Quirks & Kinks (8 page)

Okay, maybe not the
entire
world’s hate, but trust me, it was a lot.

I tried to look away, but couldn’t seem to physically manage it until Howie got directly in my face and forced my eyes to him.

“Do you want to press charges?”

“No.”

“
Easie.
”

Look, I know. I should have pressed charges, but honestly, I was over it. I wanted Ryder to be gone, and I wanted to figure out if there was a way to salvage the show. Charges meant hours of questions and disruption.

A glance down the hall had me finding Ashley in Larry’s arms, but for once, I wasn’t weirded out. I was just happy she had the comfort.

“No, Howie. Thanks, but there aren’t even visible bruises on my arms,” I told him, flashing them in front of his face as evidence. I had always been a delayed bruiser. “I’m fine.”

“Alright.” He didn’t like it, but
alright.
As much as I liked Howie, he wasn’t anything more to me than a director. Maybe, if I really pushed it, a friend. So he didn’t have the proprietary clout needed to change my mind.

“What are we going to do?” Ashley asked Larry as security hustled an embarrassed looking Ryder past them.

“We’re gonna dig out the old casting resumes, and we’re gonna get someone else in here. This episode’s a wrap, so it will air as planned. Any future episodes will feature someone else.”

“Were there any other guys you seriously considered casting?” I asked in an effort to be helpful.

Larry speared me with a look conveying he didn’t want any of my help. Hard eyes, hunched shoulders, laser beams scorching through an imaginary bullet hole right between my eyes. You know the one.

Right.

Widening my eyes comically at Howie, I opted for the road much less traveled. You know,
not
poking the bear. Apparently getting slammed against a wall by a psychopath had me off of my game.

“Your dressing room. Now,” Larry commanded, addressing me directly but meaning everyone.

“Whoa. Hold on there, compadre,” I said with the palm of my right hand up and out toward him. “I understand your desire for expediency here, but I’ve got a deeper need for nicotine. I’ll be in my dressing room in ten minutes.”

Rattled by violence and rare work-related physical activity, Larry conceded to my needs quickly and without too much attitude. “Fine. You have ten minutes to char the inside of some of your most vital organs.”

A smile formed on my face, cloaked in a cloud of laughter. I couldn’t help it. For one of the first times on record, I’d actually found something Larry said funny rather than annoying. Go figure.

“I’ll come with you,” Ashley offered, and it was at that point I knew just how shaken up she was. She never offered to come with me when I smoked. Something about wanting to live to be one hundred and fifteen years old just so she could be on the news.

I’d told her it’d be much easier, and you know, efficient if she’d just go into acting now. She was bound to make it on TV at some point prior to aging a million years.

She’d laughed in my face. I’d given her the finger.

That was how things usually went down.

I didn’t need her to come with me, but I also wasn’t about to deny her whatever relaxation she was seeking.

“Well come on then,” I called, ducking into my dressing room to grab my smokes out of my purse and heading straight down the narrow hall toward the outside.

Bright sunshine sank deep into my skin, cutting through the chill of the indoors and warming me from the inside out. I loved the reliability of Southern California weather. As much as I complained about the people and traffic, I could never find it in me to complain about the weather.

The flint of my lighter struck true at the first flick of my thumb, and the heat ate the paper back at the end of my cigarette instantly. Sounds of traffic bleated in the distance as I touched the tip to my lips and inhaled, but it didn’t last long. My lungs surrendered to the weight of the ingested smoke immediately, and my brain turned off.

Nothing mattered but that moment, that hit of nicotine, and the ease of knowing my sister was safely at my side after one hell of an encounter.

“So . . .” she ventured slowly, wrecking all of that hard-earned calm with one, useless word. “What the hell was that about?”

“You know how it is. Larry fired Ryder, and he didn’t take it well. Most men have mastered the skills it takes to cover their Neanderthal with makeup, but not all of them.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Oh?” I asked, studying the flecks of orange and ash as the end of my cigarette dwindled to nothing.

“Easie. What the hell happened between the two of you that he thought his being fired was your fault?”

“Ash—”

“No, E. Answer me.”

“God, you’re a demanding little bitch these days.”

“Yeah,” she quipped, “You must be rubbing off on me.”

“Ah, fuck, Ash. You know it’s nothing,” I avoided. “You know I can’t get along with anyone.”

“No,” she disagreed strongly. “I don’t know that. That’s just what I tell you when I’m in the mood to throat punch you but I can’t.”

“Hah,” I huffed in a chuckle. “Well, that’s a creative way to torture me.”

“Stop avoiding the subject, and tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“Look. I’m telling you, it’s nothing. Ryder was giving me a little bit of a hard time, and I was giving him one back. Honestly, it’s nothing more than normal.”

She shook her head. “This was obviously the right career choice for you. It’s just a matter of time before you make it big.”

“What? Why?”

She laughed cynically. “Because of that bullshit you just spewed. I’ve known you my entire life, and I still almost believe you.”

“You believe me because it’s the truth.”

“No. I believe you because you’re so good at lying that you believe that shit yourself.”

Using it as a crutch, I clenched the damp paper of distraction between my lips and sucked hard.

