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you’re what, 5’9?”
    “5’10, but –”
    “That’s plenty!” Grace smiles and takes her phone from her pocket. She flounces to the balcony, where the lights of L.A. twinkle against the darkness, and closes the sliding door behind her.
    “Don’t let her rope you in,” Lee sighs. He chops basil, rosemary, and onions with surprising speed. “She tried it on me and it ended in tears.”
    “ Whose tears?”
    “I frustrated the photographer so bad he told me to get out. And then he told me I was beautiful and tried to get my number.”
    I smother a laugh. “Wait, so you –”
    “Tried modeling for a day. Yup. Hated it.” He scrapes the onions and herbs into a frying pan coated with butter. “If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s people curbing my freedom. Telling me what to do, where to go, when to go there. I hated high school the same way.”
    “High school…in Spain, right?”
    He nods and leans into the fridge, taking out a slab of beautifully marbled steak. “Grace and I grew up in a stuffy, rich suburb of Madrid. Private Catholic schools. Really boring.”
    “So Grace moved here?”
    “She’s three years older than me,” Lee puts the steak into the pan where it sizzles satisfyingly. He pulls out a saucepan and fills it with water, setting it on the stove. “When she was a Junior and I was a Freshmen, she got spotted in the street during Madrid Fashion Week by some agency. She dropped out and moved around a lot – Paris a couple years, then Tokyo, and finally got sent here. Dad was pissed. Still is. They don’t talk to each other.”
    “But you two do,” I say.
    “I have to,” He sighs. “Since Grace dropped out he’s set on me taking over the family business. I have to go to college and get good grades, do all the traditional stuff.”
    “He sent you here to L.A? Or did you come on your own?”
    Lee’s eyes flash. “You’re awfully interested in me all of a sudden.”
    “I just…” I chew the inside of my mouth. “I’m just curious.”
    “Dad told me to transfer to UCLA. I wanted to, of course, to get away from him. So I did. But then he told me you went here, told me to get to know you.”
    “For the money,” I insist. Lee nods and sighs.
    “He’s really bent on getting it. Our family owns race horses, but he bets on them, too. A few months ago he bet more than he had, and now the loan sharks are after him.”
    “He tried to get money from me,” Grace says, sliding the door behind her as she comes in. She flips her phone closed and settles on a bar stool next to me. “But I told him to rot in hell.”
    Lee pours her a glass of water. She thanks him and looks to me.
    “So. Good news. Alex says you can come with me to my shoot tomorrow morning.”
    “T-Tomorrow? Who’s Alex?”
    “My manager. Tomorrow we’re doing a shoot for De La Rosse’s summer collection in Laguna Beach. You’ll model with me.”
    “What?” I screech. “Wait, wait wait wait , I’m not –”
    “Relax,” She laughs. “We’ll just take a few silly pictures together and have the photographer send them to us. You can try on some clothes. I’ll be doing the real work. You can just hang around and eat the breakfast spread, if you want.”
    Jen comes out of the bathroom, crowing. “Nobody go in there without a gasmask. Whoa, Rose, you really don’t look good. Are you gonna hurl? Because you might wanna find a less-stunk-up toilet.”
    “She’s scared of coming with me to a shoot,” Grace says softly. Jen makes an ‘o’ face and pats me on the back.
    “Hey, don’t worry. I’ve been with her twice. It’s nothing big. And the food is to die for. They get it catered and shit.”
    “If she doesn’t want to go, you shouldn’t force her,” Lee murmurs.
    “Relax, pretty-boy.” Jen sniggers. “Rose’ll go anywhere there’s pastries.”
    “No, it sounds nice. I’ll go,” I say. “If it’s okay. But no modeling.”
    “Definitely.” Grace stands and flounces into one of