by Ryan Schow
“How old are you?” she asked.
“Old enough.” He stuck out his hand and said, “I’m Brayden by the way. And you are?”
“Married.”
She took his hand and shook it. Her skin was soft, her hand slightly demure, but only because she was currently at odds with herself. He could see it in her eyes. He gave her that smile, noted her positive reaction.
“Married, huh? What a shame,” Brayden said. “Don’t get me wrong though, I’m super jealous of your husband.”
That seemed to fluster her into an awkward smile, but then she mumbled something about having to go and he said very clearly that he was pleased to meet her.
“I’m Kimberly, by the way,” she finally said.
Smiling softer, like he was finally pleased by the give-and-take—by her willingness to dip a toe in the pool of what could be—he said, “Kimberly, I’m in love with your eyes. Could I borrow them some day?” Grinning and real smooth, he said, “I’ll give them back, I swear.”
She blushed, drew the kind of steep breath that said she wasn’t ready for such a bold compliment, and because of that it hit her harder.
“You’re just a kid,” she said, nearly recovering.
She was trying to step back from that ledge. The one where she let her guard down and admitted to herself there was something there. Even if it was a private fantasy, or a secret attraction she’d never ever do anything about, it was there. Brayden saw it. It was clear as day for a guy like him. Not that it would go anywhere. He was a player, but he was no home-wrecker. The woman had kids for heaven’s sake!
The thing about guys like Brayden and running solid game is, so much of the time it’s the right guy saying that right thing in an unusual, forward and unassuming manner to a girl with her guard up. Most guys are terrified to talk to the hot girl. The single mom. The stripper. They get all nervous and tend to almost always say the wrong thing. Being cool under pressure, running your lines right, that’s half the battle. The other half of the battle is that there’s no room for cowardice in the world of pick-up.
Pansies should exit stage left.
Whatever it is you’ve got as a PUA, you have to assume all women want it. Even if they don’t, which is the norm. But the way you talk? You speak like you’re the word of God. Like what you have to say is not only the wisest thing ever, it’s so nervy, so startling that a girl’s only thought becomes, what will he say next? You want a woman to stay with you when what she wanted just a moment ago was to fortify her weakened defenses and leave.
A real PUA would want her to forget about her kids, her balding disappointment of a husband with his erectile dysfunction and his bad taste in fashion and her designer labradoodle and how it hasn’t been walked yet, or fed.
That was the goal. The aim.
So what if she was married or had kids and a Lexus? He wouldn’t go all the way, but that’s what he was doing with the mother, with Kimberly. Now she was entranced. Slipping under his spell, even though he knew it wouldn’t hold.
After Raven leaving him and Netty and Julie rejecting him, what he needed was that killer thread, that one statement that had Kimberly thinking things about him she didn’t want to think. He needed the boost of confidence.
Deep down, though, he also hated how easy it was. How desperate people were to be seen and acknowledged, to feel attractive in the eyes of others, even if the “others” was just a neighbor kid in a pair of shorts asking to borrow her eyes for the day.
“You’re right, Kimberly,” Brayden said, “I’m just a kid. But am I, really?”
“How old are you? For real?” she said, checking the time, glancing for a second in the rear view mirror at her little boy and her little girl who were in the back seat not caring about the conversation.
“Young enough to stir up a little trouble,” he said, “but old enough to be wise about the kind of trouble I’m stirring up. Don’t worry yourself, though, I’m practically a saint.”
Again, that sexy devilish smile. But tempered a bit. Just enough to hold that tempting edge of mischief, which he tacked on for good measure.
“I’m sure,” she said with a laugh.
Bingo, bitch.
“Kimberly, you have to go,” he said, putting a real time constraint on her, like she was being irresponsible taking up his time like that. “Your kids need to get to school and you need to get to work, I’m sure.”
She told him it was nice meeting him and he said likewise, then he waved to the kids and said, “Meeting you made my day, Kimberly. Honestly it did.”
