POP!
“I'm happily married,” he says. “And even if I wasn't, I wouldn't go near your agent with a ten-foot pole, my friend.”
I change my position, shifting my weight and re-angling myself to give him a different stance. “Not into powerful, independent women?” I ask. My voice is thick with sarcasm, which makes Cross laugh.
“I love powerful, independent women. Hilary Weston’s just a bitch.”
I'm tired. There's a perfectly good bedroom waiting for me at The Excelsior, free of charge, and I wouldn't mind grabbing some weed from doorman Roger, but Meredith's not on death's door anymore. She's home from the hospital. I've checked in with Roger a couple of times over the past few weeks, and my mother's condition is vastly improved by the sounds of things. She's been going out to dinner nearly every night of the week with friends and threw a fucking cocktail party last weekend. If the very thought of making the call didn't bring me out in full-body hives, I'd check in with her doctor to find out how she's really doing, but yeah. Hives. I'm sure they'll hit me up for more of my bone marrow if things look like they're taking a turn for the worse. In the interim, I booked myself in at The Carlyle instead.
Great location.
Comfortable rooms.
Plenty of space.
Excellent room service.
And, best of all, I'm charging all of it back to the agency, so I don't have to part with a dime—the benefits of being one of Van Kaiser's most exclusive models.
I'm basically worth my weight in gold. Everybody wants me on their magazine cover, or wearing their watches, or their underwear, or driving their car, but Hilary is, to be fair, very good at her job. When a product or service is popular, you need to create a scarcity for it. Make it extremely hard to come by. This is why Hilary turns down nearly ninety percent of the jobs I'm offered through the agency, and why she can charge stupendously large amounts of money for me when she deems a contract beneficial. Van Kaiser are therefore more than happy to pick up the tab whenever I'm out on a job.
It's dark when I step out of the stairwell and onto the thirtieth floor of The Carlyle. I'm exhausted from being on my feet all day—those tiny micro-adjustments and slight shifts in weight barely count as movement at all, but they take their toll after twelve fucking hours, let me tell ya—and climbing up thirty floors of stairs hasn't helped matters. But braving the elevator up to Meredith's penthouse is the only time I'll trap myself in such a small and confined space. The elevator that goes up to The Excelsior's penthouse is private. I can sweat my way all the way from the ground floor to her living room in complete privacy. Not so at The Carlyle. Any number of people could get off and on as the car goes up, dragging out the length of time I have to be trapped inside the car, rubbing shoulders with unknown entities. I won't fucking do it.
I let myself into the corner suite Hilary arranged for me, already planning on draining the minibar dry, but when I step into the living room, I see Elodie fucking Stillwater sitting on my couch and my brain damn near explodes.
I am fucking HALLUCINATING.
A hand claps on my shoulder, stopping me dead in my tracks. “There you are. If you shower up real quick and get dressed, we'll make it to Le Bernardin just in time for our reservation.”
Wren tosses a handful of peanuts into his mouth, bouncing his eyebrows as he heads over to the couch and throws himself down next to his girlfriend.
Fuck's sake. I left without telling anyone where I was going or what I was doing. I knew better than to think Wren wouldn't be able to find me—without fail, he'll obtain any piece of information he desires once he sets his mind to it—but I figured he'd have better things to do. I assumed he'd be so busy fucking Elodie that he wouldn't even realize I was gone until I was already back again. Wrong on all counts. He's here, in my goddamn hotel room, and he's made himself cozy.
“Are those my sweatpants?” I snarl.
Wren looks down at himself, surveying the pants with the air of a man who assumes that everything belongs to him. “Uhhh... I don't know. Could be. I got them from in there.” He points.
“The bedroom? My bedroom?”
“Yeah.”
“You get them from a suitcase? The Dakine one, with my name printed on the label?”
He throws more peanuts back, shrugging. “I don’t fucking know. A bag. They were in a fucking bag. Jesus, dude, relax already. They’re sweatpants.”
This is just fucking perfect. No, seriously. Fucking perfect. Exactly what I need after a long day being bossed about by Hilary and a demanding, (admittedly pretty cool) photographer. “What are you doing here?” I imbue the words with every ounce of malevolence I can muster. Both of these motherfuckers are impervious to my tone, though. Clearly, they are fundamentally broken inside. Wren grinds his peanuts between his molars, observing me blankly. Elodie doesn’t even do that; she stares at the television, flicking through the channels, hopping from one station to the next like I didn’t just threaten to eat her fucking soul with my hatred.
“Your girl Chase needed a ride. I like her, y’know. She’s told me to go fuck myself when we were going over the Brooklyn Bridge. She said it with so much venom that my balls retracted a bit.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, Chase needed a ride?”
Elodie drags her gaze away from the television at long last. On the screen, Arnold Schwarzenegger is disappearing into a pit of molten lava, one hand raised above his head, giving a thumbs up. “Jarvis Reid told her you went home because of a family emergency,” Elodie says. “Pres was worried about you.”
There are no words. I throw my hands up, eyes rolling extra hard as I struggle to concoct a string of curse words vile enough to convey just how unhappy I am.
These guys cannot be here.
Not now.
Not tonight.
Chase most definitely can’t be here.
This is really fucking bad.
The balcony door slides open, letting a wash of sirens and car horns flood into the room, along with Chase herself, who’s wearing one of my…god fucking damn it. My hoody. She’s wearing one of my plain black hoodies. Two emotions spark in concert with one another, roaring through me all at once. The first—pure rage—has my blood singing in my veins and a dull roar building in the back of my throat. The second—a completely unidentifiable emotion—has my stomach churning and this weird, prickling heat climbing up my spine. I want… I want to…
Fuck this. I want her to take off the hoody right fucking now, but I can’t trust myself to bark the command without something weird happening. The thing’s so big on her, it’s halfway down to her knees. She’s pushed the sleeves back to her elbows, the fabric bunching up ridiculously around her upper arms. The collar’s skewed, hanging off her shoulder. My stomach clenches again, a bizarre tightening that makes my breath catch. She sees me, her eyes going round, and her cheeks turn bright crimson. She wasn’t ready for me to show up. Not yet. Was she going to take it off before I arrived? Was she planning on bailing? She looks like she’s about to have a heart attack. Her eyes, luminous and crystal clear, shine so bright that she looks like some kind of cartoon. A manga character come to life and invading my personal, private fucking space.