Say hi, he coached himself.Say hi and then tell her you missed her. Maybe she’s here for barbeque sex part two. Say hi. Say hi.He managed to open his mouth.
Except then Sunny, who’d sidled up to Steph and was gazing up at the manager with a look somewhere between awed and horny, spoke first. “Are you my mommy?”
Steph seemed accustomed to the half-feral Uncle Ray-Ray’s family after being on the set forDuke the Halls, because she ignored Sunny and walked right to the front of Teddy’s desk and braced her hands on the top. Like he was a naughty student and she was a teacher, the prettiest teacher in the world.
His heart jumped right into his throat.
“Word on the street is that you have a script,” Steph said.
Oh.
She wasn’t here for barbeque sex part two. Teddy’s heart burrowed mopefully down into his stomach.
“It was just finished last night,” he managed to respond.
Teddy’s company was producing the first-ever Hope After Dark movie this year—a film that would combine the unironic joy of the Hope Channel’s usual fare with the soft-core raunch that he’d grown up watching on Skinemax. Even better, the movie was still a Christmas movie!Santa, Babywas about a soon-to-be Santa Claus sowing his wild Santa oats before he took over the proverbial reins to the sleigh. The young Santa would be played by none other than Steph’s client Kallum Lieberman, former pop star (and present-day leaked-sex-tape star).
“Kallum should get it in the next week or so, if he’s worried about having enough time—”
“I’m not worried about that,” Steph interrupted. “I’m here because you still don’t have a Mrs.Claus, do you?”
“Ah.” Teddy squirmed. The truth was that despite the viral success ofDuke the Hallsand its meta-fusion of wholesome holiday fun and sex-drenched lead actors, he and his new casting director still hadn’t found someone to star opposite Kallum forSanta, Baby. Or more so, they hadn’t found someone that their director, Gretchen Young,alsoliked. “We’re working on that.”
“Gretchen hasn’t found the right fit,” Astrid said, coming to his defense. “It’s not because he hasn’t been trying.”
“I believe you,” Steph said. “And that’s exactly why I’m here. Because I have an idea for who our Mrs.Claus should be.”
“I’m all ears,” Teddy said, and then added, “Not really. I’m only two ears.”
Everyone in the room groaned.
“I appreciate the sentiment,” Steph said, with a sharklike gleam in her eye, “because this idea is a little unconventional...”
Part One
Chapter One
Winnie
My name is Winnie Elizabeth Baker, and except for the one time I let a friend pierce my belly button, I have done everything right.
When my parents wanted me to spend every weekend auditioning for local commercials, I did exactly as they asked.
When they wanted me to upend my life at age ten and move to Los Angeles to star in a wholesome family sitcom, I did that too.
I hid my narcolepsy from the industry so well the tabloids still have no idea.
I married my childhood sweetheart when I was eighteen years old, and I didn’t even kiss him until the day of our wedding.
I was a model daughter, a model wife: sweet, friendly, well-behaved. An icon for young women with purity rings everywhere.
So then why was I sitting in a therapist’s office, holding up my phone, and gesturing at what was on the screen like I was the glummest Vanna White of all time?
“And then Dominic Diamond dredges up this old picture, and now all anyone can talk about—again—is how Winnie Baker lives to make a scandal out of herself.” I dropped my phone in my lap, not wanting to look at the picture anymore, even to prove a point. I’d already seen it thousands of times anyway: a seventeen-year-old me, passed out in a car in front of the Chateau Marmont after that year’s Teen Choice Awards. My head was lolled back on the headrest, my normally fair cheeks were flushed red, and my mouth was hanging open.
Picture-me looked drunk, and even worse, picture-me lookedsloppy. Promiscuous, even, according to my parents. In many ways, the picture had been when everything changed for me; it had been the beginning of the end.
“Dominic Diamond is a gutter-dwelling sociopath,” Renata said calmly. As a therapist to actors, models, and—if the rumors could be believed—a certain California-dwelling prince, Renata was more than familiar with Dominic Diamond. He was a gossip blogger turned gossip influencer who spared no one in his nasty content updates, and I’d believe in a heartbeat that he was the subject of many sessions here in Renata’s office. “He’s not allowed to change how you see yourself.”
