Breaking the Billionaire's Rules(2)

I go to my room to change into my favorite sloth T-shirt and bright pink yoga pants, and then I go back out and curl up on the couch.

Kelsey gives me a beer. Her purple fingernails match perfectly with the purple streaks in her jet-black hair. “CLC,” she says. Carb-loving comfort.

Lizzie snuggles in next to me on the other side. “Were you just mortified?”

I retell the moment of discovery. One second I’m standing out at the Meow Squad truck, waiting for tomorrow’s delivery assignment, feeling pretty happy about my life. Sure, I have a job where I have to dress as a cat and deliver food-truck orders to office workers, but it’s a part-time job with insurance, the holy grail for up-and-coming actresses.

And then the next moment, I see Maximillion Plaza on the roster.

And the sun goes behind the clouds.

And shadows move across the land at terrifying speeds.

Giant birds with dinosaur faces screech across the sky.

“And I’m like, no friggin’ way! You know he found out. I swear to you, the day I first tried on the outfit, the biggest thing on my mind was not how stupid I looked, or how grateful I got hired and all of that. My first thought was, what are the chances I’ll ever have to deliver to Max Hilton? A million-something people in Manhattan, what are the chances Max orders from Meow Squad, and I end up with the delivery? Maximillion Plaza wasn’t even in the Meow Squad delivery area when I first started. I thought I’d be safe. I should’ve known.”

Lizzie winces. “Maybe he wants to apologize?”

“No way. Trust me—no apologies will be forthcoming. He’s rubbing his hands in sweet anticipation.”

“Was it that bad?” Kelsey asks.

“He once baked dirt into a brownie she had to eat on stage,” Lizzie says. She’s heard all of the stories. “She took a bite and she had to keep chewing—”

“—and it was dry and weird and gritty, and I so wanted to spit it out,” I say. “Though to be fair, I did put a remote-control squeaking mouse cat toy in his piano right before his freshman recital. And I made it scrabble around while he played Chopin’s Nocturne in E flat. A sweet, quiet piece.” I snicker, remembering. “Of course he didn’t react. Nothing fazes Max. He has a protective titanium exoskeleton.”

Lizzie gets the pizza alert text and runs down to the lobby. Our apartment’s official pizza is brie, potato, and caramelized onion. Crazy toppings are firmly against my pizza religion, but once you’re out of Jersey, all is lost in the realm of pizza.

“You’ll get through it.” Kelsey doles out napkins.

“You don’t know. Max is my kryptonite. Beyond kryptonite. Kryptonite doesn’t live to destroy you. Kryptonite doesn’t stare at you with an amused light in its eyes as you die inside.”

“Well, you’ll be able to quit when we land our parts. We’ll have jobs for a year. At least.”

“Dude, Phantom of the Opera has been running since eighty-eight.”

“Jobs for twenty years. Fifty! We’ll be old ladies, singing and dancing up there.”

“Pinky slap!” I hold out my pinky. She slaps it with her pinky.

We’re both going out for the massive Anything Goes revival. Kelsey’s trying for one of Reno’s Angels, a really demanding singing and dancing part, and I’m trying for the lead, Reno Sweeney. I’m shooting crazy high, but I feel like the part has my name on it. Deep down I feel it.

“We deserve it,” I say.

“So deserve it!”

Kelsey especially does. Over winter, she found out her live-in boyfriend was cheating on her with four different women. Hence her presence as my new roomie.

Lizzie arrives with the pizza and sets it out. I grab a piece of steaming, carb-laden yumminess and sink my teeth in, and for one blissful moment, Max is out of my mind.

“You should’ve switched over to my room when I moved out,” Lizzie says. “You shouldn’t have to look at his stupid tower.”

“Agreed,” Kelsey says. “You know I’ll trade rooms with you any day of the week. Just say the word.”

I mumble and eat some more pizza. It’s true; I can see part of Max’s tower through the configuration of buildings out my window. I had a lot of feelings when I realized that was his tower. Feelings like dark, hard diamonds in my heart.

“I wonder how he found out,” Lizzie says. “Maybe Facebook or something?”

“The day I’d post an image of me in that thing on Facebook,” I say. “He had to find out some other way. God, I can only imagine his glee. He would’ve been like, how the mighty have fallen. But a more clever and witty version of it.”

Kelsey groans and grabs another piece.

“He is going to rub it in so hard,” I say. “He’ll be laughing the whole time while I set out his sandwich. And then I’ll have to say Meow at the end. Like a trained monkey.”

“Or a trained kitten,” Lizzie says.

“Is that supposed to be a helpful comment?”

“Yes?” she squeaks. “No?”

Playfully I punch her arm. “Get with the pity program!”

Even back in high school Max was cool and superior, though if you watched him long enough—like really watched him—you could see that silence was one of his big strategies. And that underneath that aloof silence was the slightest edge of teen awkwardness.