by Mj Fields
“Salary sucks, Bella. I’ll double it.”
“I need more clothes,” I say, trying to ignore him.
“Miami; Las Vegas; Richmond, Virginia?” He pauses then continues, “Flint, Michigan; Portland; Austin, Texas; San Francisco.”
Kiki brings in an armload of clothes. “Take these.”
I give her a one-armed hug. “Thanks, Kiki.”
“How the fuck do you go from Honolulu, Hawaii to Kansas City, Missouri?”
“I’m guessing a plane, Dad,” I say as I shove more clothes in my bag.
“Los Angeles, and then to Philly?”
“Oh my God, this is amazing!” Kiki laughs.
“Bella, you need to think about this.”
“What’s to think about?” I ask as I walk past him and into the suite’s bathroom. “It’s going to be hosted online in hopes of getting picked up by a network. Either way, Dad, it’s experience, a step toward my dream.”
“Which is?”
I speak out, “Producing and directing meaningful and thought-provoking TV. Art, Dad. It’s art.”
Momma Joe walks in. “Flight booked. We have two hours to get you to the airport.”
“Two fucking hours?” Dad gasps.
I look at Kiki and whisper, “I know where you get it from.”
“The bad attitude? My controlling nature?” She smirks.
I roll my eyes. “The need to use the F-bomb in every sentence.”
“Reality TV, Bell? That’s thought-provoking?”
“Sure is. Who would have thought people would sit on their asses and watch the Kardashians get richer and richer, all the while wanting to be them and never putting in the work?” Kiki laughs.
“Language, Kiki,” Dad scolds her.
“And I see where you get it from, too,” she states while putting my toiletries in my carry-on case.
“My good looks? My unwavering and fierce focus on goals?” I ask.
“No, your need to correct my language.” She rolls her eyes.
I take the case and smile at her. “I love you. And seriously, Kiki, you’re too pretty to talk like that.”
Carly walks in with a bag. “Bought you some badass gear to blend in.”
I hug her. “You’re the best.”
“It’s going to take an hour and a half to get to the airport with good traffic; we need to go.” She smiles sadly.
“Fuck.” Dad sighs. “Nothing like ripping the Band-Aid off a still bleeding wound.”
I walk out and smile. “I just have to say, I think I have more faith in your parenting than you do.”
He raises his eyebrows.
“I think you did one hell of a job raising a daughter who busted her butt to get where she wants to be. I think you should celebrate the fact that your oldest child got a job that you know she can handle.” I hold out my empty hand. “Take these.”
He looks at it. “Take what?”
“The imaginary scissors to cut the imaginary cord you still try to hold.”
Momma Joe laughs, and so do Kiki and Max.
The ride to the airport was almost silent.
Leaving for college was a big deal, but I always knew I could see any of them at a moment’s notice. That won’t be the case now.
My favorite movie of all time is The Wizard of Oz. When I met Dad for the first time, I felt like Dorthey walking into Emerald City. He filled the entire city and a part of my heart that had always been empty. Then the rest of them filled it even more.
Standing before the entrance to the airport security check in, I put on a brave face.
As I hug Momma Joe, she whispers, “Be bold but careful. And call me anytime.”
“I love you.” I hug her extra tightly.
Carly is next. “We’re so proud of you.”
“I know.” I hug her. “Love you Momma C.”
Next, I hug Max, the lion to my Dorothy. “Don’t you ever forget you’re as strong as all the other Steel crew. Be courageous.”
“Pft, I know that,” he replies as he hugs me tighter.
Kiki is next. “Stow the badass once in a while, Kiki, and let people see your heart.”
“They have to earn that,” she whispers.
I hug her tighter. “I love you, Katherine.”
A tear slides down my face as I look at Dad. “I think I’m going to miss you most of all.” Scarecrow, I think.
“Don’t go.” His eyes widen, and I see unshed tears in his them.
I hug him tightly. “Don’t ask me to stay when you taught me to fly.”
Walking outside of Miami International Airport, the humidity hits me like a hot damp cloth. I smile when I see the palm trees, snap a picture, and send it to the family group chat. After shoving my phone in my crossbody purse, I look around and see a woman in short shorts, a black tank top, and blue hair. Colorful tattoo sleeves cover her toned arms. She’s smoking a cigarette and leaning against a white SUV. She flicks it and holds out the sign under her arm that says, I. Steel
Smiling, I hurry toward her. “I’m she.”
She looks me up and down and busts up laughing. “You have got to be kidding me. Those assholes are going to eat your Barbie ass up.”
It pisses me off, but I’m not here to make enemies. As a matter of fact, I’m not here to make friends either. But I will play the game. “They may try, but they won’t succeed.”
She pushes off the vehicle and blows a puff of smoke in my face. “You wanna bet?”
I ask, “You wanna lose?”
She shakes her head in sarcastic disbelief and moves away from the passenger door. “Get in. We’ve only got a few hours before we try to salvage this week’s shitshow.”
I open the back and load my things in, while she sits in the driver’s side, impatiently waiting. Well, fuck her. She could have helped.
