Chapter 2 TERRIBLE TIMING
AUDREY'S POV
The camera cost four hundred dollars.
I know because I looked it up the second I got home, sitting on my bed with the broken thing in my lap like I was holding a crime scene. Matilda's Canon EOS. She had saved up for it after working as a babysitter for three summers. Four. Hundred. Dollars.
Oh god.
I put it on my desk face down, so I didn't have to look at it.
I hadn't even told her. I had to. But how the hell would I explain to my best friend that her very expensive camera was broken because I was too busy running my mouth to watch where I was going?
With a deep breath, I dialed her number and spilled everything to her as soon as she picked up.
She took it better than I deserved.
"It's okay," she said, which was such a Matilda thing to say that I almost felt worse. "It was an accident."
"I'll replace it." I immediately said.
"Audrey, you don't have to —"
"I'll replace it," I repeated again. Final. Not up for debate.
As soon as she hung up, I lay back in my bed and started thinking of how to make the money for it. I didn't even have a freaking job. My bank account had sixty-three dollars in it. Sixty-three. I'd spent the rest on textbooks last month because biomedical science had a personal vendetta against students who wanted to eat.
Four hundred dollars.
I shut my eyes.
Okay. Think.
Damon was eating cereal at the kitchen counter when I came out the next morning. Yes, he was thirty-three years old and still preferred cereal for breakfast. Very concerning, but whatever.
"Morning," he said, not looking up from his phone.
"Morning." I poured myself coffee and leaned against the counter, and tried to figure out the best angle of approach.
It was probably best to be straightforward with him.
"I need money," I blurted out.
He looked up. "How much?"
"Four hundred."
He put his spoon down. "Audrey."
"I broke Matilda's camera. It was an accident." I wrapped both hands around my mug. "I'll pay you back. I can help with paperwork, or filing, or whatever you need done at the office —"
"Four hundred dollars of paperwork?"
"I type fast."
His expression twisted into one of amusement. Almost like he wasn't sure if he should sigh or laugh at me. Maybe both.
"Terrible timing," he said, more to himself than me. He picked up his phone again, scrolled through something, and put it back down. "I'm drowning right now."
"I know. I'm sorry. I wouldn't ask if —"
"It's not about the money." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I've got a situation with a client. PR nightmare. I'm trying to pull together a whole shoot in less than two weeks, and one of my participants just backed out."
I thought about asking, but decided not to. That wasn't my business. "So is that a no?"
"It's a maybe." He slid off the stool and brought his bowl to the sink. "Come by the office tomorrow. I'll find something for you to do. And Audrey—" he pointed at me without turning around. “For the love of God, try to stop breaking stuff.”
My palms felt sweaty. “It was an accident.”
He gave me a sly look. “Uh huh. Tomorrow. My office, okay?”
I nodded vigorously. I'd be there.
His office always looked like organized chaos if that was even a word — folders everywhere, two monitors running at once, a whiteboard covered in names and arrows and things underlined three times. I liked it in there, actually. This was probably how it felt like in his brain.
I sat at the small desk in the corner he kept for me on days like this and pulled up the files he'd left open. Participant profiles. Program scripts. A reality show— some kind of celebrity swap format, regular person trades lives with a public figure for a week or two. I'd seen the format before. The kind of thing that got millions of views because people loved watching famous people be bad at normal things.
The celebrity in question was listed at the top of the brief.
I stared at the name for a second.
Lewis Jeremy.
Oh.
Oh, that was Damon's PR nightmare.
That bastard.
I looked at the whiteboard from across the room. His name was up there too, circled twice, with BEANPOT — FALLOUT written next to it and underlined so hard the marker had nearly gone through the paper.
So that's what this was. Someone had punched someone on camera, and now my brother was the one losing sleep over it.
I turned back to the files and kept sorting. Not my problem. I just needed four hundred dollars.
The profiles were straightforward — civilian participants, background checks, and availability windows. I helped organize them, and I was halfway through the script notes when Damon came back in looking like he hadn't slept for weeks. Very different from how he walked out this morning.
"How's it going?" he asked, dropping into his chair.
"Almost done with the profiles. You've got three solid candidates left after the conflicts." I turned the screen toward him. "Also, your script has a continuity issue in episode three; the timeline doesn't match the game schedule."
He looked at the screen and then at me. "You're better at this than half my actual staff."
"I know. Four hundred dollars." I stretched out my hand.
He almost smiled. "Three days," he said. "Come back in three days, and we'll talk."
Of course.
He was already back on his phone before I reached the door.
Three days later, I walked in on a disaster.
Not literally— I mean, the office looked the same. But Damon was on a call, pacing, and the whiteboard had new words on it now. Big ones. REPLACEMENT NEEDED IN 72 HRS.
I sat down and waited.
He hung up and stood there for a second with his hand still on his phone, staring at nothing.
"The participant pulled out," he said.
"Which one?"
"The one signed for the show." He finally turned around. He looked exhausted. "Three days before filming. Contract and everything, just …gone."
I didn't say anything.
He looked at the whiteboard. Then at me. Then back at the whiteboard.
Oh fuck no.
"Don't," I said before he could say it.
"I didn't say anything."
"You were about to."
"Audrey—"
"Damon, no." I stood up. "I'm here for the four hundred dollars, not to be on a reality show with a guy who punches people for fun."
"He didn't punch him for fun —"
"He punched him on live television."
"There's context —"
"There's always context!" I grabbed my bag off the chair. "Find someone else. Post an ad. Call an agency. You have seventy-two hours, that's enough time."
"It's not." He said it quietly, which was worse than if he'd argued. "I've already called everyone I can call. The timeline's too short. The background check alone takes forty-eight hours, and that's if everything goes perfectly."
I stood there, staring at him.
The whiteboard said REPLACEMENT NEEDED in big, unhelpful letters.
"I'll think about it," I said, which was not a yes, and we both knew it.
And I would think about it.
But I wouldn't be saying yes.
