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“I would like to sign you,” Keats says. “I can absolutely get you work as is, but if you want the big campaigns—editorial or a designer ad—TV—the real money as I think of it—we’d need to debut you, if that helps make it make sense.”
“Makes perfect sense to me,” Olivier says, turning to face me. “And it’s a hell of a lot better than you’re currently getting.”
Do I really want to spend the rest of my life with this impossibly entitled man who can simply walk into a room and get offers I’d kill for thrown at his feet?
Yeah.
I think I do.
“Give me six months and a new book,” Keats says to me. “I’ll give you a career you can write home about.”
47
OLIVIER
APRIL
Killian opens the front door for me as I step out into the crisp, sunny morning, in desperate need of a cigarette. Our ghostwriter, a former investigative journalist named Mallory Joyce, agreed to let me take this much-needed break after I had a rough memory breakthrough while we were talking about my sophomore year of high school.
While I’d much rather be sorting through my raw feelings in bed with Drew, he’s picking up his new book from Keats Kelly and who knows when he’ll be back.
I’ve had to resort to smoking again, much to his annoyance, but look—digging up every shitty thing about my past I spent eight years high trying not to think about isn’t easy. And a cigarette isn’t cocaine.
Evidently, I’m not the only one in need of a smoke break. Babs’s current houseguest is outside, too, sucking a butt like it’s life support. He spots me and tips his chin my way. “Sorry,” he says, very Brittishly.
“Don’t be. Mind if I join you?”
“Please.” He holds out a hand, leaving his cigarette between his teeth. “Jeremy Davies.”
“Ollie. Arnaud,” I add, irritated more and more lately with my own surname. We shake.
“I love a lot of things about America, but the lack of accommodations for smokers is so fucking Puritanical. Sex workers have more rights.”
I grin, lighting up and leaning on the wall of the building beside him. “So, how do you know Babs?”
“She’s my mum’s second or third cousin or something. I’m in the middle of an interview slash internship with a firm here in the city. I wasn’t going to do it until Babs offered a room.”
“How is it?” I ask. “Panning out?”
“It’s not bad. What do you do?” he asks.
“Oh, I uh…dabble a little in runway modeling. I’m working on a book.” And then I laugh at the fact that for the first time in my life I have a real answer to the question. Still, those aren’t the things that define me. “Mostly I just try to spend as much time with my boyfriend as possible.”
Jeremy lifts one dark brow. “That’s lovely. Where’s a good place to meet men in this town? I haven’t had much luck.”
“Oh, well, good question. I kind of stumbled on this one. Never really thought of myself as queer before I met him. I’m still not sure we’re doing it right.”
He chuckles. “What is it you think you’re doing wrong?”
I exhale a thick, billowing cloud of smoke, leaning my head back to look up at the bright blue sky. “Everything.”
“Please, spare no details. I have some experience in this department.”
“You don’t mind?” I ask.
He makes a dismissive noise and shakes his head, prompting me to go on.
“Stop me if this gets to be too much. I don’t get to talk about it very often.”