I climb in. Before I’m even buckled, she peels out and away from the curb.
Once I’m buckled, I turn to her. “So?”
She turns up the radio then pulls a file from between the seat and console, tossing it at me and yelling over the heavy metal music, “Here’s the crew.”
The first page shows the details of the show that I’ve already looked up on the website.
Then there is the itinerary. Miami; Las Vegas; Richmond, Virginia; Flint, Michigan; Portland; Austin, Texas; San Francisco; Honolulu, Hawaii; Kansas City, Missouri; Los Angeles; and then to Philadelphia. Eleven stops, two studios in each city, one week at each with appropriate travel time in-between each, as well as time off for the holidays. The earlier stops are hotels. The latter is a mix of homes and hotels.
I open the file and flip through the pages. At the top is a name, and below is information about them.
One by one, I look at their names.
Maze
Grimm
Tags
Axel
Blade
Ranger
Darby
Breaker
Dagger
Neo
“Is this for real?” I laugh.
She pretends she doesn’t hear me, and it pisses me off.
I reach up and turn off the stereo. “You don’t have to like me, but would it hurt you to answer some fucking questions?”
I see her roll her eyes behind her shades. “First, we aren’t friends. You and I, we’re rivals, just like they are. They’re going up against each other for one hundred Gs, and we’re going up against each other for five an episode. One of ours wins, so do we.”
“Wasn’t aware of that, but I’m good with a paycheck.”
“I bet you are, Barbie.” She reaches up and turns the stereo back on.
I turn it off. “Listen, Lilith, I’m ten days behind you; you wanna win fair and square, give me more information.”
“I don’t give a damn how I win.” She laughs. “You’ll be introduced to them all at dinner, just like I was.”
This bitch hasn’t a clue that I’m not easily intimidated. Hell, I’ve dealt with Kat most of my life. T
his one’s a cupcake in comparison.
Ten
Ditch and Dine
Bella
When we pull up in front of a beachside motel that looks like it hasn’t been renovated in the past two decades, I flip open the folder.
“You sure we’re at the right place?” I ask my happy hostess when she kills the engine.
“The guys got us kicked out of the five star two days ago.” She opens the door and gets out, and I follow suit. She doesn’t move to help me unload my belongings; just lights a cigarette and leans against the driver’s side.
I stack everything perfectly on top of my rolling case and begin to head toward the entrance, leaving Smokey the Bitch to finish her cigarette and secretly hoping she chokes on it. Then I look back when I hear the vehicle start.
She rolls down the passenger window and flips me off. “Good luck getting a cab to the hotel at this hour.” She peels out.
I stand there, hands full and pissed off.
I pull my phone out and look at the email. Sweating balls, I hit Google and find the hotel fifteen blocks away. Then I hit Uber.
Forty minutes later, sweat-drenched, I walk into the Sand Beach Resort. Beyond the fountain and behind a wall of glass, I spot Bitchzilla and a bunch of inked men sitting at the hotel bar.
I drop my bags at the desk, and a woman looks me over, scrunching her nose up a little. “Can I help you?”
“Isabella Steel, and I’ll be right back for my room key. Hold my bags please.”
I stomp through the lobby, fuming, through the opening in the glass wall and straight up to her. I tap her on the shoulder, and she whips around.
She immediately laughs in my face until I step into her space.
“You better check yourself, Barbie.”
I look up as I close the gap between us, my tits pressing against hers. “You just fucked up with me.”
She steps forward. I hold my stance. “You best—”
“You think you, your bad attitude, and bad dye job intimidate me? You’re fucking wrong. I’m a grown-ass woman, not some little bitch you can bully on the playground because your daddy didn’t pay enough attention to you. You’ve been warned.”
I swing around and begin to walk back to the reception desk when I feel a hand shove me from behind.
As I fall, I reach for the table, knowing damn well I’m going to bust my face on it. Instead, an arm snakes around my waist and catches me.
I try to wiggle my way out, but the bulging arm tightens, and then I’m lifted off the ground and carried past the desk, out the back door, and toward the ocean.
“Let go of me now, or so help me God, I will bust your nuts with my damn heel.”
A dark chuckle reverberates against my back as the man hastens his steps.
I try to turn, but he moves so I can’t see him. Then I try to kick, but he turns me and heaves me over his shoulder.
“Let me down!”
When I see water underneath me, I realize this lunatic is walking into the ocean.
“I said …” I begin as he grips my waist and pulls me down until I am knee-deep in the water.
When I look up, I gasp when he smiles.
Natural instinct kicks in, and I slap him across the face.
He narrows his eyes. “Hey, sweet treat. Did you miss me?”
Tags
When I saw her storming into the bar, I swore to God I was seeing things, and I haven’t had a drop of alcohol in over a year, done any type of drug in over four. When I saw her go up against Mara, heard her voice, and heard the sass it carried, I was pretty sure the sweat-drenched, little wannabe badass wasn’t a doppelganger of the girl I fucked at my buddy’s shop just days ago.
It wasn’t until I saw that ass bent over and falling that I knew without a doubt it was.
This isn’t good.
