Leah came into the bedroom looking worried.
Not Leah worried, where she’d already solved the problem and was informing me what I needed to do about it.
Actually worried.
“Can you get dressed?”
I was in bed, scrolling on my phone.
“That bad?”
“Mother is coming over.”
“Oh? Keiko is coming?”
“In half an hour. I think you should go back to your apartment.”
That got me sitting up.
“Why do I need to leave?”
“Mother doesn’t know we’re together.”
“Eeeh… yeah, she does.”
Leah stopped.
“What?”
“She said as much when she talked to me after dinner.”
“She what?”
“She said she knew we were sleeping together. I didn’t deny it.”
Leah stared at me for a few seconds, then closed her eyes and made a grumbling sound.
“So the grandchildren joke wasn’t a joke. You actually talked about it?”
“No. She said that if I cheated on you, you’d probably hurt me in ways I couldn’t envision.”
“Goddamnit.”
Leah opened her eyes again.
“I don’t know why I even try. Hiding stuff from my mother is apparently impossible.”
“Apparently,” I said, mocking her tone.
“Fine. You can stay.”
“Thank you,” I said with a smile.
“But get dressed.”
“Well sure, I am not meeting Keiko in the nude. I have some sense.”
“And brush your teeth.”
“Leah.”
“I don’t want Mother thinking my girlfriend is an unemployed layabout.”
I sat up, slipped my feet into some comfy bunny slippers I had found, and stretched.
Nude, but in bunny slippers.
“I am an unemployed layabout.”
“Yes. But she doesn’t need to think you’ve embraced it as a lifestyle.”
I shushed her and headed into the bathroom to brush my teeth.
Keiko arrived five minutes early.
I see where Leah got it from.
But I had expected this, so I was already dressed, hair brushed, teeth brushed, still in my bunny slippers.
Leah looked at the clock when the buzzer went, then at me.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were going to.”
I held my hands up.
“Thought never crossed my mind.”
She ignored me and went to let her mother in.
Keiko came through the door carrying a handbag and a thin black folder tucked under one arm.
“Mia.”
Her face immediately softened.
Before I had really decided what I was supposed to do, she stepped forward and pulled me into a hug.
Not one of those polite half-hugs either.
An actual hug.
“It is good to see you again. How are you feeling?”
“I’m good.”
She pulled back, keeping her hands on my arms for another second while she looked me over.
“Really?”
I gave her a smile.
“Really.”
Keiko returned it.
There was something deeply unfair about how well Leah’s mother and I got along.
Especially because when she turned toward her daughter, most of the warmth disappeared.
“Leah.”
“Mother.”
Keiko kissed her briefly on the cheek.
Leah looked down at the black folder.
“You come with contracts?”
“An offer,” Keiko said. “One I think you’ll find difficult to refuse.”
We settled around the kitchen island.
“You want tea, Keiko?” I asked.
“Yes, please, dear.”
“Milk? Sugar?”
“Milk, no sugar.”
I looked at Leah.
“You want tea too?”
“Please.”
Keiko smiled. “Leah used to have sugar in her tea until she was eleven. Then she decided it was ‘unnecessary.’”
I laughed at this tidbit of Leah lore and remembered that I took sugar in mine.
I put the kettle on and pulled out the mugs. I’d started drinking tea with Leah when we began hanging out casually, and somewhere along the way I learned how to make it properly.
We bought the tea at Tea & Sympathy in the West Village, and Leah would not have anything but Yorkshire Gold.
Leah cared about tea a lot.
I did not understand it, but I respected it.
Behind me, paper slid across the counter.
“So,” Leah said. “You’re buying VV Creative.”
“Fifty-one percent.”
“That is generally considered buying something.”
“You retain forty-nine percent, your position as founder and CEO, and there is a rather nice payment to you for the shares. You also retain private ownership of the VV brand and all its social media accounts. It’s all clearly laid out. We’ve separated the parts that are you from what belongs to the business.”
I glanced back.
Leah was already reading.