When he turned to head back inside, Titan was standing there, smiling. Brayden approached him and said, “What?”
“Do you know how long me and Romeo have been trying to talk to her?”
“How long?”
“Since day one, man. And you…you’re not even here twenty-four hours and even I can tell you kicked down her Great Wall of VaChina man.” He fist bumped Brayden then said, “You belong here, Brayden. Seriously. This is your home, with us, for as long as you want.”
“You can’t even imagine what that means to me right now, Titan,” he said.
When they walked inside, Titan said, “You on the computer?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s all that gibberish on the screen?” he asked, looking at the screen like it had pictures of a six legged horse on it.
“It’s code.”
“What are you doing?” he asked, standing back up, looking up at Brayden.
“I’m in the middle of hacking the FBI.”
Titan looked at him long enough to see he wasn’t joking. “Are you completely mental?” he asked, shifting from one foot to the other, like he didn’t know how to take his friend.
Grinning, Brayden said, “You really don’t know me, Titan. I came to you an average frustrated chump, but that was in the offline world. Online, I’m a legend. Like I said, you don’t know me.”
“Why the hell would you want to hack the FBI?”
“It’s not the FBI in general. I’m not one of those guys. What I’m doing specifically is, I’m hacking the Vegas field office’s Cyber Action Team.”
“Why?”
“Remember last night, on the phone, when I said I had some things in play?” He nodded. “Well this is one of them.”
“Jesus, bro,” Titan said, aghast, “maybe we should put you in charge.”
Just then the once topless girl with the smeary makeup, she appeared. She was looking at Titan, looking at Brayden. He got the feeling not all the lightbulbs in her house were wired right. Like maybe there was a short somewhere.
“Why would he be in charge?” the girl said. She had to be nineteen, twenty at best. Still young looking, totally naïve, into the whole Vegas scene where she acted like she had an opinion on the morning after. She didn’t.
Titan startled, then turned around and said, “I thought I called you an Uber last night.”
“I sent them away. My roomie had a guy over. She told me not to come home, that I’d be cock-blocking her. So I stayed. Was that alright?”
“No,” he said, sternly. Then, in a kinder tone: “Not downstairs.”
She gave Titan a funny look; then again, Brayden was giving the nameless blonde a funny look, too. It was all very triangular and weird.
“If I would’ve known you were here, I would have brought you upstairs so you could stay with me instead,” Titan explained. He said this with a smile, but inside, Brayden knew he called her an Uber for a reason. He’d had his fill of her. He was done.
“If you’d wanted me upstairs with you,” she said, looking at Brayden, then finally getting some pride back in her aura, “you would’ve brought me there last night, before having your way with me.”
“You’re not supposed to kiss and tell,” Brayden said. “It’s uncouth.”
“You found me topless, asshole.”
“I know,” Brayden replied, cute not snarky. “Have some pride already. I need to work on this, Titan, so do you want me to
get her an Uber…again, or do you want to handle that?”
Embarrassed for her but not making a big deal out of it since that’s exactly how Titan taught Brayden to act, Titan said, “I’m a gentleman, I’ll take you home. Where do you live, and can I meet your roomie?”
Within minutes, Titan and the girl whose name he never got were gone. After that, Brayden put ransomware on six of Vegas’s eight Cyber Actions Team’s members’ work emails, which damn near put a stop to all official business.
For the lay person, ransomware is where you change your target’s password on their personal emails, bank accounts, work computers, etc…and then you encrypt it. When they start freaking out, you demand payment in return for the release of their password, i.e., their digital lives.
If Brayden was a real criminal, he would’ve demanded money. A real ransom. But he wasn’t, so he didn’t. He was merely making a point.
Satisfied, Brayden plodded upstairs, took a long shower and brushed his teeth. After that he changed, made himself some coffee, then keyed directions to the local FBI field office into his navigation system and headed over there to get himself arrested.
