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It’s Tuesday, and Rosa is reclining on the ripped couch in her tiny L.A. apartment. There’s a Gilmore Girls re-run playing on the TV, but she's not really paying attention. Lorelai is jabbering about something. Lots of adjectives.
Her phone starts to buzz, scooting across the coffee table. She picks it up and heaves a sigh of relief. “Sir,” she answers.
“Hello, Diaz,” Holt says.
She sits up, runs a hand through her hair. “Please tell me I have an assignment.”
“Are you familiar with Gina Linetti?”
Everyone who’s ever gone through a grocery store check-out is familiar with Gina Linetti, she thinks. Instead, she says, “Yes, sir. She’s rejected ten of our other personal guards.”
“Maybe eleven’s the magic number,” he says. “She wants an interview.”
--
In the hours before the interview, Rosa brushes up on Gina’s history. She re-listens to a few songs, reads a summary of the half-aired first season of her reality show. The “Personal Life” section of her Wikipedia page reads like an episode of Game of Thrones.
She wonders briefly whether the biggest security risk will be crazy fans, angry exs, or A-list celebrities Gina’s lambasted over Twitter.
Rosa doesn’t shut her laptop until she catches herself absently scrolling through some kind of fan tumblr, all pictures of Gina’s face. Mostly they’re from photoshoots where she’s like, wearing a pink ballgown and reclining in a giant creampuff or something.
She gets off the couch, practices emptying and re-loading her gun instead.
--
Gina takes one long look when she opens the door. Finally, she asks, “Do you listen to my music?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Gina leans against the doorframe, works one hand into her front pocket. “What do you think?”
Rosa shrugs. She’s not about to stroke a star’s ego for a job. “Good lyrics, good vocals. You’re no Carly Rae Jepsen.”
Gina eyes light up. “You have no idea how long I’ve been trying to get decent security. You’re hired.”
--
“Are there any security risks that I should be aware of?”
Gina shrugs. She’s showing Rosa around her apartment, a tour that involves a lot of gesturing and narration. “I don’t open most of my mail. My assistant forwards me the good stuff. People were sending me human hair for a while, but I don’t know if that was a threat or because I requested it over Instagram.”
Rosa almost stops walking. “Why?”
Gina shrugs. “Wanted to see if I could get people to do it.”
“I’m not quite sure how to respond to that, ma’am.”
“Really?”
“Not respectfully.”
Gina turns around, still walking. “Ro, I became a celebrity so I’d never have to partake in one of these weird, respectful employee-boss things.”
Rosa shakes her head. “You’re pretty weird, Gina.”
“That’s more like it.”
--
The longer Rosa works for Gina, the less it makes any sense.
It doesn’t make any sense that the multi-millionaire international superstar cuts her own hair. It doesn’t make sense that she chooses to decorate her walls not with art but with pictures of wolves she’s printed from the internet. It doesn’t make sense that sometimes she puts on her Oscars dresses and wears them, right there in the apartment. It doesn’t make sense that she offers to let Rosa have them. (“I don’t know, cut it up,” she says, when Rosa flatly asks what she’s supposed to do with a bulk of orange taffeta and silver sequins. “Really bedazzle the hell out of that leather jacket.”)
Gina buys her the apartment across the hall from hers, and whereas Rosa is used to clients trying to forget her existence, Gina opts for barging in at all hours of the day, giving no explanation but that there’s a Kitchen Nightmares marathon on, or that she needs to know Rosa’s zodiac sign.
Sometimes there’s no reason at all. Rosa opens the door and Gina is just standing there, looking at her with big eyes and a wide smile. “I’m bored,” she’ll say, or “What’s up?”
Once, she doesn’t say anything. She leans up and kisses Rosa’s cheek, then darts back to her own home.
Rosa is left in her doorway, fists clenched. Blushing.
It doesn’t make any sense.
--
Rosa flits around the outskirts of the after party. She’s holding a glass of champagne, wearing the black dress Gina insisted on. She watches as Gina gives minute-long interviews, chats with her celebrity friends, squishes into overcrowded selfies. Rosa smiles into her glass.
“Ro!” Gina cries, rushing to her. She’s tipsy, all bouncing and laughing and grabbing at Rosa’s hands. “Why are you over here? You have to come mingle!” She claps her hands. “Come on, come on, come on!”
Rosa shakes her head, stays still in spite of Gina’s tugs. She shrugs apologetically. “Safety concerns, Gina.”
Gina groans exaggeratedly. “I’m at a party full of people more famous than I am! There are five hundred other bodyguards here.” She starts to giggle on the word “here.”
Rosa shakes her head again.
Gina straightens up, a mock-pout on her lips. “I admitted there are people more famous than me. That should show how important this is to me.”
“What a sacrifice.”
Gina rolls her eyes. She leans against the wall next to Rosa, playing with her phone. Rosa thinks she’s giving her the silent treatment, at first, until a line of celebrities seems to build up in front of them, all seemingly eager to shake Rosa’s hand.
