All That Really Matters by Nicole Deese (new books to read TXT) 📕

about that, too. I’m not ever going to be a big name in this industry. I’m a single mom who still lives in the same house she grew up in with her parents, in a town of less than fifteen hundred people. I love to research and edit and strategize, and I love working with you, but if you ever start to feel that I’m holding you back in any way, then—”

I jerked the phone to eye level and used the voice my Mimi would use whenever I doubted something true about myself. “That is trash talk. Complete trash. You’ve never held me back—not for a single minute. But if I keep talking to you like this, then I will for sure crease my foundation with frown lines that will need to be touched up in makeup, which will then delay the shoot time, so . . .” I did a super close-up of my quirked eyebrow, and Val’s laughter made my heart ease a bit.

“So by all means please stop making that face,” she said, sounding a lot more Val-like now.

“Fine. But this conversation is dead and buried. Nothing more to discuss on this topic. Got it?”

She gave a nod, then twirled her finger in front of the camera. “Now let me see the whole ensemble. With the shoes, too.”

I stretched the phone out as far as I could to show her the outfit she’d helped to select from head to toe. I twisted in the mirror, taking in the exquisite drape of fabric that came to a V at the center of my back and the way it hugged the curves of my hips and backside without a single pucker.

“It’s perfect. The Fashion Emporium will adore you.”

A double knock on the dressing room’s door was followed by an announcement that the photographer was ready and waiting for me in the studio.

“Thank you,” I answered back in my perkiest non-caffeinated voice. “I’ll be right out.”

And then to Val I whispered, “Wish me luck.”

She laughed. “You’re Molly McKenzie. You’ve never needed luck a day in your life.”

I blew her a kiss and ended the call.

“I trust the shoot went well?” Ethan asked, taking my hand to help me get situated beside him in the limo. Turned out he was flying to New York around the same time I would be flying back home from Seattle today. So, in our customary style, we decided to have a “travel date”—which was an exotic-sounding term for riding in a car to the airport together before going our separate ways. Sometimes I envied the relationship norms of typical couples. Then again, the very reasons we’d found each other were because we were anything but typical.

“It did,” I said, buckling my seatbelt and searching for the Mexican takeout I was beyond desperate to devour. The forty-eight-hour anti-inflammation fast was the absolute worst part of these big endorsement shoots. “Although the studio was absolutely freezing, and I had to use a beach towel I found in a prop closet like some kind of shawl from biblical times, so that was kind of funny. . . .”

Ethan was already back to typing on his phone. “Well, you’ll be happy to know I’m closing in on a new celebrity collaboration for you. Made some great headway this week on the goals we discussed.”

“Great. But um, hey . . . is my burrito in here somewhere? I’m starving.” I hoped my nose had suddenly lost the ability to smell melted cheese and green sauce smothered over a hand-tossed tortilla, because maybe that would explain why I couldn’t see a to-go box anywhere in this barren rented limo.

“Oh, yes. Sorry, babe,” Ethan quipped, opening the fridge next to him and taking out a clear container with three street tacos in it. No melted cheese. No green sauce. Just blackened chicken with pico de gallo, wrapped in disappointment.

He set the container on my lap, and I breathed out slowly. “Did you see my text when you told me you were picking up lunch?”

“What? Yeah, of course I did. Three street tacos. No sour cream. Your usual, right?”

Not even close to my usual. “I’m fairly certain men have died for lesser sins than offering a hangry lady the wrong lunch order when her heart was firmly set on a smothered burrito from Mucho Harvey’s.”

“You didn’t ask for a smothered burrito, babe. You asked for . . .” He exited the screen he’d been on and scrolled back to our text thread as if to prove me wrong, only he couldn’t. “Oh. I must have misread it. Sorry.” Or he hadn’t read it at all because he was likely too busy multitasking seventeen things when it came time to place my order. “I have, however, been working on something that just might steer you away from plotting my demise.”

I opened the container of soggy sadness and limp cilantro. “That’s doubtful.”

“I just got off the phone with one of the producers from the show. I think I got you an early audition.”

I paused my first bite. “How early?”

“Late July. But they asked for a compilation of your highest-viewed videos that showcase your talent. Something we can turn into the producers ASAP.” He tapped his cheek with a finger. “Pretty sure that deserves a kiss.”

He wasn’t totally forgiven yet, but I complied with his request, kissing his cheek, as he hated lipstick on his mouth.

Never one to let an opportunity go, I capitalized on the moment. “You know who’s excellent at making compilation videos, seeing as she’s worked on every video post I’ve ever done? Val. She’d be perfect for this.”

He tapped into his inbox again. “Hmm.”

“Yeah, I can’t tell you how many times she’s taken my raw cut ramblings and made them into something marketable and professional—”

“You don’t have raw cut ramblings,” he chided. “You have first takes. Hear the difference? Success is a mindset, Molly. How you frame your words is often more important than the words themselves.”

“Fine, then. Val takes my first takes and works magic on them. And we’re