His little round face tilts and he blinks.
I snap a picture of my reflection and text it to my best friend, Aerin, who isn’t afraid to tell me if something isn’t working.
“You’re right. I’ve worn this way too many times. I’ll retire it after tonight.” I head across my new room and examine my reflection in the mirror. This morning—after the shower incident—I went for a jog around the new neighborhood, which is surprisingly quaint and residential and not at all the party hub I’d expect Nick to occupy.
For lunch, I met up with a couple of friends from acting class, and then I spent the better part of this afternoon curling my hair and brushing out the cooled tendrils until they formed shiny, Hollywood starlet waves.
Reaching for a tube of look-at-me pink lipstick, I slick a coat across my full mouth before smiling and checking my teeth.
The lipstick is nothing more than a strategy. For starters, men have tragically short attention spans, especially in a city where gorgeous women are everywhere they look, so if I’ve got this eye-grabbing color on my mouth, it tends to draw their gaze in that direction.
Second, while they’re watching my mouth, there’s a good chance they might actually be listening to the words coming out of it.
Lastly, if I’m wearing a color like this, most of these men won’t dare try to kiss me. They don’t want to walk out of the Ivy and risk bumping into their friends with a girl half their age on their arm and a hint of lipstick anywhere on their person—be it their mouths or their collars.
These guys like to wear their shameless tastes at whisper-volume.
It’s in the silent Rolex on their wrist.
The confident way they always know how to order the proper wine at every meal.
The subtle art of name-dropping.
The million-dollar sports car in a normal shade like black or white or silver.
The house hidden deep in the Hollywood Hills, behind winding, gated driveways.
Of course, there are the types who wear their affinity for the finer things like a badge of honor, pulling up in their yellow Ferrari and wearing more bling than the average rapper for a quiet dinner for two.
I generally try to avoid those types but it never fails—occasionally one will slip in. And contrary to how most people might perceive me, materialistic isn’t my thing. My designer sunglasses? My fancy shoes? My high-priced luggage? All hand-me-downs from my mom.
I’m too broke to afford nice meals and monogrammed luggage.
Turns out the whole struggling actress thing is more than just a cliché—it’s my reality.
My phone vibrates on the nightstand, and I reach for it, swiping my thumb across the lock and tapping the message icon.
ROBERT: Still on for tonight? 7?
I reply with a smiley face and a simple “of course” and press send.
ROBERT: On my way.
Robert McCauley is a local producer with a laundry list of impressive connections. We met on the set of that Lifetime movie I worked on a few months back, and he wasted no time asking me out. Only he had to head back to L.A. shortly after filming began and our schedules never aligned … until now.
If my cousin, Maritza, were here, she’d be giving me shit for going on a date with a guy twice my age, but it’s nothing kinky or nefarious.
The older men I date tend to be a bit classier, a bit more refined. They have the kind of worldly experience the twenty-somethings around here have yet to possess. And they’re not cheap assholes. I appreciate a guy who knows life’s too short to order off the dollar menu.
Plus, I’d much rather dress up and be treated to a gourmet dinner than for some guy to take me to a house party in Calabasas to hang out with his friends … and then proceed to ditch me when his crush shows up. Or the kind who talk about how successful they are and drive Porsches but have the nerve to ask me to “go Dutch” when the check arrives.
Amateurs.
I don’t waste my time with guys my age anymore, and I’m not even sorry about it.
I take a seat on the edge of my bed, smirking when I think about this morning and the shower incident.
I’ll admit, I’m not normally so juvenile. Waking him up with show tunes and using up all the hot water is a little beneath me, but after his little post-shower show, I had to prove a point and I had to prove it as soon as possible.
Anyway, Sutter’s the spitting image of the kind of guys my age who tend to ask me out. And he’s the spitting image of the kind of guys I have zero problem turning down.
The front door slams and the walls of the house shudder for a second.