“I’m not using other people,” I argued. “I gave my opinion of you. I told the truth about our date. I’m sorry you didn’t like it.”
“Was that your plan from the beginning? Buy your way into lunch with me, then get your photos, intentionally piss me off, then brag about it on social media afterward?” He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Well done, Emma Blanton.” He emphasized my last name in a weird way, as if he knew it wasn’t real. “Exceptional value for your eight thousand dollars.”
A woman in a dress patterned with Bob Marley’s face moved down the aisle, her eyes lighting up when she spotted the seat next to Cash. “49… that’s me!”
He moved his arm off the back of it and shifted his weight toward me. His legs bumped mine, and his elbow brushed against my upper arm. We were suddenly much closer, almost intimately so, though the wall of ice between us had crystallized further.
“I was concerned about your brother,” I hissed. “I wasn’t trying to get a story about it. I was just asking a question.”
His jaw clenched, the flex of muscles visible beneath the thin layer of facial hair. I waited for an acknowledgment, but other than the rigid set of his face, he ignored me.
My anger, which I’d never really had a great hold on—let’s be serious—burned, and I focused, tried to focus, on what I had promised Vidal. No scenes. No fights. An apology. I had done that, right? I had apologized? I thought I had.
I reached out and grabbed his arm. It was warm and muscular, the faint dusting of hair along the surface lightened by the sun. He stared down at the contact, then reached over and carefully peeled back my fingers until I was forced to let go or break off my pinky.
“Ow,” I said pointedly.
“Don’t touch me.” He gripped my wrist and carried it over to the space above my lap, then let go of it as if it was a stinky diaper in a public restroom disposal. I quickly tucked my arms across my chest and glared at the Bob Marley fan, who was watching us with unabashed interest. Talk about D-list hell.
“You—”
“Don’t talk to me either.” He readjusted in his chair, angling his body away from me, and I didn’t understand why we had such an inability to communicate.
“Stop telling me what to do,” I snapped. “You were a jerk. I told people about it. Stop sniveling about it and get over yourself.”
At that moment, he stood up. I watched, surprised as he folded his program in half and stuffed it into his back pocket. Pulling his sunglasses from his shirt neck, he pushed them on and it was really annoying how cool he made everything look.
Excusing himself, he squeezed past Bob Marley Lady and worked his way down the aisle, which was starting to fill up. I watched, waiting for him to look up, to glance at me, to say something but he just left.
And I waited, and I waited, but then the show began and he didn’t come back.
Vidal spotted Cash leaving the theater early and sicced our guys on him. We had two assholes with cameras who were great at peppering someone with questions and milking a reaction out of them. They followed him to his car, so close that one almost tripped over him, and asked over and over again why he was leaving so soon, and if it had anything to do with Emma Blanton. Cash said nothing, but it didn’t matter. We had the video footage of his annoyed face with the mention of my name, and that was all Vidal needed to hit the networks and fill the dead time between red carpet interviews and the start of the show. It lit up the gossip sites. During the broadcast, the camera panned to Cash’s empty seat twice before a seat filler magically showed up and wedged into the spot, the guy’s cheap tuxedo pants brushing against my leg with annoying regularity.
By the time I left the show and met Bojan, my numbers had jumped to just over a million followers. We sipped tequila in the back of his limo, and he rolled his eyes as I refreshed the screen, shocked at how the numbers jumped up each time. Vidal had already posted on my feed, a shot of me that didn’t even look like me. I was standing at the top of the red carpet stairs and glancing over my shoulder at the camera, and the makeup and hair attendees we paid for were worth every dollar. I looked glamorous and expensive and beautiful. I lingered on the photo, certain that a dozen filters had been used, and that my makeup was already smudged, my skin no longer glowing, my hair frizzling in the summer heat—but it didn’t matter. I had this photo, and if nothing else ever happened, at least I had this proof. I was at the MTV Movie Awards. I was on the red carpet. I was, as fleeting as it may turn out to be, somebody.
Bo pulled my phone away and put it in the pocket of his red blazer, one that was custom, with white stitching and gold buttons. He bit into a lime and pushed my tequila shot forward, his eyes dark and luminous, his smile full of mischief. I downed the shot and turned the face of his watch toward me, tilting my head to one side to properly read the diamond-studded dial. “We have to go soon,” I said, and he shrugged, reclining back against the booth as if he had all night.
“The party can wait,” he said. “For now, a toast.” He lifted the heavy glass toward me. “Here’s to being newsworthy.”
That night, Bojan got drunk at the Cosmopolitan after-party and punched Leo in the balls after he sent a drink to the model that Bo was flirting with. We both were kicked out of the party, our ungracious exit caught by the paps who got a beautiful shot of the middle finger I flashed the security team.
Bojan did a line of coke along the limo’s armrest as the car headed to his bungalow, and I refreshed my accounts.
1,419,200 followers.
26
#thedreamteam
EMMA: 1,800,701 FOLLOWERS
In the beginning, it was easy to hide my visits to the Ranch. But as my brand grew, my activities and time were more closely monitored. There were several times that I considered telling Vidal the truth, but didn’t.
“Where the hell have you been?” Vidal swung open the door to my house and glared at me from my foyer, a gold cell phone pinned to his ear. “You’re late.”
I ignored the question and walked past him, stopping short when I saw the two strangers perched around my kitchen island.
\\\Vidal barked a command into the phone, then used it to point to each of the visitors in succession.
“This is Dion and Edwin,” he said smoothly. “They’re your new team. I’m pulling them off Danica Franks, so be grateful.”
Danica Franks had just flashed a cop while carrying enough cocaine to feed the Oscars, so I was fairly sure this generous gesture was based more on her mandatory rehab and less out of the generosity of his heart, but I still nodded. “Hey.”
“Dion is your new stylist and will handle your hair and makeup. Don’t leave the house, or take a pic, unless you’ve gone through her first.”
Dion barely looked up from her phone. She wore a neon yellow tracksuit, which looked great against her ebony complexion but would make me look like a blonde banana. “That outfit is lame,” she mused.
I looked down at the Beatles t-shirt I wore, one that paired nicely with my best skinny jeans and a pair of pink tennis shoes that Wesley had declared as “super cool.” “I was just running some errands.”