The whole month of January was one big blur. The first thing I did was sign an agent. I met with several, but in the end, Harvey Buchman was the only one I trusted to consider my personal concerns and help me build the career I wanted versus building the one that would make me the most rich and famous.
Once it was official, we squeezed as much into the two weeks prior to my surgery as we could. We started contracts on a movie deal, and a documentary, and Brian and I did a few talk show appearances. Then, my surgery and all the extra physical therapy took up most of the second half of the month.
Any free time I had I spent plotting the layout of the new Ellamara’s Words of Wisdom with Scott. We’d made a great start, and Scott had convinced me right away to start some kind of webisode series. I decided to start a sort of video diary. I called it My Fairy Tale Life. It was just little five to ten minute episodes where I chronicled all the craziness of my life now that I was suddenly a celebrity. People were eating it up.
It’d been a crazy, hectic month but a very good one. And the best part about it was that I found a fantastic apartment. Now, it was February first, and I finally had keys. Today was moving day, and things had been severely complicated when this crazy delivery of random packages was dropped off from my agency’s office early this morning.
Vivian, my good friend Rob, and I were all sitting in the living room, sifting through a sea of letters and packages when Juliette arrived. “Come in,” I shouted when Juliette knocked, because I was buried in stuff and unwilling to risk knocking over any of the piles I’d sorted or tripping and killing myself in the chaos. “Thanks for coming. You’re just in time to help us sort through everything.”
“Just in time?” Vivian laughed. “You’d be just in time six hours from now, too. We’re going to be here all day.”
“Whoa,” Juliette said when she stepped inside. “What is all this?”
I looked around at the clutter and sighed. “It’s a combination of get-well wishes, fan mail, and housewarming gifts.”
Juliette blinked at the mess. My living room, which didn’t even have furniture yet, was filled to the brim with cards, balloons, flowers, and all sorts of random household items. It looked like I was opening all the gifts from the world’s largest wedding reception.
“Remember how in last week’s webisode she gushed about how excited she was to be moving into her first apartment?” Vivian asked.
“And then,” Rob added, “she naively joked that she was going to be sleeping on the floor and eating off paper plates forever because she couldn’t physically go shopping for long periods of time, and she didn’t have any of her own stuff yet?” He waved at the pile of gifts. “Meet the result of that joke.”
I groaned. Having over five million subscribers on YouTube had repercussions I’d never expected. I’d been posting one My Fairy Tale Life video a week since the beginning of January, and in just one month, I was already ranked in the top 300 most popular YouTubers. It was insane.
After last week’s webisode went live—the episode where I got to take the bandages off after my surgery and I introduced my rehab team to the world—the fan mail and gifts had started arriving by the next day. The only physical address anyone had for me was my new management team’s offices, so that’s where people sent stuff. Because my agent was the head of the entire company, they’d been kind and stored the stuff for me, since I wasn’t in my apartment yet. But when they’d dropped off a truckload of mail this morning, they’d kindly asked me to invest in a P.O. box and warned me they would be forwarding all deliveries to my apartment from now on. I didn’t blame them.
When Juliette finally got situated on the floor with us, Vivian handed her a giant stack of envelopes to open. “Here. You can start with these. A lot of them are from retailers and have gift cards as housewarming gifts in them. Keep those. We’re going to collect them all and donate them to a battered women’s shelter or a children’s group home or something.”
“And I’m going through all the actual stuff,” I said, holding up a small crystal clock that would look great on a bookshelf…as soon as I had a bookshelf. “You’re all welcome to go through it, too, and then we’ll donate the rest of it with the gift cards.”
“Wow,” Juliette breathed as she tore through the seal of an envelope. “This is crazy.”
“Oh, and skim the fan letters,” Vivian added. “Ella can’t possibly reply to everything, so we’re just looking for anything that seems important. If it’s like little ten-year-old Marcie who is a car accident survivor like Ella and sent a thank-you letter with a picture because she’s in a wheelchair and is trying to learn to walk again and Ella’s an inspiration, then keep it. Ella wants those. But if it’s just normal gushy You’re so pretty and funny fan mail or nasty, perverted stuff, toss it.”
“Unless it’s so creepy and stalkerish that we need to give it to the cops,” I joked.
