Page 4 of For The Record

@NatalieJ4: @TMZ who are these people and why should I care

@TTang: @TMZ doesn’t Naoya Sugawa get into a ‘confrontation’ with someone every day? Typical attention seeking ‘celeb’ who thinks he’s famous

@bts4eva: @TTang 4 million Twitter followers, 2 platinum albums vs your 247 followers, Hunny

Chapter 3: Skye Holland

My first day working for Leo Perez is, frankly, boring as hell. One of the higher-ups mistakes me for an intern and sends me around the city, delivering documents and fetching coffees. It’s the twenty-first century, and even in the twentieth, they had fax machines. How are these documents so important that I have to personally hand-deliver them? I don’t even get to meet the man I’m working for now—which is probably a good thing—but this is grunt work. It’s beneath me.

By the time the day is over, I’m pretty sure the whole office has heard about how Ryder wrote a song with my voicemail in it and my subsequent Twitter notoriety. As I make my way to the parking garage, I groan at the thought of having to face one more set of prying eyes or not so veiled insults. I hope I don’t see anybody.

But just as I’m shutting off my computer and clearing away my desk, I hear someone call my name. “Skye Holland?”

One of these days, I will change my name, move to the Midwest, and take up cattle ranching. Sadly, that day is not today. So despite my best efforts to ignore the #WhoBrokeRydersHeartand all the subsequent memes, doxing attempts, and various other collateral damage that comes with being Ryder Black’s ex… I cannot be anonymous. Especially not with my last name.

I lift my head, doing my best to seem somewhat alive. “Yes?” I try to sound chipper, but all I want to do is go home and take a nap. Maybe a weeklong one. “How can I help you?”

It’s Mark, my new coworker. His desk is directly diagonal from mine, and he’s been halfway decent about the whole Ryder thing, so at least I don’t have to worry about him commenting on that. Once he got the wholeso you’re the girl from the songthing out of his system, he seems like a cool guy. “I got shunted to party planning for the little shindig that they’re throwing for Ryder Black, you know, to celebrate his signing. I was wondering if you wanted to help me?”

“Uh…” For starters, who saysshindigin Los Angeles? Second of all, I’m completely new here. For another thing, I have no interest in being within a fifty-foot radius of my boyfriend after he practically humiliated me and exposed my personal feelings on national television. But, sadly, these things have to be put aside at the expense of my career. “Why me? I’m new here, and throwing parties isn’t really in my job description.”

“I know that, I was just hoping you would be able to get the word out, you know, generate some buzz, see if we can get any A-listers to come,” he explains. “You have contacts, right?”

I haveoneactress who was in a superhero movie on my contact list since we met at a party if that’s what he defines as ‘having contacts’. But I have a feeling he’s referring to something else. Someoneelse. “You mean my family.”

The Hollands. There is an entire Wikipedia page about Samuel Holland, movie executive, his ex-wife, Leticia Holland, actress, Isabelle Holland, actress, and Aaron Holland, movie director. Who’s missing? Yours truly.

“I mean, yeah. Isn’t that how you got this job in the first place?” Mark says, his bushy eyebrows pulling together. I change my mind. He’s not a cool guy. Not at all. My judgment of him must show on my face because he immediately backtracks. “Listen, I didn’t mean it like that…”

“I’ll see what I can do.” I pull my things off the desk, sweeping a snack wrapper and crumpled napkin into the trash can. Walking away, I turn on one heel, determined not to fall apart. “Is there anything else you have to say to me?”

“Skye, come on. You know this business. This town, it’s not about what you know, right? It’s aboutwhoyou know.” He walks faster, practically sprinting to keep pace with me. To be fair, he is three inches shorter than me, so the polite thing to do would be to slow down, but I’m too busy escaping the consequences of… everything. “Trust me, I know you’re good at your job.”

“Thanks. I have to go, so just email me the details about the party and I’ll have it done, okay?” I feel bad for maybe overreacting, but today, my fuse has been shortened and my nerves are as tight as violin strings. “See you tomorrow.”

I walk toward the parking garage with my keys between my knuckles. On my way home, blasting a podcast with the windows rolled down, I get a call from Poppy.

“Hello?” The beat-up Toyota in front of me slows to a stop as the traffic moves from a gentle jog to a crawling pace. “What’s up?”

“There’s an emergency,” she says. With Poppy, I’m pretty sure that could mean anything from she just scuffed her favourite pair of shoes to she’s getting fired. “My parents are in town.”

“I don’t see the problem,” I say, switching lanes as I speed up to merge. The roar of the engine threatens to sputter out and die. Ihatemerging. “What’s your real emergency?”

“Thatismy emergency! They want to have a family dinner,tonight, to celebrate Ryder being signed to Volume Records,” she says. “And they obviously can’t have it at his bachelor pad with three other guys, so they want to do it at our place.”

“Can’t you guys eat at a restaurant?” I say desperately, before regretting it. Poppy’s family may be middle class, but they’re also old-fashioned. To them, family dinners are meant to be consumed at home, with tuna casseroles and macaroni that has been cooked with love.

Poppy sighs. “I don’t want to bankrupt them! They flew all the way from Kentucky to see him, the plane tickets alone were a fortune.”

I groan at the thought of seeing Ryder again. I’ve fastidiously avoided him for almost six months. Now, all of a sudden, in two days I have to work with himandhave dinner with him? “Do you need me to pick anything up from Trader Joe’s?”

“Wait, is that a yes?” she says.

“You didn’t ask a question that I could say yes to.” I can practically hear her eye roll at my pedantic statement. “But yes, I’m fine with your parents and Ryder coming over to eat dinner with us. I’ll have to get used to seeing him around for work anyway. How long are they in town?”

“Um… a while. I’m at the airport right now, they’re about to land and I can tell you after.” A beep and some noise that sounds like an intercom crackles in the background. “Wait, what do you mean you’ll have to get used to seeing him around?”

“It’s kind of a long story,” I say, but the truth is I just need a while to compose myself. “I’ll tell you when I’m not operating heavy machinery that could fall apart at any time.”

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