“It also makes you an employee of TEG International,” Keiko continued. “You’ll be appointed Managing Director of TEG New York. VV Creative becomes a subsidiary of the New York company.”
I dropped teabags into the mugs.
“So I work for you.”
“No. You report to the group CEO.”
Leah looked over the contract. “And you?”
“I interfere recreationally.”
“Who’s the group CEO?”
“Alan.”
Leah let out a long breath.
“You give him a quarterly report. He won’t be involved in your day-to-day.”
I poured the water.
“What does subsidiary mean operationally?”
“VV remains its own company. Its own clients, revenue, expenses, and budget. You run it. But you gain access to TEG’s existing infrastructure. Accounting, payroll, HR, legal, insurance, procurement. There is little value in you recreating departments we already have.”
Leah turned a page.
“So if I need contracts written for convention contractors, I can use TEG New York’s lawyers?”
“Yes.”
“For free?”
“No.”
That made me smile as I took out the tea bags and poured in the milk.
“You charge VV?”
“The work is allocated against VV’s budget. But you don’t hire a lawyer, negotiate rates, process invoices, or maintain the relationship. You tell our legal team what you need. Accounting handles the rest.”
There was a pause.
“This would help a lot,” Leah said.
“I thought you might find it so.”
I carried the mugs over and put one in front of Keiko.
“Milk, no sugar.”
“Thank you, Mia.”
I placed Leah’s beside her.
She picked it up without looking.
Leah turned another page.
“What’s this about residential space?”
Keiko took a sip of tea.
“The company apartment.”
Leah lowered the contract slightly.
“You bought an apartment?”
“Corporate use. Staff visiting New York can stay there instead of hotels. It can host small client dinners, informal meetings, preparation before events, that sort of thing. Somewhere between an office and a hotel.”
Leah looked back down.
“And residential?”
“The apartment includes private residential space.”
“For staff?”
“For you.”
Leah stopped reading.
Keiko took another sip.
“You expect me to live there?”
“If you want, it is available.”
“I have somewhere to live.”
“Yes.”
Keiko glanced around the apartment.
I suddenly became very aware that I was standing in Leah’s kitchen making tea in my unemployed layabout clothes.
“The residential space is separate from the company area,” Keiko continued. “Bedroom, bathroom, sitting room. The kitchen is shared, though.
“For how long?”
“As long as you need it.”
“And then?”
“Then you find somewhere you prefer.”
“No deadline?”
“No.”
Leah frowned at the contract.
“No rent?”
“It is part of your compensation.”
“So I’m paying tax on it.”
“You will be living in a penthouse in Manhattan, Leah. I think you’ll survive.”
Leah looked at her mother.
Keiko looked perfectly comfortable.
“So you’ve given me a company, a job and an apartment.”
“I am buying fifty-one percent of your company.”
“It’s three contractors, a list of contact details, and a website.”
“Yes.”
“That seems suspiciously generous.”
“How dare you. I am a very senior businesswoman making a particularly wise investment in an up-and-coming company.”
“Is that what you are doing?”
Keiko ignored that.
“The apartment also solves a practical problem. You should not choose somewhere permanent while establishing the office. In six months you may discover that you spend most of your time somewhere entirely different from where you expected.”
Leah looked back at the page.
“And TEG staff can use downstairs while I’m living there?”
“If necessary. You would know in advance.”
“Events?”
“Small ones. Drinks, dinners, preparation, visiting clients. Nothing you have not approved.”
“So I would technically be living above work.”
Keiko smiled.
“I don’t imagine it will improve your work-life balance. But at least you won’t have a commute.”
Leah flipped toward the back of the contract.
“What’s the timeline?”
“If you sign today, we can file everything tomorrow morning. Assuming immigration doesn’t find something interesting to complain about, it should be wrapped up by the end of the week.”
“And then?”
“You start next Monday.”
“I have a week’s notice at work.”
“I know.”
Leah stared at her mother.
Keiko drank her tea.
“Can I see the residential space?”