Juliette glanced at me, stunned. “Have there been a lot of those?”
“None yet.” I laughed. “I’ve just been on a Janice Bishop kick since Christmas, so my mind keeps going to all these dark, twisted places.”
Juliette shook her head, both scowling and laughing. “That’s not funny. It’s only a matter of time before some psycho really does try to go fatal attraction on you, you know.”
“Sorry. I guess it’s not that funny when you put it that way. But hey, I’m safe here. Promise. The security in this building is really tight. Brian wouldn’t have let me move in otherwise.”
“Yeah, I noticed the security.”
Something in her voice made me look up from the box I was opening. “What is it?”
Juliette hesitated but quickly broke. “Dad came with me today.”
My eyebrows jumped up my forehead so high my face hurt. “Dad was here?”
She nodded gravely. “He was going to come up and try to talk to you, but he wasn’t on your approved list of visitors. The front desk guy said he could call you and ask if he could come up, but Dad said no and stormed out because he didn’t think you’d say yes.”
I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I wasn’t as angry with my father anymore as I had been at first, but I was resigned to a life without him. I was even mostly convinced that I was better off.
Juliette sighed. “He’s going crazy. It’s been over a month, and you still haven’t answered a single phone call or e-mail.”
I ground my teeth. “That’s kind of the point of disowning someone.”
Juliette nodded, but she looked sad. “I know, but he feels so bad. He didn’t mean for you to sever all ties. He was just angry that day because of all those things those jerks said about us. He was scared, Ella. He didn’t mean to hurt you.”
I closed my eyes and let out a long breath as I shook my head. “He never means to hurt me, but he always does.”
I didn’t think Juliette would mention anything else about it, but she very quietly said, “I think he’s learned his lesson this time. I get it if you can’t forgive him, but I really wish you would at least try.”
When I finally looked at her, her eyes shone with a layer of moisture. “He’s a wreck, and we all miss you. Even Ana does. She was finally starting to warm up to you.”
I frowned. “But I still see you all the time, and how much can Ana really miss me? I’ve said to invite her every time you’ve come over since I left.” I looked around the room. “I notice she’s not here…again.”
Juliette’s eyes flashed with anger. “It’s not the same, Ella. You were part of our family, and now you’re not. And Ana is just embarrassed. She feels guilty. The lingerie thing was her fault. Even Brian said so. She thinks you both blame her and hate her.”
“Oh, come on. Brian was just pissed at Dad that day. He even apologized right away.”
“Yeah, but he still thought it enough to say it.”
I sighed. “Well, technically she did start it, but in her own way she’d only been trying to help me, and if not for Erik Clarke—which she had no clue about—it would have been fine. We don’t blame her. You know we don’t.”
“Yeah, I know you don’t. But, have you ever tried to tell Ana that? Have you spoken to her at all since you left, or just invited her over through me?”
Juliette held my gaze with unrelenting directness while I mulled over her scolding. That was one of the things I loved about her. She spoke her mind. She loved me and supported me and was my friend, my sister, even. But when she was mad at me or disappointed in me, she let me know it. This time, she was right.
With a nod of acceptance, I pulled out my phone and dialed Ana’s number—quite possibly for the first time ever. Juliette quirked a brow, but some of the light came back to her eyes and the side of her mouth twitched, threatening to turn up into a smile.
“Hello?” Ana’s voice had an edge to it and held a fair amount of astonishment, but she’d answered, and it hadn’t been with a What the hell do you want?
Figuring Ana wouldn’t appreciate some sappy apology, or even for me to bring the topic up at all, I simply said, “Get your bony butt over here. Dad brought Juliette over, so I know you have a car. Juliette will need a ride home eventually, and I need another minion to come help me sort through all this junk. And before you snark, minions get to claim any treasures they find that I don’t want—of which, I assure you, there are plenty—so hurry up, before everyone else snags all the good stuff.”
Amused grunts and snorts sounded all around me. One even came through the phone, and Ana said, “My butt is not bony.” There was a short pause, and a less certain voice said, “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
I wasn’t surprised when the call cut off. “There,” I said, as I texted her the address and parking instructions. “She’ll be here in twenty minutes.”