Giving up the Gravy
1
Lies & Lays was cancelled. Sabrina Baldridge’s father becoming a murderer was the big news on Entertainment TV. It was Hollywood’s version of a lump of coal in her stocking. It was the triple-decker poo sandwich she couldn’t stop eating. Sometime before the semester break, just after her father did what he did and her dead brother, Tavares, was laid to rest, she went outside and set season two’s script of her now cancelled show on fire. It was symbolic of her life.
Everything gone, the rubble of it in flames.
Most kids were packing light, heading home for a few weeks, then coming back. Not her. She wasn’t ever coming back to Astor Academy. Her brother was gone, her father an admitted murderer awaiting trial, her mother a suicidal train wreck. If they survived this mess, there was no promise any of them would be standing proud by the end. And the lawyer’s fees alone? That was sure to break them financially.
Whatever life she once had, she knew for certain it was over.
Then she got the call.
Sabrina picked up her cell phone, not recognizing the number, but knowing the 310 area code meant it was from Southern California, specifically the Hollywood/Beverly Hills region.
“Hello?” Sabrina said, not sure if she was getting a call from new talent agents or from the press. Lately, she’d been hanging up on the press. Saying things like, “No comment,” and “You people are dumpster diving life wreckers.” Stuff like that.
“Sabrina,” the male voice said, “this is Garrison Rich.”
Sabrina felt the sharp intake of her breath.
“Hello, Mr. Rich,” she said, breathless. “What can I do for you?”
“Well, Ms. Baldridge, I’m here to save you from your father’s fuckery, if you’re at a place where you can separate the tragedy that has befallen your family following your brother’s murder from what is now your fizzling career.”
The lump in her throat was starting to hurt. And her mouth? More dry than old dust at the mention of Tavares. Plus…Garrison Rich! He was only the head of the largest studio in Hollywood!
“I can separate,” she said, the very notion of setting her brother’s death aside so casually bringing guilt-ridden tears to her eyes.
“First and foremost, I am sorry to hear about Tavares. The more I learned about him, the more his death made me think I needed to call you personally. I hope you don’t mind me being so forthright.”
“It’s okay.”
“I’m sure you know by now your show was cancelled.”
“I got the news already.”
“You must be wondering where you go from here, I’m sure. Or if you’ll even have a career once the media circus dies down.”
“The thought crossed my mind,” she said, wiping her eyes, a small sniffle escaping.
“If I told you I could lean on some people who could lean on some people who could help your father’s situation, while at the same time moving your career here in Hollywood forward, albeit in a different capacity, is that something you might emotionally be ready for?”
What? Her eyes dried up almost instantly. And all her tumultuous emotions?—they sort of relaxed themselves into an unfussy buzzing.
“Yes. I mean, I would.” Then: “But…how do you think you can help my father?”
“How soon can you be in Hollywood?” he asked.
It was still morning. Early enough to get ready right now. Pulling herself together was an entirely different thing, though.
“Tomorrow?” she said, like a question. “Maybe later tonight if I can catch a flight.”
“Catch the first flight out, Ms. Baldridge.”
“Okay,” she said, fighting an onslaught of mixed emotions.
On one hand she was overjoyed that her career might not be over and Mr. Rich could help her father; on the other hand she was disgusted with herself. How could she feel happy while her father sat in jail and her brother lay dead in the earth? She couldn’t. So the quelling of her more excited emotions only made room for darker, more disturbing emotions.
They still don’t know who murdered Tavares.
“Text me the details of your arrival when you have them, Sabrina, so we can set something up as soon as possible.”
“Okay,” she said, wondering why he didn’t want her contacting his assistant, or some lesser minion. Then again, if she was working with the studio head, whatever he had to tell her, whatever plans he had for her, they must be special.
2
She arrived in Hollywood late that night, booked a hotel, then got up early to catch a cab to The Hollywood Roosevelt, one of Hollywood’s most famous hotels. Sabrina was wearing a large winter hat and big black sunglasses, but even as she walked through the lobby and boarded the elevator leading to the penthouse suite, as directed by Garrison Rich, there were whisperings.