Keiko reached into her handbag and dropped a set of keys onto the counter.
Three keys, a black fob, and a small metal tag with an address engraved on it.
“If you agree, sign the documents and leave them at my hotel. I’ll tell reception they may be receiving something from you.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Return them unsigned, with the keys.”
Keiko stood and collected her handbag.
That was it.
No speech. No hard sell.
She came around the island and hugged me again.
“It was very good to see you, Mia.”
“You too,” I said, hugging her back.
“And take some time, Mia. Losing a job is unpleasant, even when you did not particularly like it.”
I hadn’t told her that.
I glanced at Leah.
Leah shook her head.
Then she let out a small laugh before catching herself.
Keiko smiled, kissed her daughter on the cheek, and left.
The door closed.
Leah looked from the contract to the keys.
“So,” I said. “Good offer?”
“Yes.”
“Oh?”
“It is a very good offer.”
I moved behind Leah and wrapped my arms around her.
“But?”
“My mother owns fifty-one percent of my company, employs me, sponsors my visa, owns my office and potentially the building I sleep in.”
I snorted.
“She owns fifty-one percent of an agreement you made with some friends. If you hate it, quit and rebrand. She doesn’t own your friends. You could rebuild VV Creative in a day.”
That drew a smile from her.
“See? You’re warming to the idea.”
“I am not.”
“You are a little bit.”
She looked down at the keys.
“Shut up.”
The elevator opened directly into the apartment.
I stepped out and stopped.
The place was a huge empty space.
Not abandoned empty, but cleared out. Finished floors, clean walls, lights, kitchen installed.
Just no furniture, no decorations. No one lived here yet, but someone could.
Windows ran across the far side, and the kitchen had a large double fridge and a hob about twice the size I was used to.
“Jesus. It’s warehouse-sized.”
Leah walked past me, looking around.
There were four rooms off the main space.
I opened the first one. Large, bright and empty.
“This could be our bedroom.”
Leah looked over.
“This isn’t our part.”
“What?”
“This is the corporate floor.”
She gestured toward the kitchen and open space.
“We’d use the kitchen, obviously, but this floor is for TEG. Meetings, events, prep, visiting staff.”
I looked back into the room.
“But it’s so big and nice.”
“I think that one is going to be the office. There was talk of a Cisco setup, and I suspect it would go into the biggest room.”
She opened the next door.
Another empty room.
Then another, this one with shelving already fitted along the walls.
“Storage,” she said.
“Storage for?”
“Whatever corporate spaces need. Chairs, tables. As I said, it’s not for us.”
“Keiko said there was space where we could live?”
“Upstairs.”
“THERE IS AN UPSTAIRS?!”
Leah opened a door off the kitchen.
There was a staircase behind it.
Stairs inside an apartment.
This was some rich people bullshit right here.
We went up.
The upper floor was smaller, but not by much.
Three bedrooms opened off a private lounge, with no elevator entrance and no obvious reason for anyone from downstairs to come up unless invited.
I went straight into the first bedroom.
Tall arched windows gave the room plenty of light. It was at least twice the size of my own bedroom, and slightly bigger than our current bedroom.
“This one.”
Leah appeared in the doorway, looking into the room.
“Bedroom,” I explained.
“Sure.”
I walked farther in.
“We put the bed there.” I motioned wildly with my hands.
“Okay.”
“TV there.” I framed a square on the wall with my fingers.
“Fine.”
“Maybe a chair by the window.” I stroked my chin.
Yes. This was all coming together.
“Mm.”
I turned around.
“You’re being suspiciously calm about this.”
“It is an empty room, Mia.”
“It could be our empty room.”
That got a small smile.
I pointed back toward the stairs.
“You should take the job.”
Leah raised an eyebrow.
“Your professional assessment?”
“Yes.” I gave her a confident nod.
“The apartment is making a very compelling argument,” Leah said.
“You’d be a Managing Director.”
“Yes.”
“And we’d live here.”
Leah looked around the room.
