Chapter 2
two
. . .
Indi
Four days earlier
T he coffee shop is so packed you'd think the last coffee beans on earth were being brewed this morning. I take at least three elbows on my way to the waiting area. It's crowded with anxious-looking people, dressed for work and checking their phones every few seconds worried that their decision to stop for coffee was a mistake. I'm here for work—specifically for my boss, Genie Ross, or Cruella, as I call her in my head and once under my breath as she berated me for not answering her call at three in the morning. Genie is an agent to multiple famous influencers and a few of the newest names in Hollywood, including Landon Arlo, my boyfriend. Genie went through six assistants before rolling her eyes at me after four interviews and saying "I suppose you'll do." I was in Los Angeles six months, working as an assistant in another talent agency, when I heard about the opening—personal assistant to the most successful talent agent on the West Coast, according to the headhunter's website. I applied and after three grueling months of questionnaires and interviews I got the job. Not long after, I discovered all the other applicants dropped out long before I got to the last interview. It wasn't the interview process so much as Genie, herself, who scared everyone off.
My Cruella phone rings. Two days after starting work as Genie's personal assistant, she marched past my desk and dropped a new iPhone onto my keyboard. "This is only for me. Even if you're having a heart attack in the middle of a burning building, you use another phone to call 911. Got it?" She marched on her pink Chanel heels into her office and snapped shut the door.
I wince as Genie's shriek comes through the phone. "Where the fuck are you? I need my coffee. I meet with the new investors in twenty minutes, and if espresso isn't pumping through my veins by the time the meeting starts, then you'll be out of a fucking job." She hangs up.
"Indi!" the harried barista calls frantically into the crowd. "Venti coffee with two shots!"
The barrel-shaped man who spent a good two minutes deciding which flavor of scone to get before deciding to get one of each snatches his coffee first. I rocket between the three women standing in the center of basically everything as they stare indecisively at the coffee menu and talk intermittently about last night's HOA meeting. The scone man still manages to beat me to the milk and sugar cart. My phone rings as he finishes drowning his coffee in cream. This time it's my personal phone. I can tell because the ringtone on Genie's phone always makes me flinch. I pull out the Cruella phone first, realize it's the wrong one, set it down on the cart and take out the other phone.
"I can't talk right now, Landon. I've got to get Queen of the Damned her coffee before she withers away for another thousand years."
"Right. Sorry. I can't find my sweatshirt."
"Seriously? I'm talking about the actual Queen of the Damned here, and you're worried about your hoodie?"
"It's my good luck hoodie, and I've got that audition this afternoon. I need that sweatshirt."
Then it hits me. "Shit, Landon, I wore it home the other night. It was cold, and I'd forgotten my coat." A woman grunts angrily and elbows her way past me. She rudely reaches her hand past my face and grabs the silver carafe of milk.
"Damnit, Indi, now what am I going to do?"
"Break a leg?"
"Funny. This is a big one. You know I've been wanting to land one of these superhero roles. This could be it."
"You've got my key. It's on the chair in my bedroom."
Another coffee customer is about to reach past me. "I've got to go." I push the phone in my pocket, grab the silver carafe and pour oat milk into the coffee. I'm five steps out the door when the terrifying reality that I've left my Cruella phone on the milk cart hits me. I race back in and breathe a sigh of relief. It's still there. It would have cost me my job for sure. I push out the door and race the two blocks to my car. I've mastered the skill of running with hot coffee and not spilling a drop.
Rachel, the receptionist in the office building, looks up from her phone and smiles as I push through the door. "You look like you had to run a marathon to get that coffee."
"Feels exactly like that." I hurry to the elevator, ride up to the top floor and scurry toward the Ross Enterprise offices. The automatic door opens at a slower pace than I like. Genie has an eye for talent, but she has atrocious taste. The furniture in the office is yellow, and not a buttery, soft, comforting kind of yellow. It's a yellow that is in its own level of ugliness on the color wheel, especially when paired with the amber wallpaper behind it.
Genie is in her office. I knock and brace for her angry tone.
"You'd better have my fucking coffee!" she calls back.
It only took me a few days of working for Cruella to learn to avoid making eye contact with the monster behind the desk. And since she hasn't had her coffee yet, I make sure to keep my face down, like a timid servant waiting on their brutal master. The job is, for the most part, stressful and miserable, but it comes with too many perks to give it up. I figure, if nothing else, it'll make me tougher for the next job. After this, every other boss will be like Mary Poppins in comparison. With this job on my resumé, my career can only get better.
