“Thanks for the drinks,” she said, knocking back the last of her cocktail. She picked up her jacket and purse and stood to leave.
“Wait,” Alex said, reaching out and grabbing at her wrist. Riley raised an eyebrow and Alex sighed gustily. “I’m authorized to give you another offer, if the promise of the role isn’t enough.”
“Tell me what it is,” Riley said, not quite sitting down.
“If you agree to act as my company’s mole on set, I can offer you five hundred thousand for it,” he told her quickly. “Think of it as a thank-you from the higher ups.” Riley felt a chill work down her spine. “That’s in addition to a real role in one of our next productions, something you’ll actually be visible in.”
Riley pressed her lips together, pulling her hand free of Alex’s grip absently. The role was one thing; even if she didn’t get much traction out of the Galaxy Wars part, just having it on her CV would bump her pay grade in the eyes of other producers. But the promise of so much money was almost more than she could resist. She had been living paycheck to paycheck ever since coming to LA; half a mil
lion dollars was enough to pay her bills for years, with enough left over to devote herself completely to getting ahead in the industry. With that kind of money I wouldn’t have to wait tables for years. I could go on auditions every day of the week until someone hires me. But fast on the heels of those thoughts, Riley remembered the heavy agreements she’d signed, the legalese outlining what could happen to her if she was caught in breach of contract.
“I need to think about it,” she told Alex. “Give me some time.”
“Twenty-four hours,” Alex said, and though he tried to look as smooth and slick as ever, Riley caught the unmistakable relief in his eyes that she was even considering the offer. “After that it’s off the table.”
Riley nodded and turned away, carefully walking towards the employee exit with her thoughts spinning.
SIX
When she finally parked in her assigned spot outside of her apartment building, Riley was feeling so out-of-sorts, she was surprised she hadn’t gotten into an accident on her way from the restaurant. It was still early; but any thought of meeting up with her friends was gone. She climbed the stairs up to her apartment slowly, thinking about the offer that Alex had made her. Can I really trust him on this? It would be just like him to pretend to be more important than he is, and throw me under the bus at the first opportunity. On the other hand, he’d looked as though he was doing better for himself—a big shot in production, even; and he had known about her casting—that was the kind of information only someone well-connected would have at their disposal.
She stepped into her apartment and locked the door behind her, throwing the keys absently into the bowl on the kitchen counter.
“Of course this happens when I have good career news,” she said out loud to the empty apartment, throwing herself onto the couch.
Riley sighed, staring up at the ceiling. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and worried it as she played Alex’s words through her mind for the tenth time since she’d left the bar. On the one hand, no one had ever offered her that much money for anything; and she was fairly certain that unless something changed drastically in the course of her career, no one ever would. On the other hand, the mere idea of being involved in such a risky scheme made her feel cold all over.
That’s assuming you can even trust Alex’s offer, she reminded herself, sitting up and pulling herself off of the couch. She stripped down to her underwear as she walked into the bathroom, nearly tripping as her jeans gathered around her ankles. If Alex wasn’t just dangling fool’s gold in front of her, then his offer was something that any actress in her right mind would jump at. Riley washed the makeup off of her face and brushed her teeth and hair, examining her reflection in the mirror. She was beautiful; no false modesty prompted that evaluation. But beauty wasn’t enough. Talent wasn’t enough. There were dozens—hundreds—of beautiful, talented actresses in the city, all of them vying for whatever parts they could get. With an edge like what Alex was offering, Riley could get ahead; she could turn her struggling attempts into a real career.
“Right,” she told her mirror-self. “And then, after you’ve gotten the starring role in a vehicle film and everyone has pictures of you on their lockers, someone will come out about how your big break came from sabotaging a major production company.”
Riley sighed, rinsing the soap off of her face and groping for her towel. She walked into her bedroom and found an oversized tee shirt in her pajama drawer. She threw it over her head and sat down on the edge of her bed. As soon as it got out that she had sold out one production company to another, her career would be in ruins faster than it had risen; no director, no producer, would ever want to work with her again, and no one in the viewing public would have any sympathy for her.
Even though she was exhausted, as Riley curled up in her bed, she couldn’t put her whirring thoughts to rest. In the short term, she wasn’t sure she could afford to turn down Alex’s offer; even if the pay she got from the film was good, it was little more than enough to keep her afloat during the filming, with maybe a month or two after that. The half million Alex promised would keep her housed, fed, and living comfortably for at least five years. She couldn’t help thinking that as crass as he’d been, Alex wasn’t entirely wrong; the Galaxy Wars role would boost her earnings, but it wasn’t big enough to guarantee her any good roles after it; it could very well be the high point of her career.
She debated the two sides back and forth, tossing and turning in bed until she fell into an uneasy sleep, sometime after midnight. Riley hadn’t come any closer to a decision, but she finally pushed it to the back of her mind with the knowledge that if she didn’t get to sleep, she’d miss her six a.m. alarm call.
When her alarm ripped her out of the light sleep she’d managed to achieve, Riley fumbled for her phone, tapping the ‘snooze’ icon and groaning at the heavy feeling behind her eyes, the ache in her shoulders and hips that told her she’d definitely not gotten enough sleep. She told herself that as soon as the alarm went off again, she’d get out of bed and get moving, no matter how tired she felt; but the next time she heard the alarm, Riley had the uncomfortable feeling that it had been far longer than seven minutes. A quick look at her phone told her that the instinct was right: half-asleep and unaware, she’d somehow managed to shut off the alarm three more times.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.”
She leaped out of bed, nearly twisting her ankle in the process, and rushed to the vanity where she’d laid out her clothes before going to work the night before. Even with the extra thirty minutes of sleep, Riley still felt as if she was trying to move through molasses. She tugged her clothes on and padded into the kitchen.
“Coffee,” she muttered under her breath; there was no way she’d be alert enough to make it to the set if she was half asleep. Fortunately, Riley had a stockpile of instant coffee packets. She poured a packet into her water bottle, and filled the bottle from the dispenser in her freezer door. She added milk and a drop of syrup she’d scavenged from the restaurant, and collected the rest of her things as she shook the bottle hard.
A few moments later she was downstairs, walking out to her car and taking the first swig of her coffee concoction. Riley grimaced at the taste of it, shuddering; it was like jet fuel with a creamy aftertaste,