Runaway from Reality

By Julia Knox

Katelin Kross is used to the limelight — her family, the Krosses, have been famous reality-TV stars for most of her life — but that doesn't mean she has to like it. When she learns she's getting a show of her own, meaning more time on camera, not less, she heads to the woods of Northern California to clear her head and indulge her fantasies of escape...but even there, she's not alone.

But Brock Richardson, a handsome mycologist on the hunt for a rare mushroom, seems to be the only person in America who doesn't know who she is. For the first time, Katelin is able to get to know a guy without wondering if he's just trying to get a slice of her fame. As their attraction to one another deepens, she knows it's only a matter of time before he finds out what she's been hiding. Is it worth taking a chance on something she knows could never work out?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryant Street Shorts
• Release date: Feb 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781094435046

Julia Knox

Julia Knox is a lifelong resident of the Pacific Northwest with a background in the arts and legal professions. Living in such a beautiful area, she enjoys a good hike and stargazing — at least when rain clouds don’t cover the sky. On those drizzly days, she stays in with a good book on her lap and an interesting album on the turntable or a new recipe to experiment with, to her friends and family’s delight (or disappointment).

Book preview

Chapter 1

Hot Set, People! Hot Set!

Katelin

Alone in my real bedroom, I only heard the faraway hum of the air conditioner invade the silence. I missed hearing the birds, sure but, even before my mother had finally agreed to install sound-dampening insulation and windows in the back guesthouse, I heard more traffic and construction around our Hollywood Hills neighborhood, plus the near-constant drone of planes overhead, than birds anyway.

The loudest and most persistent sounds on the grounds came from the crew — well, crews, actually. We’d become a two-reality-show family, now. My oldest sister, Kandi, would only make an occasional appearance on Kross Our Hearts. After last season’s big wedding finale, the network had started promoting Kross-Purposes to document her honeymoon with Nate Davidson and how they juggled married life with the start of her big fashion line and his NBA career.

After my mother announced Kandi’s new show, I joked that when she got pregnant she should star in Kross to Bare. Seeing only dollar signs, Mom agreed it was a great pitch. At least the network shot that one down. They’d show my sister Kayla’s nip slip with only the lightest pixelation of her areola, but no Kross puns related to the Cross. Sex sold a hell of a lot better than blasphemy.

One crew had been bad enough. They’d all but taken over the pool house to turn it into an on-site production room, and cameras rolled almost every day and into the night through the main house and the entire yard. Only the back guesthouse offered any respite from being on camera or, now, having to hear the second crew handling Kandi and Nate’s post-honeymoon visit.

She wasn’t due back until tomorrow, but two new production trailers had been parked near the pool house when I’d woken to take my usual morning swim. I’d set my alarm early so I could get in and out of the pool before the camera crews arrived. Seeing the new production trucks sent me right back inside.

In my silent sanctuary, I leaned close to the window. The ridge rose steeply behind the wall of the backyard, its rocky outcroppings and the hearty plants that somehow rooted into them taking up almost all the view. If I pressed my face against the glass, only a sliver of blue sky appeared at the top.

Sure, it wasn’t much of a view, but it was the only place in the entire compound where I could see nature without the evidence of people… except when a plane flew over. The back guesthouse didn’t have the panoramic view of Los Angeles offered by the main house and seen in the opening credits of Kross Our Hearts. Every other window showed the crowded slopes of Hollywood Hills, packed with properties ranging in size from mansions like ours to small houses that utilized every square inch of their tiny lots.

I preferred seeing the ridge. When I was younger, I’d hiked to the top once. The view up there only quadrupled the one from the main house, offering a look at the crowded sprawl between Los Angeles and the valley as well as the Pacific Ocean to the desert in the east, almost as far as the eye could see. I’d take a window full of a rocky slope over that any day, though it paled in comparison to really being out in nature. It had been too long. I’d started itching to get away again.

The speaker over the door crackled and hummed. I closed my eyes and dropped my head. Damn, did I need a break.

Katelin to bedroom set four, said a gruff voice from the speaker. Katelin to bedroom set four.

Sound-dampened windows and insulation couldn’t keep me from reality. I pushed myself up and trudged for the door. Downstairs and through the guesthouse’s tiny kitchen I went, only to pause with my hand on the knob of the exterior door. A deep breath later, I stepped out.

A few guys milled around the coffee dispenser at the craft services table hidden behind the pool house. They offered only a glance as I made my way around the pool to the back of the main house and its floor-to-ceiling windows. Their eyes quickly returned to their coffee and whispered conversation.

After being with us day in and day out, we had long since lost our luster for any crew that had originally felt starstruck — not likely given the demographics of the show, anyway. It was the best part about the crew. They might follow us around with cameras and sound equipment, but that was just part of their job. They left us alone the rest of the time.

Through the glass I could see a camera crew standing at the ready in the informal dining room. All three of them wore jeans and black shirts. The camera on his shoulder hid the cameraman’s face. The sound man held a boom mic high in the air in front of him. Behind them, the director stared at his tablet, wearing a headset with a microphone.