"Bout fucking time. Did you grind the goddamn beans yourself?" Genie always laughs at her own humor, and she says the exact same quip every time I bring her coffee. "Well, don't hover," she says even though I'm already on my way out. "I left a list of errands I need you to do." Her last errand list included me driving three hours to San Diego, in traffic, to pick up a certain type of blush she could only find at a specialty boutique in that city. "But before you go?—"
I stop at the door and turn, eyes still mostly averted, but I can see she's wearing one of her more hideous designer dresses. It has puffy sleeves and a corset style bodice with emerald green pearls. "I sent you some portfolios for potential clients." I perk up, hoping this is finally the day she gives me an important task like going through portfolios to find new talent.
"None of them interest me, so write them each an email to let them know they are no longer under consideration at Ross Enterprise."
My posture deflates. "Yes. Of course." I walk out and take a deep breath. Lately, I practice a lot of breathing exercises to ease the anxiety. I'm a good fifteen minutes into writing rejection letters when I have one of those jarring moments. For a second, I'm back in the coffee shop. The morning went by in the usual stressful blur, but something occurs to me as I sit in my chair sending off emails that will no doubt devastate the receivers. I close my eyes to recreate the whirlwind scene at the milk cart. While I talked Landon down from the ledge over the absurd sweatshirt debacle, the rude woman reached past me, grabbed the cream and poured it into her cup. I try to conjure the scene. Did she return the cream to the spot on the left? I would have remembered her reaching across. She set the cream carafe back down … on the right. And I grabbed it thinking it was oat milk.
Adrenaline causes me to sit up straight in my chair. I hurry to the office door, trying to come up with a good excuse to snatch the coffee back.
I knock and speak closely to the door. "Hello, it's me."
"Don't talk through the damn door. Come inside." I'm putting my lies in order. I would let her know I thought I saw the barista add only one shot of espresso and that I would get her another cup, but as I step in, Genie is crushing the empty cup in her hand. She tosses it into the trash. "What is it?"
I stand there speechless and horrified. I clear my throat, trying to think of some reason for my intrusion. "Should I delete the portfolios or hang onto them?"
Genie doesn't look up from her desk as she writes something hastily on her notepad. "What a stupid question. Why would I want to keep them?"
I nod and make a quick exit. I trudge to my desk and sit down hard. I glance around at the atrocious décor and think at least I won't have to see the ugly shade of yellow again. Peggy, an assistant who works for a much tamer talent agent on the second floor, rings me on my personal phone. I answer it fast, so Genie doesn't hear it ringing.
"Hello," I whisper.
"Uh oh, is Cruella standing there? Sorry. I can hang up."
"No, she's in her office."
"Oh good. What are we doing for lunch? I've got a craving for shrimp salad."
"I don't think I'll be having a lunch break today," I say, still in a hushed voice.
"She has to give you a lunch break. It's the law," Peggy says.
"I won't be having a lunch break because I will no longer have a job."
Peggy laughs. She thinks I'm kidding or exaggerating. "Oh, come on. It can't be that bad. What did you do? Forget to fill the stapler on her desk?"
"I put cream in her coffee instead of oat milk."
Peggy giggles. "She won't know the difference."
"Yes, she will. She's lactose intolerant. According to her, if she so much as looks at a scoop of ice cream she gets the shits."
"That's ridiculous. It'll be fine. So, shrimp salads for lunch?"
"Sure," I say, but I'm not sure at all. I hang up without a goodbye when I hear Genie's office door open. She struts past on her green heels. She's clutching her notes and file folders. She whisks past me without a word.
For the next hour, I busy myself with work and push the earlier worry from my head. Peggy is right. It'll be fine. At least that's what I'm still telling myself when the conference room door flies open. Genie comes racing out. She's holding a file folder behind her ass. She kicks off her heels after three frantic steps and starts to run. Her face is contorted and red.
"You're fired!" she screams as she continues to her office. The door slams shut. I sit in my chair and stare at my own reflection in my monitor. Seconds later, the phone rings. It's the Cruella phone.
She's FaceTiming me from her bathroom. I've seen her look angry, but she looks positively lethal as she glowers into her phone. "Leave now. You're through here. I will make sure you never, ever find a job in this town again!"
I have nothing to pack. It all belongs to the company. I drop her special phone into the trash can, pull my purse out of the desk drawer and walk out of the office.
