One of the Temps
Lex
The alarm on my phone jars me out of a deep sleep. I reach for it, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. I crack one eye open—am I still hungover? The light in the room stabs at my temples. Apparently, yes. Groaning, I check my phone and suddenly sit up when I register the time.
8:45 am?!
Fuck!
I must have hit snooze.
I must have hit it about ten damn times.
I shove off the covers, skipping the shower and twisting my hair into a messy braid, loose strands framing my face. Putting toothpaste on my toothbrush and hurriedly scrubbing my teeth, I text Kendall. I let her know I’m running late and ask her to cover for me if anyone asks.
I throw a pop tart into the toaster and rush to get dressed. I’ve never been late for work… maybe ever. Not at this job, anyway. My brain is still foggy when I exit my room, dressed, grabbing my nutritious breakfast from the toaster. Pulling on my shoes and grabbing my purse, keys, and cell, I head out the door. Once inside the elevator, I lean against the wall and check my phone. 9:02 am. That might be a personal record.
I’m enjoying the sweetness of my snack, the sugar breathing a little life into my exhausted, hungover body, when I see Kendall reply to my text. I open it, expecting her to confirm she has my back. Instead, I am so shocked that I drop the rest of my pop tart on the elevator floor.
“Fuck.” I mutter as the doors open, and my neighbor from a few floors down enters with her son. Shit. “Sorry. Good morning.” I say, trying to sound more alive than I feel.
My gaze returns to my phone. Going over the message once more.
What the hell happened this weekend? You’re all over TikTok.
I don’t have a TikTok account. There is no reason for me to be anywhere on that app. This is why seeing Kendall’s message about TikTok completely throws me off. But usually, I haven’t gotten into the middle of a fight between teammates of a viral beer league hockey team.
Excellent start to the week.
By some miracle, I make it to the office in record time. Setting my belongings down at my desk before 9:30 am. Immediately, I make my way down the hall to Kendall’s office. The difference in the way I walk today versus last week is undeniable. I keep my head down, eyes trained on the floor, avoiding the development team I pass. They’re all young and definitely of the TikTok era. When I get to Kendall’s office, I gently knock. She waves me inside.
When I enter, I’m like a dead man walking. I drop into the chair opposite Kendall, whose face mixes excitement and curiosity.
“Tell me everything; leave nothing out. What the fuck?” She presses.
I lean my head back.
I don’t even know what’s happening, what’s out there. How can I tell her what happened when I don’t know where to start?
Breathe in. Breathe out.
“Show me what’s online.”
It’s a demand, not a request.
She grabs her phone, pulls up the video, and hands it to me. There must be two possibilities. Someone filmed me with Nate, hot and heavy in the booth, or the fight on the dance floor.
It’s the latter, but it started before the fight. Someone had been filming Rosie and Ronan dancing, which looked like a scene from Dirty Dancing. The user had spliced the video to show them dancing, then me coming up and trying to pull her away, Nate grabbing me from behind and pulling me in to dance, and Adrian pulling me away and punching him in the face.
The moment Adrian stepped into the frame, the energy shifted. Even on the screen, the intensity in his eyes was chilling. He didn’t just look angry—he looked… possessed.
They replayed the punch at different speeds and zoom levels. The final image shows Rosie’s face as she screams at the blood spraying across her golden dress. It has hundreds of thousands of likes.
“It has something like 80 million views,” Kendall says, breaking the trance the video has me in.
My throat goes dry as I hit replay.
My fingers twitch around the phone. Watching the punch on replay, my stomach churns. I take in his form in the grainy footage; he’s so controlled and calculated. The video has added music, eliminating the actual sounds of the club, but my brain supplies the dull, wet crack anyway.
This is my fault.
If I hadn’t danced with Nate initially, hadn’t let him buy me that drink, hadn’t been so captivated by his touch. Perhaps things would not have spiraled so far out of hand. That said, Adrian looked ready to explode when I saw him. Maybe he would have found another excuse.
There’s no denying it’s me. If I was even a little less conspicuous, maybe I could claim it was someone who looked similar. But no, I had to cover my body in bright, highly recognizable tattoos.
And that dress.
God, it’s so short.
As I view the comments, my pulse thuds in my ears. A flood of strangers picking me apart, commenting on my body, my face, my tattoos. Others call him unhinged; some are laughing at how fast he lost his shit, and others—God help me, they romanticize the whole thing.
“That’s Adrian Liberty.”
“Dude lost his mind over her.”
“I’d burn down a city for her too, not gonna lie.”
“Who’s the girl???”
“You can get your knuckles bloody for me, Daddy.”
I lock the phone, unable to see another second and slide it across her desk, struggling to fight growing nausea in my guts.
83 million views in a day and a half. That’s more than viral, not something that blows over. Millions of people have seen me, analyzed me, judged me. They have a short video of what happened and deduced that it happened because of me.
And they’re right.
I wipe my clammy palms down my thighs.