My mother leaned against the kitchen island under the boom mic. Tall, with the willowy figure that had made her a supermodel before Kandi ruined her body, she held herself stiffly, head tilted up with the regal bearing of a queen. The makeup crew had already seen to her face, perfect as always. The trademark Kross dark eyeliner made them pop.

A sparkly top draped off her shoulders and fell to an asymmetrical hem below the waist of her black skirt, both featured heavily in the next season of her Karen Kross Professional line, sold exclusively at Target. She held her Starbucks cup with the logo facing the camera, as the contract required.

I stopped at the door. Kross Our Hearts had started filming when I was thirteen; I’d spent the last decade living with constant cameras. The first rule drilled in my head was never interrupt a shot in progress unless cued and ready with lines.

Oh, it’s such an exciting time, expanding our brand like this. All the girls are just so jazzed about the opportunities we’ve had, Mom was saying, her voice muffled through the closed glass door. No sound-dampening in the main house. It added echo to the boom mic’s recording. We hope our loyal viewers will be ready to Kross into new territory with us.

Cut. That was great, Karen, the director said.

The camera and sound men stepped back. The camera pointed to the floor. The boom mic lowered. My mother held up a hand, palm facing her, and beckoned me inside. The director huffed when I closed the door behind me.

You need to get to wardrobe and makeup before you head to your room for your scene, young lady, he scolded wearily.

Come on, Katelin, Mom said as she stepped my way and hooked her arm through mine. Kayla’s getting her finishing touches done. You don’t want to hold up production, do you?

Oh, never, I replied flatly.

Sarcasm isn’t sexy, honey, she chided with a shake of her head. Our fans don’t want to see that, remember?

I didn’t say it on camera, did I? I replied, just as flatly.

Mom only sighed. We headed up the back stairs and down the hall of the kids’ wing. Wardrobe and makeup took up one of the unused bedroom suites. Wheeled garment racks wrapped around the walls of the main room, two for each of us, with shoes and accessories stacked on the shelves above and below.

Margie, the head of wardrobe, glanced up from the ironing board. She was a middle-aged woman with a pinched face. Her lips constantly pressed together even when she didn’t have a few clothespins in them.

What shall she wear? Margie asked, eyes on my mother. We have some pieces in her size from Kandi’s fall collection, but is it too early?

We’re filming inside; we should dress her in the collection, Mom replied and stepped close to the rack Margie pointed to. It’ll be out by the time this airs anyway.

Nobody ever asked me what I wanted to wear. Usually I preferred when the production ignored me, but I always bristled when they talked about me like I wasn’t standing in the room with them.

They kept it up, debating which pieces of the fall collection worked best on me. I tuned it out as always. Mom might have shared her distinctive cheekbones, tanned complexion, and dark hair with me, just like she had with my sisters, but they’d inherited her height, or maybe their father’s. I’d come after Mom divorced him and married my father, who’d been a foot shorter, though much wealthier than her first husband, a soap-opera star who passed away. Dad’s alimony payments had bankrolled the first season, but his genes left me just under five foot six.

Comments from Margie like if only she had longer legs, this skirt would look striking, and we need some vertical stripes, they’ll make her seem taller sounded like the adults in an old Peanuts cartoon to me by now. After their consultation, I went behind the screen and put on the winning outfit: an oversized, pale-pink turtleneck that fell mid-thigh with its long sleeves pushed up to my elbows over a pair of Kandi’s signature leggings, not that I’d call the swirling black-and-white-checkerboard pattern signature. Even my socks came from her collection.

Mom took my arm and shuffled me into the suite’s bathroom, now a makeup room with three hairdresser chairs installed along the long mirror. Kayla sat at the far chair, one of the hairdressers teasing her blonde bangs. Almost a carbon copy of our older sister, and of my Mom thirty years earlier, she’d been dyeing her hair per the production’s orders since before the show had even started. She wiggled her fingers in a wave but kept her eyes on her phone.

I dutifully dropped into the middle chair and let Claire, the makeup artist, wrap the styling cape over my outfit before she started on my makeup, all from the Kross line, of course. It would be a breach of contract if we ever appeared in another brand’s product. Mom stepped past and examined my sister’s face in the mirror.

Katelin, have you given any thought to the boyfriend question? Mom asked, turning back to me.

Kayla glanced up from her phone and caught my eye in the mirror. Her perfectly shaped eyebrows danced and she flashed her teeth in a dangerous smile.

Boyfriend? she asked, savoring the word. Who are the choices?

We have three potentials, already under NDAs and willing to sign the relationship contract if we choose them, Mom said.

A contract, how romantic, I added, earning a hiss from Claire for moving too much.

What’s a marriage, honey? It’s just a contract, Mom asked. You have to be real about this sort of thing.

Here at the center of celebrity, contracts were a common, if unspoken, part of life. Half the relationships breathlessly covered by the gossip sites and tabloids were just