She reaches up to slap me again, but I catch her hand this time. When she starts to yank away, pull her against me, hard.
“No swimming or you fuck up the gift.”
“The gift!” She raises her knee and gets me where she intended. I hold back every ounce of pain that comes with a knee to the nuts and smile at her. “You tagged me!”
“My bad.”
“Your bad?” She’s pissed. She’s really fucking pissed. “And you’re married!”
Impulse control is a real issue with me, but I hold in the explanation when I realize this is going to work in my favor. I piss her off, she stays away. I’m gonna really need her to stay away.
“You smug bastard,” she sneers.
“You wanna pop off some bullshit, you do it when this is done. This is work, sweets, not pleasure.”
“Fuck you,” she spits.
“Told you already; six to nine months, then we chat.”
“We aren’t chatting about shit!”
“Glad we agree. But I will do you a solid and give you a heads-up.”
She splashes past me. “Go fuck yourself.”
“Mara is Gorgon’s daughter.”
“Who the hell is Mara?” She doesn’t slow down; she keeps on going.
“The chick with the bad attitude and dye job.”
She looks back. “So what?”
“She’s also a real bitch, not a sweet, little treat who just graduated college.”
“I don’t give a damn.”
“You want this job, I suggest you chill.” I grab her bicep and stop her. “You wanna keep it, forget you and I ever met.”
She pulls her arm away. “That won’t be hard to do.”
I can’t help laughing as I follow behind her, eyes on her ass. “You and I both know that’s not true.”
She glares at me from over her shoulder. “I fucked you in a tattoo shop; you were forgotten once I came.”
As much as I need to focus on winning this show, my inability to control myself comes out in full force. “Which time?”
When she turns on me quickly, I’m taken aback.
“The last time,” she snarls then pushes me.
I lose my footing, my ass hits the water, and a wave washes over me.
When I come up, there are nine assholes standing on the beach. The biggest one high-fives Bella then offers her his arm. She takes it, and then I watch them walk inside … together.
Fucking Neo.
I ball my fists at my sides but smile as I walk past all the jackasses on the beach who watched the little show.
Maze, the oldest of the contestants, turns and grabs my shoulder as he walks beside me. “So, you met the new producer?”
“Sure did, Maze.”
“Doesn’t look like she likes you any more than the last one did.”
I shrug his arm off me, and he laughs.
“If you weren’t a decent artist, they’d probably boot your ass. Thank the universe that you’re the second best here.”
I laugh at him. “Who exactly is the universe?”
He shrugs. “What came first—the chicken or the egg?”
“Which one’s female?”
“Huh?” He’s confused.
“The female always comes first.”
Bella
“You’re not normally my type but want a real man to fuck that cunt good, then look no further.”
There are men who can say the filthiest things in the world and still make you feel sexy, and then there are men who utter the exact same words and leave you feeling like you haven’t showered in a month and smell like ass.
Neo is the latter. He’s also one-third of the reason I’m trying to scald my skin.
Standing under a hot stream of water in the shower, I scrub my body, ridding it of the filth I just unhooked my arm from, the sweat from my three-mile walk in the ninety-eight degree Miami heat, and the nasty I feel because … his touch sent my body into a tizzy.
He’s so fucking hot and so fucking married.
Tags. His name is Tags. Or, at least that’s what they called him.
After I have scrubbed my body and left the ache between my le
gs—caused by him—unattended, I wrap myself in the plush white hotel towel and walk out into the suite to dress and meet everyone for dinner.
The suite is not mine alone. I’m sharing it with … her.
I look around for my bags, but they are nowhere to be found, and the balcony door is open.
That bitch probably put my shit outside.
Tightening the towel, I walk out and see my makeup bag and its content scattered on the balcony’s tiled floor.
I look over the railing and see my undergarments, clothes … and my suitcase floating around the resort’s pool and lazy river.
“Fucking bitch!” I snarl as I turn around and see her smiling with her teeth bared as she closes the balcony door and locks it. “Open this door now, Mara.”
She flips me off then turns, giving me her back as she walks toward the main door.
I beat on the glass. “Open the fucking door!”
When she walks out the door, I scream, “You cu—”
A loud laugh cuts off the rest of the vulgarity ready to fly out of my mouth, a word I have never had to use.
I quickly look left.
He has a towel wrapped low on his waist.
“We could have saved water and showered together.”
“I’d rather swim in shit, Tags.” I say his name like a taunting teen would.
“All right then.” He lifts one of his bulging shoulders. “I guess you’re on your own.”
“Better than being on you,” I snip back.
When he grins, I immediately regret my choice of words.
He lifts his chin. “Yeah right.”
I lean over the edge of the balcony. Three floors. I can do this. If things go bad, I can leap and will land in the pool, unscathed, and grab my clothes.
“Bad idea, little badass.”
I glare over at him. “Go away.”
Out of my peripheral, I see him walk inside his room. Thank God.
As quick as he goes in, he comes back out. He tosses something at me. It hits me in the face, and I let it drop to the floor. “Put that on and sit your ass still for a minute. I’ll open your door from the inside.”
