The news is plastered everywhere, from the morning talk show interviews of them discussing decorations and sampling cakes, to the newspaper covers and magazine articles gossiping over what dress she will wear, who his best man will be, where the honeymoon will take place, how long it will take for a baby to follow. I can't turn a corner without seeing something about her bridal party or hearing something about his bachelor party. Since Mayor Hollingsworth's reputation went belly-up from an international money-laundering scandal partnered with the reports of long-standing abuse from his children, his family has become the Kardashians of Toronto—maybe even all of Canada. I wouldn't call them famous, but that doesn't mean I haven't been waiting for them to get their own network TV show and a merchandising line.

"Why are you always watching that crap?"

I look away from a women's talk show featuring Maya Matlin and her opinions on bouquets and turn to Damon, who's standing in the threshold with a bowl of cereal.

"All they do is gossip about the girly stuff and that dumb wedding." He takes a spoonful and adds with his mouth full, "It's crap."

"Right, 'cause the shit you watch is so much better?" I raise my eyebrows, "I can literally feel myself losing IQ points every time you put on that show with the duck guys." I used to feel obligated to show my utmost gratitude for Damon since I've been living on his parents' couch four nearly two and a half years, but there's no real point to it anymore. We're both deadbeats, and we've seen each other through too much. Conventional respect just gets so fake after a while.

Besides, he's amused when I tease him. "That's my parents' show. I don't even know how it's still on the air," He laughs, crossing the living room to plop down next to me, masterfully managing to not spill a drop of milk. "It's just a bunch of guys with beards doing redneck things. I don't get it, either."

"Liar. You're just as into it as they are."

"Yeah, well, you're into this…whatever it is." He gestures to the TV with his spoon. On it, Maya's showcasing the ring on her finger and the middle-aged hosts of the show are ogling it even though it's been mainlined into the media since the engagement was first broadcast via Miles Hollingsworth's Twitter. They'd been high school sweethearts, on-and-off for a while but going steady for about five years now, but last Valentine's day he took her to Italy and had a skywriter spell out "Maya, Will You Marry Me?" overhead and got down on one knee during their gondola ride. The ring is pear-cut, 3.8 carats. Cartier, I believe. With smaller diamonds wrapping all the way around the band. It's too bulky for her delicate fingers, if you ask me. Looks like it's weighing her whole hand down, but everyone and their mother seems over the moon with it, so I guess I just have poor taste.

I shake my head. "I'm not into it, just…"

"Into her?"

I roll my eyes. "Shut up."

He laughs, "Hey, you dodged a bullet. There's no way you could have afforded anything like that. That ring's gotta be three months' rent, at least."

"I didn't think that kind of stuff was important to her." I shrug.

"Of course it is. She's one of those princess-type girls. They're all into that." He dips into his cereal, chewing, "They don't care about a good, hard-working guy unless he's got enough to pay for all of the sparkles they want. It's fucked up."

Pinching my lips, I sink into the couch. "…But she was never like that…"

"What, when we were all fourteen?" He quirks an eyebrow in my direction, "Yeah, because she didn't think she could get anyone like that. She had messy hair and no tits. Now look at her." I didn't want to agree with this, but her hair was definitely sleeker than it used to be, shimmering in shades of highlighted blonde and always well-styled to the trends. And her breasts were…noticeably fuller.

Still, I sigh. "Nah, I think she just changed."

"I think you're just kidding yourself," He laughs, "You've always been into those diva types."

"Have not," I roll my eyes, pushing myself up from the couch and grabbing my work jacket from its corner.

"Oh no?" He leans back to eye me. "Care to remind me how you landed that job of yours again?"

Passing by, I give his head a shove and he laughs as I make my way out of the door. I'm not necessarily proud of my job, nor how I got it in the first place, but it pays the bills—well, the fraction of the bills that Damon's parents hold me accountable for. Originally, they didn't ask either of us to pay for anything and told us to save up enough to get our own place, but money is tight and it's not cheap to house and feed two adult men, so we contribute these days. It's understandable, but it's also slowed down the process. Still, I could have it worse; while Damon works a double shift at Little Miss Steaks, one as a server and another as a busboy, I earn my "living" as a stagehand at a local TV station. It's mostly used for shooting commercials and amateur videos paid for by people who save up months of paychecks to afford professional filming, but there are also a few decent shows that get shot there. My job is to move sets and props, organize costume racks, make coffee runs…I'm basically the producers' bitch and I do whatever doesn't require proper certification or training, from making off-camera sound effects during tapings to giving backrubs to tense actors who had a few too many to drink the night before, but it's mostly heavy lifting, labor work, and tedious jobs that no one else wants to do. It's not glamorous, but it's just above minimum wage, so I'll take it. It's not like many other jobs are dying to hire a 21-year-old guy with no college experience and a record for gang-related criminal activity.

I slip in through the back entrance of the parking lot since I already know the front is occupied by more important members of the studio team and that, for an unnecessary charge, the valet would take my bike here anyway. Besides, the directors always complain when I drive too close to the building, since I've got a Harley that's older than I am and it sounds like one. They always tell me that the growling of my engine "ruined the shots", even though the studio is supposed to be soundproof, but I try to keep as far away from the entrance as possible anyway.

Shivering off weather as I slip through the doorway, I slide my ID card through the time-clock and punch in my number before making my way onto the floor. Instantly, I'm needed. "Zig, fetch Zoe a hot apple chai, she's got a big scene coming up and her throat's sore."