“We could.”
“That sounds like a yes.”
She looked out through the windows again.
“Aw, fuck it.”
I waited.
“Sure. Let’s do this.”
On the way back, we stopped by The Carlyle and dropped off the signed contracts.
After that, Leah had copies made of the keys for me.
By the time we got back to the apartment, Rina was still out and Dan had not returned from Comic Con.
Leah checked her phone before we’d even taken our shoes off.
Then stopped.
“What?”
She was reading.
“Something interesting just came in. Halloween job. I think Rina would be perfect for it.”
“That sounds very professional.”
“It is.”
She kept reading for another few seconds, then opened her messages.
“Who are you texting?”
“Rina.”
I leaned over, trying to read.
She angled the phone away from me.
“You are incredibly annoying.”
“I’ve been told.”
A few seconds later she put the phone down.
“What did you say?”
“That she should bring Elias here after work.”
“Why?”
Leah looked back at the email.
“Work.”
She put away her phone, took off her shoes and went to her laptop.
“You’re in charge of food today. I’ve gotta work on a pitch.”
Pizza it is, then.
I knew Rina was leaving tomorrow morning, so I ordered a big meat lovers for her, a medium Hawaiian for me, prosciutto and arugula for Leah, and a classic pepperoni for Dan.
I added a margherita too, in case Elias was stopping by. The safe choice when you had no idea what someone actually liked.
The pizza beat the people, but only by a few minutes.
Rina and Elias were still in costume when they stopped by, and Leah pointed them toward the couch.
“Pitch, then pizza.”
Rina made a few sounds of disagreement, but nobody joined her, so she gave up.
On the TV, a lifelike Medusa was shooting an arrow at a stone man.
“Heidi Klum’s Halloween party. Last year.”
Everyone looked at the screen.
“I just got a spec sheet asking for ‘unusual and distinctive body types’ who can attend in costume and perform as monstrous servants.”
Rina and Elias looked at Leah.
“It’s probably the most exclusive Halloween party in existence, and they’re offering fifteen hundred for one night’s work.”
She looked between them.
“You up for it?”
Elias and Rina looked at each other before Elias turned back to Leah.
“Twenty bucks is twenty bucks, but for a premade costume, fifteen hundred dollars, and cosplay with celebrities? I’d be willing to do a lot for that.”
“Cool. I’ll put you down as a yes. Rina?”
“Flights included?”
“No.”
“It’s good money, but fifteen hundred for one night doesn’t really cover flying back and forth from LA.”
“I actually have an additional offer for you that would fix that.”
“OK, if your offer fixes the flights, put me down as a yes.”
“Cool. Go eat. I’ll reply to the production company, then we can discuss the second part.”
Leah disappeared into our bedroom as we all gathered around the table to feast.
“So how bad was today?” I asked.
Dan folded a slice of pepperoni in half.
“My feet are dead,” he complained.
Elias pointed at him with his pizza.
“He complained more than Rina. Rina is built like industrial equipment.”
Rina looked up from the meat lovers.
“Yeah, that’s not as much of a compliment as you think it is. I understand, but no thanks.”
“Noted.”
Elias leaned back.
“Halloween sounds fucking amazing though.”
“You don’t even know what you’re wearing yet,” I said.
“Doesn’t matter. Heidi Klum Halloween party. God, I hope we get it.”
I looked toward the bedroom.
“I think she’ll get it. Leah has a knack for this.”
Rina nodded.
“She does. That’s why I signed up. Also why I bullied Elias into it.”
“You nudged. I agreed of my own free will. I now see it was the correct decision.”
Leah came out of the bedroom without her laptop and sat down at the table.
Everyone looked at her.
“What? I sent the proposal. They’ll get back to us when they get back to us. I don’t know anything yet.”
Rina spoke first.
“What are we wearing?”
“There’s a wardrobe requirements sheet in there, but it’s high level. Colour, fabric, intent, style. It’s meant to be bespoke depending on the person wearing it. I think we have some creative freedom.”
