Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Kira
“She just fired you?” Carrie asked me before taking a bite of pizza.
“Not fired. She let me go.” I rolled my eyes as a took a bite of my own slice.
I felt guilty for buying the pizza. And the bottle of wine we were downing. Another was chilling in the fridge, too.
It wasn’t like I had a lot of money to spend on luxuries. And I’d have even less money at the end of the week since that paycheck would be my last.
Looking around the tiny efficiency, I said, “You know, I should have gone to college.”
“You mean, so you could afford a different place and wouldn’t have this annoying neighbor across the hall who crashes your alone time every night and eats your food?” Carrie teased.
I laughed. “Well, I’m glad about that neighbor. She isn’t too annoying.” I stuck my tongue out at her, and she laughed.
Carrie was sweet. At twenty-three, she was two years younger than me, but sometimes it seemed like more.
She’d moved to New York City from a small town in Vermont. When I called her na?ve, I didn’t mean it in a bad way. But the city could be a tough place, even for people like me who grew up in it—more or less.
I was from the Jersey side, but you know—Newark is just NYC.
Carrie held her small-town values. I loved that about her. She was trying to make it as a model and I feared that industry would zap those same values.
So far, though, she was just as down to earth as she’d been the day she’d moved in across the hall. And she wasn’t so na?ve that she hadn’t spotted and fended off some real jerks trying to exploit her while promising gigs.
Good for her.
“No, I should have gone to college so I could actually be in marketing. Lila took a chance on me. I had zero experience, but then again, neither did she. I laid a lot of the groundwork for the empire she’s building. And now she’s just tossing me aside!”
Carrie nibbled on some more pizza. I was glad to see her eating it.
Sometimes, she bought into that whole “I have to starve myself if I want to be a model” mindset.
But lately, she’d been taking great care of herself and actually consuming food like humans should.
“At least this will look good on a resume! You’ve accomplished something big.
Lila Merriman is becoming a big name on social media.
And with those product line and endorsements, she’ll only get bigger.
Which means you’ll have more to brag about. ”
I nodded and worked on my own slice of pizza.
And my wine.
Polishing off that glass, I poured more. “Maybe. Right now, it feels like I helped launch all this but she’s reaping all the benefits while I just break things off with her boyfriends.”
Carrie perked up a bit. “Wanna at least look at those dick pics she saved and rate ‘em?”
I laughed. “Totally!”
Grabbing Lila’s phone, I was about to open it when the screen lit up with an incoming message.
“Speaking of, some guy is Snapping her now.”
I opened the app to see it was from someone identified as Rex.
Being Snap, any previous message chains were now gone.
“He’s asking how I’m doing.” I read the message again. “Hey, this guy has good grammar. Actually uses punctuation.”
“Rare online,” Carrie noted. “Maybe this is your chance to let him off gently.”
I looked at her. “Should I tell them I’m Lila’s assistant? I kind of feel bad lying to them.”
Carrie tore off a piece of pepperoni and popped it in her mouth, eating it before answering. “That would seem cold and impersonal. And you said she wanted you to keep things friendly with them.”
“True.” I stared at the phone.
“Hey, you could have some fun and Snap him as Lila. It’s not like he can see you. And, even if he could, you two look enough alike where he’d think it was her at a passing glance.”
I laughed at the idea but then thought about my appearance. “I don’t wear the excessive amount of makeup and I don’t fake tan and do all that stuff that she does.”
“True, but you both have brown hair. Sort of short and slender. Just sayin’—you could pass.”
I didn’t want to impersonate Lila. She was kind of a hot mess and probably the last person I wanted to be!
“Okay, I’m just going to chat with him a minute and then break the news."
That minute turned into five.
“Hey, he must be pretty cool.”
I looked up from the phone. “Sorry. I’m not trying to ignore you. But he does seem cool.”
“No apologies needed! Maybe you could tell him who you really are and send him your Snap account to continue the conversation.”
I laughed. But that idea didn’t seem half bad. We were actually vibing pretty well. Whoever this Rex guy was…
“He lives in Hollywood,” I told Carrie.
“Ooh! Go see him!”
We both laughed.
Another message came in and I read it. “Uh, he’s referenced our shared interest several times. Seems to be hinting that I could come out there and meet people in—” I did air quotes— “the community.”
“I bet he means the movies!” Carrie said, getting up from the chair to walk around the table to look over my shoulder. She read the next message that came in and said, “He did it! He invited you out there!”
I put the phone down and looked at her. “He invited Lila out there. He doesn’t know Kira Maddox exists.”
“But you two are hitting it off! And look, he’s even offering to cover your flight!”
I pushed the phone away. “I couldn’t do that to him. I would be awful to take advantage of this poor guy.”
Carrie walked back around to the other side of the table and sat down, picking up her pizza. “Yeah. You’re right. But it sure would be fun.”
A giggle escaped my lips. “Sure would be! A trip to sunny L.A. might just be what I need to get over losing my job.”
My friend raised her eyebrows. “And what if he’s a hot, rich guy? Like with a big mansion and a swimming pool? You two meet, fall in love, and you have seven of his babies!”
I laughed. “Maybe three of his babies.”
“But then there’s an odd one out.”
“You’re right. Four.”
We both laughed.
“I need to just break it off with this guy. Or rather, Lila does,” I said, picking up the phone. But as I re-read the messages, I just couldn’t do it.
“But it wouldn’t hurt to talk to him a few more minutes,” I said.
“Not at all,” Carrie agreed.
We continued to eat our pizza. And I continued to flirt with the man all the way across the country who I didn’t know a single thing about other than the fact that he was somewhere in Hollywood, talking to yours truly.