1. Ex-Flame Coming In Hot

1

EX-FLAME COMING IN HOT

LILA

“ I can’t believe this is really happening,” I exclaim, pacing back and forth in front of Kitty’s Catwalk, the modeling studio that currently holds the success of my career in the palm of its manicured hand.

The clop of my heels ricochets against the sidewalk, and my barely there dress fails to stave off the afternoon chill. Though my constant pacing seems to keep me from freezing into a well-dressed popsicle.

Aeris, my best friend, squeals through the staticky receiver of my phone, and I can practically picture her jumping up and down. “Li, I’m so happy for you. You’ve been working so hard for this moment. I don’t know anyone more deserving of this big break than you.”

And suddenly, the spine-crushing weight of this meeting sends my nerves into overdrive and churns my stomach like a rather violent rinse cycle. “Oh, God. What if I blow it? What if they realize there’s another model better suited for this campaign?”

Kitty’s Catwalk is known for turning girl-next-door types into world-famous models on the front covers of Vogue and Sports Illustrated . They’re known for creating overnight sensations and signing girls who go on to rake in an astounding eight-figure salary each year. Every model they’ve signed has climbed the social ladder and gone on to star in projects beyond their modeling contract—whether it’s a lead role in a blockbuster hit or becoming a self-made millionaire with an empire of clothing and makeup products. These are the kinds of A-list celebrities who get invited to red carpet events, who get swarmed by paparazzi if they simply make a grocery run, and who cause mass hysteria on every social media site because of their tumultuous dating history.

I’ve worked my ass off to get here today. For the past five years, I’ve been modeling for swimsuit ads, and I’ve made the occasional appearance on little-known catwalks. This could be the start of the rest of my life. And I wouldn’t have gotten this opportunity if it wasn’t for the massive spike in engagement I’ve gotten on Instagram.

Since modeling was barely paying the bills, I decided to take a stab at influencing, pretty much expecting next to nothing. It’s hard to grow a following, and even harder to maintain social relevance. But after one of my swimsuit photos went viral, people started discovering my account, and the likes skyrocketed before I could comprehend what was happening. Being financially comfortable isn’t just a future I’m seeking out for myself; it’s a future I’ve wanted to pave for my mother since the minute she loaned me money to pursue my modeling career.

She’s supported me through the devastating ups and downs; through the nasty, unsolicited feedback from the public; through the projected insecurities of guys and girls alike on the state of my body—how I look too skinny in one picture but have a belly in the next. She never once told me to stop chasing my dream, and for that, I owe her everything.

“There’s no one better suited for this job. You’re the perfect fit. And if they can’t see that, then they’re stupid idiots who wouldn’t know talent and beauty if it bit them in the ass,” Aeris says, and if it wasn’t for the expensive foundation on my face, I would probably blink a few tears from my eyes.

While my feet haven’t stopped trying to dig a trench in the concrete, my heart’s no longer trying to slam itself against the bracket of my ribs. I suck in a breath long enough to stilt the frenetic hammering of my pulse, and for the first time in the past five minutes, my heels come to a clacking halt.

“It’s just…everything has to go perfect, Aer-Bear. This is my one chance. If I don’t land this gig, I’m back to cursing the Instagram algorithm for shadow banning my posts.”

Sure, I’ve gone through endless casting calls before, but the twin glass doors beckoning me to the equivalent of hell have never looked quite as foreboding as they do now. Either I’ll get burned alive in there, or I’ll claw my way out of that death pit with my champagne-pink acrylics.

This is the last step in the audition process. One meeting stands between me and never having to go back to a normal life ever again. Kitty’s Catwalk reached out to me months ago for an initial audition, and they liked me so much that I’m one of the few finalists out of thousands of girls who auditioned. It’s surreal. I never thought I’d get this far.

Aeris’ tone melts into a softer inflection, one that overflows with admiration and coats my insides with liquid honey. “It’ll go perfect. You’ve got this, Li. I believe in you. I’m proud of you. You just have to push the nerves aside for an hour and let fate do the rest for you.”

There’s that cursed F -word. I think I start to see red every time someone mentions it, which is surprisingly a lot.

A lot of people talk about fate, but they dress it up with unbelievable soul ties and Christmas miracles that simply don’t exist. I get the appeal, I do. Fate gives people hope, but is it really worth it when that hope is about as fake as a knockoff Louis Vuitton bag?

I’ve come to learn that fate doesn’t exist. Just like soulmates don’t exist. Nothing happens because the world deems you lucky enough, or the stars align, or whatever the hell psychics are saying nowadays. If you want something to happen, you have to make it happen.

“Right. You’re right,” I ramble, holding my phone against my ear with my shoulder so I can iron out the creases in my skintight dress. “I’ve just got to play it cool. I’ve got this. I’ve done this a hundred times before.”

“See? Atta girl. And you have to call me the minute you hear back from them. I’m thinking we do a girls’ night with some champagne to celebrate.”

