While sitting back in my chair I grow more and more annoyed that everyone is over half an hour late. They could have at least messaged or something. It’s weird for them all to be delayed.

As I play with my cell voices carry down the hall, and I blow out a puff of frustrated air knowing everyone is finally making their way to the boardroom for our scheduled meeting.

“It’s about time,” I murmur to myself under my breath.

Danger and Lunar walk through the door with giant grins on their faces. They’re always smiling, but these smiles are unusually cheerful. I furrow my brows as I sit up taller while the chatter continues behind them.

“We’re so happy you made it out on an earlier flight,” Tillie’s voice echoes in from the hall.

She walks in with Ryan and Oliver all looking back like someone is walking with them. I shake my head slightly wondering who they’re talking about.

“Oh… so am I. Taking a night flight would have done horrendous things to my complexion,” a husky, sensual female voice declares which immediately stirs something deep inside of me. The voice is like smooth honey and it awakens every molecule of my being.

I’m instantly more awake as Matt walks through the door smiling widely, and in behind him flounces a slender, olive-skinned goddess. Her chestnut, long, wavy hair flows lustrously down over her shoulders framing her oval face perfectly. Her supple lips call out to me as she stands in the doorway with her hip angled to the right. My eyes widen as I imagine a vibrant white aura glowing around her like the angel she portrays. She is pure magnificence and my cock hardens instantly under the table just from staring at her tiny frame.

I know her instantly.

I’ve seen all her movies.

It’s Zaria Shafir.

The actress who has a starring role in our music video.

“Oh shit… Nate, how long have you been waiting?” Oliver asks breaking my gaze reluctantly away from Zaria.

She walks in completely ignoring me and smiling at Matt as he ushers her to a seat at the table.

With a small exhale, I swallow hard trying to gain some composure. “Like half an hour I’ve been waiting. You know… since the time the meeting was supposed to start.”

“Sorry. I got the call that Zaria was flying in early so I called Danger and told him to meet me at the airport, he told Ryan who was with Matt at the time and I guess we just kinda forgot to let you know. Sorry again, Nate,” Oliver says while Lunar winces and frowns.

I huff and shake my head slightly.

See what I mean?

“Yeah, well, we’re all here now so—”

“What, no bitchy comment?” Danger quips with a chuckle.

Feeling somewhat completely deflated now I can’t help but think, I’m so over this shit.

“I really can’t be bothered,” I say almost in a whisper and sit back in my chair glancing over at Zaria who’s smiling playfully at Matt.

Figures.

“Zaria is here to discuss how things are going to work with the production of the music video. Obviously, in the clip she’s going to be Danger’s love interest… considering he’s the lead singer. I know this is going to be weird, Lunar, but I assure you they will be acting,” Oliver says.

Lunar nods with a smile as Zaria plays with her cell like she isn’t even paying attention.

“Will I be able to be there during filming?” Lunar asks.

“I guess that’s up to Danger and Zaria,” Oliver replies.

“I’m fine with it if you are, Zaria?” Danger queries.

Zaria looks up from her cell and opens her eyes wide. “Oh… sorry… what? Um… can I get a drink, please? I’m parched… thanks.” She looks back down to her cell without blinking an eye.

I’m liking that Zaria might be a bit of a handful for these guys, so I sit back in my chair and fold my arms over my chest. They thought I was a bitch? Maybe Zaria will up the ante in the bitch stakes.

Danger glances at Lunar and clears his throat. “Um… I was saying, Zaria… would it be okay if Lunar was there while we filmed the music video?”

She waves her hand through the air and nods like she couldn’t give two flying fucks about anything except herself. “Yes, sure sure. About that drink can it be sparkling water with a squeeze of lemon, please? Three cubes of ice, thanks.” She smiles so brightly I’m sure the sun just shone brightly from her mouth.

Tillie’s eyes just stare and I smirk as she stands up from the table and walks out of the room. I’m assuming to get Zaria her very specific drink.

Zaria looks up, her eyes scan the room like she’s bored. She casually looks at me and continues scanning, then suddenly her eyes flick back to me. She brings her pointer finger to her chin and giggles. “Twins hey? You two look practically identical. How can I tell you apart?”

“I have a bigger cock,” Matt replies.

I roll my eyes as she scoffs out a laugh.

“Hmm… no really, how do I tell you apart?”

This is probably my only opportunity to talk to her, so I take it. “I have a sleeve of tattoos, Matt only has a few.”

She raises an eyebrow and purses her lips. “So you’re the bad boy brother then?”

My lips turn up on one side. “I’m the more artistic one.”

