never repay you.” She frowned at her chipped nails and ragged cuticles. Her hair was matted and dirty, her skin broken out, and she was probably rocking a major case of unibrow, but she was too depressed to care about any of that. It wasn’t like she was posting selfies from her jail cell.
“You going to flee the country?”
She frowned. “Where would I go?”
Ira shrugged. “Then it looks like neither of us has anything to worry about.”
“And so you bail me out . . . and then what?”
“You return to your normally scheduled life. Your suite at the W is waiting.”
She inched lower still on the hard plastic chair. It was embarrassing to keep taking from him. It needed to stop. She needed to stand on her own two feet. Though at the moment, she was so far gone, so in need of a savior, she had no idea where to start.
“And how am I supposed to live?” Aster mumbled the words. “How am I supposed to support myself? Who would be crazy enough to hire me?”
Ira laughed. Actually threw his head back and laughed as though she’d said something funny. When he finally quieted down, he looked at her and said, “Call me crazy, but I distinctly remember offering you a job, and I seem to remember you accepting.”
“Yeah, and then five seconds later I was cuffed as someone read me my Miranda rights.” She shook her head and refused to look at him. “I’m no good to you now.”
“On the contrary.” He was quick to counter. “This is Hollywood, Aster, not the Republican primary. In the nightclub biz, scandal is currency. Even so, if you decide you’re not interested in my offer, there’s still the matter of the prize money you won.”
Aster wondered if she looked as surprised as she felt. Her last memory of the prize money was the moment Ira plucked the check from her fingers and slid it into his pocket. For safekeeping, he’d said, though the expression he wore had convinced her she’d never see it again. Seconds later, she was shoved into the back of a squad car and hauled away, and she’d pretty much forgotten about it until now. Had she really been so wrong about him?
“You earned it fair and square. It’s yours for the taking. I deposited it in a trust account under your name.”
“Keep it.” She dismissed the offer with a quick wave of her hand. She might be desperate and broke, but it was the right thing to do. “Put it toward the attorney’s fees and bail.” She glanced briefly at the lawyer sitting opposite her and ran a series of quick calculations in her head. Though the prizewinning check bore an impressive number of zeros, it was merely a start. A good defense team would plow through it in no time. It would be spent well before they even made it to trial.
She dropped her chin to her chest and scrubbed her hands through her hair. She’d moved one step forward, only to find herself right back where she’d started. She had nowhere to live and no good way of supporting herself. As a high school grad with no real skills and a mug shot that had gone viral, she was untouchable, unemployable. The independence she’d longed for came at a price she could not afford.
“I’m serious about the job offer as well,” Ira said, as though reading her mind.
“The job was as a promoter. How am I supposed to bring people in? I’m a social pariah!”
Ira remained undeterred. “If you want to change public opinion, you need to put yourself out there and prove you have nothing to hide. I wouldn’t make the offer if I didn’t think you were capable. Remember the promise I made at the start of the contest?”
She looked at him, her head spinning with all that he’d said, all that remained unsaid.
“I promised that working for me would amount to the sort of real-life experience you can’t get at school, and I’m pretty sure I delivered, no?”
This time, when a rush of tears coursed down her cheeks, Aster did nothing to stop them. It marked the second time Ira had stepped in to help her in a way her parents refused to do. But more importantly, unlike her parents, Ira didn’t judge her. Didn’t try to keep her feeling diminished and small. His belief in her potential was relentless, and he encouraged her to believe in herself relentlessly too.
She wondered why he did it—why he even bothered. He’d never asked for anything in return other than for her to succeed at her job. For someone who always seemed to be working an angle, she’d yet to figure out what angle he was working with her.
While she loved her family, the thought of returning home to the watchful glare of Nanny Mitra and her parents was too much to bear. She hated the fact that she needed rescuing, but was grateful to have someone other than her parents to save her from drowning.
“Thank you,” she said, her throat so constricted she nearly choked on the words.
Ira smiled and stood. A second later the lawyer stood too, saying, “It may take a few hours to process your bail, but you’ll be out of here soon.”
Aster watched as the guard opened the door and the two men filed out of the room.
“And Aster,” Ira called over his shoulder. “Don’t worry so much. It’s all going to fall into place. I promise you that.”
As the guard led her back to her cell, Aster clung to Ira’s words like the life preserver they were.
WHY’D YOU COME IN HERE LOOKIN’ LIKE THAT
Tommy Phillips arrived five minutes later than planned, but still early enough to claim the darkest, most secluded booth in the nearly empty bar. In a city fueled by ambitious overachievers who equated success with an inflated level of busyness, the only other patrons were tourists looking to boost their Instagram accounts with a grim piece of Hollywood lore, and the daytime regulars who bore the soft, defeated look of those who’d not only forfeited the race, but had chosen never to run.
In another three hours they’d all be gone, edged out by after-work warriors willing to look past the faint smell of burnt popcorn and the antiquated jukebox playing a steady stream of deep tracks in their search for cheap drinks, willing women, and any other vice with the promise to numb them.
While Tommy wasn’t exactly living the dream, at least he’d managed to avoid that particular brand of nine-to-five hell.
He settled onto the red vinyl cushion and ordered a beer from the waitress who’d flashed him a flirty look he didn’t return. A month ago, he wouldn’t have hesitated to flaunt the heartbreaker grin that had made him a legend back at his Oklahoma high school. But ever since Madison Brooks disappeared and the tabloids turned their focus to him for the small walk-on part that he’d played, Tommy’s go-to response to a pretty girl flirting was to avert his gaze and wait for her to move away.
It wreaked hell on his love life. Never mind his nonexistent sex life.
Like the rest of LA, he was eager for the dry spell to end.
He centered his gaze on the entrance, not wanting to miss the moment Layla arrived. Though they texted often,