Someone said her name and it startled her. It shouldn’t have, but all things considered, it did.
Before, to be noticed is such a storied hotel would have made her day. Now all she craved was anonymity. She tried to shake the feeling loose with a smile, but the dread of everything that had happened was simply too much.
When she arrived at the appointed suite, she was met by Garrison Rich, a man she knew only in name. She had never seen him, which somehow felt a little strange just then. He was devilishly handsome, and young. Late thirties, early forties at best. And charming. He gently took her hand, introduced himself, walked her into his gigantic penthouse suite for a private tour.
“This is the Gable & Lombard Penthouse, named after the famous Clark Gable and Carol Lombard, of course. It’s thirty-two hundred square feet, three levels and it has a balcony that gives you three-hundred and sixty degree views of Hollywood. This might be my favorite hotel room in all of L.A., perhaps the world.”
“It’s gorgeous,” Sabrina said, smelling the suite with her enhanced olfactory senses. It smelled clean, fresh, not the way she thought it might smell for the hotel being nearly ninety years old. The beauty of it took her breath. For a moment, she felt like a queen.
“It underwent a major remodel last year, a twenty-five million dollar overhaul by the creative geniuses at Yabu Pushelberg. It won all kinds of awards, as it should. Even though it has that sleek, contemporary style, I can’t be here without feeling a bit of nostalgia for the Golden Era of Hollywood. Don’t you think?”
“I heard Shirley Temple first learned her staircase tap dance here. At this hotel, I mean. Not in this room.”
“Indeed. There are many firsts here. The first Academy Awards ceremony was held here in May of 1929. It was also the site of Marilyn Monroe’s first commercial photo shoot. It took place at the rooftop pool, on the diving board. The diving board is gone, but the pool still remains, although the manager tells me they’re remodeling the pool area next.”
Somewhere a
long the way, he’d slipped his arm in hers and was walking her casually along. There was something intriguing about him, something masculine and sexy she couldn’t pinpoint. Whomever landed him for a husband, they’d be getting a hell of a catch.
“I love Marilyn Monroe,” Sabrina said. “It’s tragic what happened to her.”
“She was but one of many stars who found her demise at the end of a pill bottle, or in a tub. Rumor has it she still haunts the place.”
“Really?” Sabrina asked, almost thrilled by the idea of a Marilyn Monroe haunting.
“Truly,” he replied.
He looked at her and she settled into his smile, his kind eyes. Her gaze fell to his neck, to the clean shaven skin, which looked lightly puckered and completely kissable. She could only imagine the women this man had taken to bed!
Beneath the clean laundry scent of him was a warm and woody smelling cologne. He smelled like rum mixed with musk, jasmine, vanilla, patchouli, cedar and a number of other subtle, yet tropical smelling scents she knew but didn’t yet have names for.
“What kind of cologne are you wearing? It smells incredible.”
He leaned his neck toward her, she put her nose to it, touching her skin to his, but only briefly. For him, a young starlet with glittery eyes was the norm. But for her to share the company of a man like him, it was anything but normal.
“In social circles it’s called White Cristal. Formally, though, it’s known as Straight to Heaven.”
“Did you get this suite just for this afternoon?” Sabrina asked, thinking a place like this must cost a fortune. It would’ve been cheaper to talk over a meal at Cecconi’s on Melrose, or Chateau Marmont on Sunset.
“One of our A-listers is staying here for the week. She’ll be on-set locally, but she won’t be arriving until later tonight. Besides, the manager here is a friend of the family. We go way back.”
“So you just…get to use it?”
If the suite cost less than ten grand a night, she swore she’d eat her own shoe.
“Even though Hollywood is rife with actors and actresses struggling to make it, the top of the pyramid—so to speak—is a cozy crowd. The favors we do for each other, they’re a devotion born of mutual interest.”