She grinned, dropping down in the chair across from me. “You should be so lucky.” But her smile fell, replaced with something artificial and thick with concern, and she said, “I hear you’re on, um… overtime?”
“Who told you?”
“Bella’s on scheduling talks with Linyue, said she was a bit terse, asked me if I knew anything. I figured I could probably put the pieces together.”
I looked away, cupping my coffee in both hands. “I had fun last night. But you know, hangover comes after the party.”
“So, she had a fit.”
“She just wanted me to be more communicative.” I’d rehearsed this conversation, and with the emotional distance now from Linyue’s incident this morning, I could see things more rationally. Like that Linyue was right, for one. This was big business, and a party wasn’t worth that much. “So I’m concentrating more on my work now.”
She leaned in, folding her arms on the table. “When you say your work, you mean being a good little doll for Linyue and your dad.”
I shrugged. “I’m a model, Estelle. It’s what I do. And I intend to do it well.”
“I know you do it well, but you want to do more than that.”
“It’s fine. I was just curious about what the scene was like.”
She pouted. I didn’t like that look. Always meant she was scheming something. At length, at last, she said, “I guess she really tore you a new one, huh?”
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” I said delicately. “It’s a bit embarrassing…”
She made a face, and slowly, she stood up. “Well,” she said, “I am going to get a coffee, because I’m looking at that, and my soul is crying out to have some too, and then we’re going to go shopping together?”
I laughed dryly. “I don’t need retail therapy, Estelle. Honestly, I’m fine. And I should probably get moving. I’ve got people to check in with.”
“I thought this was going to be a free evening for you,” she said, hands on her hips. I finished my coffee, and I stood up with her.
“It is, and I can spend my free evenings how I like. In this case… getting a headstart on my work for next week.”
She scrunched up her face looking at me for a while before she stepped back, plastering on a smile that a blind man could see through. “Ooh, a headstart!” she said. “It’s good to see you so eager. Well, have fun. I’ll let you know if I see anything in the shop that you’re going to be sad you don’t have, so I can give you FOMO and make you totally regret not coming with me.”
“I am devastated in advance. Okay, you. I’ll see you around.”
I didn’t want to know whatever she was planning. It didn’t matter anyway. I was moving forward. That was what counted right now.
Chapter 9
Julie
I felt like my brains were scrambled eggs in a blender, and I took it out on an unsuspecting victim, because Stephen Shale looked at me like I was a frothing-mouthed raccoon crawling out of the dumpster when I found him in the studio.
“Listen, Stephen Shale,” I said, and he took a step back, further away from me with his eyes wide like I was going to bite him. “You and I are not leaving this studio until I’m satisfied with what you’re making.”
“W-who are you?” he stammered.
“What the fuck do you mean, who am I? I was right here talking to you yesterday in this exact room.”
“Oh, yeah, right. Yeah, you’re that Kingmaker guy’s friend.”
Ugh. I guess I couldn’t blame him for not noticing me next to Kingmaker of all people. “Yeah… Julie.”
“Stephen. Uh, you, uh, working with the studio?”
“I’m working with you. I need you to make me a hit.”
He shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. He was a reedy kind of Black guy, a little young and scrappy looking, with a short Afro hairstyle, and he had a button-up check shirtthat didn’t fit the badass-rapper vibe he said he wanted, but whatever. He’d make a hit if I had to beat it out of him. “I, uh, all right. I’m trying my best. But you know, creativity’s not just a faucet. You don’t turn it on and get results. You gotta give it space, give it room.”