I got a bunch of curious looks, but no one said anything. We all just got back to work. Juliette decided to break the silence as she ripped open a letter. “So I’m sure Rob didn’t mention that he’s seeing someone.”
“What?” I gasped, whipping my head to my strong and silent friend. “You didn’t tell me that!”
Rob rolled his eyes. “It’s not serious.”
“It’s totally serious,” Vivian said, earning a look of annoyance from Rob.
When I grinned, he shot that annoyance at me. “We’re just kind of hanging out right now. It’s nothing worth all their fussing.”
He nodded toward Juliette and Vivian and went back to concentrating really hard on the envelope in his hands.
“Does she have a name?” I teased. “How did you guys meet? What does ‘hanging out’ mean? Kissing? Dating? Exclusive? Are you smitten? Come on, I want details. I hate that I’m so out of the loop now that I don’t go to school anymore.”
“Her name’s Marian Fitzwalter,” Juliette said, giggling hysterically. “Just transferred to Beverly Hills Prep after Christmas break. She’s a super cute brunette who seems kind of sweet but feisty.”
“Kind of like someone else we know.” Vivian laughed, giving me a pointed look. “Seems our coveted soccer captain has a specific type.”
Rob shook his head at the jest and tossed the letter in his hands into a bulging trash bag before reaching for the next one on his pile.
I grinned when I noticed the slight blush on his cheeks. Rob had crushed on me for a while. People made it out to seem like it was this huge, epic crush, and I’d been afraid when I had to let him down, that I’d break his heart. But if he’d been left pining, he’d never shown it. We’d easily remained close friends. I was glad he’d found someone else.
“Wait,” I said, as something occurred to me. “Robin Loxley is dating a girl named Marian?”
Juliette and Vivian burst into laughter, as if they’d been waiting for me to make the connection this whole time.
Rob groaned. He hated Robin Hood references, and still hadn’t forgiven his parents for naming him Robin when his last name was Loxley. They thought they were being clever, but instead, they’d simply cursed their son to a lifetime of torment. His only defense was that his last name was spelled differently than the old heroic outlaw from folklore. He always mentioned that, but it totally didn’t help. The poor guy. He’d started punching anyone who called him Robin somewhere around the start of middle school, and the teasing mostly stopped after that. Rob has a mean right hook.
Deciding not to torture my friend any more than I’m sure he’d already been teased since the development of this new relationship, I settled for shaking my head. “What a crazy coincidence.”
“Or maybe it’s fate,” Juliette said, eliciting another groan from Rob.
He ripped into another envelope with a sigh, muttering something about ridiculous parents and then sprang to his feet when the apartment’s phone rang. “I’ll get it.”
He moved so fast that we all burst into laughter. After a quick exchange, he handed me the phone. “It’s your doorman.”
“Hello?”
“Hello, Miss Ella?” I grinned at the greeting. My doorman was a sweet little Puerto Rican man named Yeriel. I’d gotten pretty familiar with him when the surprise delivery truck showed up. I’d told him that he could just call me Ella, but he couldn’t seem to drop the Miss. “I have another delivery for you.”
“Another one?” My stomach clenched. Would they just keep coming? I’d have to hire a whole team of people just to deal with my mail, if this kept up.
“Yes, Miss Ella. Not to worry, though. It looks like it’s just your furniture. Shall I send them up?”
“My furniture?” I hadn’t ordered any living room furniture yet. I hadn’t had time. Furniture was supposed to be my main to-do this week starting this morning, but I’d been sidetracked by the mail. “Um…is there a note or a card or something?”
“Hold on. I can check.” I started to explain what was going on to my friends when Yeriel’s voice came back with an understanding “Ah.”
“Ah, what?”
“It appears the furniture is another gift. Would you like me to refuse it?”
“Uh…” I honestly didn’t know what to say. “Someone sent me a whole living room set? Seriously?”
“Is it ugly?” Juliette yelled.
“What?” she said, when I frowned at her. “You don’t have any living room furniture yet.”
Over the phone, Yeriel chuckled. “It looks very tasteful, Miss Ella,” he said, having heard Juliette. “And expensive. It’s nice. You might like it.”
I sighed. “All right. Send it up, I guess.”
Yeriel laughed again. “Straightaway, Miss Ella.”