She takes her phone and tucks it into the drawer. I prop my elbows on her desk and drop my head into my hands. My heart races, sweat forms in the palms of my hands.
This is such a mess.
“Lex, I’ve never even heard you mention going out to bars, let alone the busiest club in the city. How did you end up there with them?” She asks, her tone thick with concern.
Sighing, I sit up and reply, “I don’t know. My friend was teasing me about how I never go out, and it got into my head. My friend Rosie called and asked me to go out, and I felt like I was wasting my youth just sitting at home alone on a Saturday night, so I said yes.”
“Rosie — the blonde girl with big fake boobs?” She asks.
I sit up, looking at her with confusion.
“Yes, but also, how do you know this? She is my friend, and I didn’t know she had fake boobs.”
“Rosie is.. she is well known — in certain circles, anyway. It’s not important. It paints a clearer story of how you wound up there.”
I give her a look. Her tone is judgmental, to put it mildly.
Sure, Rosie took me there and got us in, but she wasn’t responsible for my actions.
“What do you mean by that?”
I know what she means, but I want to hear her say it.
She sighs, tapping her pencil against her desk. “Lex, I…she isn’t just a party girl. She has clients. People might assume you’re like her.”
My stomach drops. I knew—just barely—but hadn’t considered this. My cheeks burn.
“I’m not…like her.”
What a shift. I’d gone out wanting to be more like her. I try to swallow the growing anxiety.
“Then, perhaps don’t go viral for grinding on some guy next to her in a club.”
Ouch.
Her harsh words and tone gut me, and I force my tone to be flat, even.
“I’m very aware of what she does for a living. Plus, she’s in the video. Didn’t you notice her?”
Kendall shrugs, “Okay. I guess not. One of the temps showed me this and asked if it was you, and I didn’t pay attention to much else, to be honest.”
I slouch back into the chair, pinching my eyes. The throb behind them intensifies. I need my heart rate to slow down.
Feel the chair under me.
Feel my hair against my face.
“Do you have an aspirin, Advil? Anything? My head is throbbing.”
She reaches into her desk, pulls out a bottle, and opens it. Handing me a pill, I pop it in my mouth without opening my eyes.
“I don’t know how this happened.” I finally say, although it wasn’t entirely true—his initial reaction was aggressive at best. He shoved me back into my seat.
“I knew he was sticking around town for a couple of days, but I figured, what are the chances we will bump into him again? There are millions of people in this city.”
She listens intently, without interruption.
When I don’t continue, she asks, “But why did he punch that guy?”
“Right, well. I suppose I provoked him a little.” I say, exhaling the breath I was holding deep in my lungs.
“Provoked him how?”
I launch into the whole story of the night, pre-drinking and getting ready with Rosie, fake tits, dancing at the club, the pretty guy with blue eyes who bought me a drink and then groped me in the booth, Adrian showing up with the blonde woman, and then punching his friend in the face.
There are a few moments of silence while she absorbs. The only sound is her radio, which quietly plays Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd.
Eventually, she says, “There’s something wrong with that guy, Lex.”
This statement brings me to attention.
I mean, I agree, but ask, “Why?”
“After the scene at the restaurant, he approached me. He wanted to know your full name and phone number.”
This is all too familiar, lowering my eyes, my eyebrows pushing together.
“Please tell me you did not give him my information.”
She laughs, but it’s free from any sign of humor.
“Of course, I didn’t give him your information. I said if you wanted to talk to him, you would have given it yourself.”
Relief washes over me.
Thank god.
She continues, “He asked me to ask you if you would be open to speaking with him and to let him know.”
“Did he leave you his contact information?” I ask.
“Well, no. We didn’t have a pen, so I gave him my business card and told him to email it. I don’t think he did. So he must not be that keen to talk to you.”
My stomach plummets, blood draining from my face. My eyes widen as I take in what she’s saying. Her expression drops.
“What? Lex, what’s wrong?”
My breathing picks up again, and my heart rate speeds up. I might hyperventilate. This might be a panic attack.
I might be dying.
My obituary will read: RIP Alexandria Donnelly. She fucked around and found out. My pulse slams in my ears, drowning out the sound of the radio. The room tilts and the air seems too thin. I grip the chair, and my fingers start to tingle. I take deep breaths, trying to steady this sensation spreading through my belly. Kendall shoots to her feet, clearly unsure what to do.
Breathe, Lex.
I squeeze my eyes shut, my head spins, and I might vomit.
He knows my name.
He knows my job.
He knows where to find me.
“Kendall, our information is on the website. My name, email, phone number.”
I see the guilt wash over her face. She didn’t even think of it.
I think back to how Adrian’s hand clamped down on my shoulder at the club, his grip firm enough to make me flinch. His voice had been steady and calm and made my blood run cold. I think this guy doesn’t take no for an answer. If he wanted to find me, he would. Judging by his facial expression last night, that pure, unadulterated rage, I don’t want to know what happens when he does.
And now, thanks to Kendall’s unintentional slip-up, he knows who I am.