I feel him stare at me as I twist around to reverse. ‘I’ve got a class tonight.’
‘Aclass?’ he parrots. ‘Oh, you mean the sambahhh.’ He presses a hand to his stomach and wriggles his hips back and forth in the seat.
‘Hip-hop, actually.’
I’ve dabbled in plenty of dance styles—samba, Afrobeats, contemporary, salsa—but I always come back to hip-hop. I’m not a pro by any means, but I’ve been doing drop-in classes for years, and I have fuzzychildhood memories of hiding in the bathroom with my baby brother and listening to 50 Cent on my iPod to block out the terror of our mum and her boyfriend launching beer bottles at each other.
I swallow tightly, shaking off the thought.
Austin blinks out at the gleaming office buildings rippling past the car window. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were doing that shit again? I thought that ship left the station long ago.’
‘It’s not your thing,’ I say. ‘Didn’t think you’d be interested.’
His brow pinches as his eyes flick to mine. ‘I’m always interested in what you’re doing.’
I’m not sure how to reply to that, so I just leave it.
He clears his throat and stretches out his long legs before drawing his knees in and out a few times. ‘Fuckin’ traffic.’
The fidgeting’s already started, so I switch on the radio and flip through stations until I find one playing classic rock. Austin’s limbs settle, and he bobs his head to the music while scrolling through his phone.
A sharp breath cuts through his lips. ‘Thefuck?’
‘What?’ I say, pulling the car to a stop at the traffic lights.
He holds up his phone, and I squint at the social media post. The text says something about ‘a very famous celebrity showing his true colours’ and ‘inside knowledge that may be revealed’.
Fucking Nadia.
‘What are we gonna do?’ Austin huffs. Like everything else, this is up to me to manage, especially because this whole mess with his ex-wife is my fault. ‘What if Nadia goes ahead and posts the video?’ he says.
‘She’s just bluffing,’ I reply, although an alarm is reverberating in my chest. If Austin’s ex posts the years-old video she has of him jerking off to his own image in a mirror, the public humiliation could reawaken his old addiction issues. It could also be a big problem for the film studio, given he’s working on a PG-rated picture.
‘Nadia’s only doing this because she wants your attention,’ I remind him. ‘If she sees that she has it, she’s got no reason to make any further moves.’
I resist the urge to add that, no matter what role I played in this, a big part of why Austin’s ex hasn’t coped with their divorce is because he completely cut her off as soon as he decided the marriage was over. He can be incredibly ruthless.
‘Keep viewing her Stories,’ I encourage, ‘because she can see you’ve done that. But don’t even think about replying to this post.’ I make a mental note to take screenshots of Nadia’s latest rant when we get to our beach rental in case I ever need to show them to the police. There are obviously deep mental health issues driving this obsessive behaviour, but threatening Austin’s public image like this isn’t okay.
He returns his gaze to the window, a slimy feeling of discomfort settling between us the way it always does whenever the topic of Nadia comes up.
‘How about dinner after your class, then?’ he eventually murmurs. He shifts to face me and rests his temple against the seat.
All I feel like doing tonight, after emptying my mind the only way I know how—with some raw hip-hop—is making a date with a hot shower and some clean sheets. Maybe a takeaway pad thai thrown in with a generous squirt of siracha. A few hours with a sexy knockout wouldn’t hurt either, but we can’t have everything.
‘Sure, man,’ I reply, forcing a tight smile. ‘Anything you want.’
CHAPTER 4
Evie
I hurry down the sun-drenched street in the industrial part of the city, twenty minutes late for my first costume fitting forMoving.I should’ve known it would’ve been quicker to moonwalk here from my apartment than navigate the morning traffic.
At the bus shelter a few metres ahead, my father’s ruggedly handsome face leaps out at me from a glossy poster. He must be starring in a new action film—I catch glimpses of a Glock pistol and an exploding helicopter before I avert my eyes. I’ve learned not to look, but it’s not always easy when, every time I turn a corner, my male doppelganger is staring me down from a highway billboard, a bus stop or a magazine rack. Just when I think I’ve finally forgotten him, the universe loves to drop me a little reminder that I do have a father—one who never loved me.
What a true legend.
When I reach the Village Pictures studio lot, the security officer hands me a visitor’s pass and tells me where the production offices forMovingare located. Once I’ve found the right building, I wander past a string of mostly deserted offices with glass walls, until I run into a woman with bubblegum-pink hair carrying a tray of coffees, who directs me to the wardrobe department.