When I hung up the phone, Vivian was pointing my video camera at me. “Dude,” she said. “You just got sent living room furniture as a housewarming gift from a random stranger. This totally belongs on My Fairy Tale Life.”
“Well, watch where you point that thing. Juliette doesn’t have a signed waiver from her parents to be on my webisodes, and I seriously doubt Dad is going to let me put her on the Internet.”
Juliette frowned. “I have to get permission?”
I nodded. “Scotty’s making me do everything by the rules. Something about not wanting to get sued. Everyone who appears on the show has to sign a release form. You aren’t eighteen yet, so you can’t sign it yourself.”
“Lame.” Juliette pouted. “I’ll ask, but you’re right. Dad definitely won’t agree to it.”
Vivian shrugged as she took shots of all the piles of mail. “Whatever. We’ll just have your face blurred out or something.”
“Double lame.”
I laughed just as there was a knock on the door.
“Who just sends someone a whole living room set?” Rob asked as he helped me to my feet.
“I don’t know. Some designer who hopes I film lots of webisodes while sitting on it?”
“Are you going to keep it?” Rob asked.
I shrugged. “May as well, I guess. I don’t have any yet.”
“What if it’s totally ugly?” Juliette asked.
I shrugged again. “Yeriel said it looked nice.”
When I opened the door, Juliette dashed past me into the hall and gasped. “Oh, Ella, it’s fabulous! We’re totally keeping this!”
“We?” I laughed. “If you want it to stay, then come in here and help clear a spot for it.”
The delivery guys looked surprised when they saw the mess in the living room. I grinned sheepishly. “You aren’t the first to drop off a surprise delivery today. I guess just set it along the wall in the hall for now? It’s going to take us a few minutes to make room for it.”
“Sure.” The burly mover guy motioned to his crew to set the stuff down and handed me a clipboard to sign. “We’ve got to go get the rest anyway.”
“The rest?”
The man seemed indifferent to my surprise. His mind was already back downstairs with the rest of his delivery. He looked at his clipboard and nodded. “This is just the living and dining room stuff. There’s a bedroom set and some office furniture, too.”
I supposed I should be used to the surprises by now, but I still gaped at the man. “They’re furnishing the whole apartment? Who?”
“Dunno, ma’am. Some interior designer to the stars. There’s a card somewhere. We’ll be back in a minute with the rest of it.” He eyed the mess in my apartment warily. “Try to at least clear a path so we can get furniture into the other rooms.”
With that, the man gathered up his other three guys, and they headed back to the elevator. I left the door open for them and turned to face my friends, stunned. “It’s the whole apartment.”
“Crazy,” Vivian murmured.
Everyone jumped to action, trying to clear as much space as possible. A minute later, the house phone rang again. Considering the only time it had done that all day was when Yeriel called me, I groaned as I answered it. “Please tell me it’s not another delivery. I honestly don’t have room for anything else.”
Yeriel laughed. “No, Miss Ella. Mr. Oliver and Mr. Thompson are here, but they have a couple of guests with them who are not on your list.” He cleared his throat and spoke a little lower. “He, uh, said he recruited a little extra manpower to help with the move. May I send them up?”
I laughed once. “Yeah, sure. Brian and Scott are welcome to bring up whoever they want. Tell them they’re right on time.”
When I hung up the phone, I grinned at my friends who were still scurrying about the living room. “Excellent news. Brian’s here, and he’s brought help.”
“Brian Oliver recruited help?” Vivian set another box out of the way and picked up the video camera again. “This ought to be good.”
Not two minutes later, Brian called out using some kind of deep cheesy porno voice as he knocked on my door. “Special delivery for Ellamara Rodriguez.”
I shrugged at the inquisitive looks my friends all shot me. “What can I say? He’s a dork.”
“Perfect.” Vivian hit record on the video camera and gave me a cheeky grin as she pointed it toward the door. “We need shots of him when he’s in a silly mood, because he’s usually so grumpy or serious toward the public.”
I let her have her fun. After all, the girl had a point. Even Brian’s agents had mentioned I was good for his image because I made him seem more personable. “Come on in,” I called. “Just be careful and watch your step. We’ve cleared a little room, but it’s still pretty chaotic in here.”
