“Insufferable But Romantic”: With boss CEOs, fake dating, and a possible enemy-to-lover romance// StayHomeWriMo Day 2

Hey everyone!

Welcome to Day Two of #StayHomeWriMo. Once again, if anyone wants to join, here’s the official page.

By the way, yesterday’s April Fools prank didn’t go as planned 🤣. I was trying to replace text in my parents’ phones: I replaced ‘the’ and ‘a’ with some inside jokes and it should have been hilarious!

Sadly, Samsung has a preventive feature which shows the ‘replaced text’ as a suggestion, not an actual replacement, but it was still funny 😉

Now, on with the post!

Prompt: The main character is a hotshot CEO. Add a character who only eats…

“Girl, you’re crazy.”

Melody shoots me a glare. “No, I’m not! It was only six handbags, seriously!” she says, leaning forward and glaring.

Everyone laughs and I smirk. “Yeah, six handbags that cost three hundred dollars each but basically look the same. Totally not crazy.”

Melody huffs. “Coming from Audre Addams, the CEO of Lemon And Lilies. Which is probably the most popular perfume brand in the United States, by the way. You spend a thousand dollars like pocket money!”

I point a finger at her lazily. “That’s where you’re wrong. I spend five thousand dollars like pocket money!”

The table full of idiots and suck-ups roar with laughter. Most of them are business owners and CEOs and CFOs of smaller companies who are looking for a big break. But then there’s also Clay and Melody, my actual friends.

I look over at Clay, who’s stuffing his mouth with the cucumber sandwiches that the maid brought in. Well, maybe the word ‘non-symbiotic acquaintances’ would better describe our relationship. He eats my food, I keep him around for entertainment.

“You know, last week I went to the movies for a special screening of the new unreleased movie that everyone’s talking about. What’s its name, Spoon of Lies?”

A young woman in a suit with round spectacles balancing on the tip of her nose leans forward eagerly. “Two Cups of Lies, Miss Addams.”

I nodded casually, waving my fingers at her offhandedly. “Ah, yes, of course. It was mediocre. But I ended up donating twenty thousand dollars to lung cancer while I was there, so not all bad, it seems.”

Melody rolls her eyes but I see her lips twitch upward. “Anyways, I wanted to talk to you outside for a moment.”

I raise my eyebrow but rise out of my comfortable chair.

“Clay!” Melody whispers across the room, probably hoping that the glutton will hear her. Alas, to no one’s surprise, Clay either ignores her or doesn’t even hear her (probably the latter due to his loud chewing).

Melody seems to give up and strides across the room, her long reddish-brown hair bouncing on her back. I follow her, tucking my hands into the pockets of the high-quality navy blue cashmere pants I’m wearing.

We stop outside of the door and I lean against the wall as Melody closes the door and turns to me.

“The hour and a half of allotted torture with these insufferable ass-kissers are over, Audre. We’re free to leave. I’ll send someone in to tell those pests to get the hell out of here and to tell Clay to stop stealing your scones,” Melody says.

I grin. “You might want to send in someone a little more considerate, hmm? Or we’ll never see any of those faces again.”

Melody shrugs. “See if I care. It’s not like we need them. Hell, you’re a millionaire!”

She’s a great actor. You wouldn’t know Public Melody was the same as Private Melody. Public Melody is sweet but prissy and hypocritical while Private Melody is witty, badass, and on top of everything. I’m lucky to have Melody Kim as my best friend, although I would never tell it to her face.

No wonder I picked her to be my assistant, I think to myself.

I’m snapped back to reality when Melody waves her hand in my face incredulously. “Hello? Earth to Audre? Did you hear me?”

I paste an innocent smile on my face. “Could you repeat that?”

Melody rolls her eyes but repeats herself. “You have a dinner date in an hour, remember? We need to get you ready. Come on, I’m taking you to a dressing room.”

I groan and trudge after my friend. I totally forgot about my dinner date with Dylan McAfee, probably the most popular actor in Hollywood.

‘Diversity token points!’ comes the voice of my publicist, Harold, in my head. Dylan is a damn successful actor and a person of color, too. I respect that.

But that doesn’t mean that I can’t hate him, I tell myself. I’ve only had one interaction with him before and it was icy, to say the least. All the other celebrity contacts I have said the same thing- that Dylan was cold to them and basically brushed them off without giving a damn.

Yet here I was, changing into a flowy white blouse that would be really expensive for a normal person but was just an everyday expense for me, ready to go on a dinner date with the last person I wanted to be with.

Somehow I had let myself be talked into doing this by Melody and Harold because the customers were curious about my romantic life, apparently. Melody and Harold did have a point, though. After all, we would be a power couple. The hottest, most popular young actor from Hollywood who managed to seduce the mysterious but beautiful CEO.

Here goes nothing, I think, walking out to where Melody waits for me.

“How do I look?” I ask her, posing with a hand on my hip.

“You’re absolutely gorgeous, A. Go get ’em!” she responds enthusiastically.

I take a deep breath and force a smile.

I sure hope so.

I actually loved writing this and kind of want to keep writing this story!! I’m thinking enemies-to-lovers and fake dating, some of my favorite tropes 😍

What did you think of my short story? Was it too long ? 😉 Are you a fan of the characters? What do you think is going to happen between Audre and Dylan?