“You don’t have to tell me that,” I said as politely as I could.
Steph nodded. “You’re right. I don’t.” She leaned forward, a glint coming into her eye. “Doesn’t it piss you off that he got to keep everything? The good reputation, the gigs, the moral high ground?”
“Of course it does,” I said. Breathed. “All I wanted was to move on. But he wouldn’t let me.”
“Because he’s a chode and chodes think small, Winnie.” Steph reached into her purse and pulled out a card. Her business card.
I took it, not sure what was happening.
“Have you heard of Hope After Dark?” she asked, snapping her purse shut.
“Um, yes,” I said. Everyone had—the announcement that the Hope Channel was veering into racy content had been a bombshell no one had missed.
“The lead actor is my client. Kallum Lieberman, one of Nolan Shaw’s former bandmates. I believe you two have met before?”
Met.Memories of that fateful Teen Choice Awards flashed through my mind: Blue eyes, a surfboard falling onto my foot. Hobbling around the after-party with my toes throbbing insidemy kitten heel, narcolepsy clawing at my brain. Escaping the party at the Chateau Marmont to hide in the car, where I’d curled up on the seat and let drowsiness take me under.
And then the picture. The infamous picture. Taken by none other than Kallum Lieberman and posted to his MySpace that very night.
“Yes, we’ve met,” I finally answered.
A nod. “Well, I think you’d do great opposite him in the first Hope After Dark movie.”
For a moment, I thought I didn’t hear her correctly. That I was mistaken. Then she gave my confusion a sharp smile. “Think about it. You have a Hope Channel contract you’ve never fulfilled, right? One in the process of being canceled because you broke their morality clause while you were at UnFestival?”
Ugh.“Yes.”
“What if you didn’t have to pay back the money you’d gotten from signing the contract? What if you could still satisfy that contract with a different Hope property?”
“I’ve already tried,” I said. “Before my agent dumped me. They said with my reputation, they couldn’t cast me in anyth—”
Steph interrupted me. “That was then, Winnie. This is now. AfterDuke the Hallsand the way its stars have blown up after the Bianca von Honey scandal, Hope is seeing things in a brand-new light. And who better to head up their spicy new start than their fallen angel?”
“It would never work,” I said, still utterly bewildered. “I can barely believe they’re doing Hope After Dark as it is, but to work withmeagain? They’d never go for it.”
“Oh, they already have,” Steph said smugly. “And they loved the idea so much they begged me to get you to sign on, pronto. Which means the role is yours if you want it. A salvaged contract, a salvaged bank account, and who knows? Maybe a whole new direction for you.”
“I can’t be in a sexy movie,” I murmured as I looked back down at her business card. The idea was ludicrous. I’d never even seen a raunchy movie. I didn’t own a single sex toy, I’d never even... done things to myself, and I was pretty sure the only time I’d ever had an orgasm was while I was asleep and dreaming raunchy dreams that never seemed to star Michael. On the night my divorce was finalized, I’d drunk half a bottle of wine and Googled the wordpornographyfor the first time in my entire life... and then I was so embarrassed by myself that I’d slammed my laptop shut and binged TikToks about spooky lakes instead.
And the thing was that Iwantedto get rid of these walls in my mind; I wanted to watch porn and sexy movies and be the kind of person who could make dirty jokes. The kind of actor who could star in a Hope After Dark movie. But I wasn’t. I was Winnie Baker and I was something much worse than a prude: I was a former prude who had no idea how to un-prude herself.
“Just think about it,” Steph said. She patted my shoulder and strode off, trench coat flapping just above her high heels as she walked. I was still holding her card like it was a live grenade, half tempted to lay it on the curving cobblestone path that led to Renata’s tucked-away building and walk away. Forget this conversation ever happened.
But I didn’t do any of that. I put the card in my pocket, squared my shoulders, and went home.
Homewas not the house I’d lived in for over a decade, nor was it my parents’ house. The former was Michael’s—bought for him as a wedding present by his mom and dad, who ran a faith-based media empire and had more money than every megachurch in Texas twice over—and the latter I was tacitly no longer welcome in. So I was currently bunking in an old friend’s pool house. She also happened to be the only friend I had left.
I stopped by her back door on my way back to the pool house and saw her sitting at the kitchen island with her chef-made meal and a glass of something clear, which I knew wouldn’t be water. Sure enough, when I slid open the door and stepped inside her minimalist kitchen, I saw a half-empty bottle of Grey Goose on the counter.
“Winnie!” Addison exclaimed, spinning on her stool and padding over to me in her bare feet. They were pale—she was due for a spray tan soon. “I had the chef make dinner for you too tonight.”
“Thanks, Addy,” I said, giving her a big hug. Actor, singer, and self-identified girl boss Addison Hayes had been on another show—a semiserious drama about a widowed pastor and his family—when we were both teenagers, and we’d been put together as manufactured best friends by our management teams. We had matching careers, matching blond hair, matching purity rings. I even did guest vocals on her first album, which had been the launching pad for her wildly successful crossover music career.
We’d drifted apart after the Chateau Marmont incident—all my time and energy was sucked into repairing my image after that—but had reconnected a few years ago, when we’d starred in a Hope Channel movie as long-lost sisters who fell in love with a pair of long-lost brothers. She’d been the only one to stay in touch through the divorce, much less to offer any help, and while we kept it hidden that I was living here so she wouldn’t be tainted by association, she’d still welcomed me with open arms and even more open vodka bottles. I’d be grateful for that welcome until the day I died.
“How was the shrink?” Addison asked, sitting back down and picking up her fork to eat her tiny square of white fish.
I found a plate tented with foil on the counter and got myself a fork. “Fine. I complained about Dominic Diamond.”