Brian walking through the door carrying a small coffee table wasn’t wholly unexpected. The fact that he was shirtless, however, was a bit surprising. When I cocked a questioning brow at him, he gave me a big, cheesy grin to match the ridiculous porn star voice he’d adopted. “I’ve got a nice big package for you, Miss Rodriguez. Is there anywhere special you’d like me to stick it?”
My eyes bulged, and I slapped a hand over my reddening face. “Oh my gosh, Brian!” I shrieked while Juliette, Vivian, and even the extremely reserved Rob burst into laughter. “You did not just say that.”
Brian finally lost his composure, and, after setting the coffee table down, scooped me into his arms to give me a kiss and a very insincere apology. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist. And I didn’t realize you’d have company.”
He noticed Vivian holding the video camera and looked startled. “Did you just get all of that on film?”
“Oh yeah,” Vivian said proudly, still aiming the camera at him.
Brian shot me a pleading look. “You’ll edit that out of your webisode, right?”
I laughed louder than he had a minute ago. “Are you kidding? What’s more fitting for My Fairy Tale Life than Porn Star Brian delivering me packages?”
Brian narrowed his eyes at me, trying to figure out if I was serious. I held my smirk like a pro. Of course I wouldn’t post it if he really didn’t want me to, but he didn’t have to know that yet. “Would you cut it if I gave you something better?” he asked.
“Better than Porno Brian?” Juliette asked. She sounded skeptical that something better existed. I have to admit, I shared her skepticism.
Brian whistled loudly. “Okay, boys! Bring it on in!”
I turned my eyes to my open front door just in time to watch two of Hollywood’s biggest action stars—also minus their shirts—carry my new couch into my apartment.
My jaw dropped.
Jesse Ramos was a popular action movie star. If you needed a display of muscles, lots of guns, and explosions, Jesse topped your list. He’d been in a couple of Brian’s dad’s films, and I assumed that’s how the two met.
Rhett Kessler was more of an action-thriller star. He was the sexy, smart, espionage type. His movies had lots of fancy parkour stunts and ninja fights for the action lovers and the quippy sarcasm and dreamy smiles that got the women to the theater along with the men. Brian had mentioned him before, and I’d gotten the impression Rhett was one of Brian’s closer friends.
They were both very easy on the eyes. And they were standing, shirtless, in my living room waiting for me to tell them where to set down my new couch.
“Is it just me,” Rob muttered, “or did the cast of Hostile Takeover just show up to help Ella move?”
“Holy crap!” Juliette said.
Vivian nodded. “Okay, yeah, we can erase Porno Brian for this. Talk about a fairy tale.”
Both startlingly familiar faces grinned at my friends before turning their smiles on me. “Hope you don’t mind us showing up unexpectedly,” Rhett said, flashing me a boyish grin as he and Jesse found a spot in the living room clear enough to set the couch down.
Jesse stretched after dropping the sofa and nodded in agreement. “Yeah, we ran into Brian at the studio, and when he mentioned you might need a little extra muscle today, well…” He flexed his arms and flashed me a cocky smile.
I finally managed to stop gaping and shot the man a wry smirk. “I’d say the two of you definitely qualify as muscle.”
They both laughed, and Jesse stepped toward me, hand outstretched. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
“Finally?”
I shook his hand and held mine out to Rhett next. He ignored it and pulled me into a gentle hug, surprising me with both his sense of familiarity and his awareness of my condition. Never mind that he was shirtless and I was so much shorter than him that my face was plastered against his bulging pectorals. “Yeah, finally.” He laughed. “This fool has talked about nothing but you since he met you at FantasyCon. I’ve been asking him for weeks when he was going to let me have a proper chance to steal you from him.”
Brian laughed but pulled me away from his friend and tucked me tightly to his side. I was relieved to have the breathing room, but I gave a mental eye roll at the silent display of possession. I didn’t think Brian even realized he was doing it. Men.
A knock and a tentative “Excuse me, miss?” had us all turning toward the door. The delivery guy was back with the rest of the furniture and was eyeing all the shirtless men in the apartment warily. When he realized who they all were, his mouth fell open. He glanced back at me with wide eyes, and I couldn’t think of anything except to shrug helplessly and say, “Need some extra muscle to bring everything in?”