Rosa glances at Gina just in time to catch her looking away, embarrassed.
--
There’s something sparkling in the air on the taxi ride home. The whole car seems filled to the brim with laughter. The partition is up and the back of the car seems very small and very warm. Gina’s hand is on Rosa’s leg, her hair is brushing against Rosa’s face. Their skirts are swimming together at the floor.
They go around a curve, and Gina is thrown into Rosa, giggling. Rosa turns to say something and finds her face barely an inch from hers. Gina’s eyes are shining in the dim light. She looks like a real superstar, three pounds of makeup, teeth so white they’re almost blinding. But it’s all a little rough now, a little smudged. And Gina’s laugh, the look in her eyes, is nothing if not genuine.
Rosa cups Gina’s face with one hand, curves the other around her neck, silences the voice in the back of her head telling her it’s a bad idea in favor of the blood pumping through her veins, screaming yes.
--
No one has ever accused Rosa of being easy-going. But Gina’s different. Gina has built an entire career on unpredictability.
Rosa wakes up tangled in the star’s bed and decides to try it her way. She’ll follow every crazy whim Gina has, and when the honeymoon stage is over, and Gina decides to end the fling, at the very least she’ll come out of it with some good stories.
--
Gina is perched on Rosa’s kitchen counter. She is watching Rosa, who is wearing ripped jeans and a ratty white t-shirt and sweating as she paints the walls.
A smile tugged at Rosa’s lips. She dips the roller in more paint. After a moment, she comments, “Room needs a pop of color.”
“Oh, good,” says Gina. “I’m thinking interior decorating is the next logical step in the Linetti empire. What are you thinking?”
Rosa shrugs. “Probably just a bowl of fruit or something.”
“Babe. I’m a millionaire. You could spice this room up with an endangered tiger if you wanted.”
Rosa smirks. “I’ll let you know.”
--
There’s a vase full of lemons when Rosa walks in later.
In actuality, there are ten vases, all including some type of colorful fruit -- apples, pears, mangos.
Rosa swallows. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She wasn’t supposed to feel something.
--
Rosa’s in the line at SafeWay when her blood boils. “This, too,” she says, grabbing the magazine off the shelf.
--
She storms into Gina’s apartment that evening, tosses it down next to her on the couch. She crosses her arms. “Have you seen this?”
Gina picks it up, runs a hand down the glossy cover. “Well, I see why you’re mad. They totally missed your good side.”
“That’s not -- Everyone’s gonna know we’re… together.”
Gina looks up. “So?”
“My boss is gonna know we’re dating, Gina. This is a major conflict of interest.”
Gina flips open the magazine. “So go freelance. Or I’ll hire someone else.”
“You’re firing me,” says Rosa, bluntly. “That’s your solution to this.”
Gina doesn’t look up from the pages. “Sure, why not?”
“Because -- we’re -- you’re --”
“Sorbet, according to this personality quiz.”
Rosa stops pacing momentarily. “What?”
Gina holds up the open magazine. “It’s about which dessert I am.”
Rosa groans. “You know I’m trying to have a conversation with you, right?”
“Oh, I know. I just think it’s boring.” Gina stands up, crosses the room in one long stride. She takes Rosa’s hand, gently unclenches her fingers. “You go get reassigned, whatever, your boss isn’t mad, we keep… you know. Crushing it.”
Rosa took a step back. “Gina…” she says, shaking her head gently. She licks her lips, mutters, “I can’t believe I’m trying to push this conversation.”
Gina’s brow furrows. “What are you doing right now?”
“What’s up with us, Gina?”
“Excuse me?”
“I can’t quit over a fling, G.”
Gina’s mouth fell open. “Seriously? You think this is a fling?”
“No, I just --”
Gina tossed her hands up in the air. “I have been abundantly clear about wanting to be with you.”
Rosa felt blindsided. “I just figured --”
“What? That this is me and Robert Pattinson all over again? That was a fling.” She takes a step closer, looks straight into her eyes like it’s a dare. “I love you, Rosa.”
“Oh,” says Rosa, quietly. “I love you, too.”
“Glad we got that sorted out.”
--
"Next time someone tries to take a photo of me, they're getting a picture of my fist," Rosa says later, all conversational.
"I don't doubt it."
--
She shows Peralta around her former apartment. “Better do your job well,” she tells him. “Stalker kills Gina, I kill you.”
He gulps. He’s always been a little afraid of her.
“I’ll be across the hall, you need anything.”
--
“What do you think of my new album?” asks Gina, leaning into Rosa’s chest on the couch as a Gilmore Girls plays. “Better than CRJ?”
Rosa looks away from the screen and down at her face. “There’s not a right answer to that question, is there?”
“Nope.”
Rosa shrugs, smirks. “I like yours better.”
Gina leans up and kisses Rosa’s cheek. “Well, you should. It’s about you.”