6. How to be Messy 101 #2
The hopeful part was curiosity. After months of trading shots through screens and intermediaries, what would it feel like to be in the same room again?
Would we continue being nice-nasty like we were at the festival, or was the ice queen thing just another performance?
Hell, who was I kidding? Romi always did things for an audience. For the applause.
He stepped in, hyped. "Yes! That's it—don't move. Give me more of that. Fierce. Like, you know you're about to start a riot."
Whatever that was about.
The other part knew that face-to-face meetings with other eyes around had a way of escalating things past the point of strategic social media warfare. Words got said that couldn't be unsaid. Body language gets picked apart. Lines got crossed that couldn't be uncrossed.
"Beautiful, Cam. Now give me that smile that got you Fashion Week."
I flashed teeth, but kept the eyes cold.
Twenty minutes later, I was peeling out of the jacket when I heard it. Voices in the hallway, getting closer. One voice in particular, low and unmistakable, giving someone the most polite hell about something trivial.
Romi Dulce had arrived. The royal court flanked at her sides.
"Shit," Stacks whispered, pretending to check her phone. "Here we go."
The pink-haired girl's eyes went wide. "Wait, are they gonna be in the same room?! Should I pull out my phone?"
"You should not, unless you want a cease and desist," I said. I learned that the hard way. But my pulse was already picking up.
Skye let out a snort without looking up from her phone. "You know how it goes—put two divas in one room and the legal team gets overtime." She glanced up, sneering. "Or maybe we'll get lucky and they'll just make out on set and save everyone the trouble."
"Go to hell, Akasha," I snapped. "The hottest part."
The studio door opened, and in walked Romi's entire entourage. Publicist, assistant, security, and someone who looked like they existed solely to carry her purse. All of them moving with the efficiency of people who were very late but refused to look rushed.
And then, finally, Romi herself.
She looked exactly like she did on every red carpet.
Flawless, untouchable, expensive. Hair pulled into a perfect braided bun piled high, skin glowing with that dewy, fresh-faced look that had to be either no makeup at all or that expensive "no-makeup" makeup that takes twenty minutes to apply so you can pretend you woke up perfect.
Either way, she looked infuriatingly natural in a designer-label black tracksuit.
Her eyes swept the room, cataloging every face, every detail, landing on me for one second before moving on.
Professional. Cold. Like I was just another goddamn piece of equipment.
Of course she could roll up late looking like that. Of course.
There was a version of me, sixteen, seventeen, on a tour bus with Skye poking at my arm, one earbud in because the other one was blown, listening to "Apex" on repeat and thinking nobody in the world was flyer than Romi Dulce. I thought about that girl for exactly one second and then put her away.
But I caught something in that one blink-and-you-miss-it glance. A tick of assessment. She was taking my temperature the same way I was taking hers, both of us trying to read the room and figure out how this was going to play out.
Her publicist blamed their late arrival on traffic.
The producer practically beamed with relief. "No problem! We finished Cam's individual shots, then we'll get you set up."
I guess fuck me and Stacks's duo shots, right? Why did she get to move things around just by showing up?
Romi nodded, then headed straight to wardrobe, her team forming a protective barrier around her so she wouldn't have to interact with us peasants. She didn't look at me again. Didn't acknowledge that we were breathing the same air.
And that? That pissed me off more than any subtweet ever could.
Fuck this.
I grabbed my phone, my bag, and headed for the exit because I could use some air for no particular reason. Didn't want to wait for makeup to take off my face, just wanted to be out of this woman's presence. But just as I reached the door, I heard her voice, clear as glass:
"Wasn't that the girl who thinks my posts are about her?"
The casual cruelty of it hit me like cold water. Not even addressing me directly, Talking about me like I wasn't standing right there in the room. I was, though. I was very much in the room.
My spine snapped straight as I turned back toward her. Hands clenched to fists without thinking. "Excuse me?"
The room went dead silent. Every head swiveled between us as if we were about to start throwing hands.
The photographer looked like he was mentally calculating whether this would be good for his portfolio or a lawsuit waiting to happen.
The stylists had suddenly found very important things to organize in the corner.
Romi glanced up from her phone, eyebrows raised in fake surprise. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were still here."
"Yeah, I'm still here," I said, taking a step closer. "And since you obviously got something to get off your chest, you can say it to my face instead of posting slick shit online."
Her smile was sharp enough to cut glass. "Slick? Because you caught a stray? Girl, I thought I was pretty clear."
The photographer cleared his throat. "Ladies, maybe we should—"
"No," I said, not taking my eyes off Romi. "I think we should clear this shit up right now. Do you actually have a problem with me, or are you just bored?"
Romi set down her phone, stood up slowly, and for the first time since she walked in, gave me her full attention.
"Now that," she said, shrugging, "is a very good question. Cause I could ask you the same thing. You got a problem, or what? What seems to be the issue?"
Here we fucking go.