Author's Preface
Going out for drinks was the last thing Sevan wanted to do after he had landed in a new city, started a new “job”, and dumped a few weeks’ worth of supplies in a new apartment all in the same day.
But Jaq hardly posed the invitation as optional.
“So. Avis is one of mine,” Jaq said. She tipped her phone to glance at the screen, then took another bite from the hors d'oeuvre she held pinned at the end of a toothpick. “He’s signed to the label as well as managed under RedViolet. And, of course…” She made a flourishing gesture to herself. “I am on his creative direction team.”
She was muscular, Sevan noticed. There was meat on her bones, unlike the majority of the pencil-thin women Sevan had seen in and around the shops lining Sunrise Avenue—a random bougie street somewhere in the “neighborhood” known as Hollywood.
Jaq took a sip of her margarita. “He’s my new favorite to curate for. That boy is photogenic. I just took over his accounts, so I have yet to work with him on fresh content. But ooof boy, I love his spunky… angsty…dicey…adorable… persona.” Her face wrinkled and tensed with emphasis.
“Okay…” Sevan smiled awkwardly and took a sip of whatever this drink in front of him was, the cheapest thing he had found on the menu. The evening air smelled like street tacos, and he was hungry.
“Mm, Perla has his X. I know it’s weird, but they wanted a different person on his X, because that’s supposed to be the unfiltered version of Avis.”
A small, tense laugh escaped Sevan’s throat. “Sure. Yeah.” The fuck?
Unexpectedly, Jaq laughed, too. “Bitch, I don’t know either!” She took a quick sip of her drink. “That shit’s above my paygrade. I just do how they tell me.”
Sevan smiled uncertainly.
“So…” Jaq cleared her throat and folded her hands on the edge of the table. “There’s some tea fixing to be poured. Avis-flavored.”
And suddenly, Sevan was even more uncomfortable. He glanced at the shade umbrella over the table they were sitting at, then at the outdoor tables and chairs surrounding them, the other people. “I…signed NDAs.”
“Of course.” Jaq flapped her hand at him. “I’m internal. You can share internally.”
“It actually didn’t specify that.” Sevan shifted in his chair. No, it didn’t, something inside agreed. He had the urge to check his phone, to see if that private number had texted anything.
“Aw, nah, see, you aren’t fixing to pull that on me.” Jaq grimaced and exhaled. “Come on. Say it, or we have no choice but to come to our own conclusions.”
“‘We’?” Sevan glanced at a neighboring table’s decorative seashells.
“The team.” Jaq smiled. “The media team, here at RedViolet.”
The group of cubicaled employees cooking up false identities for celebrities who would rather be drunk in Miami, jumping off the eighth floor of a public parking garage…
“You did the do with him,” Jaq stated, abruptly derailing Sevan’s train of thought. Her voice was hushed with confidentiality, but perfectly confident. “Or, got dangerously close to it. There’s no other reason Lara’s gonna go through all this trouble.”
Unless there was another reason, Sevan thought, anxiety beginning to build in his stomach.
“It has to be bad ,” Jaq stated certainly. So…” She leaned in. “Are. The rumors. True.”
Sevan swatted at a fruit fly. “N-No. What? What rumors?”
“Come on, you know what rumors.” She smiled mysteriously.
“No, I really don’t.” The fruit fly zig-zagged past again, and Sevan swatted it a second time.
“Come on.” Jaq snickered. “Is Avis… you know …” She made some emphatic upward hand gestures that Sevan supposed were meant to be sign language for the secret word she didn’t want to say.
The comprehension section of Sevan’s brain seemed to be failing him. Was Lara Dovan behind the private number? Who was she, exactly? What was she after? How would someone with tattoos and a philtrum piercing, living in the most liberal state in the country, cause a scandal by hooking up with a guy?
It wasn’t as if Meikhyel Callisto had a Korean grandmother scrutinizing his every move…
And why would someone look at Sevan , of all people, and think he and “Avis” had slept together?
“Bitch, is he gay? ” Jaq finally spelled out in a hushed voice. “Does he like penis? ”
Sevan’s thoughts dropped out of his head like rocks. His jaw slipped.
“And if he does, ” Jaq whispered, a forefinger landing on the table between them. “Where does he fall on the scale between hop-on-that-penis to keep-that-penis-away-from-me?”
Sevan stared at her for several seconds longer. Finally, he blinked. He wet his lips and looked down at his drink. “Um, I don’t know. I have no idea. I have no clue.” Another silence. Change the topic, Sevan told himself. “Can you help me with something?” His eyes lifted back to Jaq’s face.
Jaq was looking at him with an expression of stone. “Help you with something?”
“Um, I…” Sevan hesitated, suddenly second guessing the idea.
“Boy, help you with what? You’re supposed to be helping me right now.”
“I’m looking for someone,” Sevan said finally. He straightened in his chair. “Someone who was heading here to LA and has been missing for two months. I was wondering if—just because you know the city—if you could help me figure out where she might go.”
“Hm.” Jaq sat back in her chair. Her dazzlingly manicured fingers tapped the tabletop for a lengthy succession of seconds. “Okay. You got me.” She nodded slowly. “Say what you’re gonna say.” She sipped her drink.
