Page 46 of The Ex Factor

But as she replayed the memory of the disaster, her mind didn’t stay on the blinding camera flashes or the sting of her scraped knee. Instead, it kept drifting back to Ashley.

Molly had been braced for the absolute worst. She had expected well-deserved anger.

Instead, Ashley had laughed.

It hadn’t been a polite, fake smile for the cameras, either. It had been a deep, snorting laugh that had completely shattered the tension.

It had been so fucking graceful.

Her phone began to buzz violently in her hand, shattering her thoughts. The caller ID flashed: USELESS AGENT. She really ought to change that one of these days.

Molly swallowed hard and swiped to answer. ‘Karen, I am so, so sorry. The dress, my heel—’

‘Molly, shut up and listen to me,’ Karen interrupted, her voice uncharacteristically breathless.

Molly braced for the firing squad. ‘Okay. Go ahead. Tell me I’m dropped.’

‘Dropped? Are you insane? You’re a genius!’ Karen cackled into the phone. ‘The BBC casting directors for Freshly Laundered just called my office. You’re officially in the running for the drama, Molly! You’re on the longlist!’

A massive, overwhelming wave of relief washed over Molly, leaving her weak-kneed. She sank deeper into the sofa. ‘Are you serious? They don’t think I’m a joke?’

‘In this industry, bad press is only bad if people look away,’ Karen said pragmatically. ‘Right now, everyone is looking at you and Ashley. The ‘klutzy but lovable girlfriend’ angle is working wonders. But—’ Karen’s voice dropped into her business tone. ‘—we can’t coast on a viral trip forever. We still need to do more to keep this momentum going before the casting finalises.’

Molly frowned, her brief bubble of joy deflating. ‘More? Karen, I almost broke a photographer’s camera and semi-exposed Ashley. What am I supposed to do next? Drive a car through a storefront?’

‘Ashley’s tour is kicking off soon. It starts all the way up in Scotland and works its way down, finishing with a massive three-night run in London. I think she’s touring Europe after that.’

‘Right...’ Molly said slowly. ‘Good for her.’ She really didn’t see where Karen was going.

‘Good for you,’ Karen corrected sharply. ‘I’ve already been on the phone with Simon this morning, and he agrees with me completely. We’re sending you on the road. You’re going on tour with her, Molly.’

Molly sat bolt upright on the sofa. ‘What? No. Absolutely not.’

‘Think about the optics! You’re the doting, supportive girlfriend, sacrificing your own comfort to sit on a tour bus and cheer her on from the VIP boxes every single night. You’ll be spotted in Edinburgh, Manchester, right up until the finale in London. The paparazzi will go feral for it.’

‘Karen, I’m an actress, not a groupie!’ Molly protested, her voice rising in panic. ‘Plus, Ashley and I barely know each other anymore. We had one decent laugh in a cinema lobby; that doesn’t mean I want to live in her pockets while she plays arenas!’

‘Do you want this BBC role or not?’ Karen asked, her tone cutting through Molly’s protestations like a scalpel. ‘Because right now, the only thing keeping you in that casting director’s mind is the fact that you’re attached to Ashley Malone. You stay visible, you stay in the headlines, and you could well get the part. And you would kill it, I know you would, however you get there. You bow out now, and you go back to auditioning for corpses on daytime crime dramas. A few weeks, Molly. That’s all I’m asking.’

Molly looked back at her phone, at the picture of her and Ashley tangled on the red carpet. She was deeply unhappy at the prospect of trading her comfortable flat for life on a tour bus.

But the terrifying threat of career obscurity? That scared her a lot more.

‘Fine,’ Molly groaned, rubbing her temples. ‘But if she plays her own album on loop in the bus, I’m throwing myself out of the window while it’s moving.’

Five Years Ago

‘To you!’ Ashley said, raising a glass of the second-cheapest wine on the menu. Molly clinked back.

She was having dinner with Ashley. The location wasn’t fancy. It was a Mexican place around the corner from Molly’s flat that couldn’t decide whether it wanted you to sit down and relax or take your food and get the fuck out. It did, however, have a licence to serve booze, which nudged it just far enough into ‘sit-down restaurant’ territory to justify lingering. For broke people, anyway.

And Molly was still one of those people. She might have an acting job now, but the first proper payday was still ahead of her.

She hoped Ashley would still be around when it arrived. She’d take her somewhere better then. Somewhere with white tablecloths and escargot. It sounded disgusting, but that was sort of the point. Molly had never been in a position where she could afford to find out for herself how fucking gross it was and what massive phonies wealthy people were.

She’d signed the contract. Shooting started in a few weeks. A real job, on a real sitcom. About four grand an episode. A figure that, to anyone properly established, might sound pathetic. But to Molly it was a lot of coffee shop shifts.

Still, she wasn’t counting it. It still felt like the sort of thing that could vanish. It was all too easy to imagine getting fired on her first day, quietly steered off set before she’d even learned where the toilets were.