She smiles and it’s genuine. “I like art. I’m not much for the smart-mouthed ones.” She glances over at Matt. “They think they’re better than everyone else, and they generally tend to have the smaller cock… in my experience.”

A bubble of laughter bursts out from my mouth while Matt gawks and the others chuckle.

It’s nice to have someone on my side for a change.

Tillie comes back into the room with Zaria’s glass of sparkling water, with three ice cubes and a squeeze of lemon. I smirk as she places it down in front of her.

“Here you go, Zaria, just like you asked.”

Zaria tenses while looking at the glass and her face squeezes into a frown. “It doesn’t have a straw.”

Tillie looks to me and raises an eyebrow. “Okay, um… would you like a straw, Zaria?”

“I need a straw! If you took the time to read my list of requirements before I arrived, you would’ve seen that I always, always drink. From. A. Straw!” she says the last few words succinctly. “Urgh, get me a damn straw,” she demands.

Tillie turns quickly and races out of the room as everyone looks at everyone else while Zaria pants harshly through her nose trying to calm herself down.

“We’re sorry for the oversight, Zaria. It won’t happen again,” Oliver says.

“See that it doesn’t. Now can we please order some food or something? Everyone… go get me a menu from various places, I like to have a selection…”

Everyone just sits there looking at each other and the facial expressions they are pulling tell the story.

“Go.” She waves her hands around and everyone stands up quickly. “Except you artist, you stay.” She points to me, and Matt frowns as everyone else walks out of the room.

“Right, don’t just sit there… come here,” she says patting the seat Matt just vacated.

I furrow my brows wondering what the fuck world I’ve just stepped into.

Tillie comes back in as I walk around and sit down next to Zaria. She places the straw into the glass and positions a menu neatly in front of Zaria.

“Thank you, Matilda. Now… please find me another menu,” she says.

Tillie looks to me and scrunches up her face, but turns and walks out of the room leaving me with the diva.

She looks to me and slumps in her seat like she’s relaxing her persona. Zaria sighs and picks up the drink taking a small sip of the water, and smiles as her lips release the pink straw. Her eyes glance down at the pizza menu and she looks from it to me and nods.

Instantly I tense up as a cold sweat invades my body.

She puts the glass down on the table and hands me the menu. “What’s your pick? Read me the best thing, in your opinion, from the menu, artist.”

My heart races and a sweat bead forms on my temple. I feel the color drain from my face as I look down at the piece of paper. It looks so innocent. So bright and colorful, but this shit is why I feel so worthless.

“I ah… I don’t know this place. Maybe you should choose?” I hand the menu to her.

She furrows her brow pushing it back to me. “No, I don’t know what’s good pizza, I never eat it. But I know you will ‘cause artists always eat pizza. So you pick.”

Swallowing hard, I don’t want to look like a dick in front of her, so I open the menu and look down at the page. My head starts to spin as I look at the words, while the letters all start to swirl and jumble together.

“Umm… ahhh… pizza… umm—” I swipe my forehead wiping away the sweat that’s gathered and take a deep breath.

“Artist?”

I glance up to see her looking at me with a kind soft stare. Her hand reaches out and she rests her fingers on my arm. Something passes through me, and I see her breathing hitch at the same time as mine.

She half-smiles and takes a deep breath. “Oh my God… you… you can’t read. Can you?”

I jolt back swallowing hard and begin to shake my head. “What? No! Of course I can.”

She winces and frowns. “It’s okay, you don’t have to be ashamed.”

“No, I’m not. I can read, I’m not stupid!”

She shakes her head. “No, no, of course you’re not stupid. Don’t think that. Please don’t think that I think that either. Hey, it is okay, honestly. I’m sorry... the others don’t know do they?”

While feeling like a complete idiot, I tense up. As I go to say something, anything to change the topic, Tillie walks in with another menu.

“Here’s a Thai menu, Zaria. In case you’re not into pizza.”

“Thank you, Tillie. Where is everyone else? I need variety. I want to see all the menus not just pizza and Thai,” she demands.

I wonder if for a moment she showed me a glimpse of someone else. For just a moment in time before Tillie walked in she wasn’t the diva she is now. Zaria was kind of nice after she figured out my secret, but as soon as Tillie walked into the room she was back to full diva mode.

I think there’s more to Zaria Shafir than meets the eye.

“Umm… they’re out finding other menus. They shouldn’t be too…” The others all stroll back in. “Oh, here they are now. Guys do you have more take-out menus?” Tillie asks opening her eyes wide at them all—I’m sure if she wasn’t the uber professional she is, she would be eye rolling right about now.

They all wave something in the air and walk around the table taking their seats.

“Okay, so we’ll have one thing from every menu. I like to have variety,” Zaria demands.

