Kimberley met me at the front door of my building a half hour later, holding a tray with two coffees in one hand and a delicious smelling paper bag in the other. I practically drifted over to her, drawn by the promise of a little pick-me-up. There would never be enough hours in the day to thank Kim for everything she'd done for me, and that wasn't even including tonight's treat.

"You're an angel," I said, pulling my keys from my bag and letting us into the building.

Kim grinned and made a little kissy face at me, long black hair rustling around her face in the dry breeze.

"I figured it must be something pretty urgent if you're not jumping straight into bed after your show."

I snorted. "Important is one term you could use," I said. "Batshit crazy is another."

She followed me over to the elevator. "Color me intrigued."

I laughed, snagging a coffee from the tray as we stepped inside and took a cautionary sip. Finding the coffee to be the perfect temperature, I took a deep swig.

"Color me very intrigued."

The elevator let us off just down the hall from my apartment, and I tossed my keys in the bowl just inside the door and kicked my sneakers into the corner. Kim did the same and the two of us made our way over to my ancient leather couch, which gave a croaking wheeze as we settled onto it. This couch was the first piece of furniture I ever bought, for a whopping twenty dollars at the flea market. Despite Kim's criticism, I wouldn't be parted from it for the world. To this day, it still smelled like freedom.

"So what's this big dilemma?" Kim rustled around in the paper bag and emerged with two glazed donuts. My mouth watered.

She handed one to me, and I took a bite before answering, "Do you know who Chad Harlan is?"

She took a sip of her coffee and leaned back into the sofa. "I've heard the name. He's one of those Internet celebrities, right?'

"He's like, the Internet celebrity," I corrected. "He's all about extreme adventures and crazy stunts. People eat his shit up like it's candy."

"And?"

I swallowed and licked the sugar from my lips. "He came backstage today and offered me...well, I guess you could say it's like a job."

"Like a job?" Kim repeated tartly. "Please don't tell me he wants you to—"

"No! God no!" I blurted. "At least, I don't think so..."

We hadn't discussed what exactly being his fake girlfriend would involve, something I was kicking myself for now. The excitement of the moment had been too overwhelming.

I shook my head. "Anyway, you know that's not a road I'm willing to go down. As far as I know, this is a publicity thing more than anything else. He's going to Hawaii for three weeks, and I guess he thinks it'll look good on camera to have a pretty girl at his side."

"Hawaii?" Kim's eyebrows shot up and a huge grin spread over her face. "You should have opened with Hawaii! How long have I been telling you that you need to get away?"

I tore off another bite of donut, suddenly ravenous. "That doesn't mean I should just hop on a plane with some rando with an adrenaline fetish."

"He's not some rando," she argued. "He's Chad Harlan."

"That doesn't mean anything. I'm a completely different person onstage than I am offstage. Who's to say it's going to be any different with him?"

Kim leaned over to set her coffee and uneaten donut on the table, licking the glaze from her fingers as she curled up into the corner. I eyed the donut with hungry eyes.

"So what? This could be huge for you! Think about your modeling career."

"What modeling career?" I asked bitterly.

She shook a finger at me. "Exactly! What better way to push yourself out into the world's eye than to play the part of Chad Harlan's girlfriend for a few weeks. People pay attention to those videos, babe. Important people."

Kim had been ultra-protective of me from the first moment we met, so hearing her tell me to go for it proved that my initial excitement wasn't misplaced. Still, a dark cloud of cynicism had crept in on the bus ride home.

"Doesn't it just seem a little too good to be true?"

Kim's eyes softened and she picked up her donut, handing it over to me with a warm smile. I chuckled and accepted it. The sugar and caffeine rush of her visit might keep me up tonight, but I doubt I'd be sleeping anyway with a problem like this weighing on me.

"I understand why you're worried. It's a strange situation to put yourself in, and there's always the chance that Chad's not going to be as harmless as he seems, but I think there's a lot of room for you to call the shots. Just because you're agreeing to be his fake girlfriend for a few weeks doesn't mean that he owns you. And think about how relaxing it would be to wile away your days on a beach in some fancy resort."

I sighed. "It would be nice. And there's no way I'll be able to afford anything close to that anytime soon."

Kim would jet off on a vacation with me in an instant. She'd offered to pay for one for me more times than I could count on one hand, but I always turned her down. Her meager salary at the casino might end up as more take home cash than mine, since I still had to pay for school, but she worked hard for that money and I refused to take any part of it away from her.

But here was an opportunity for me to get away without having to pay a cent. It would be a break from everything—from work, where the pressure to sleep with the customers was getting higher every day, from the hustle and bustle of the city, from the constant anxiety over money. Just endless sand beaches and the azure blue of Chad's eyes.

"What do you want to do?"

Kim's question startled me out of my reverie. I realized I'd been staring at the donut in my hand for god knows how long and took a hasty bite, chewing it over in the same way I chewed over Kim's query.

"I want to go," I said finally. "Hell, I basically shook with excitement when he first asked me. And anyway, what have I got to lose? Pretending to be Chad's girlfriend sounds like a lot of fun. I mean, have you seen the guy?"

Kim laughed and let out an exaggerated sigh. "He looks like he's composed entirely of sunshine."

Yeah, and staring at him was a little like staring into the sun, I couldn't help but think.

Giddiness overtook me, and I started to giggle. Kim soon followed suit, and before I knew it we were doubled over on the sofa, laughing like ridiculous hyenas. This trip would be the craziest thing I'd done since moving to Vegas in the first place.

Only a small amount of concern still lingered at the edge of my consciousness. I didn't like the thought of him exercising control over me just because I was technically in his employ, especially considering the nature of the job.

I sobered up a bit, catching my breath and wiping a tear from my eye. "What about going on the adventures and stuff? What if there’s some crazy shit he wants me to do that I’m not comfortable with? Do you think I can lay down some ground rules?"

Kim snorted. "Are you kidding? He came to you, babe. He picked you out from the crowd, not knowing you at all, and asked you basically to do him a favor. You've got him by the family jewels."

I wasn't so sure about that. I suspected Kim was just saying as much because she was responsive to my sensitivity about being controlled and wanted to assuage that fear as much as possible. I didn't mind. I trusted her judgement more than I trusted my own at times, and she'd pulled me out of more than my fair share of sticky situations when it came to bad ex-boyfriends and the like.

"Then it's settled." I couldn't keep my lips from turning. "You're looking at the newest girlfriend of Chad Harlan, the fabulous Ms. Brianne Reed."

Kim gave a theatrical bow. "How lovely to meet you."

"I just hope this doesn't blow up in my face."

"And if it does? Free vacation."

"True," I acknowledged. "And I guess pretending to be someone I'm not for a few weeks is a small price to pay to get an all-expenses paid trip to Hawaii."

"No doubt." Kim raised her coffee cup to mine in a toast. "A small price to pay indeed. And hey, how hard could it be?"

We tapped cups and drank.

Kim didn't know just how much she'd hit the nail on the head. How hard could pretending to be someone's girlfriend be? For me, not hard at all. Not when I'd been pretending to be someone else my entire life.