REAL LIFE !

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XOLO FLIPPED BACK ONTO HIS COUCH, HIS phone in hand, already regretting every life choice that had led him to this moment. Jacob's ridiculous bet echoed in his head. Find a girl. DM her. Make her fall for you. Like it was that easy.

Not that Xolo actually intended to make someone fall in love with him. He wasn't that cruel. The whole idea felt weird and kind of messed up, like something straight out of a bad rom-com. He wasn't about to lead someone on for the sake of a dumb challenge. Maybe just befriending someone would be enough. He could message a cool, normal person, have a few conversations, and then tell Jacob he technically fulfilled the bet without playing with anyone's feelings.

He had no idea where to start. Was there a proper strategy for this? Was he supposed to search for mutuals? Go through the comments of posts from LA influencers? Just start DMing random people and hope for the best? He sighed, rubbing a hand down his face. This was so dumb.

Still, he had to at least try—if not for the sake of winning, then to get Jacob off his back. He tapped open Instagram and stared at the search bar like it held all the answers to life. Then, because he had no better ideas, he typed in "Los Angeles" and scrolled through random tagged posts.

There were the usual suspects: influencers posing in front of aesthetic cafés, wannabe models doing painfully staged candid shots, fitness bros showing off their post-workout flex. Nothing stood out. He scrolled a little more, barely paying attention, until he landed on something different.

A post from a girl named Sienna Hart.

It wasn't some overly polished, try-hard influencer shot. It was a mirror selfie in an aggressively messy bedroom, captioned: Manifesting my life together (Ignore the disaster behind me, I swear I'm not a lost cause.)

Xolo snorted. Intrigued, he tapped on her profile.

Sienna Hart. UCLA student. Something arts-related, based on the fact that half her posts were about film stuff. Her feed was chaotic in the best way—one post was a picture of a screenplay open on her laptop with the caption 'currently fighting for my life over dialogue', another was a blurry selfie with a half-eaten burger labeled 'LA's finest cuisine'.

The more he scrolled, the funnier her posts got. A screenshot of her Notes app that just said 'remember to act normal (concerning)'. A video of her struggling to carry six coffee cups at once while muttering this is why I have trust issues. A picture of a very unimpressed-looking cat with the caption 'me, reading a script that makes zero sense'.

Xolo huffed a laugh. Okay. She seemed normal. Not an influencer, not someone who would see his message and immediately try to use it for clout. Just some random girl with a funny Instagram presence and a questionable sense of organization.

This could work.

He hovered over the DM button. What the hell was he even supposed to say? "Hey" was boring. A pick-up line was way too much. Maybe a joke? Something casual? He groaned, tapping his fingers against his phone like that would somehow summon the perfect message.

Finally, he just typed the first thing that came to mind.

XOLOMARIDUEÑA 

be honest

how many unread emails are in your inbox right now?

He stared at the message for a second. Then, before he could talk himself out of it, he hit send.

And now, he waited.

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SIENNA SAT AT HER TINY, CLUTTERED DESK, staring at the blinking cursor on her laptop screen like it personally offended her. Her latest screenplay draft was due in less than 48 hours, and she had... nothing. No brilliant dialogue, no clever plot twist, just an aggressively blank page and a slowly intensifying sense of doom.

She groaned, flopping forward dramatically onto the desk before reaching for her iced coffee. One sip confirmed her worst suspicion—it was mostly just melted ice and regret at this point. 

Her apartment was small but cozy, a chaotic mix of film posters, thrifted furniture, and an ever-growing stack of half-filled notebooks that screamed "unhinged creative." The only thing keeping her sane was the fact that she lived alone, so no one could judge the mess or witness her mid-writing spirals.

Her phone buzzed, cutting through the silence. A notification from Instagram. A DM.

She glanced at it, fully expecting spam or some random film dude mansplaining Tarantino to her again. But then she saw the name.

Xolo.

As in Xolo Maridueña.

Sienna sat up so fast she almost knocked over her coffee. She clicked the message open, heart already racing.

XOLOMARIDUEÑA

 be honest

how many unread emails are in your inbox right now?

She blinked. What.

There was no way this was real. Maybe he was hacked? Or maybe this was some elaborate prank? There was literally no logical reason for him to be DM'ing her of all people.

She locked her phone and chucked it onto the bed like it had personally offended her.

Okay. Two possibilities. First, maybe this was a mistake, and he meant to message someone else or maybe she was hallucinating due to caffeine deprivation.

Either way, she was not about to embarrass herself by responding to what was clearly some kind of weird accident. She was just a random UCLA screenwriting major with a chaotic Instagram presence. What were the odds that a literal celebrity found her funny enough to DM? Zero.

She went back to her screenplay, determined to pretend like none of this was happening.

That lasted all of two hours before her phone buzzed again.

XOLOMARIDUEÑA

oh my god you saw this and ignored me 

that's so embarrassing for me

Sienna snorted. Okay, so maybe he wasn't hacked.

She stared at the message, then at her wall, then back at the message. What the actual fuck?

Before she could stop herself, she clicked onto Xolo's profile. Of course, she'd heard of him. Her best friend, Lucas, was a massive Cobra Kai fan and had spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to convince her to watch it. Recently, he had made her sit through Blue Beetle, pausing every five minutes to give behind-the-scenes trivia like he personally worked on the film.

So yeah, she knew who Xolo was. But it wasn't like he was her celebrity crush or anything.

I mean... he was hot.

Very hot.

And now, he was DM'ing her?

Her stomach twisted. What was she supposed to do? Play it cool? Ignore him? Pretend she didn't care even though her brain was currently short-circuiting?

After a solid ten minutes of overthinking, she exhaled sharply and finally typed back.

SIENNAHART
bold of you to assume i open my emails at all

She hit send, then threw her phone onto the bed like it was cursed.

What the hell was her life?