AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I glaredat the all-caps message. Before I could respond to question what she meant, she sent another text, a link. I clicked it.
A large photograph filled my screen. It was captioned:Newest addition to the WTW crew?
WTW likely meantWhat The What?, the title of the show that had catapulted Layana and her friends to fame.
In the image, circles of colored light glowed behind a man with wild hair and wilder eyes. I hardly recognized myself. My expression was completely untethered, filled with something akin to greed, yet far more visceral.
I looked like a stranger. I looked feral.
The camera didn’t capture Layana save for the small hand she’d placed on my arm. But it was her who had drawn whatever this expression was out of me—perhaps contempt, or frustration, or something else entirely.
The sight left me uneasy. A clammy sheen covered my hands. An invisible weight pressed down against my chest. I felt exposed.
I locked the phone, needing to look away. Immediately it rang.
It was Pamela.
I answered. “What?”
“Did you see it?”
“I saw the photograph,” I said, my voice shockingly even.
“Did you read the comments?”
“Of course not. If I cared about nonsensical opinions, I’d engage in small talk. I go out of my way to avoid it.”
“Social media is all about engagement, and that picture of you is getting a ton of attention. Here, I will read a couple comments to you.”
I wished she wouldn’t.
She cleared her throat. “O-M-G is that Justin Theroux? I would give every penny in my bank account for him to look at me like that.”
My patience was wearing thin, and the pipe above me began dripping on my cheek. “Get to the point, Pamela.”
“The latest polls have recognition of your name and face up nineteen percent.”
She had tracked people’s thoughts on me since this image was posted last night. It didn’t surprise me.
“Of those who have discovered you in the past eighteen hours,” she said, “the percentage who believe you’re literally or figuratively a robot—zero.”
“This is what we wanted,” I said, the unsettling image of me in the photograph ping ponging through my head. With it came the feel of Layana’s hands, small yet forceful as she’d posed me.
“This is exactly what we need,” Pamela said. “Get more time with her, preferably shots of the two of you together. And if you’re willing to consider it….”
I sighed, knowing whatever was coming was somehow going to make the entire situation worse.
“We should see how much it would cost to hire her to play your girlfriend,” she said. Then she went on, saying more words including numbers and optics.
But my ears were ringing, and I heard nothing.
She wanted to pay Layana to pretend to be my girlfriend. The prospect made my chest feel so tight, I could hardly breathe.
“No,” I snapped.
“It’s worth leaving the option open,” Pamela said, defying me.
A little pain formed in the center of my forehead. I tried to tilt my head to the side, to rub it, but it made the dripping water fall into my ear.
