Page 107 of The Boyfriend Experience

I focus on the people waiting for me in the reception area, tug on my bedazzled t-shirt to focus myself, and then walk forward with a smile to greet Hanna and the Home TV entourage.

I smile big, playing along like a good little girl doing what she’s told.

There’s air kisses, and handshakes, and laughing, and… yeah.

I’m pretty much living my worst nightmare.

Hanna is eating it up.

I want to barf.

But I rally, because I have no plan. I have nothing. Even though she did all this unspeakable shit to me, she holds all the cards and we both know it.

I take them upstairs. I play hostess. I get out my beers and line them up on the counter, much the way I did for Lawton last week. Hanna, ever prepared for a throwdown, brought hers with her and there’s a few curious looks between the executives as they come to the same realization that Law did.

“Wow,” Michaela says. “They are certainly similar. You two don’t mess around, do you?”

I make myself smile.

“You know why that is?” Hanna asks, beaming with delight at her coup.

“Why is that?” I ask, leaning forward a little, because I cannot wait to hear her answer.

“It’s because Oaklee and I are… well, she’s my nemesis.”

I want to say, Ah ha! But I don’t, because… well, I think it’s pretty obvious.

“And I’m hers,” Hanna continues. “And you know what they say about your nemesis?”

“No,” I growl. “What do they say?”

Hanna smiles at me, and I swear to God, I think it’s real. “They say… they challenge you to be your best self. They make you better. We, Oaklee, make each other better.”

“Yes,” Michaela says. “That’s so fascinating! This is what we’re eating up right now, ladies. This… this… this diabolical sense that you two want to kill each other. And yet that anger and hatred makes you so much more interesting. So much more successful. This show is going to be fabulous!”

Yeah, this Michaela, she can suck my tit.

“It’s like Larry Bird and Magic Johnson,” Mike, apparently a basketball dude, says. “They played, not only so their teams could win, but so they could beat each other. And when one was not playing, the other faltered.”

“Is that so?” I ask. “I don’t follow basketball.” And this is certainly not like that at all, I don’t add.

Because this is… this is Charles Xavier versus Magneto. This is Superman versus Lex Luthor. This is Batman versus Joker.

And Hanna Harlow is Magneto, Lex Luthor, and Joker all wrapped up into one neat insane package. She has me imprisoned in Kryptonite-infused metal and I don’t even have a fucking Batarang to defend myself.

We’re talking nemesis to the highest order. We’re talking insane radioactive assholes with planet-sized egos. Larry Bird and Magic Johnson look like toddlers fighting over toys compared to me and Hanna.

I need to find her weakness. Because so far, nothing I do or say affects her at all. It’s just one lie on top of another. And it all comes out of her mouth sounding like… like absolute truth.

She is charismatic in the worst way. So evil, people want to believe there’s something underneath all that hate and anger—because otherwise they have to believe in the Devil himself… and that scares the shit out of them.

She is the reason we love to watch the Joker. And it doesn’t even matter that we know he’s insane, that everything that comes out of his mouth is lies, that he’s going to betray anyone and everyone who gets in his way—even those on his side.

We want to believe he’s good underneath or we have to admit that evil is real.

How do I fight that?

I need a whole team of superheroes by my side to beat her ass down. I need all my superfriends to show up and help me. I need…