TAMING HOLLYWOOD'S BADDEST BO- Max Monroe Page 0,11

white-noise-filled environment, I jerk my head up to find him looking directly at me.

“Go.”

Go?

Oh God. Tell me this appointment is going to get me more than minimal face time with an NSYNC wannabe and acid reflux!

“You. Can. Go. Inside,” he elucidates when he takes in my befuddled expression.

Ooh. Go in. Got it. I stand up quickly and reach back to gather my belongings, only to find there aren’t really any. Other than my purse, I’ve got nothing. For some reason, I feel like I should have more stuff.

For the love of God, get inside the office before the opportunity passes!

I walk quickly through Adele’s door and straight up to her.

“Billie Harris,” Adele says immediately, looking up at me over the top of a cat-eye-shaped pair of tiger’s-eye glasses.

“That’s me.”

She holds out her hand, but when I go to shake it, she shakes her head.

“Headshots.”

Shit. I don’t have any fucking headshots. I knew I was supposed to have more stuff!

Her brow wrinkles when I make no move to hand over any professionally taken photos. I could show her my Instagram feed on my phone, but I really don’t think that’s what she’s after. “No headshots?”

“I…” Lord help me. “…forgot them.”

“An actress who forgets her headshots to a meeting with an agent,” she states, and I don’t miss the way her raspy voice crackles around the edges. “If you pulled that shit at an audition, they’d tell you to fuck right off.”

I nod. Sounds right.

“But you’ve got a pretty face. A sweet voice. And a cute little body,” she continues. “I guess I can let the headshot shit slide for now. Take a seat.”

I do as she says, a little pep in my hip-bending at the comment about having a cute body, and send up a silent prayer that she remembers how good-looking she thinks I am when I get down to the real reason I’m here.

“How long have you been in the biz, honey?”

“Over four years.”

“Do you have something prepared?”

“Something prepared?”

“A monologue? A song and dance? You know, something to give me an idea of what I’m working with.”

“Oh, right, right.” Because I’m an actress who acts. And sings. Fucking hell, I really oversold myself in the name of ensuring I got this appointment.

I wish I could do more than sit here as I try to figure out what to do now, but my stalling techniques are running dangerously low.

I feel like she’s Oprah and I’m the only one in the audience. You get a dilemma! You get a dilemma! And you get a dilemma! One million dilemmas for Billie Harris!

Adele pulls a cigarette out of her desk drawer and lights it. With her lips wrapped around the white stick, she takes one deep inhale and blows the residual smoke into the air. “Any day now would be great, doll.”

Jesus, Mary, and all the saints.

I inhale a shaky breath filled with secondhand smoke and stand up.

To do what? I don’t have a clue, but I’m standing.

And now, I’m pacing.

I might have most of the movie Clueless memorized, but I doubt Adele wants to watch me give her an example of what it would look like if Cher Horowitz had been from West Virginia.

Sincerely out of options and time bleeding perilously into I’ve got some kind of developmental deficit territory, I settle on telling the truth.

It’s a shot in the dark, and there are a hell of a lot of not-so-good consequences—she kicks me out, I never find Luca Weaver, and Serena Koontz chooses Charles the Errand Boy over me—but I’ve come to the end of the line.

It’s now or never.

I sigh, push the thoughts out of my head, and just…do it.

“So…I have a bit of a confession to make.” When Adele doesn’t immediately pull a shiv out of her drawer or threaten me with a lawsuit for fraud, I continue. “I lied about my appointment,” I admit. “Well, the reason for my appointment.”

Still, she doesn’t do anything besides puff on her ciggy.

“I’m not really an actress. Never acted in my life, actually. Kinda like a ballerina might not have the feet, I don’t have the chops. I’m just a girl trying like hell not to lose her job after she made the stupidest promise of her life, and, crazily enough, you might be the only person who can help me.”

Two long drags. More puffs of smoke pushed into the air.

“And I know this is a lot to ask, probably too much to ask given your disdain for the current state of