“She’s mentally unstable and doesn’t have any connections here,” Sevan began. That I know of. “She did have cash with her when she left, but it wasn’t much, so I would assume she’s on the street at this point. Do you know where someone like that might stay?”
“Is she young? Cute?”
Sevan frowned faintly. “Yes…”
“Check The Blade.”
“The Blade?”
Jaq nodded. “The official-unofficial redlight district of LA. Lots of homeless or edge-of-homeless women out there.”
“Oh.” Sevan hesitated. Lacey would never. But then again, Lacey was unpredictable when she was off her meds. “What about homeless shelters?”
“Well, what’s she after in LA? Might tell you what part of town she’d hang.”
Sevan’s lips parted, then abruptly froze. “We both know what she’s out there lookin’ for,” Rick had said. “She…” Again, Sevan hesitated. “She thinks she has…” But he stopped. He shook his head. “She’s unstable. It’s hard to say.”
Jaq nodded thoughtfully. “Check The Blade. Bring a friend. Place is a bit rough.”
Rough I can handle, Sevan heard distractedly in his head. He lifted out his phone and typed “The Blade LA” into a search browser. Figueroa Street.
Jaq rapped her knuckles on the table. “So, my turn to get what I want. Spill about Avis.”
Sevan’s eyes lifted back to her.
“Come on. They didn’t hire you to sign an NDA over nothing. What happened?”
Sevan’s lips parted. Shit. He blinked. “I saw him in a bar in Miami. He was drunk. Dancing. We didn’t talk. He was drunk, and he might have…” A small, squeezed breath escaped Sevan’s throat, the moment coming back to him like something out of a hazy dream. His eyes trailed briefly to the left. “Hugged me, I guess.” Meikhyel Callisto. His warmth, his arm around Sevan’s waist. “Because he was drunk. We don’t know each other.”
Like a flashback from a nightmare. The look in his eyes as he hung over the edge, over the open drop below him. His small sigh as he pressed himself against Sevan. The sensation of his breathing against Sevan’s chest. His heartbeat, elevated surface temperature from the alcohol. Then, the next morning in the motel when Sevan asked him about Lacey: “I don’t know.” Like the Instagram messages had been nothing but an empty gimmick.
“He…hugged you?” Jaq’s jaw looked like it was about to split. Skepticism, surprise, maybe a bit of disgust. “Okay, what else?”
Sevan shrugged limply. “Nothing else. We didn’t…sleep together.” He grimaced.
“You must know something about his recent escapade at least, ” Jaq said. Her eyes were fixed like lasers on Sevan.
“Uh…no…”
“He left. Right after his album dropped.”
Sevan gave her a blank look. “I…wasn’t familiar with him before, either, so…”
Jaq’s hands shot up in the air. “Well—only the most critical possible time! He suddenly vanishes into thin air, no-shows at like sixteen scheduled events, doesn’t tell anyone where he’s going, doesn’t take anyone with him—and here at the media team, anyway, we didn’t even get an explanation! Did you?”
Sevan’s shoulders lifted with another half-paralyzed shrug. “No…I never even had a full conversation with him.”
“I don’t believe you,” Jaq decided in a low voice. “Rumor has it that Avis may be in the closet. And I have down low intel that says Avis had a thing going on with his male bodyguard. Given the publicity with Zhara, it makes sense that he’d know an affair like that can’t last, or it’ll get out eventually. The scandal would be catastrophic. So. He hooks up with someone unconnected to any of it, someone he thinks he can get away with having a one-night stand with. You.” She finished off her hors d'oeuvres in a few vicious bites.
Zhara. Male bodyguards. People and drama Sevan didn’t know anything about. He said nothing.
“So. Show me.”
Sevan’s eyes flickered up at Jaq. “Show you what?”
“A picture of her, at least. This mysterious woman you’re looking for.”
A small sigh escaped Sevan’s throat. He took out his phone and pulled up his photo gallery. Within just seconds of scrolling, he found a picture with Lacey in it. It was all three of them at the Taco Bell near The Adaline. All three of them together—exactly as it had been in high school where the outcast half siblings met red-haired, friendly-faced Rick Cutts.
Sevan silently zoomed in on Lacey’s face. Drop-dead gorgeous. Her doe eyes, raven-black hair, pretty lips, perfect chin. Her smile was the same one she always put on for photos. Basic, simple. The way a child might draw a smile without understanding the emotion that was meant to be behind it. But her eyes were bright, glowing, alive. Real. She and Rick wore matching scrub sets in the picture, because they were weird like that.
Wordlessly, Sevan turned the phone to face Jaq.
“Oh!” First, Jaq’s finger pointed. Then, her face flushed. “Bitch, I know her!”
Sevan’s face completely paled. He glanced at the device in his hand.
“I saw this bitch!” Jaq exclaimed. “She came to corp—maybe a week ago! Broke in looking for—” She stopped abruptly, two fingers covering her lips like she thought she might cough. “Oh my god,” She whispered. “Oh my god, this bitch was crazy . She broke into the building and ran right past the security desk. There were posters up, I guess she saw them and thought Avis actually worked there. She was looking for Avis. Insane fan, I guess.”