He’d been repeating this particular pattern long enough that he was now halfway through his fourth beer. By now he was almost buzzed enough to do what he had set out to do when he cracked open the first one. He took a long swig and opened his laptop. Again.
He opened the browser and hesitated over the keyboard. This wasn’t creepy. She was a public figure. She definitely already knewwaymore about him. This was just leveling the playing field.
Before he could talk himself out of it again, Ethan pulled up a search engine and tapped out a name with his right index finger:Grey Brooks.
Instantly, a menu dropped down with autofilled suggestions of the words most frequently searched with her name. Ethan sighed and drained the bottle. He stood up again and grabbedanother beer out of the minifridge next to his desk and popped the cap off. He settled back into his chair, for good this time, and started to work his way down the list, beginning at the top.
Grey Brooks Instagram
@greybrooksofficial, 650k followers. The screen filled with rows of well-curated image cubes: Grey smirking on the red carpet, Grey pouting at a photoshoot, Grey laughing with a friend on a hike. In person, she’d been pretty, even striking. Wide-set blue eyes, dark brows, strong nose, full lips. She’d clearly been nervous when they first met, but the arch of her eyebrows and the naturally downturned corners of her mouth made her resting face look haughty, almost petulant. As their conversation had gone on, she’d softened, her expression becoming open, friendly.
That is, until he’d insulted her.
He’d miscalculated her appeal at first, casually dressed and makeup-free, but when she’d been flushed with emotion while dressing him down, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. How fucked in the head was he that he was most attracted to her when she was calling him out for being a patronizing asshole?
Her gutsiness was certainly part of it; she had everything to gain by just smiling and nodding as he disparaged her. But most of all, what he’d seen written on her face when she was glaring daggers at him, what had completely disarmed him, was the confirmation that she could see right through his superficial shields of fame and money and charm, straight down to the rotten core of him.
She was right: he’d expected her to be desperate and vulgar and dying to please. By the time he realized he had underestimated the wry, sharp, guarded woman in front of him, it was too late. He’d already spent the days leading up to their meeting letting his disgust with himself build until he was powerless to do anythingbut vomit it all over her, trying to purge his self-loathing from his body as quickly as possible. It hadn’t worked, but then, nothingdid.
In any case, scrolling through the pictures confirmed what Ethan had suspected: she was incredibly photogenic. He clicked on the thumbnail of a picture of her at some awards show, hair cascading down her pale back in shining honey waves, all red lips and glowing cheekbones with mischief in her heavy-lidded eyes, but he was hit with a prompt to create an account to see more.
Damn. On to the next one.
Grey Brooks Poison Paradise
Ethan scrolled through promotional photos of a group of seven or eight attractive twentysomethings, toned limbs draped over one another, smoldering dramatically at the camera. Based on the photos, the cast had rotated somewhat over the years, but Grey was one of the few who appeared in every incarnation. There was something uncanny about her styling combined with the heavy airbrushing of the photos; she looked too perfect to be human. They all did.
He clicked through production stills of her character dressed in a cheerleading uniform, laughing in a convertible, playing guitar in front of a screaming crowd, lying in the hospital recovering from some sort of serious-but-not-permanently-deforming injury, burying a body, and, if he wasn’t mistaken, running for president of the United States. He frowned. What the hell was this show about?
Grey Brooks boyfriend
Ethan felt his stomach drop at the suggestion, but he felt obligated to click. The search brought up a few dozen pictures of Grey at press events entangled with a skinny white kid he recognizedfrom thePoison Paradisecast photos: young, pretty, pale as a corpse, with long shaggy hair and a smug expression. Ethan disliked him instantly.
A headline caught his eye, accompanied by a paparazzi picture of a distraught Grey sobbing on the phone.“Paradise” Lost: Pretty “Poison” Pair Rocked by Ugly Cheating Rumors!His stomach lurched again. He clicked to the next search suggestion rather than interrogate the queasy feeling he got from looking at the picture of her crying.
Grey Brooks child
Ethan’s brow creased. Did she have a kid? He didn’t think Audrey had mentioned that, but then again, who could be sure. He was relieved when the search brought up nothing but fuzzy screenshots of projects that Grey had appeared in when she was younger. He remembered now: at lunch she’d mentioned being a child actor.
Ethan clicked over to YouTube and watched a low-res upload of a commercial where a brunette Grey, who couldn’t have been more than ten, gushed over a doll that came with matching full-size accessories. The lines were stupid and the doll was pretty creepy looking, but she sold it.
Grey Brooks Kamilah Ross
Ethan smiled to himself as he looked through photos of Grey laughing and embracing Kamilah, a stunning young Black woman he recognized from Grey’s Instagram. It seemed like their friendship stretched back years. Grey looked happier in the photos with Kamilah than he’d seen her so far.
A few more clicks and he found himself on the IMDb page forBeauty Queens,a microbudget indie the two of them had made afew years back. They had cowritten and costarred, with Kamilah directing. Ethan pulled up a trailer. The plot was ambiguous at best, and, okay, the whole thing seemed a little pretentious, but he had to admit it had a strong visual aesthetic. And Grey, compelling in person and intriguing in photographs, was downright beguiling on-screen.
He watched it three times in a row.
Grey Brooks Don’t Forget to Scream bikini
Ethan shifted in his chair.Donotclick on that, you pervert. You dirty old man.
Grey Brooks feet
Ethan slammed his laptop shut and chugged the rest of his beer. That was more than enough for one night.
He stretched his legs and went over to the minifridge, killing the last of the six-pack. He pulled out his phone and texted his assistant, Lucas, knowing that if he waited even another five minutes the thought would fly out of his head:more Stella for office fridge.
