AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Okay, I’ll admit it. I was glad the universe hadn’t rewarded him for his shitty, user behavior.
I shrug. “Haven’t followed.”
“I fired my manager and hired a new one with more publicity background. And she thinks I need to…” He pauses.
I’m sitting here, trying to figure out what any of this has to do with me. I left LA four years ago and never looked back. When I was there, I wasn’t exactly the queen of managing my public image brilliantly. I had a manager and an assistant who took care of my social media, and I did okay, but I’m not any kind of genius. People don’t come to me for publicity advice.
“She thinks I need to get married.”
Oookay, those are not the words I was expecting to come out of his mouth.
“And she thinks I should marry you.”
3
Ivy
“He said what!?”
My sister Nia’s mouth hangs open.
“He said he wanted us to get married. He wants to stage a yearlong, very public engagement with lots of involved planning that we can get lots of Bridge fans sucked into so he can build his platform and raise his value to producers. He wants to do a proposal that plays off Oriana’s big stupid speech about wanting someone to come along and save her from loneliness and fill her up with babies?—”
“No,” Nia says flatly. “He is not serious.”
“Pretty sure he’s deadly serious. Obviously I said no.”
“Obviously,” she says. “Holy shit, Ivy, what a narcissist.”
“I know.”
She gives me a big hug. “Hey. I’m sorry that happened to you. That’s so uncool of him.”
I wave a hand. “Whatever. It’s over. I told him no, he begged and pleaded and said I was the only one in a position to really help him make a splash?—”
“And you said, ‘You should have thought of that before you let them write me out of the show.’”
“And I said, ‘I’m really fucking tired, Anthony. You should leave so I can go to sleep.’ And he did.”
She hugs me again and strokes my hair. “I’m sorry, kiddo.”
“You know what was the worst?” I say.
“What?”
“I just wanted to be able to say, ‘I can’t marry you, you narcissistic prick, because I’m happily married with two kids and a very floppy-eared rescue mutt.’”
“You’ll find someone,” she says.
“Preferably someone who has never heard Oriana’s ‘the end of the universe is lonely’ speech or jerked off to a scene of her getting boned in the engine compartment.”
I’m referring to the fact that I do periodically get avid fan emails or messages from horny guys. Some are marriage proposals, offering to help me with my “all alone in a big universe” problems. Most of them, though, have spent too much time replaying the other famous Oriana Bridge scene and want me to help them out in person with their fantasies…
“Good luck,” she says. “Maybe you could settle for one who has a firm grasp on the difference between reality and fiction?”
I laugh. “Please. God, if I’d known when I knuckled under and filmed either of those scenes how they’d come back to haunt me… Okay, you know what? Let’s never speak of Anthony Fessa or his ego-stroking idea again. Distract me with some fun news.”
She wrinkles her nose, pondering. “Got it. Did you know Shane Hott is in town?”