“Okay, but like… style idea? What are we doing?”
“‘Monstrous servants’ is the high-level theme.”
Rina leaned back.
“Interesting…”
“That kind of leads me to my next offer,” Leah said, looking at her.
“I told them we’d make the costumes and sent over our portfolio. If they approve that part, do you want the seamstress job?”
“How much?”
“I’ll pay you three grand for the full job. You’d need to stay in New York for fittings with Elias.”
“Okay. And when am I flying back for this?”
“I was thinking you just stay here.”
“I don’t mind your couch, Leah, but I don’t want to sleep on it for three weeks.”
“Oh, you’ll also need to help Mia move.”
Rina blinked.
“Move?”
“To our new place.”
“New place?” Rina and Dan said at the same time.
“Well, we have this place for a whopping five more days, so it was about time we got a new spot to sleep.”
“I thought you were just going to move in with Mia, take Lin’s old room,” Dan said.
“The thought had crossed my mind, but something else came up, and we got the keys today.”
Rina looked at me.
“I know Leah will not tell me, but can you elaborate on this new place? Bigger?”
I let out a breath.
“Ohmygodyes. It’s huge, and it has so many rooms, and the windows are so big. The bedroom is really nice, and the kitchen…” I held out my hands, implying big. “And it has TWO FLOORS. There are stairs inside the apartment, Rina. Inside!”
“That sounds expensive,” Rina said.
“It’s not really ours. It’s the company’s?”
“The company? Is VV Creative already buying penthouses? Is this a front for a cocaine-smuggling operation?”
“No, no.” I waved my hand. “Leah got a new job. She’s Managing Director of a multimillion-dollar company.”
“I thought her job was managing me?”
“The bigger company bought VV Creative, and now she does both.”
Leah raised a hand.
“You are doing a horrendous job of explaining this, Mia.”
“The apartment is a corporate purchase for my mother’s company. She opened a New York division, bought into VV Creative, and put me in charge of both.”
Rina looked at her.
“Your mother bought VV Creative?”
“Half of it, yes. I still run it.”
“And the apartment?”
“There’s a private residential section inside the corporate space. It’s part of my compensation.”
Rina looked between us.
“So your mother bought half your company, made you Managing Director, and gave you a penthouse?”
Leah shrugged.
“It gives VV Creative access to TEG’s infrastructure. Legal, accounting, HR, procurement. It’s worth it.”
“And the half?”
“It’s a leash only. Nothing will change.”
“Well, I am convinced,” Rina said. “And this new place, it has beds?”
“Not yet. But that is something I plan on fixing tomorrow.”
Rina nodded.
“Okay, so I stay in New York until November first?”
“Say November second. Assume it will be a long night, and an after-party,” Leah said. “If we get the job.”
“Yeah, of course. If we get the job.”
Elias stood up.
“Well, I need to head out. I still have to hold down a day job. Cosplaying can’t pay the rent just yet.”
He looked around the table.
“Nice meeting you all. Leah, let me know as soon as you hear anything.”
“I will.”
Once the door closed behind Elias, Rina spoke up.
“The crafting job won’t take three weeks, and you know it, Leah. I didn’t want to say anything with Elias here, but it seems like a lot of money for not a lot of work. You’re paying for materials, right?”
“Yeah. I’ll cover materials. You can pick the fabrics and run the printers.”
“Obviously. Still not three weeks of work.”
“Got anything back in LA that needs handling?”
“No…” Rina thought about it. “I guess I can run my socials from New York.”
She looked at Leah.
“Can you do my OnlyFans shots for the Castlevania outfit? My main photographer is in LA. I want to get them out before the game launches.”
“Of course.”
“Can I watch that?” I blurted out.
Leah and Rina both looked at me.
“The… photography thing…”
Rina laughed.
“Of course you can. But I’m going to push this. The game launches Thursday, and I want the photos up before then. Rose Belmont searches will spike and I want to be in them.”
Leah nodded.
