Her gutsiness was certainly part of it; she had everything to gain by just smiling and nodding as he disparaged her. But most of all, what he’d seen written on her face when she was glaring daggers at him, what had completely disarmed him, was the confirmation that she could see right through his superficial shields of fame and money and charm, straight down to the rotten core of him.
She was right: he’d expected her to be desperate and vulgar and dying to please. By the time he realized he had underestimated the wry, sharp, guarded woman in front of him, it was too late. He’d already spent the days leading up to their meeting letting his disgust with himself build until he was powerless to do anything but vomit it all over her, trying to purge his self-loathing from his body as quickly as possible. It hadn’t worked, but then, nothing did.
In any case, scrolling through the pictures confirmed what Ethan had suspected: she was incredibly photogenic. He clicked on the thumbnail of a picture of her at some awards show, hair cascading down her pale back in shining honey waves, all red lips and glowing cheekbones with mischief in her heavy-lidded eyes, but he was hit with a prompt to create an account to see more.
Damn. On to the next one.
Grey Brooks Poison Paradise
Ethan scrolled through promotional photos of a group of seven or eight attractive twentysomethings, toned limbs draped over one another, smoldering dramatically at the camera. Based on the photos, the cast had rotated somewhat over the years, but Grey was one of the few who appeared in every incarnation. There was something uncanny about her styling combined with the heavy airbrushing of the photos; she looked too perfect to be human. They all did.
He clicked through production stills of her character dressed in a cheerleading uniform, laughing in a convertible, playing guitar in front of a screaming crowd, lying in the hospital recovering from some sort of serious-but-not-permanently-deforming injury, burying a body, and, if he wasn’t mistaken, running for president of the United States. He frowned. What the hell was this show about?
Grey Brooks boyfriend
Ethan felt his stomach drop at the suggestion, but he felt obligated to click. The search brought up a few dozen pictures of Grey at press events entangled with a skinny white kid he recognized from the Poison Paradise cast photos: young, pretty, pale as a corpse, with long shaggy hair and a smug expression. Ethan disliked him instantly.
A headline caught his eye, accompanied by a paparazzi picture of a distraught Grey sobbing on the phone. “Paradise” Lost: Pretty “Poison” Pair Rocked by Ugly Cheating Rumors! His stomach lurched again. He clicked to the next search suggestion rather than interrogate the queasy feeling he got from looking at the picture of her crying.
Grey Brooks child
Ethan’s brow creased. Did she have a kid? He didn’t think Audrey had mentioned that, but then again, who could be sure. He was relieved when the search brought up nothing but fuzzy screenshots of projects that Grey had appeared in when she was younger. He remembered now: at lunch she’d mentioned being a child actor.
Ethan clicked over to YouTube and watched a low-res upload of a commercial where a brunette Grey, who couldn’t have been more than ten, gushed over a doll that came with matching full-size accessories. The lines were stupid and the doll was pretty creepy looking, but she sold it.
Grey Brooks Kamilah Ross
Ethan smiled to himself as he looked through photos of Grey laughing and embracing Kamilah, a stunning young Black woman he recognized from Grey’s Instagram. It seemed like their friendship stretched back years. Grey looked happier in the photos with Kamilah than he’d seen her so far.
A few more clicks and he found himself on the IMDb page for Beauty Queens, a microbudget indie the two of them had made a few years back. They had cowritten and costarred, with Kamilah directing. Ethan pulled up a trailer. The plot was ambiguous at best, and, okay, the whole thing seemed a little pretentious, but he had to admit it had a strong visual aesthetic. And Grey, compelling in person and intriguing in photographs, was downright beguiling on-screen.
He watched it three times in a row.
Grey Brooks Don’t Forget to Scream bikini
Ethan shifted in his chair. Do not click on that, you pervert. You dirty old man.
Grey Brooks feet
Ethan slammed his laptop shut and chugged the rest of his beer. That was more than enough for one night.
He stretched his legs and went over to the minifridge, killing the last of the six-pack. He pulled out his phone and texted his assistant, Lucas, knowing that if he waited even another five minutes the thought would fly out of his head: more Stella for office fridge.
Lucas was Ethan’s nephew, his sister Mary’s oldest son. When Lucas had moved out to L.A. a year ago for grad school, she’d begged Ethan to help him find a job. Ethan’s last assistant had just put in her two weeks, so Ethan reluctantly took him on. They rarely saw each other in person or even spoke on the phone, but Ethan’s fridge was always stocked, his bills paid, and his household managed without him having to think about it. Thinking as little as possible was always the goal.
Ethan walked aimlessly to the kitchen. He never knew what to do with himself these days. He’d rented this house for a few years now, ever since he’d moved out of the home he shared with Nora and the girls a few miles down the same street, but it had never felt quite like home. It had been professionally decorated, cold and modern, before Ethan moved in, but he couldn’t bring himself to care enough to change it. Changing it would mean admitting that this was where he lived now. He spent the majority of his time in his office or his bedroom, anyway. Occasionally he swam in the mornings if he wasn’t too hungover.
As he padded over to the fridge, he was startled by a sharp rap on the front door. He sighed and pulled the fridge open, inspecting a foil-wrapped lump that, if he remembered correctly, contained the second half of an excellent carne asada burrito. Ethan’s fingers worked clumsily to unwrap the foil as he made his way toward the front door. He was drunker than he thought.
At this time of night, there was really only one possibility for who could be on the other side of the door.
“Nora.”
His ex-wife stood on his doorstep, arms crossed.
“You weren’t answering your phone, thought I’d drop by. This a bad time?”
Ethan moved out of the doorway and gestured her inside with the partially unwrapped burrito.
“Good as any. The girls okay?”
Nora walked ahead of him, striding to the kitchen with purpose. She was dressed in expensive-looking running leggings and a loose sweater, her cropped black hair pulled back in a tiny ponytail. She looked effortlessly chic, but then, he’d never seen her look anything less.
Half Thai and half Swedish, Nora possessed an imposing stature and a willowy frame that had caught the eye of a modeling scout before she’d finished her freshman year of high school. Her varsity basketball team lost their star power forward for good as she quickly became a runway fixture in every international fashion capital before she could legally drink in most of them. Once she’d hit her twenties and become a fossil in the eyes of the fashion industry, she’d considered returning to her native Chicago to attend law school but instead had been coaxed by her reps into moving to L.A. to try her hand at acting first.