Jaded by Rhonda Sheree Page B

from her wet lips. If she let a woman like that in her home, Rodney would be suspicious. After all, she made Maria wear hospital scrubs to obscure her sexuality. No, the woman had to be luscious, but low-key.
    Yet another candidate, pretty in a nonthreatening manner, had had a good résumé and a pleasing demeanor. Her body language had hinted at just enough desperation to pique Jade’s interest, but ultimately, she had been below Jade’s standard. Her name alone— Beauticious Eboneek Graham—had been like a tattoo that unwittingly marred the young woman in the eyes of a society that demanded a basic level of conformity to traditional mores. The drudgery of urban plight buried in the pores of Beauticious’s otherwise attractive face had brought back memories of hardship that Jade had long buried. Just watching her struggle to enunciate each word properly had confirmed to Jade that she didn’t want a daily reminder of the ghetto in her penthouse. Her eyes had found the résumé of the next candidate.
    “Syeesha.”
    She elongated the three syllables as she said them, threw the résumé back on the table, and resigned herself to beginning her search again with another agency than Templeton Temps. Maybe firing them would be a lot easier than firing her assistant had been. Rich kid or not, Kim would stay pissed at Jade for a while—maybe forever—but she was too talented a girl to not get ahead.
    Poor girl probably hasn’t figured that out yet.
    Kim reminded her of Rodney. With little faith in talent and hard work alone, he believed in making his own luck. It was with acute clarity that she recalled how he had landed the breakout national commercial that got a mega-agent like Lou Leibowitz at Creative Actors’ Agency to call him up and offer representation.
     
    “You are so fucking high.” Jade took a long, satisfying drag of the joint then slid it between his lips.
    “I’ve got agents calling me for once. Shit, I deserve to be high.”
    She leaned down and slid a lazy tongue around his nipple. The bed was a mess of tangled limbs and sweaty sheets. The pungent aroma of marijuana swirled around them. She knocked the blanket from his body, leaving him nude and exposed. Clumsily, he leaned up and brought the blanket up to cover his lower torso. Jade began to say something, but decided they were both better served just enjoying the high. Now was not the time to fault him on his self-consciousness. After all, her man was on a one-way train to stardom. No more unseen low-budget films. No more off-off-Broadway shows. And it was all thanks to being the new It guy for the latest Gillette aftershave campaign. Her tongue swept over a tiny hair curled just above his nipple. For some reason she found it incredibly funny that the new Gillette guy had a stray hair on his otherwise smooth chest.
    “Looks like Cornelius Cafferty is officially dead,” she said, referring to Rodney’s birth name.
    “Welcome to stardom, Rodney McCann.”
    Jade giggled, a little at first and then in a fit.
    “What’s so funny?”
    “Sorry,” she said, sucking in air. “Just thought of all the ways to become famous. Who would’ve guessed it would start with Gillette?”
    “I bet my old roommate is so fucking pissed.”
    “Why wouldn’t he be? It could’ve just as easily have been him. God, I’m thirsty.”
    “Not just it could’ve been him,” Rodney said. Smoke billowed from his lips. “It was him.”
    He leaned down and picked up a Budweiser bottle. He jiggled it, then handed it to her.
    She sucked down the last of it and wished for more.
    “What do you mean it was him?”
    He sat up in bed, carefully arranging the sheet just below his chest.
    “We’ve got the same agent. Angela called and told me to give him the message that he’d landed the part.”
    “I still don’t get it.” Jade’s mouth felt as if it were filled with cotton. She was thirsty and hungry, in equal measure.
    “I never told him.” He snickered. “The