A fresh flood of tears sprang to her eyes, and there was nothing she could do to stop the flow. Only this time she wasn’t just crying, she was sobbing, with all the embarrassing snot-clogged sound effects to go with it.
“Aster?” Ira waited a beat, giving her a chance to calm down. “What’s really going on here?”
She peered into the rearview mirror, scowled at her mess of a reflection, and jerked the mirror till it was facing the opposite way. “I have nowhere to go.”
She could hear Ira breathing. And though it only lasted a moment, to Aster it felt like the silence would drag on forever. “Meet me in the lobby of the W in a half hour. It’s on the corner of—”
“I know where it is.”
“Fine. And, Aster—”
She was already starting the car, already starting to recover. Ira had a plan. Ira would take care of her. Or, at the very least, he would help her form a plan so she could take care of herself, which was even better. Either way, if she could think of this moment as rock bottom, then things could only get better.
“Everything’s going to be fine, you hear?”
“I know,” she said, already starting to believe it. “See you soon.”
FORTY-NINE
SHUT UP AND DANCE
Layla moved through the crowded club, the percussive techno beat throbbing in her head, as she took a mental tally of her gets before ultimately losing track and giving up. It was a lot. The most bodies she’d ever pulled in. And it was all thanks to her Beautiful Idols blog.
Not like she could compete with the kind of numbers they were scoring at Night for Night and the Vesper, but that was only because they’d turned into Madison shrines, and Jewel hadn’t played an actual part in the drama, so there were fewer pop culture vultures dropping in. Though she was gaining a sizable list of publicity-starved B- and C-list celebrities. Including Sugar Mills, who Aster had sent over, as though that somehow made up for Ryan Hawthorne. Hardly. But she’d deal with that later.
“Can you even believe this?” she said to Zion, shouting to be heard over the music.
“Oh, like you can’t?” He narrowed his dark eyes on hers, shaking his regal head as he made for his table of models.
Layla looked after him, unsure if the snub was because they were the last two standing at Jewel after Ira cut Karly, along with Taylor at Night for Night, last week, dropping the competitors to just six—because he knew her blog was mostly responsible for the kind of crowds Jewel was pulling in and it made him resent her—or if he was just being a bitch because he was clearly destined to lose and he refused to accept it.
Funny how gullible people were when it came to celebrities. Never realizing that nearly all pics of celebs frolicking at the beach in minuscule bikinis, or doing complicated yoga poses in the wild, were mostly staged by the celebrities themselves. And lately, Layla was so inundated with requests to catch them pretending to act spontaneously, between that and the club she had little time for anything else.
Sometimes she pretended to hate it, but it was mostly for Mateo’s benefit. For someone who’d never fit in, who’d never been part of the popular crowd, she had to admit she actually kind of liked being in demand.
“Looks like you’ve been holding out on me.”
Layla turned to find Heather Rollins standing behind her, gripping a miserable-looking Mateo by the arm.
What the—?
Layla stared. Blinked. Stared again. Sure her eyes were deceiving her. Mateo had never once stopped by Jewel. He hated clubs. And yet there he was, hanging with Heather.
“Poor thing looked lost, so I figured I’d help him find his way. Where’ve you been hiding him, Layla?” She clutched Mateo’s bicep with both hands, nudging her body against him as she grinned flirtatiously. “All this time I’ve been sharing my secrets, didn’t realize you were still hiding yours.” She pursed her lips and shot Layla a disapproving look.
“Not a secret, just my boyfriend,” she said, watching as Mateo jerked free of Heather’s grip and moved to stand beside her. Aware of the sudden rush of heat rising to her cheeks as she glanced between them, she felt nervous,
inflamed. Must have something to do with her two worlds unexpectedly colliding. She worked hard to keep her life carefully compartmentalized. She wasn’t one for surprises.
“Well, stop hiding him and start bringing him around.” Heather’s gaze lingered on Mateo, as he pressed a hand to the small of Layla’s back and steered her away.
“Who the hell is that?” he asked, sounding as annoyed as Layla felt.
“She’s not so bad,” Layla said, unsure what frustrated her more—having to defend Heather Rollins, or Mateo showing up unannounced.
He looked around the club, seeming agitated, unnerved, totally unlike his usual self. “How do you know her?”
Layla closed her eyes and shook her head. Seriously? This was what he wanted to discuss when they’d barely seen each other all week? She took a steadying breath. “She’s a regular fixture on my blog, which you clearly no longer read or you’d know that.” She sighed, forced a more muted stance. “We hang out sometimes, that’s all.”