bits of stand-in rehearsal scenery back to their assigned spots in the room. Though the rehearsal studio belonged entirely to The McAllister, so no production except for Starry Nights would use it, it was important to keep the room in top condition for when they arrived back to work on Monday. “Hey, I’ve got the rehearsal report pretty much ready to send. Can you update our end times and projected daily for Monday?”
“On it,” Trip said. “You going to Pete’s? Carly’s throwing another bash. Say yes. She’s a lot of fun.”
“That’s what TMZ says.”
“Don’t be uptight, Lala. You can have fun, too. There’s no law. I checked.”
She sighed. “Fine. Nine tonight, right?” She was trying to come up with some way to get out of this thing. Court TV was back, and they likely had a killer to put on the witness stand. She wouldn’t want to miss crucial testimony from a killer. She mentally winced at her own line of thinking. God, she’d become boring. A lonely little shut-in.
“She says nine, but no one will be there until ten.”
“Ten? Is she trying to kill me?” she squeaked. “I’m a grandmotherly thing.”
“You’re thirty-one, Lala, and no one’s nanny. Carly Daniel is a girl who knows how to turn it up, and you could use a little of that in your life.” He sat on top of the table and did the gesture he did with his hands that said she had to hear this. “You should have been there Friday night. She literally danced on the bar. It was all over Instagram, and then Perez Hilton jumped on the bandwagon and ran a story with the photos. Not your typical McAllister kind of coverage.”
“Wait. She danced on the bar at Put Upon Pete’s?” Lauren wasn’t sure she’d ever seen anyone dance on the bar at Pete’s. “It’s not really that type of place.”
“It is now. Lala, you should have seen it. She had half our people up there with her in thirty seconds flat. Everyone was in sync and working it. I felt like I’d stumbled upon the middle of a performance of Rent. It was epic.”
“Sounds epic,” Lauren said blandly. Inside, she scoffed. She knew how to have fun, but it had been a while since she’d kept show-people hours. She turned in when the theater folk headed out because she was Lauren. Maybe she missed it a little bit, though. The old days. She could admit that.
When Lauren arrived at Pete’s at precisely ten, she found Carly and Kirby, who played Ashley’s assistant in the show, among other roles, doing a pink colored shot at the bar. The rest of the group populated the small tables that dotted the main floor, an oasis in which drinks and pub food flowed. The lighting gave the place an overall red tint, and a variety of ball caps—each sporting the word Pete somehow worked into a slogan—dotted the walls. The other room was furnished with dartboards and pool tables under fluorescents. Five restored jukeboxes lined the back wall. Pete’s was known for two things: drinks and billiards. Lauren happened to be better at one than the other.
Deep breath as she approached her colleagues. She relaxed, smiled, and left her metaphorical clipboard at the door. Hell, if she thought about it, she was supposed to be on a beach right now. Tonight, she planned to embrace that relaxation, unwind, and maybe even get the tiniest bit tipsy. Who knew? The night was young.
* * *
“Did I mention that I love martini night?” Kirby enthused. Kirby Bonner was an up-and-comer who couldn’t have been more than twenty-two, twenty-three at most and had the cutest little pixie cut. From the moment they’d met, she seemed to really look up to Carly, even after all the bad press. Maybe not the wisest role model choice, Carly thought, but she also understood that her celebrity did tend to attract people. “Let’s do them every Saturday. God, I live for a good martini. Don’t you? I’d love it if we made it a thing. Do you want to make it a thing?” She also liked to talk. A lot.
“We can totally make that happen,” Carly said, accepting the mango martini from the bartender. Orange and beautiful and well earned. Carly touched her glass to Kirby’s. With her brown hair and doe-like brown eyes, she would surely be cast as everyone’s cheerful younger sister. At least for the next five years. Carly turned back to the group, and