Renata was silent for another beat. “I also had an interesting call with Audrey Aoki this morning.” Grey’s new publicist. Most of Audrey’s client list was out of Grey’s league, but she had taken a liking to Grey after Grey had been in the right place at the right time (the ladies’ room at the MTV Video Music Awards) to provide the right assistance (a well-hidden safety pin to repair Audrey’s broken dress strap).
Grey and Renata had both been surprised when Audrey had agreed to work with her, but Audrey had waved them away: “You’ve got the chops, you work hard, you stay out of trouble. You deserve to be huge and I can get you there.”
Of course, it wasn’t a purely magnanimous offer—her fee was exorbitant. So far, she’d snagged Grey a few modest Instagram brand deals and anUs Weekly“What’s in My Bag?” feature, but from the sound of Renata’s voice she had something bigger brewing.
“What did she say?”
Another pause. “You’re not dating anyone right now, are you? I haven’t heard you talk about anyone since Callum.”
The name made her wince. She’d fallen for Callum Hendrix, who’d played Lucy LaVey’s on-again, off-again bad boy love interest, from the first time he’d raised an impeccably sculpted eyebrow at her during the firstPoison Paradisetable read. He was her first love, and for four years, they’d practically been attached at the hip. That is, until the three-month break before they’d started shooting the fifth season, when he’d urged her to turn down a juicy indie role to fly out to visit him on the set of his current gig: a midbudget thriller shooting on a picturesque Greek island.
She’d stepped off the plane, visions of aMamma Mia!summer dancing in her head, only to discover the whole set snickering and gossiping behind her back about how he was secretly fucking his costar. It hadn’t stayed a secret for long.Mamma mia,indeed. Over the years, her devastation had dulled to vague irritation—it helped that Callum and the costar had flamed out spectacularly before their movie was even out of postproduction—but even now, hearing his name unexpectedly sometimes felt like accidentally bumping a bruise she had forgotten was there.
To add to her misery, the movie she’d passed on had ended up doing fairly well in the festival circuit and picked up a few smaller awards, including one for the actress who’d replaced her. Since then, every time she opened Raya to swipe through the endless hordes of shirtless EDM DJs and smirking agency execs, all she could see was her replacement accepting that damn Independent Spirit Award. Grey wasn’t about to make that same mistake again. Dating was a distraction.
“Um, no. No. There’s no one.”
“Good.” Renata heaved a sigh. “You know, I told her youprobably wouldn’t go for it, but she thought I should be the one to bring it up, since she knows we’re close.”
“What? Go for what?”
“How would you feel about being set up?”
That was not what Grey expected. “Set up? Like a blind date?”
“Sort of. Audrey has another client whose profile could also use a boost. She pitched the idea of the two of you possibly entering into some sort of…mutually beneficial personal arrangement.”
Grey ran her fingers through her hair. “So you’re pimping me out now. Awesome. I guess my career is even more dead than I thought.” The bitterness in her voice was undercut by a quaver she couldn’t hide, tears welling behind her eyes. She willed them to retreat. Being an easy crier was an asset on set, but not so much at literally any other time.
Renata sounded hurt. “Of course not. There wouldn’t need to be…intimacy. Just the illusion. We would work out the terms and make sure everyone’s happy.”
Grey was silent. She kicked a clod of dirt at the base of the tree and watched it explode in a satisfying puff. Renata sighed again.
“Grey. Listen to me. Don’t be dramatic.” Grey knew Renata was serious if she was calling her by her real name. That is, her fake real name. “You’ve been in this business a long time. You know how it works. I don’t blame you for being insulted by the idea. I’m not crazy about it myself. But you’re paying out the ass for Audrey’s help, and if this is what she thinks it’ll take to give you that extra edge withGolden City,or to help you and Kamilah get in the right rooms with your script, I think it’s worth exploring.”
Renata had a point. Grey hated that her desire to keep a low profile outside of work—especially after the humiliation of what she had gone through with Callum—could be counted as a markagainst hiring her. But that was what she got for choosing a profession where her skill, her experience, and her drive would always be secondary to how many people knew her name. Even if it was just her character’s name.
Now that the initial shock had worn off, she felt herself softening to the idea, but said nothing, sipping her coffee through the soggy paper straw as she turned Renata’s words over in her head. A relationship couldn’t hurt her career if it wasforher career, right?
“Will you at least meet him? You two can have a private lunch at Audrey’s and get to know each other a little before you decide either way. What do you say, sugar?”
Grey realized that Renata had been withholding the most important piece of information: the identity of the other client. Maybe there was a reason for that. Her blood chilled at the possibility that Audrey would ask her to be an accomplice in rehabilitating the image of some creep who’d been caught banging the nanny, sending skeezy DMs to underage fans, groping his costars—or worse. There were more than enough potential candidates in an industry crawling with men who knew that their wealth, fame, and power would shield them from ever facing consequences for their actions. No career boost was worth selling her soul like that.
Grey steeled herself for the worst, a rejection on the tip of her tongue. “Who is ‘him’?”
She was so startled by Renata’s reply that she almost dropped her phone in the dirt.
ETHAN ATKINS FELT GOOD. ORat least he didn’t feel bad, which at this point was almost the same thing. The lift in his mood probably couldn’t be attributed to the atmosphere. Neon beer signs hummed and flickered, pool balls clacked, competing games blared from multiple televisions, and both the bar top and the floor were sticky with decades of spilled beer.
Maybe it was just the novelty of being around people. Aside from the one weekend a month he spent with Elle and Sydney, limited by his custody agreement with his ex-wife, Ethan frequently went days at a time without seeing another living soul. But then, that was by choice. And even now, he wasn’t exactly mingling.
It was still relatively early, but he’d never seen this bar with more than a handful of people inside. There were one or two small groups of men in the booths, intermittently cheering and swearing at the TV; a few guys flirting their way through a game of pool with the only woman in the place south of sixty; and a couple ofsad, tired-looking loners sprinkled along the barstools. Ethan supposed he should probably include himself in that last category.
He closed his hand around his third bourbon of the evening and took a long swallow. Warmth spread through him, sending pleasant tingles down through his body all the way to his fingertips. On days when Ethan let himself go out to drink in public, he abstained for a day or two leading up to it. He wanted his head clear, his nerves raw, so he could fully savor the descent into oblivion. The first drink dulled the edges, the second one added a dreamy, hazy filter to his surroundings. Now Ethan felt himself drift outside his body, floating up near the water-stained foam tile ceiling, looking down at himself. Maybe the source of his good mood wasn’t so mysterious after all. He picked up a greasy, oversalted french fry from the plate in front of him and dipped it in ketchup. The fries didn’t hurt, either.
Once or twice a month, he had his driver escort him from his home in Pacific Palisades to Johnny’s, a shitty dive bar hidden deep in the Valley, and leave him there for a few hours. The long ride down the 405 was worth it to camp out on the fringes of the bar, where he could be as alone as possible while still surrounded by people. Nobody recognized him. Nobody bothered him. Nobody wanted anything from him. Nobody pitied him. Which was good, because he pretty much had the market on self-pity cornered.
Maybe it was a stretch to saynobodyrecognized him. Ethan would probably have to travel to the moon to find a place completely free of double takes, that telltale squint as they racked their brains to figure out where they had seen him before, that wide-eyed gasp of recognition when it dawned on them at last.