A swallow glugs down my throat, and nausea surges right up to my tongue before receding back into my belly. “I promise. My call time is now. Oh, God. Okay. I’m going in.”

Either the connection’s starting to break up, or Aeris is sniffling quietly. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” I tell her, ending the call and shoving my phone into my purse. I don’t have time to do some meditative breathing or psych myself up. My six-inch red bottoms carry me past the threshold and into the hallway that precedes the large, empty, whitewashed room that I know is waiting for me.

The studio is silent. I can’t hear anything aside from the staccato rhythm of my heels against the cement floor. I can’t feel anything aside from the increasingly urgent need to puke up the Caesar salad I had for lunch. When I get to boardroom 102, my clammy palm nudges the cold handle, and I open the reinforced door to find a plain backdrop and a ring of high-powered fluorescent lights all huddled toward the back.

A row of casting directors has been set up at the front of the room, their expressions ranging from friendly looking to stony and unimpressed. Half-empty water bottles scatter the cloth tabletop, a daunting, inch-thick stack of notes inhabits the lead director’s space, and laminated headshots lay strewn about like windblown leaves.

I slowly make my way to the center of the room, hyperaware of trying to walk straight without twisting an ankle and embarrassing myself in front of my possible future employers.

“Ms. Perkins, so lovely of you to meet with us,” the lead director, Rebecca, greets, lowering her diamond-encrusted glasses before poring over my file.

“Thank you for making the time to meet with me,” I reply, half-surprised that I didn’t stumble over my words.

Luxury emanates from Rebecca’s slender frame, and her fine taste is obvious from the black, sculpted blazer hugging her shoulders. Her bob of hair is slicked back to utter perfection, and even though the gauntness of her cheekbones alludes to her being older, her makeup doesn’t make her look a day over thirty. A cherry tint fades over defined lips, thick brushstrokes of mascara line feathery lashes, and full-coverage foundation conceals any possible blemish on her otherwise flawless skin.

“As you know, we’ve been looking at you to be the face of the newest Menoulé fragrance. You’re exactly the kind of model needed to sell this. You’re sophisticatedly elegant with an understated sensuality; you’ve got a fresh look; and you’ve got an astronomical social media following. Honestly, this job is yours to lose,” Rebecca says, flicking her eyes up to me in a nearly knee-buckling look. She sears a hole right into my eyes, and the air-conditioning does nothing to combat the flush of my skin or the film of sweat over it.

It’s mine to lose . So all I have to do is convince them that I’m the right choice without seeming desperate. I have to come off confident, but not arrogant. If I say the wrong thing, I can kiss this opportunity goodbye .

I straighten my spine as a smile gradually crawls across my lips. “I assure you, I’m the right person for this job.”

Rebecca mirrors my smile with one of her own, clasping her long fingers together on the table in front of her. “That’s what we like to hear. However, before we make our final decision, we need one more thing from you.”

Anything! I scream internally, trying to quell the desperation slowly overtaking me. I can taste this victory. It’s just within reach. I’m so close, and there truly isn’t anything I wouldn’t do. Do they want me to fight the other contending models to the death in a Hunger Games -style arena? I’ll do it. Oh, I’ll so do it.

Thankfully, my sensibility catches up to me before I blurt out the insistence that’s, well, insistent about airing out the fame-hungry demon inside me.

“Of course. I’m up for anything,” I assert confidently.

One of the more unamused casting directors scoffs under his breath, but Rebecca remains poised and professional, maintaining a disturbing amount of eye contact with me. “As you know, you’ll be starring with another model for the perfume ad and the subsequent magazine covers, yes?”

“I am aware.”

“We want to do a chemistry shoot with you and the male model. As soon as possible so we can go ahead with shooting,” she explains.

I’ve done plenty of chemistry shoots in the past with other models, and I’ve aced them every time. Playing up romance for the public is all show. It rarely ever turns into something substantial. I’ve tried to date in this industry a few times, and I’m definitely not doing it again. Men make me… ugh . They make me want to strangle them most of the time.

Luckily for me, though, sex appeal is something I’ve never struggled with. This will be a piece of cake. All I have to do is bat my eyelashes, touch his arm a little bit, inflate his ego so he thinks he’s the shit, and then wham, bam, thank you, ma’am , the job is mine.

“Of course. When would you need me to come back down for the chemistry shoot?” I ask, scrambling for my phone to set a calendar reminder.

The casting director who’s done nothing but stare at me with blistering disdain curls his lips. “We were hoping you’d be up for doing the shoot right now,” he discloses, turning his aquiline nose up and still eyeing me like I’m a piece of half-melted gum stuck to the bottom of his hideous Ferragamo loafers.

I’m calling him Gangrene Dick in my head. I said that in my head, right? Yeah, I think I did.

Right now? Uh. Right. Okay. Minor setback. I wasn’t mentally prepared for a chemistry shoot today, but I can do this. I think. I just need to focus on what’s at stake here—which is only the future of my career as a successful model.

