Page 74 of How NOT to Seduce a Rockstar
45
I jolted awake with the exact sensation that someone was screaming at me. It wasn’t Tess. It wasn’t Bernie (for all I knew, he could still be sitting on the Montana couch staring into the void). No—it was my phone. Thrashing on the nightstand like a would-be jumper, buzzing and chiming with manic persistence.
I groped for it, half-blinded by the pale Brooklyn light seeping through the curtains. Screen on. Notifications everywhere. Hundreds. No—thousands. The entire planet seemed to have decided to tag me at once.
For a split second I thought: Oh God, World War III just broke out and I missed kickoff.
Then I saw the headlines.
ZANE RYDER.
MYSTERY GIRL.
MONTANA.
I swiped, and my feed was an avalanche: Tess in a white sheet, Tess smiling like a goddess, Tess turning just as Ryder appeared behind her—half-naked, rock-poster hair in perfect chaos. Each shot stamped with screaming headlines:
“Who’s Zane Ryder’s New Flame?”
“White Sheet, Dark Night: The Goddess Who Stole the Rock King’s Heart.”
“Forget Hollywood: The New Star Just Fell From Nowhere.”
I sat up in bed, blankets still tangled around me, heart cartwheeling. The whole world was talking about Tess. And me? I was the roommate who’d watched the trainwreck unfold live.
I cracked my door open, eyes still half-shut, and found Tess already perched at the kitchen counter like it was any ordinary Monday. She wore a hot-pink silk kimono, her hair a masterpiece of chaos no stylist would dare call intentional, and in front of her: a glass of orange juice she lifted with slow, almost regal ceremony.
I shuffled to the window, tugged the curtain aside. Our street looked like the courthouse exit for a scandal-plagued celebrity. Two vans. A dozen paparazzi camped outside. Some were already on their feet, telephoto lenses aimed at our windows. Others looked like survivors of an all-nighter, faces creased, clutchingtravel mugs.
“They been out there long?” I asked, dropping the curtain like it could shield us from the firing squad outside.
“Since early morning,” Tess replied with icy calm, sipping her juice like it was Sunday news. Then she looked at me, and her smile lit up the room. “I did it, Bea. One way or another… I did it.”
I shook my head, smiling. “Mission accomplished, huh?”
“Mission accomplished,” she echoed triumphantly, setting the glass down with a slow, ceremonial clink. Then she folded her arms, leaning back on the stool. “But there’s still one last piece.”
I eyed her warily. “Oh God. What now?”
She turned toward me, eyes blazing with the fire of someone who’d already seen her glory carved in marble. “The diner. Chad. And Medusa.”
She rose, pulling the kimono tight across her shoulders. “Tomorrow I’ll walk in there. I won’t have to say a word. I won’t have to lift a finger. Because my presence alone will be enough. Me—the new flame of Zane Ryder. And right there, in front of me, Chad and his perfect little curly-haired princess will shrink. Small. Irrelevant. Dust.”
She inhaled deeply, eyes closing for a second as if she could already taste the scene. Then she smiled—a sweet smile, steeped in revenge served at just the right temperature.
The next day, at the diner, would be judgment day.
46
Tess took nearly an hour to get ready. Not that she needed to—the global press was already at her feet—but according to her, every finale deserved its own costume. So when she emerged, she was in a black sheath dress that screamed vengeance, a silk scarf knotted at the nape of her neck, and sunglasses so oversized they could have withstood a nuclear flash storm.
“Ready?” she asked, with the gravity of an astronaut at countdown.
I was in jeans, a baggy jacket, and my most menacing expression—which on me looked more like “grocery clerk on smoke break” than bodyguard. But I tried.
We descended the building’s inner stairs to the front door. Tess slid on her sunglasses with a theatrical flourish, bracing for the avalanche of flashbulbs. I took a deep breath, primed for chaos: shouts, lenses, questions hurled from every angle.
I flung open the door.
