Blind Item(4)
Ryk’s egg-shaped head popped around the corner, his thick glasses magnifying his already-wide pale blue eyes. “What is it, gorgeous?”
Oh great, he’s high, Kara realized, immediately toning down her voice.
“Hey, baby,” she purred. “How many of these do you need to have filled?”
“How much do you have left?”
Kara lugged a full quart up from the floor and set it on the table. She glanced at the pile of empty quart bottles on the floor and counted.
“I have one full one left, and I’ve emptied nine.”
“How long does it take you to empty a bottle?” Ryk ambled into the room, barefoot, in skinny jeans and a tattered Electric Daisy T-shirt.
“How the hell do I know?” Kara snapped, noticing a tiny spot of antifreeze on her white suede boot. Shit. She’d been so careful.
“Figure it out, princess.” Ryk waved his hand at her dismissively. “Because that’s how much longer you’re working today.”
Kara glanced at the neatly packed boxes, each one containing fifty small plastic bottles, now filled with the neon-green fluid. At fifty cents for every bottle she filled, she figured she had earned $500 so far since starting at ten a.m.
“I’ve filled one thousand bottles, and I need to get out of here soon.”
“You asked for this job, gorgeous,” Ryk said, opening his laptop and changing the playlist. “I need as much as possible. We get twenty dollars for every one of those bottles, so if you are too tired to make the last two hundred, you’re cheating me out of four thousand bucks. So how about you hustle?”
Kara inhaled and exhaled deeply. She bent and picked up a bag from Party City and tipped a pile of small bottles made to contain children’s bubble solution onto the table. She counted out fifty into a pile and began to methodically unscrew the caps. She lined the bottles up in five rows of ten, and put the caps into a small box to her left. She popped the foil seal on the antifreeze and filled a large glass beaker.
As she was about to begin pouring the liquid into the little bottles, Ryk came around behind her and put his hands on her bare shoulders. Her skin shuddered with revulsion as he began to give her a limp, useless shoulder rub.
“Man, you’re so tense,” he murmured in her ear.
“You’re gonna make me spill this shit.”
“You could make me spill something else,” Ryk said, lifting the strap of her black tank and sliding it off her shoulder.
Kara wanted to punch him. In the seven months that she had known him, he’d gone from being Richard Rollins, IT nerd and weekend pot dealer, to EDM DJ wannabe and festival drug dealer Ryk Rollin. He was, unfortunately, a good source of income for her. Whenever he needed weed trimmed or drugs packaged, his unrequited lust for Kara would transform into a relatively good wage just when she needed cash. And now he had a reality TV crew interested in his life—which could mean bigger things for both of them.
Ryk kissed her neck. Kara tensed and forced herself to breathe.
“Hey, baby,” she laughed icily. “I have to get this finished tonight. It’s your four thousand bucks, remember?”
The back rub resumed.
“You could take a break,” he wheedled.
“I could.” Kara reached back, still refusing to turn around, and grasped his wrists firmly. “But then I’d never get this finished. Why don’t you roll us a joint and play me what you’re working on for your set on Saturday?”
She could practically hear the smile spread across Ryk’s face behind hers. His hands vanished from her shoulders and he moved back to the laptop at the other end of the table. He pulled a small pill container from his jeans pocket and tapped a nugget of weed onto the table. Kara shifted her attention back to the beaker of antifreeze as Ryk began to roll a joint.
“So what’s the latest on the TV crew coming on Saturday?” she asked with fake nonchalance.
“Well.” Ryk paused. “I’m not sure they’re coming anymore.”
Kara stood upright.
“I thought it was locked.”
“It was always kinda sorta.”
“That’s not what you said yesterday. Or last week.”
“Yeah, there’s been a problem with the lawyers. They’re worried about showing the drug stuff, and without it there’s no story.”
Kara rolled her eyes and tried to control her anger. It had been over a month since Ryk had told her that he had signed on with a production company who wanted to base a show around Ryk’s burgeoning DJ career. Kara was supposed to be his stylist and possible rap protégé on the show. She’d signed all the releases. She’d met with the producers and had even agreed to possibly becoming a dramatic love interest if the series was picked up. Filming was due to begin on their drive out to the desert this Saturday—THIS SATURDAY—for Palms Up.