"Another list of errands?" Rachel asks cheerily as I wander in full zombie state past the reception desk. I don't answer. The city looks different, less inviting, more dangerous as I walk to the parking garage. A few raindrops fall from the one dark cloud in the sky. Fittingly enough, it seems to be following me. I reach the garage and my car, actually, not my car, the company car. I still have the keys, so I climb inside, send off a text to Peggy letting her know there'll be no shrimp salad today. I drop my phone on the seat, sit back and the tears start rolling.
A fter an hour-long meltdown in the cool shadows of the parking garage, I drive home to my apartment, actually, not my apartment, a company apartment. It's a beauty with big picture windows and lush gray carpeting that I love to rub my bare feet along. It's in the middle of the city and just a block from a great Italian bakery where I buy almond-filled pastries for Sunday breakfast. I worry that I tossed my Cruella phone away too quickly. What if Genie changes her mind? What if she decides to ask me back? I laugh out loud as I walk up the steps to my apartment. She will never ask me back.
Mr. Evans, the apartment manager, is standing at my door. He sees me and looks sheepishly away for a second. He wears enough cologne to kill an elephant, and I stop to sneeze before continuing to the door.
His combover flutters in the breeze, and his expression is filled with sympathy. "I'm sorry, Miss Nash, you're no longer a tenant in this apartment. Ms. Ross called me an hour ago to tell me I can let you in for ten minutes to collect your things. She told me to make sure you only take your own belongings."
It's another gut punch, but it seems I'm all cried out at the moment. Sadly, it takes me only the given ten minutes to collect my belongings. I was riding the gravy train with this job. Genie is a wretched person to work for. I assume it's why she offers so many perks like an apartment and car and clothes. I avoid Mr. Evans' sad frown as I walk past with my duffle bag. It's filled with jeans, T-shirts, socks and Landon's sweatshirt.
I reach the car and feel another cryfest coming on. I haven't cried this much since—since that terrible day when everything felt dark and wrong, and the earth stopped moving. That day took the one person I needed more than anyone right now—my dad.
I have only a few friends in town. It's still early. I have time to take Landon his lucky sweatshirt. At least I still have him. I met him through Genie, but she can't repossess him. Although she's probably still sitting on the throne right now trying to think of other ways to punish me. I laugh for a few seconds thinking about the way she looked as she tore out of that meeting. I imagine the investors were a little stunned as well. The bout of laughter feels good, cathartic.
Landon has been acting since he was a little boy doing commercials and bit parts on television. He's handsome, talented and well on his way to superstardom, and by some miracle, I've managed to snag him. We are coming up on our one-year dating anniversary. I still remember literally pinching myself after he took me to Tommy's Burgers and a movie on our first date. We made out in the front seat of his Land Rover for two hours, then he dropped me home and told me he'd call. I was sure that was only a line to make me feel less used after a long make out session. The next morning two dozen pink and red roses arrived at the office. Genie giggled like a blushing teen, certain the flowers were for her. She was bitchy the rest of the day when she found out they were for me. At the time, I didn't tell her they were from Landon. I was sure if she knew she'd find a way to sabotage it.
I'm relieved to see his silver Land Rover in the driveway of the midcentury house he rents in the middle of town. I realize I badly need him to hold me. The shock of the morning is wearing off, and it's really starting to hit me. I have no job, and now, I have no place to live. I'm sure Landon won't mind me sleeping at his place for a week or two until I figure out what to do next. I'm going to push Genie's threat, the firing, the loss of my apartment out of my head and fall naked into Landon's bed. He'll know what to do to put a smile on my face.
My stomach is growling. It's been a long morning. I should have been sitting in my favorite café having a shrimp salad and catching up on all the latest office building gossip. I glance into the back seat for the box of crackers I left there last week. Half of them are crumbs, and they're low sodium. Damn me for trying to be healthy. I really need that sodium after all those tears. I shovel in a few crackers and hope that there's still some iced tea in Landon's fridge.
I can hear music blasting through the speakers before I reach the door. I knock twice, but he doesn't hear me over the music. I search in my purse for the key to his place. We exchanged keys with the promise that they would only be used for emergencies. We haven't been together long enough to just walk into each other's places unannounced. My hunger, thirst and headache tell me this is an emergency.
