“Why not?” Grant pulled me close. “You know who this is, right? It’s Lacey Barnes. She’s going to be really big one day. If you post about it now, you can say you knew her back when. Do you want a selfie? We’ll take one with you.”

“Grant, stop,” I said.

“Seriously,” Amanda said, taking Grant by the arm and trying to pull him away.

Donavan took my hand and put the sixty dollars in it. “I’ll see you later.” With that, he turned around and left.

“You’re kind of a punk,” I told Grant.

“A really handsome one.” He put his other arm around Amanda and led us toward the door. “Come on, let’s go.”

I looked over my shoulder to where Donavan was helping another table. Now wasn’t the time to talk to him.

“That did not help your ‘actresses are just people’ argument at all,” Amanda said.

“I just screwed that all up,” I said.

“Don’t worry. You can make it better,” Amanda said.

“Maybe I don’t deserve to. You know what I did in the kitchen when I chased after him? I panicked about my career. Instead of needing to tell him how I felt, I asked for his help. It’s obvious that I will always put my career first; he doesn’t need someone else like that in his life.”

Amanda squeezed my hand. “It’s just a habit. Bad habits are meant to be exchanged for good ones.”

“Donavan is a good habit?”

“I’m sure he can be,” Amanda said.

“Are you guys ready to make a run for the car?” Grant said. “It looks like your friend called the press.”

I saw a person with a camera waiting across the street.

“Donavan didn’t do that,” I said.

Grant didn’t look like he believed me. He just put the sunglasses back on. “Keep your head down.”

At home my dad was sitting watching television. It felt like I hadn’t seen him in forever. He turned off the TV but didn’t stand. I sat next to him. I was tempted to tell him about the article but I knew how he’d react and I didn’t need that tonight. Plus, there was still something I needed to get off my chest.

Instead of jumping right into my complaints though, I started with “How was your date the other night? I didn’t know you were dating anyone.”

“I’m not, really. Just someone I met . . .” He trailed off like he didn’t want to finish that sentence.

“I assumed it was someone you had met.”

He didn’t smile like I expected him to, just patted the arm of the couch. “I met her on set.”

“On set?” At first the words didn’t make sense to me out of context like that. “Wait, do you mean on my set?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Leah.”

“The makeup artist? That Leah?”

He nodded. “Does that bother you?”

I thought about it. I already had enough drama on set, I didn’t need my dad creating more complications. “I don’t know, Dad. Sort of. It sort of bothered me when I heard you were going to put an ad in my school newspaper for a tutor too.”

“Donavan told you?”

“I wish you would have told me.”

“I’m sorry, but I had run out of options. I’d called all the students from the tutoring list. I’d gone to a tutoring center, but they didn’t have anyone willing to travel, not for the amount of money I could pay. It was my Hail Mary.”

I laid my head back on the couch, feeling more tired than I realized. “I wish you would’ve just listened to me and let me do the work on my own.” I didn’t really wish that, because then I wouldn’t have met Donavan. But right now, it’s what I felt.

“I’m sorry, but, Lacey, you weren’t doing the work on your own. Let’s not rewrite history here.”

“You’re right.”

He coughed a little as though surprised.

“I know. I don’t say that very much. It’s not my fault you’re rarely right.”

He laughed, and I smiled. Then we both sat there in silence until he said, “So you want me to stop seeing Leah?”

“You like her?”

“I do.”

It would be so selfish of me not to let my dad have a relationship because it was someone I worked with. I was seventeen. Almost grown up. My dad needed a life even if it might make things even more complicated at work. “I like her too. She’s always been nice to me. You should see where it leads.”

My dad ran a hand over my hair. “Thanks, I was hoping you’d say that.”

I stood up. “Just no more surprises.”

He held his right arm up as though making a vow. “No more surprises.”

I walked back toward my room. I hadn’t even come close to saying everything to my dad that I’d wanted to, everything I’d realized I felt when I was talking on the phone to Donavan the other night. But I was tired, and he seemed happy, and it was hard.

Dancing Graves

EXT. CAVE ENTRANCE—NIGHT

SCARLETT, getting worse each day, carries a bag of supplies toward the cave where she has gathered the zombies. The first sign of trouble is bloody footprints in the dirt leading away from the cave. She drops her armful of things and goes to investigate. Nobody is left. All she finds is carnage. There was only one person who knew about this location. He had betrayed her.

SCARLETT

(whispers)

Benjamin.

All the rage she’d been suppressing lights a fire in her chest. She is unleashed.

Twenty-Four

I arrived at makeup early the next day and wondered if it would be weird to see Leah. Had my dad told her that he told me? I didn’t have a chance to analyze what was or wasn’t said because Leah was frantic when I reached her station. She was picking up things on the table and moving them a couple of inches only to pick them up again. She moved to the couch in the room and started looking under the cushions. When she saw me she let out a big sigh. “Please tell me you have it.”

“Have what?” I couldn’t help but stare at Leah with my new knowledge that she was dating my dad. I had never noticed before how edgy she was, or at least never thought about it. Way edgier than my dad. She had several tattoos down her arms, a nose ring, and cute choppy purple hair.

“Your premade cheek section,” she said, bringing me back to the moment.

“Why would I have that? You always take it.”

She cursed under her breath, then went back to the couch cushions.

“Is it missing?”

“Yes.”

Crap. Crap, crap, crap! So I wasn’t being paranoid at all. Someone was messing with things on set. Did this have to do with the conversation I’d heard in the hall? Did someone not want me here? Was someone trying to make me look bad? But this newest sabotage would be more of a reflection on Leah than me. Maybe the person didn’t realize that I wasn’t in charge of that zombie piece.

I immediately started helping Leah look. I began at one end of the room and thoroughly inspected everything. It wasn’t until I was to the other end of the room that I said, “I’ll be right back. I’m going to check a few places.”