Page 121 of Riot Act

“Hammered shit, Pax. That’s what you look like.Hammered.Shit.”

“Why thank you.”

“I wasn’t paying you a complement, you facetious little prick. Have you looked at yourself in the mirror this morning?”

“I have not.”

“You’re covered in blood!”

Hilary looks like she’s about to have an embolism, which makes sense. She fought tooth and nail for this gig. I think she might have bartered away the first-born child she’ll never make time to have. And here I am, showing up for the second day of a shoot, looking like I got smoked by the A train.

“God, did you even shower? You smell like shit.”

I pour a huge amount of coffee into my mouth and swallow. “No. I came straight from the cop shop, and they don’t have a med spa on site.”

Hilary gapes at me. “Thepolice?”

“I kicked the shit out of someone.”

“Pax!”

“I’m sure you’ll be able to read all about it in the paper later. But yeah, it’s as bad as you’re imagining.”

“Just…Christ! What the hell were you thinking?” Hilary asks. So disappointed. Always so, so disappointed. I am the physical embodiment of Hilary’s living regret. You’d think she’d be used to this by now. She opens her mouth, ready to launch into another tirade about how fucked up I am, I’ll bet, but I cut her off before she can start.

“No. Just…no. A girl was about to get pinned to the ground and raped. Was I supposed to kindly ask the motherfucker if he’d mindnotdoing it?”

She tries to speak again, but she’s not listening. Doesn’t care. I can see it on her face. I hold up a hand; my patience isn’t wearing thin. It’s non-existent. “Fuck off, Hilary. I’m going to finish this coffee, and then I’m gonna pour myself another one. The moment Cross sees me, he’s gonna send me home. Nothing to be done about it. So let’s just postpone all of the screeching until a later date, yeah? My head’s pounding.”

“Cross has already seen you,” a voice behind me says. The photographer’s sprawled out on one of the huge windowsills on the other side of the warehouse with an open laptop resting on his stomach. He snaps the lid closed and gets up, sauntering over to us. He laughs when he gets a close up look and sees the state of me.

“Split lip. Beginnings of a black eye. Scraped up knuckles.” He pouts. “What else you got?”

“What else do you need?”

“Couple of stab wounds and a broken arm would be nice, but I doubt you’d be standing here, sassing your agent if you were that fucked up.”

“You obviously don’t know him well enough.” Hilary rolls her eyes. “He could be moments away from death and still find the energy to give me attitude.”

“She’s not wrong,” I confirm. Slipping out of my jacket, I dump the denim over the back of the velvet chaise longue next to me, and carefully, oh-so-carefully wriggle my way out of my t-shirt—lifting my arms over my head fucking hurts.

We’re all on a journey of discovery together; I haven’t seen the damage Jonah inflicted on me before I knocked his ass out, so the black and blue bruises blooming like death flowers across my ribcage are a treat for us all. Pulitzer prize winning photographer Callan Cross circles me like I’m the best Christmas gift he’s never received. “Sorry, kid. You’re not going anywhere,” he says.

“Ralph Lauren isnotgoing to be okay with this!” Hilary looks like her head might explode. “They have a very clear aesthetic for this campaign, and that does not include—”

“Fuck Ralph Lauren.”

EvenIdo a double take at that.

Hilary does this thing when she’s very, incredibly stressed. She gets very quiet. Extends her pointer finger, ramrod straight, and, as my mother would say, winds her neck out. This is precisely what she does when she faces Cross and says, “With all due respect…haveyou—”She stabs with her taloned pointer, “—lost your fuckingmind? ‘Fuck Ralph Lauren’ is not a sentiment I can endorse. Ralph Lauren is one of our biggest clients. Do you have any idea how many dicks most agents have to suck to land a sweet deal campaign like this? There is no way in hell that—” This is right where she hits boiling point, “—Fuck Ralph Laurenshould ever be spoken out loud in my presence—”

Hilary’s caught some steam now. Left unchecked, she could rant for a solid thirty minutes, but Cross nips that in the bud.

Turning to me, he says, “What are they paying you?”

“Ibegyour pardon?” Hilary cries.

“Thirty-five grand,” I tell him.