We all raise our eyebrows looking at the probably twenty plus menus lying on the table in front of us.

“Umm… sure. Do you know what you want from each place, Zaria?” Tillie asks.

She waves her hand in the air and curls her lip up. “I don’t care. Just order number seven on every menu. But tell them to make it snappy, I’m hungry.”

Lunar scoffs out a laugh as she tries but fails to hold it in. Zaria looks at her and raises her eyebrow as if to say ‘what are you laughing at?’ Lunar quickly gathers herself and looks down to her hands on the table, hiding any sort of further reaction.

“Okay, well, Tillie, you go and order the food and we’ll discuss meeting next week for the filming of the music video,” Oliver says.

 

***

 

With all plans regarding Zaria settled for filming the music video in a week, food ordered and eaten— with a massive amount of leftovers—the meeting is practically over and I’m still as nervous sitting next to Zaria as I was when she first walked in. Although we haven’t said another word to each other since we were alone together, and she’s still carrying on like a spoiled diva, I feel like she’s putting on some sort of act. Like this is all a performance and this diva attitude is just a persona and it’s not the real Zaria.

I wonder what the ‘real’ Zaria is like.

Once you strip down this opinionated, domineering act… what would remain of the actual woman?

Maybe I’m wrong and she really is a massive cow like she’s portraying. Who really knows?

I’m not buying what she’s selling at this point, unlike everyone else who’s gone from acting scared of her to sending Zaria sideways glares when she’s not looking.

“I have to use the ladies, I’ll be right back,” Zaria announces out of nowhere. She stands up quickly and proceeds to walk out of the room.

Everyone stops talking like someone flicked a switch to silent, then they all watch her walk out. Once she’s left the room, everyone collectively lets out a big sigh.

“Jesus Christ, she is crazy! Like batshit, balls to the wall, mother fucking crazy,” Lunar says.

“I know, talk about a diva complex. They say that pop stars are divas. Well, I’m pretty sure Oscar-winners take the cake as far as I’m concerned,” Tillie replies.

“She’s an A-list actress, she’s supposed to be a diva,” I say, feeling like someone needs to stand up for her while she’s out of the room.

“Diva sure, but not an asshole!” Lunar replies.

Tillie and Lunar laugh rather loudly as Zaria walks back in.

Everyone falls silent as Zaria swallows hard, her eyes focused like she obviously heard what was said. But she walks in shaking her head slightly as if she’s shaking it off.

Zaria sits back down and exhales. “Tillie, get me another drink. And don’t forget the straw this time! Ta.”

Lunar rolls her eyes as Tillie stands up and rushes off to grab another drink for Zaria.

“We’re all done here for the night. Everyone’s free to go if they so wish,” Oliver announces breaking the tension in the room.

They all stand ridiculously quickly and rush out, leaving only Zaria and me in the room watching as they all bolt out like a stampede of bargain hunters at the local Walmart.

Zaria slumps in her chair like she’s finally able to relax into herself and I tap my fingers lightly on the table while watching her façade wash away. The more I think about it the more I realize she was putting on a show tonight. I just don’t know why the hell someone would want to do that.

Suddenly, she turns to me and plasters a fake smile. “So, honestly, tell me… you can’t read can you?”

I groan. “No… I can.”

She shakes her head and huffs. “Artist, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Believe me, I don’t think any less of you. Really, just tell me, I’m not going to tell the others. Promise.”

I tense up and swallow hard. There’s something about her that tells me I can trust her. That she isn’t going to inform the others if I do admit it to her. She’s already guessed, so I may as well spill the beans and admit it so I don’t keep looking like a bigger idiot than I already feel like.

“My brother knows, but Danger and Ryan don’t. They probably suspect but don’t know for sure.”

She half-smiles and pats my shoulder in a kind gesture. “I will teach you.”

I furrow my brows and tilt my head. “Umm… what?”

“I’ll teach you how to read. I’m a really good teacher and promise I won’t be too hard on you. Plus, I’m going to be around for a little while now so we have plenty of time.”

I shake my head ever so slightly more in shock than anything else, then let out a laugh. “No, really, you don’t have to do that.”

“Shush. I won’t take no for an answer, artist. But first things first… you better tell me your actual name, I can’t keep calling you artist.”

I let out a bemused laugh. “I’m Nate.”

She smiles and her eyes sparkle with kindness. It takes my breath away and melts my heart at the same time.

“Well Nate, it’s nice to meet you. Take out your cell, I’ll put my number in it and we can meet up for private lessons. This is going to be great, I can tell.”

Pulling out my cell phone I hand it to her…

To Zaria Shafir.

Oscar-winning A-list actress.

Who is not only being nice to me but is now my private tutor?

What the fuck?