“Well,” I said, “we can certainly use all the help we can get.”
Julie gave me a desperate look. “Helena, don’t do this.”
“Any publicity is good publicity,” I said, which seemed to actually sway her a little. Kingmaker didn’t seem to understand I was insulting him, posing on the invisible turntables again.
“Trust me on this. When I want people to hear something, the people hear it. This will be a festival fit for a king, yo.”
“Ugh, dude.” Julie rubbed her forehead. Kingmaker pointed at her.
“Go grab the networks folder from my office.”
“What do I look like, your assistant?”
“You’ve been my assistant.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me.” Still, she went, complaining the whole way, and Kingmaker turned back to me.
“She’s a good kid,” he said. I bit back a smile.
“You just sent her to get her out of earshot?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Just saying, you can trust her. With anything. She’s got a fire in her belly. And… really likes you, too. I kept telling her not to work with you, that it’d backfire. She just kept wanting to bring you into Jewel.”
I felt warmth budding in my chest, even as I tried to fight it. I smiled wider.
“I’ve heard you’re a self-styled life coach. So I guess you want to advise me on my love life?”
“Nah, nah, just…” He scratched his head, suddenly less Kingmaker and more just a guy. I wondered what his actual name was. Probably something underwhelming. “Julie’s my friend. An’ I know she really cares about you. So I just wanna see it go well. Ah, forget it.” He stepped back, just as Julie came storming down the hall and into the room.
“Dude, there’s no networks folder.”
“Yeah, that’s my B, I forgot I had it with me,” Kingmaker said, pulling a folder from—actually, I genuinely wasn’t sure where from—and Julie threw her hands up.
“Ugh, fuck off, man.”
“My man Stephen Shale is a hell of a talent,” Kingmaker said, flipping open the folder. “We better make sure we can use that. Let’s figure out a plan now.”
Chapter 26
Julie
Helena insisted I wasn’t cooking anything for her tonight, not after all the work that happened over the day, so we ordered in once we’d gotten back to her apartment at the end of the day. I complained that I wasn’t just living off takeout and that Iwouldmake myself useful and prepare a meal atsomepoint, while we were sitting over Nepalese dumplings together—Helena just smiled at me and agreed with that slightly patronizing tone—but it wasn’t like I minded her giving me food.
Especially since I’d never had Nepalese dumplings before. The eating-out offerings in Benley, Missouri were more along the lines of, you know… a single Subway or a single Taco Bell. I think I inhaled like three servings.
“So,” she said, once we’d finished eating and we sat in the living room together, Helena’s feet kicked up on the coffee table, and she looked hot being that casual. “First day of the project. How do you think it went?”
I laughed. “You know something?”
“Tell me.”
“Maybe I’m out of my goddamn mind, but I think it’s going to work.”
She grinned at me. “Oh,maybeyou are?”
“Okay, I take it back. I know I’m completely with it. There’s never been anyone of sounder mind than me.”
She laughed. God, her laugh sounded so… happy. She was incredible when she was happy like that, justlit uplike she was when she got to use her skills, her actual skills, got to be a part of this—of everything she really wanted to be.God,she was luminous. “All right, princess,” she said. “Well, with that confidence, I guess we should really just be planning how we’re going to celebrate it all going perfectly.”