The music shakes the entire house as I step inside. "Landon?" I call. "I need you badly … in every way possible." I drop my keys on the table behind his leather couch and then something catches my eye—something that makes my heart drop clear through to my stomach. Then I hear it, a sound that is light enough I would have missed it if not for the song break. It was a giggle, a flirty giggle.
I lift the pink bra off the arm of the couch. It's dangling from my fingers as Landon steps out of the bedroom wearing only a pair of briefs. I always considered Landon one of the most handsome men I know, but some of that glossiness falls away, and I see the cheating bastard beneath the leading man facade.
His mouth drops as his blue eyes fall on the bra. Some of the color leaves his face.
"I didn't realize you were a double-D cup, and I'm not sure if pink is your color." I hurl the bra across the room just as the owner of the bra, I presume, steps out. The redhead is stark naked and definitely a double-D. She sees me and dashes back into the bedroom like a scared rabbit running for its hole.
"Indi, I can explain." They are the first words out of Landon's mouth, and they're even more idiotic than I expected.
I put up a hand. "Nope, I can explain. You were fucking a redhead, and that is her pink bra and now I'm leaving." I stun myself at how well I'm keeping it together when all I want to do is shatter into a million pieces.
Landon rushes past me and blocks the door. "She's an extra from that stupid disaster flick I was in last year. Sadie was just in town and?—"
I shake my head. "Don't bother to put a name and cute little story to any of it. It still sucks that you were sleeping with someone else, and I don't—I won't forgive you."
"Come on, babe. Don't be like that." Landon reaches for me.
I stumble away from his grasp. "Like what? You mean reasonable? You mean like a person with a shred of dignity cuz I can tell you, babe , after the morning I've had, that shred is barely hanging on. I can't believe I came here to be comforted by those arms. Only they've been around Miss Double-D. Sorry, this is it for us." He's still in front of the door, so I walk to the kitchen for a much-needed glass of water. I'm taking this better than expected, but I'm sure it's because I've already been through a humongous shock this morning. It'll hit me later—like a belated freight train.
I didn't hear him walk up behind me, and the last thing I expect is for him to have the balls to wrap his arms around me from behind—with his Monday morning special still naked in his room.
I spin around fast in his arms and shove him. I never expected him to shove back, and when he does, I fall to the side and land hard against the edge of the counter. My ribs take the brunt of the hit.
"God, Indi, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."
I blink my eyes fast to stop the tears. He follows me out of the kitchen and tries to grab my hand.
"Stop touching me!" I scream. The pain in my ribs momentarily takes my breath away. I struggle to retrieve it around the sharp pain in my side. The tears are back with a vengeance.
"I didn't mean to push you. But you pushed first," he says sounding petulant like a kid. Did I ever really love this man, or was it just the shiny veneer of fame and fortune that had me fooled?
With perfect timing, the redhead steps out of the bedroom, shyly playing with a piece of hair. She's pulled on one of Landon's T-shirts. Her pink bra is still clinging to the place it landed, the corner of the television set.
"I hate to interrupt." Her voice is squeaky and small.
"Then don't, Sadie. Please, go back to the bedroom," Landon orders. Now he sounds like a bossy old teacher or uncle. The layers of gloss are peeling away fast.
"Fine," Sadie says. I half-expect her to stomp her foot. "But she should probably know that her car is being towed." She turns on her heels and marches back to the bedroom. It takes me a second to decipher what she said.
"My car," I repeat. "My car! Fuck, fuck, fuck."
Landon doesn't let the fact that he's still clad only in briefs stop him from following me as I slam out the door and race down to the end of the brick-paved driveway where a man with a bouncing belly and long beard is humming a tune as he climbs into the cab of his tow truck. He flashes a mean grin as he peels away from the curb.
"Wait!" I plead. "Wait. My stuff!" I lunge toward the car as it rolls away. I'm in so much pain, I stop to bend over and catch my breath. My duffle bag is sitting in the street. "My purse," I whimper weakly. A good strong case of hiccups joins the tears to torture my bruised ribs even more.
Landon's nosy neighbors have left their houses to see what the commotion is about. A few get some nice, probably valuable, photos of Landon in his underwear. He reaches for the duffle, but I pull it back.
"Were you leaving town without telling me?" He has the gall to look hurt.
I stare hard at him. "I wasn't but I am now." I turn and start walking.
"Wait, Indi. Stay. I'll give you a lift somewhere. Wait for me to get dressed."
I hold up my middle finger as I head toward somewhere, anywhere far away from my toxic boss, my cheating boyfriend and this traffic-choked city.