He nodded, but didn’t say the word back to her. “I wish there was something I could do to make this all up to you.”
“I don’t think there is.” Which was too bad.
His lips turned down. “Please let me know if you change your mind.”
Jia turned on her heel and walked away, the back of her neck hot. She tried to resist glancing over her shoulder, she really did. But when she reached the road where Gerald had pulled up, she couldn’t restrain herself.
Dev stood right where she’d left him. He raised a hand, and she did the same, then got into her car. The door closing was a metaphor for his exit from her life.
That’s what she’d tell herself.
“Is everything okay?” Gerald asked.
“Yup.” Her voice sounded higher than normal, though. Everything was cool. She’d been catfished as some kind of family prank, and the man whose face they’d used had tried to buy her silence and then she’d smelled him and it had made her tummy drop. A totally normal night.
She covered her hot face with her hands. Should have taken the check. Then she might have gotten something out of this whole debacle.
Chapter Eight
JIA SIPPED her latte and pretended not to stare at the girl dancing on the other side of the pool. She knew of her, Harley, a teenager who had moved into an apartment in the building a few months ago. Jia tried not to be the fuddy-duddy grandma who wondered where the kid’s parents were, but seriously, the girl was definitely under eighteen, where were her parents?
Off enjoying the girl’s money, most likely, in their new Hollywood Hills home. Word on the street was that Harley gained about a hundred thousand followers a day on her platform of choice and easily made five or six figures on a fifteen-second post.
Don’t be bitter. You cannot compare success.
Jia returned to the legal pad she’d balanced on her knees, filled with scribbled ideas for new content. She couldn’t dance, she was shit at lip-synching, and her expertise was in long-form original videos, not fifteen-second clips borrowing someone else’s music. She doodled a heart in the corner. Maybe at twenty-nine, she was a grandma.
Harley finished her dance and downed a water bottle before packing up her ring light and tripod. Their eyes met across the pool, and Jia tried to pretend she was still working and not spying on the girl.
It must not have worked, because the lithe brunette crossed the distance, her gear in tow. Her face was flushed. “Hey!”
Jia glanced over her shoulder, but Harley was definitely talking to her. “Hi.”
“What did you think?”
“Of your dance? It was great. I wish I could do that.”
“Oh please. You have actual talent.” Harley dropped into the chaise next to her. “I’m a big fan. I’ve been watching you since middle school.”
Grandma. She tried not to grimace. “Aw. Thank you. I’m a fan of yours as well. You’re a great dancer.”
“I know we’re not supposed to be filming at the pool, but I figured if no one was here, the management wouldn’t know.”
“I won’t tell.” Jia had filmed in her share of no-trespassing places in her day. When the light was right, it was right.
“I didn’t know you lived here.” A sweet smile lit up Harley’s face. “I just moved in.”
“By yourself?” Jia couldn’t help but ask.
The girl’s smile dimmed. “Yeah. My parents gave permission. It’s better this way.”
Jia made a mental note to check in on Harley from time to time. “It’s good to do what’s best for us,” Jia said gently. “And no, I don’t live here, I rent it as a set, basically.”
“Oh. If you’re ever around at night, let me know. I’d love to have a movie night or something. I haven’t met many people here yet.”
Jia wasn’t usually here in the evenings, but she could make an exception for a new young friend who might otherwise easily fall into a more predatory crowd. “Absolutely. Here, take my number.”
“Cool,” Harley enthused, after she’d entered Jia’s number into her phone. “I’d love to talk to you about doing a collaboration or something.”
Hundreds of thousands of new followers a day.
Jia smiled and swallowed her envy. “I’d like that. I can’t dance.” She had zero rhythm, much to her family’s amusement.
“That’s cool, we can come up with something else, sometimes I do nondancing videos. Maybe you could give me, like, makeup tips or something.”
“Your makeup is already fantastic.” A touch of mascara, eyeliner, and lip gloss, plus what looked like a BB cream.
“That’s because my parents made me learn how to do it on my own when I was thirteen. They said my skin was so bad I wouldn’t get an acting gig if I couldn’t hide it.”
Jia blinked. Sometimes she wished she’d had more involved parents when it came to her career, but not if they’d be involved like that. “Oh. Um.”
A beeping noise filled the air, and Harley looked around. “What’s that?”
“Just my timer.” Jia tapped the plastic box on the table. “I get distracted by my phone, so I put it away while I’m working.”
Harley clutched her phone to her chest. “My nightmare, not having my phone.”
“It used to be mine, until I realized how hard it was to focus on work with it in my hand.”
Harley looked at her blankly, and Jia realized the younger woman wasn’t there yet, the point where content creation felt like an uphill climb because she’d used up all her best ideas. Hopefully she never experienced it. She was probably pulling in way more income than Jia had after a year of working in entertainment. “Anyway, it means I should head up for lunch.”
Harley tucked her pin-straight hair behind her ear. “I’ll be in touch!”
“Looking forward to it.”
They said their goodbyes and Jia gathered up her stuff to head to her staged apartment.
Her lunch consisted of a sandwich she’d slapped together at the crack of dawn this morning. She’d gotten up extra early so she could beat traffic. And avoid Katrina, whom she’d have to tell about Dev.
Remember how you told me I should delete him and never see him again? I had drinks with him and smelled him instead.
She chewed the PB&J and grimaced. She was doing her best to not think about him. Because it wasn’t her shame or wounded pride that was foremost when she did think about him. It was the heat, when he’d spun her around and placed his body between her and danger.
Between you and a photographer. Girl, please, he wasn’t taking a bullet for you.
She took a swig of her milk and grabbed her phone out of the kitchen drawer she kept it tucked in when she wasn’t working.
Her first clue that something was wrong was all the notifications on her lock screen. Her second was that they were all from family members. Her mother and two eldest sisters, to be exact.
Uh-oh. That wasn’t good at all.
Her phone rang before she could navigate to her texts, her mother’s sweetly smiling contact photo popping up. She answered it with some trepidation. What had she done now? “Hello?”