When Lauren arrived at Pete’s at precisely ten, she found Carly and Kirby, who played Ashley’s assistant in the show, among other roles, doing a pink colored shot at the bar. The rest of the group populated the small tables that dotted the main floor, an oasis in which drinks and pub food flowed. The lighting gave the place an overall red tint, and a variety of ball caps—each sporting the word Pete somehow worked into a slogan—dotted the walls. The other room was furnished with dartboards and pool tables under fluorescents. Five restored jukeboxes lined the back wall. Pete’s was known for two things: drinks and billiards. Lauren happened to be better at one than the other.

Deep breath as she approached her colleagues. She relaxed, smiled, and left her metaphorical clipboard at the door. Hell, if she thought about it, she was supposed to be on a beach right now. Tonight, she planned to embrace that relaxation, unwind, and maybe even get the tiniest bit tipsy. Who knew? The night was young.

* * *

“Did I mention that I love martini night?” Kirby enthused. Kirby Bonner was an up-and-comer who couldn’t have been more than twenty-two, twenty-three at most and had the cutest little pixie cut. From the moment they’d met, she seemed to really look up to Carly, even after all the bad press. Maybe not the wisest role model choice, Carly thought, but she also understood that her celebrity did tend to attract people. “Let’s do them every Saturday. God, I live for a good martini. Don’t you? I’d love it if we made it a thing. Do you want to make it a thing?” She also liked to talk. A lot.

“We can totally make that happen,” Carly said, accepting the mango martini from the bartender. Orange and beautiful and well earned. Carly touched her glass to Kirby’s. With her brown hair and doe-like brown eyes, she would surely be cast as everyone’s cheerful younger sister. At least for the next five years. Carly turned back to the group, and would you look at that? Her stomach muscles went tight, and she shimmied against the tingle that crept up her spine. Lauren Prescott had just walked in. “Well, well,” she murmured to herself. Dreams do come true.

Kirby followed her gaze. “I feel like she gets on you a lot,” Kirby said, surely trying to make it clear that Carly’s enemies were hers. “Who cares if you missed the off-book deadline for the first three scenes. You’re a professional. You’re going to be fine on lines.”

“Lauren? Nah, she’s just doing her job.”

“She should get who you are, though, you know?”

It was possible the same thought had occurred to Carly. Yet she could forgive Lauren for being so uptight and stuffy and hell-bent on following a clock. It was apparently what she was hired to do.