The older man met her eyes in the rearview mirror and cracked a grin. “There’s at least three restaurants I’ve been meaning to try. A day wandering around the city is quite a treat.”
She gave him a smile in return. “Good. See you soon.”
She got out of the car and shut the door with perhaps more strength than necessary. Jia had started her empire—that’s what she called it, her empire—in her messy childhood bedroom, with her kinda crappy phone and terrible lighting.
Look at her now. This wasn’t the most glamorous building, what with the Trader Joe’s on the ground floor, but 1600 Williams was well known to every internet-famous celebrity in the world. Many of them lived and worked here, but she’d only needed a place to film that wasn’t her own bedroom. She split costs on a staged apartment with another woman who came in once or twice a week to use the pool.
A couple got into the elevator with her and ignored her, which was fine with Jia, and on par with what she knew about this particular duo. Young and fit and blond, they made a lot of nauseating fifteen-second videos about how in love they were with each other.
Jia had once seen the woman chuck her phone at her dear hubby’s head in the hot tub because he was scoping out another woman, so how much of their on-screen presence was genuine was up for debate.
“Have you met the new guy down the hall?” Ken asked his wife. “I heard he’s barely got ten thousand followers.”
Barbie sighed. “They’ll let anyone in here.” She cast a sideways, malicious glance at Jia.
She was getting too old for this, but Jia wasn’t so preoccupied that she couldn’t react. She straightened and gave Barbie a sweet smile. “Sorry, have we met?”
The blonde surveyed Jia from head to toe and then smirked and tossed her hair. “I think so. You’ve been around for a loooong time, haven’t you?”
In internet entertainment years, Jia was a grandma, but she didn’t like other people pointing that out.
Bitchiness activated. The elevator dinged, arriving at her floor. “I have. You have that collaboration with frozen pizza, right?”
She walked out of the elevator while Barbie sputtered. “It was that one time!”
Forcing someone who underestimated her to eat dirt was quite nice.
Jia, nice isn’t the word I’d use.
Jia wrinkled her nose at her mother’s chiding tone in her head. That’s what she got for going more than a few days without talking to her family; they invaded her subconscious.
Pettiness was one of her prime character flaws. She whipped out her phone and made a note as she walked. Pray on how to not be so bitchy. She hesitated, then deleted bitchy. She didn’t think higher powers were reading her notes app, but to be on the safe side, she replaced it with cranky.
Once inside the apartment, Jia kicked off her shoes and placed her bag on the granite counter in her kitchen. The place was pristine and cold. Lots of sunshine came through the windows, but she flipped on the recessed lighting anyway. Sometimes she had a little crew, but since she’d been a little light on content lately, she hadn’t called in her assistant or cameraperson.
She pulled the blinds higher, to let in as much natural light as possible, and also to procrastinate. She had a million things she could do. For one, she needed to start brainstorming ways to get her metrics back on track. Her emails were probably overflowing already today. She had that goody bag she’d brought with her; she could unbox that. Perhaps she could rehearse another at-home hair cutting tutorial with her long-haired friend Man E. Quinn.
Yes, she had a lot to do. A billion million things that had nothing to do with brooding over the fact that the sun had already gone down and up once since she’d first met Dev and he’d stared at her blankly.
The heroine stands in an empty, soulless apartment, her thoughts more melodramatic than a fifteen-year-old’s.
Her phone rang and she was disappointed to see it wasn’t her twin, but an unknown Los Angeles number. She answered it, already planning to yell at the scammer pretending to be from the IRS on the other end of the line. “Hello?”
“Ms. Ahmed.”
She flopped onto the couch, putting her feet up on the cushions. She’d fluff everything back up before she left. “No, I don’t want to buy any pills, I don’t believe you’re from the IRS, and I’m not giving you my Social Security number.”
The man paused. “I don’t want to sell you pills, I’m not from the IRS, and I don’t care to know your Social Security number. Is this Jia Ahmed?”
His musically accented voice pinged a memory in Jia’s brain and she sat up straight. “It is.”
“My name is Dev Dixit.”
Jia ran hot, then cold.
She was going to move on. Which was why she was going to hang up.
No, you are not.
She lowered her feet off the cushions. “Yes,” she bit off. “This is Jia. How can I help you, Mr. Dixit?”
There was a brief pause, probably because he was trying to reconcile her testy tone with her cool words. “We met briefly last night. I was the one who got stuck on your, ahem . . .”
“Shawl,” she supplied. Even the anonymous viewers who chided her if her skin was visible wouldn’t find that word scandalous, she didn’t think. “I know who you are. How can I help you.”
“I was calling because . . . well, I got the sense that I had upset you somehow? And I wanted to ensure you were okay.”
Her lips parted, and she had no capability for speech for a second. Maybe longer than a second.
Two new options: someone else had truly been messaging her under his name and he was oblivious, or he was the sickest of sickos. “Mr. Dixit,” she finally managed. “Where and how did you get my number, to call me right now?”
“Ah, that’s a bit embarrassing.”
If he was going to say from messaging you for months over the span of a year, then she didn’t think embarrassing was the word she’d use. “Tell me.” The forcefulness of her words surprised her a little. She usually got her way through jokes and sneakiness, not blunt demands.
“Well, I found your name through the party’s guest list and then had my assistant get your number. I apologize, I am well aware that it’s a breach of privacy. I told myself checking up on you outweighed that, but now that I say it out loud, I see how odd this must be.”
Oh honey. Odd didn’t begin to cover any part of this situation. She rubbed her fingers over her lips, glad she’d used her long-lasting lipstick today. “So you didn’t get my number from your own phone?”
He paused. “I beg your pardon?”
“It wasn’t in your contacts already?”
“How would it be in my contacts already?”
“Because you’ve been texting me for quite a while.”
The pause was longer now. “I beg your pardon,” he repeated.
Jia didn’t need to repeat herself, but she did. “Someone has been messaging me for the last couple months. Sending me poetry, telling me how beautiful I am, how special I am.” It had been the second part that had truly won her over. She heard she was beautiful a lot. Rarely did anyone tell her she was remarkable in any other way. “It came from your account. You’re saying it wasn’t you?” She clenched her hand into a fist to stop the shaking.