Zoe Rivas was a teenage TV star on a show called West Drive until she got booted for her party girl habits, namely pill popping. For years, she didn't get any other gigs, so she took on acting like a normal girl in high school (which wasn't her best performance). During her senior year, she decided to make a YouTube channel where she posted short scenes of herself, and the fanbase she'd thought had forgotten her totally ate it up. By graduation, she'd been recruited by a TV station for a major role in a new teen show, and she's been working there ever since. She found me in the drive-thru window at a burger joint and felt bad that I'd been "reduced to food service", so she scored me this job, even though we weren't on the best of terms at the time. We're honestly very unlikely friends—hell, it was unlikely that we were involved at all. However, we were both grateful for our paths crossing when they did, and over time, a sort of attraction blossomed between us. It spanned a few months from the end of tenth grade to the beginning of eleventh, and it wasn't the healthiest of relationships, but it was a nice way to pass the time until Zoe came to realize that I was still harboring feelings for another girl—and had a pretty good idea just who that girl was, too.

"Did you watch channel 7 today?" She sneers as I round the corner with her drink—a very specific blend of apple cider, lemon juice, honey, spices, and a few shots of apple cider vinegar to soothe the throat—taking the foam cup and looking up at me through her false eyelashes.

I recoil my eye contact and cross the floor.

Her smug voice follows me, "Which flower did you think looked better with that rock? The peonies or the gardenias?"

I refuse to discuss this and instead grab poster board to write up today's cue cards.

"Did you hear what she was saying about refusing to use roses or carnations because 'everyone else does it'? Like can you believe the nerve of that girl?" She's ranting between sips and her voice sounds fine, leading me to believe that she didn't actually have a sore throat, she just wanted me in here to vent to. "Just because you're riding the high of your little Prince and the Pauper story doesn't make you so special." She huffs, murmuring into the mouth of her cup, "Too good for traditional wedding flowers. What a joke."

"She's never liked them," I add casually, spreading the paper and markers on the floor and walking back to Zoe's vanity station. "I mean she likes them but she thinks there are better options."

She shoots me a look before snarling against the cup lid. "Like what, dare I ask?"

Irises. They're her favorite. She liked the weird shapes of the drooping petals, the blooms of different colors. She told me that she grew to love them because her family's had bulbs of them planted in a little garden outside their front door for as long as she can remember, and whenever they came up it meant that warmer weather was right around the corner, so seeing them brought a warmth to her.

But it's pathetic that I remember this so I shake my head as I swipe Zoe's copy of the script from the countertop. "I don't know. I don't know flowers."

She eyes me skeptically, but she doesn't question it. Just resumes sipping her apple chai and spinning her chair around to face me as I settle on the floor to start writing lines in big block letters. "You know, he was my boyfriend first."

"I know."

"She stole him."

"I know."

"It's not even that I still want him, he's an ass, but she's somehow become the sweetheart of Toronto, meanwhile, she only ever started dating him because she stole him out from under me."

"I know."

"She's a bitch."

"Yup."

"Like she's a bitch! She doesn't deserve any of this—she didn't even work for any of it! All she did was date him and now everyone loves her."

"I know."

There's a small pause, and I can feel the air grow tense within it. "…Yeah. You know more than anyone about that part, don't you."

My chest sinks slightly. I think to look up at her, to narrow my eyes and bite back in retaliation, but there's nothing for me to retaliate with. She's not exactly wrong.

She takes my silence as a confirmation and scoffs, turning her seat back around. "It's just not fair. Some of us have to work our butts off to even get noticed—hell, you work yours off and you're not even noticed by anyone—"

"Gee, thanks, pal."

"—But all she has to do is sit there and look pretty and marry the son of a mayor that turned out to be totally corrupt…and somehow that makes her a role model? I don't get it. If Canada was in such dire need of its own Kate Middleton, couldn't they have picked someone who was at least credible for something?"

"Hey, you're so fond of those Kardashian girls, and they didn't do jack to get famous."

"They did more than Maya's doing—and they did more with their fame, too. What's she accomplished since she got all of this limelight, huh? Other than plans for this stupid wedding and a few gigs playing cello for celebrities, what good has she brought to the world?"

"Zo, I don't think it's her job to improve the world—"

"Her job?" She laughed, "That's rich. She doesn't even have a job. She's never worked a day in her life. Miles's family just pays for her existence. She's useless."

"Harsh."

"It's true!"

"Okay, Zoe."

"Sorry that you're still not over her, but—"

"I said okay, Zoe."

Her eyes throw poison darts in my direction, and this time I fire them right back. She narrows her gaze for a moment before setting down her cup and rising from her chair. "I need a smoke break." She doesn't even smoke. She just calls it that when she needs to go outside to blow off some steam.

"Just be back by nine."

"Eat me."

"Not in my job description."

She throws her middle finger up before storming out of the door. I watch her silhouette disappear before returning to my cards. I know in a few minutes I'll go out to talk to her, let her blow up about how unfair it is that she's been working since childhood to support her whole family but all Maya had to do was get proposed to by Zoe's ex and now she's more famous than Zoe may ever be, and how it's not fair, and how she doesn't deserve any of it, the same speeches rehashed with far more tears. I'll hug her, and tell her how talented she is, and how she'll get every bit of recognition she deserves, and eventually convince her to go back into the studio and reapply the makeup she's cried off. It's not happened at least once a week since the proposal. It's not my job to keep Zoe sane, but I'm okay with doing it. I can't explain why Maya's fame digs into Zoe as much as it does, but I get it, and I think she knows that I'm one of the only people that truly does, so I can't complain about her constantly ripping about it. There's a sour sort of safety in knowing that someone else is as bitter about something as you are, especially when it feels so irrational.


I know I just started another Zaya fic but I got some serious muse for this prompt and aboslutely needed to flesh it out. Hope you guys like it!

xo, Kina