Page 13 of The Holiday Fakers
There’s no way Brody would agree to this.
Right?
CHAPTER 3
BRODY
“She saidwhat?”
Cara, Marv’s assistant, takes a step back, her face paling.
I raise my hands in surrender. “Sorry. It’s just been?—”
“No, I’m sorry,” she cuts in, her red eyes refilling with tears. “I would never have?—”
“You’re sorry, he’s sorry, I’m sorry,” Marv interrupts testily. “But this pity party ain’t gonna solve the bigger problem.”
He steers Cara to the front door of my apartment.
“Why don’t you get some fresh New York air, huh? Do a bit of Christmas shopping. Use my card. Treat yourself. I’ll message you when we’re done.”
Marv pulls her woolen hat snug over her blonde hair and wraps her scarf around her neck like a protective dad. Even though my anger still simmers, I see what drew me to Marv when I was eighteen and what Cara sees in him too: a steady, fatherly presence neither of us had growing up.
Cara’s gaze flicks to me, uncertain. I’ve only known her for two years, ever since Marv realized he couldn’t handle me on his own and hired an assistant, but she already feels like a little sister. She reminds me so much of Harper, the youngest Locke sibling, and my inner big brother steps up.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I promise I won’t harm a hair on his head.”
Marv gives her a broad smile and smooths a hand over his thinning locks.
“Can’t afford to lose any more!” he jokes.
The corners of her mouth twitch, and the tightness in my stomach eases.
“Okay,” she says. “I won’t go far, and if you need anything, just call.”
Marv hustles her out of the apartment.
“Yeah, yeah, all good. Go have fun.”
As soon as he closes the door behind her, I’m on him.
“How could you use her like that?” I growl, keeping my voice low so Cara won’t hear if she’s listening outside. “It’s one thing getting her to reply to emails pretending to be you?—”
“I don’t?—”
“C’mon, Marv. She’s polite and knows how to spell. You’re fooling no one. But to dress her up asPiper? And not tell her why?” I shake my head. “That’s fucked up, even for you.”
He makes his way over to one of the giant leather couches, the tap-tap-tap of his Italian shoes on the parquet floor echoing around the open-plan space. His shoulders hunch as he sits, his posture signaling defeat.
Without an adversary, the fight leaves me too. I take a seat opposite him, the silence between us filled with police sirens, traffic noise, and all the other noises that make up the Big Apple soundscape. I once used to love it. It was the sign I was somewhere exciting, where dreams come true.
Now? It grates on my nerves.
“Look, I’m sorry, man. Genuinely.” Marv rubs a hand across the deep grooves in his forehead.
“I just … I don’t know. Panicked? Things have been snowballing in a bad way, and it’s a motherfucking avalanche of shitty press right now. This job … it’s still possible, but we need a new story out there. Something good.”
He’s not wrong. My career is sliding into a chasm, and I can see the bottom I’m headed for. Soon, all I’ll be offered are bit-parts. The low-rent thug who gets offed in the pilot episode, the guy who doesn’t even get a name.