Looking at the ground, Ashley shook her head again. But this time it was resigned. “Right. Well. Whatever.” Turning abruptly, she pulled the door open and mumbled over the tight line of her frustrated shoulder. “I’ll meet you inside.” Ever the manager of my life, she checked her watch before instructing, “Two minutes,” and disappearing into the darkness of inside.

My head lolled back, smacking into the brick of the building with the thud and punishing me the way I deserved. Sometimes I didn’t know if my attempts to shelter Ashley from my problems actually protected her or just subjected her to a different torturous fate.

I took two final long drags before tossing my dirty habit to the ground and snuffing it with the toe of my shoe. Sunlight burned through the darkness my eyelids provided even before I opened my blue eyes.

One glance down confirmed what I already knew.

Purple and blue and positively mottled with lies and deceit, the skin of my arms told the story I was too scared to tell. The problems between Ryder and I had been more major than minor, and I’d carry the marks of his final encounter for days to come.

Larry rubbed at his forehead with the flat of his palm and glared at the resumes strewn across the table with disgust. “Nothing about this is working.” After one quick pinch of his nose, his hand jumped to his neck, trying to vanquish his anger from the back as well as the front. “ This is my ass on the line—”

“Like mine isn’t?” I cut in on a protest, pulling at the sleeves of my strategically placed sweater. Ashley’s eyes sliced to me on a hard glare.

“I’m not looking for commentary. Jesus Christ, Easie, for once, just
once,
stop giving me fucking heart palpitations and actually help me. You need this show’s success, and, lucky me, so do I.”

Obviously, the candidates presented so far weren’t living up to snuff. I knew he hated it, but given the circumstances of the last dismissal, Larry was giving me an actual say in who I’d be working beside day in and day out.

At least, he had been. Something told me his patience was wearing thin.

“I can’t take much more of this!”

Or maybe that something was just him. Voicing it over and over and over again. It was actually kind of starting to feel like listening to a broken record.

“What about that waiter from the other night?” Ashley ventured, breaking through our tension with a simple suggestion.

“The one at El Loco?”

She just looked at me. We both knew I knew who she was talking about. No other guy had made any kind of lasting impression, annoying or not.

“Are you fucking crazy? All that guy did was bust my balls all night.”

And shake me up enough that my organs were still settling back into place two days later.

Larry’s response was immediate. “He’s hired.”

Turning to Ashley with metaphorical murder in my eyes, mine wasn’t much slower. “Disowned. Forever. Pack your bags.”

“Technically,” she pointed out, a smirk just starting to take shape on her annoyingly pretty face, “
You
live with
me.
My name is on the lease.” At the narrowing of my eyes, she finished, “Good try, though.”

Larry’s laugh cut straight to my ears.

Ignoring him, I told my sister the truth. “I hate that you’re the smart one.”

“I know. I’d hate to be you too.”

Somebody was pushing their luck today. Little bitch.

Good thing she was my favorite person in the world or I’d have really had to hurt her.

Hopeful faces stared at me from all around, a large group of people weary from the day and counting on me to end their pain hanging on my every word.

“Fine,” I conceded against my will. “But you’re going to ask him yourself.”

“We’ll ask him together.”

Fucking fuck. I didn’t like this. I didn’t like this one bit.

The way he’d challenged me inside had been scary. But what I hadn’t admitted was that the way he
hadn’t
challenged me outside—the way he handled me gently, admitting to his shortcomings so easily—had been downright terrifying.

I WAS GOING TO
have to start calling my sister Assley, or Rashley . . . or something equal parts demeaning and creative.

Sneaky little thing that she was had pulled a fast one on me, promising a team effort and then bailing at the last minute.

“I’ll meet you there,” she said. “I’ll take the bus,” she said. “I have an errand to run,”
she said.

Lies. Everything she said had been nothing but a giant lie until her call five minutes ago, when she’d finally told the truth.
“Yeah, I’m not gonna make it, but he liked you. You’ll do fine all on your own. Let me know how it goes!”

The demonic little voice in my head promised swift retribution.

But there was no turning back now.

I was already here. In the parking lot of El Loco. And the longer I sat out here, the more I feared being the victim of a carjacking.

It was now or never.

My door squealed loudly as I kicked it open, climbed up and out, and straightened my jean skirt down the line of my thighs.

Locking the door manually, I checked to make sure I had my key in hand, and then gave it a shove with my hip to slam it shut.

The idea of locking my car made me laugh, but it was all I had. Unless I won the lottery—which wasn’t likely since I didn’t play—or got invited to star in the next Fifty Shades of Grey, I was pretty sure holding onto my piece of junk was my only current option.

A slapping rhythm took shape as I walked, courtesy of my flip flops, and an already heavy door felt downright immobile in my hand as my nerves swelled and swooped from the top of my head all the way to the soles of my feet.

It took a solid thirty seconds before my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, and by the time they finally did, a tall brunette woman stood waiting for my attention.

“Hey, you’re finally looking at me,” she noted. “That’s cool.”

“Yeah, sorry,” I apologized, feeling less combative than normal. “It takes my eyes a while to adjust after being shocked by the light. Something about photophobia and light eyes.”

She smiled.

“I’m not actually sure,” I continued to bumble. “I kind of tuned out the doctor when he told me what the hell it meant.”