I’m not sure how long I wait to answer them, but all five pairs of eyes blink expectantly at me. I have to clear my throat because my saliva’s dried up in the time it took for the inner panic to set in.

“Of course. I’d be happy to do a shoot right now.” My voice cracks toward the end, and I try to keep a mask of professionalism plastered to my face.

“Excellent,” Rebecca says, pleased. “For the male model, we’ve decided to go with a rising athlete in the sports world. With the traction he’s getting from games, he’s the perfect candidate to bridge the gap between high luxury consumers and sports fans. His rugged edges juxtaposed with your feminine curves will be a winning pairing. And we think you two would look great together.”

An athlete? I’ve never done a shoot with an athlete before, but hey, there’s a first time for everything. As long as he’s not a hockey player. That would be, hah , that would be a fucking disaster.

I’ve been down that slippery road before. And the worst part of it all? I was really starting to fall for him…until he ended things with me out of the blue, insisting that he was “just not ready for a relationship,” even though he’d been stringing me along for months.

I set my purse by my feet. “Sounds perfect.”

“Great, we’re gonna have him come in, and you two can introduce yourselves.”

With bated breath and a concerningly fast heart rate, I lock my gaze on the door, starting to feel more than antsy as I drum my fingers against the sides of my legs. I don’t know what to do with my arms. Do I fold them? Do I just let them hang? If I don’t move, I’m going to explode.

I’m being ridiculous, right? I have nothing to worry about, so I should just chill. Yeah, Lila. Chill. Casting directors can smell fear from a mile away.

A few seconds of silence hang thick in the air before the snick of the door echoes throughout the room, and I can hear my potential future costar laughing about something that someone must’ve said outside. His body is turned away from me, but from the back, it looks like he has a muscular physique. He’s clearly been gifted with some God-given height, and his luscious hair curls down his nape in a way that tells me this man’s hair probably won’t recede until he’s seventy.

But as he turns around—which feels like some kind of weird slow-motion sequence in my brain—realization hits me with the force of a speeding Mack truck. My first reaction is to freeze. My second reaction turbocharges me with a rush of rejection and lovelorn heartache. Because the model they’ve hired—the one they could’ve picked from hundreds of teams from any sport in the world—just so happens to be the very person I never wanted to see again.

Bristol Brenner. Captain of the Riverside Reapers hockey team. And the ex-fling that ripped my heart in half, shoved it into a shredder, then used those sad pieces of me as a cushion for his shoes as he walked out of my life.

Aka the man who’s incited so much anger in me that he’s become a main talking point between me and my therapist.

So much for fate.

As soon as Bristol sees me, that annoyingly handsome face of his lights up, and his lips crook into a lopsided grin. “Hi, Lils,” he drawls with that stupid, honeyed lilt of his—the one sprinkled with just the right amount of gravel to make the lower half of me want to wham into his fucking dick like he’s some kind of sex magnet.

And then, the third reaction hits—I bubble with molten-hot rage.

He’s acting like things are good between us. Lils? Seriously? I can’t believe this. I feel like I can’t breathe. And it’s not because I’m stunned into shock; it’s because this douche nozzle is hogging all the oxygen in the room with that big head of his.

Rebecca raises an eyebrow. “Oh, do you two know each other?”

We speak at the same time. Granted, my tone has more of an I’ll-never-forgive-you-for-as-long-as-I-live-and-I-hope-your-future-wife-cuts-your-dick-off kick to it.

I shut her down immediately. “No.”

“Yes,” Bristol says with an ungodly amount of charm.

The casting director next to Rebecca—who’s less ostentatious with her angora cardigan and curly, product-free hair—is oblivious to the tension lingering between the two of us. “This is great news. The chemistry shoot should go smoothly since you two already know each other, and then we can start shooting right away.”

Great news. Greater news would be if I found out I had a UTI and chlamydia at the same fucking time.

Bristol closes the distance between us, slings his arm over my shoulder, then pulls me into the side of his hard body. “Lila’s exactly the girl you want for this campaign.”

The casting directors all turn to one another with murmurs of intrigue, allowing me a split second of time to gun Bristol down with a death stare that could put him six feet under…and then some.

“Ass kisser,” I hiss under my breath, physically revolting at how close our bodies are. It makes my skin tingle, and not in the good way.

He maintains a perfect, toothy smile, squeezing the cap of my shoulder with his hand. “Didn’t bother you when it was your ass I was kissing.”

If I wasn’t— ahem —the professional I am, I would slap him right in the face. I can’t believe my luck. For the dream job I’ve been wanting for years, I have to work with the only man who’s ever broken my heart. What kind of karma bullshit is this? I’m a good person! I recycle. I help old people cross the street. I donate to those kids in need advertised in the grocery checkout line. I don’t deserve this.

The best day of my life has quickly turned into the worst. Remember when I said I’d do anything for this job?

I meant anything but this .