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Hal’s jaw dropped.

Kana stuttered, “You fucking—wait! What!” She tapped the Vanquish’s headlights behind her. “You’re saying this is Covey’s car?”

“Well, shit, I have a celebrity’s ride in my shabby garage?” Hal muttered, eyes wide, chuckling like a cartoon villain. “Yo, Connor, next time you come across him, tell him to come here to get his car fixed and ask how much he’s willing to pay.”

“He said he would pay me more than what you guys pay me now.”

Alex snorted into his fist.

Hal raised himself a little higher, frowning. “Well, shit, son. I ain’t making bank, but at least you getting meal tickets.”

“Back up a second,” Robin interjected. “So the guy you were with last night was Covey? From the Covey Show?”

“Who?” Alex grunted loudly. “Y’all keep talking like we all know him, like he’s Jesus or some shit.”

Kana raised her eyebrows at him. “Do you even watch TV?”

Alex looked up, thinking of every show he could name off the top of his head. He ran out before he filled one hand.

“I gotchu!” Matt strolled over to the laptop. He knelt and started clicking and typing away, with Robin’s voice crackling with static.

“What are you doing?” asked Robin.

“Auggie doesn’t know who Covey is! Where’s that one clip… Oh! I like this one!”

Matt clicked play on a YouTube video and enlarged it. The video was a clip from a talk show, with the Hollywood Hills in the background.

The camera panned to the host on an ugly orange couch—golden hair slicked back, tan suit, pearly smile plastered across his face. Something snagged in Alex’s brain. The guy’s brown eyes. Warm, unreadable, the kind that looked like they were always smiling. He’d seen those eyes last night. Behind a mask.

“Welcome back, everybody!” The host announced. “Our next guest is not only the most popular pharmaceutical scientist right now, but the hottest. Everyone, please welcome Ritsuki Ayase!”

Alex almost choked on his noodles. Jun froze, his chopsticks suspended, his face going blank.

The camera faced the other ugly orange couch, showing Ayase, who was outfitted in an elegant suit vest he had never seen him in before.

Alex’s mind reeled. He didn’t know Ayase was associated with a celebrity like this.

“Welcome, Ritsuki!” the host, whom Alex could only guess was Covey, greeted him with a firm handshake. Ayase offered up an awkward smile. “I gotta say, your story is just incredible. I mean, you’re making waves in the medical field. You’re the brains behind Nixzin, isn’t that right?”

“Yeah.” Ayase chuckled, shaking his head. “I guess you can say that.”

“So what’s the big deal about it anyway? It’s like this miracle drug that makes the best version of yourself or something, right?” Covey probed him with a wide smile that seemed permanently plastered on his face.

Ayase laughed nervously through his teeth yet still looked extremely confident, like he was made to be on fancy interviews. He was a completely different person on that couch. Nothing like the guy Alex used to chill with.

“I guess you can put it that way, sure,” Ayase said. “If you think about it, we have to show different facets of ourselves depending on who we are with. Work, family, even certain friends. Sometimes we have to put on a different act because we are expected to be a certain way depending on the situation.

“It comes to the point that makes you wonder, who are you really—which one is your true self? So instead of suppressing it all, taking this drug can bring out the real you. The ‘you’ that you were meant to be.”

“Wow! It sounds like a personality enhancement!” Covey said with that same eerie smile. He glanced towards the camera, and the audience cheered and applauded.

Ayase shrugged again with a smile. “You can say that.”

“So how did you come up with this idea anyway?”

Kana reached over and tapped the space key to pause the video.

“Aw!” Matt groaned. “It was getting to the good part!”