousands of followers Amanda boasts on social media, Kaitlyn isn’t positive her sister can be considered a professional influencer, as there is nothing professional about Amanda Reade—though she is certainly influential when she wants to be.
All Kaitlyn knows for sure about her little sister is that she’s very good at landing on her feet ... though where she’s landed now, Kaitlyn can only imagine.
Despite being born just fourteen months apart, the sisters aren’t close and have never pretended to be. Kaitlyn used to joke that Amanda (conceived by accident) just couldn’t resist stealing her spotlight, and she’s been stealing it ever since ... along with Kaitlyn’s clothes, and money, and friends. But that joke stopped feeling funny after their parents died in a car wreck two years ago, leaving Kaitlyn the executor of their will and the recipient of a mere ten thousand dollars. The rest of the estate—modest, though not insubstantial—was left to Amanda. As her parents explained in the will, Kaitlyn is a paralegal. Kaitlyn issalaried. Kaitlyn is stable. And since Amanda is none of these things, she’s more in need of financial assistance. Kaitlyn would understand their decision, they were sure.
Kaitlyn can’t fault her sister for this. Amanda didn’t ask for the unexpected windfall, just as she didn’t ask for a perfectly symmetrical face, or the thick blond waves that fell to her elbows, or a natural hourglass figure that stayed trim no matter how many french fries she ate and beers she chugged. And for all her flighty tendencies, there wasn’t a malicious bone in her sister’s body—which is why Kaitlyn believes Amanda isn’t ignoring her on purpose. It’s not uncommon for three weeks to go by without her sister returning a call or text. But this time, it’s been nearly threemonthssince she last heard from Amanda. That isn’t normal.
The last time Kaitlyn saw Amanda was late February. They got brunch at their favorite diner in Georgetown, Spooners, which was just a few minutes away from Southwestern University, where their parents had both been professors. Amanda had grumbled about making the trip up there so early on a Saturday (their hometown being over thirty miles north of Austin), but Kaitlyn knew her sister was feeling just as nostalgic for Georgetown as she was, what with the two-year anniversary of their parents’ death approaching. It was on that car ride that Kaitlyn asked Amanda about her plan.
“My plan?” Amanda parroted from the passenger seat. Even though they were in Amanda’s car—a pearly-white 2024 Honda Accord purchased with inheritance money—Kaitlyn was the one driving, as Amanda claimed she needed to finish her makeup.