“We can do it tomorrow, after the move. The new place has plenty of space. I’ll bring the setup.”
She paused.
“I’m doing something with Mia on Tuesday and Wednesday, so I can’t do it then.”
“We are?” I asked.
“It was supposed to be a surprise. Since you still don’t know what it is, it still is.”
Two-day activity?
I hoped it wasn’t camping. That would be horrible.
I bit my lip before saying,
“I trust you wholeheartedly, and I am sure it will be enjoyable.”
Rina sucked air through her teeth.
Leah laughed.
“That sounded hard to say. You want a drink to soothe the pain?” Rina asked.
We kept talking for another couple of hours before Dan bowed out. He had work in the morning, and the two vacation days he’d already burned had put him into crunch mode.
Leah said she was going to read more about the event and prepare herself for rejection.
I figured it was just nervous energy she needed to burn off.
Rina and I ended up on the couch.
She put a hand on my shoulder.
“Leah said you had a blowout yesterday. That’s why you skipped the last day?”
“Blowout was a nice word for it,” I said. “I’d call it a self-inflicted crash.”
“That bad? What happened?”
“I fucked Marcus… or more like, he fucked me.”
Her eyes went wide.
A long silence followed.
“I don’t want to drag him through the dirt… but why?”
“Because he was nice to me. Made me feel pretty. I blamed myself for Lin, and I wanted something that broke everything out of normal.”
I looked down at my hands.
“I wanted to stir things up so I didn’t have to think about Lin for a bit.”
“And now?” Rina asked softly.
“I wish I’d listened to Leah. She deserves better. I should have trusted her.”
“You know she’s not mad at you?”
“She should be.”
“You sure that isn’t just wanting to stir up more?”
“Maybe.” I rubbed my face. “Fuck… I feel horrible. Marcus was just… no.”
“Yeah.” Rina leaned back into the couch. “He has a bit of a reputation.”
“What reputation?”
She hesitated.
“That he… Well, he doesn’t get many repeat models. And I’ve heard he can be quite a dick when he gets the opportunity.”
I stared at her.
“That would have been useful information yesterday.”
“Yeah, sorry about that.”
“Rina.”
“Hey, I didn’t know you were planning to fuck him, Mia. You had Leah with you. And Dan.”
“No, you’re right. I don’t even know. I don’t know if I could have stopped yesterday. I was pushing Leah away. I wanted it to happen. Maybe you warning me would’ve just driven me further.”
“Try to put it behind you. God knows I’ve had bad sex I wanted to forget. You just have to get through it, Mia.”
“Talking about bad sex, what are your plans with Dan if you’re staying another three weeks?”
“There is nothing bad about that sex.”
I smiled.
“But I need to cut it off if I’m staying that long. Keep this going too long and feelings get harder to manage.”
“And no matter what you and Leah pitch me, I am not sharing Dan with you two.”
“What if I throw in living rent-free in a penthouse apartment in Manhattan?”
“Hush, temptress. I am a proper woman.”
I leaned my head against Rina.
“You’re a good friend, Rina. I really like having you around.”
“I like you too, Mia. You’re fun, and you mellow Leah out. Make her a better person.”
“It’s like I get two cool people to hang out with for the price of one.”
“Leah’s no good without me around?”
“She has too much energy. Can’t switch off. She can be difficult to direct sometimes.”
Rina shrugged.
“I like her, but she’s draining if you’re around her too long. I don’t think I would’ve taken the job and stayed here for three weeks if it was just me and her.”
I smiled at that, leaned against her a little more, and fell asleep shortly after.
I woke up to someone laughing.
I was still on the couch, a blanket over me. Rina and Leah were sitting at the kitchen island, talking. I couldn’t hear what about.
Leah saw my head poke up and got out of her seat.
She walked around the island, gave Rina a hug and said, “Thank you.”
Then she came over to me and stroked my cheek.
“Let’s go to bed. It’s late, and we’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what had been going on, but I followed Leah into the bedroom, hugged her, and fell asleep again.