“What are you doing here?”
“Just checking up on you,” she says as she glides around the room, looking around casually as if she’s considering buying it. “How’s your throat?”
I touch my throat as if remembering it was supposed to hurt suddenly. Despite the shouting match with Brando, the stress of crying all night on the plane, and the fact that I’ve been doing anything but resting since fucking Brando at Lexi’s show – it feels way better than it should.
“Fine … I guess?”
Lexi laughs wildly. “Oh! What a surprise,” she says with open derision. “I suppose that strange, unnamed, random doctor was wrong.”
I step toward Lexi, and she moves sideways.
“What do you mean by that?” I ask, making it clear from my tone that I don’t appreciate hers.
She grins menacingly as we circle each other around the furniture like wrestlers before a bout.
“Why don’t you take a guess? And show me just how gullible you can really be?”
“That wasn’t a real doctor? And I wasn’t sick enough to miss the show?” Lexi looks at me with mock-pity as she slow-claps. “You made me miss the New York show for nothing?”
“No. I never do anything for nothing. You missed the show because you were getting in my way.”
I shake my head in disbelief. Lexi leans back against the kitchen counter, stretching her long, bare legs out in front of her.
“You’re … you’re a bitch.”
Lexi laughs as she picks up an apple from the fruit bowl and plays with it in her hand.
“That’s not even the bitchiest thing I did yesterday.”
I take a couple of steps closer to her, my limbs feeling like coiled springs.
“What are you talking about?”
Lexi takes a loud bite of the apple and looks at me expectantly.
“No,” I say, refusing to let the thought take root. “No. You didn’t.”
“I probably did.”
“No. How could you? You didn’t even know.”
Lexi nonchalantly wipes the corner of her mouth, but her lipstick is still picture-perfect. “I know I have a good voice – but I have even better ears.” She puts on a comical impression of Brando. “‘Oh Haley, that night you told me Rex Bentley – the legendary singer - was your father, I got such a hard-on. Poor you, having such famous parents.’”
I bury my head in my hands, clawing at my hair.
“I can’t believe it. This is too much,” I say, looking back at Lexi. “It doesn’t make any sense. What do you get by telling the press about that? If anything it just makes me more famous, gives me more attention – more than you. Why would you do that?”
“Because,” Lexi says, turning serious as she tosses the apple away and strides slowly toward me, “I couldn’t give two fucks about your career anymore. I don’t care how many sweaty guitar geeks give your lousy records great reviews. I couldn’t be more oblivious to how many shows you sell out. I’ve realized what I really want.”
She stands in front of me, inches away, her face so close I can see the thickness of her lashes.
“I want Brando back.”
This time it’s me who laughs, hysterically, my body reacting with the only response it can find for something so insane.
“Are you fucking crazy?” I shout, pacing away from her and then turning back. “What? You thought I’d assume it was him and then we’d…” I stop laughing when I realize she was almost right, that she almost got exactly what she wanted.
I step toward her, finger in front of me. “Well it didn’t work. And it never will. Brando’s still mine. You failed. You and all your stupid fucking games.”
Slowly, Lexi puts her hand around my pointed finger, and pulls it away from her face.
“It’s not over yet, babe. Brando’s still going to choose me.”
“Wow,” I say, shaking my head. “You are one hundred percent, no holds-barred, batshit crazy. How can you even think that he’d still go back to you? I almost pity you for being that deluded.”
“I’m giving Majestic a choice. Either they drop me, or they drop you. Once you’re gone, it’ll be just me and my Brando again – just like old times.”
I turn and take a few steps away from her, unsure of whether to laugh or to call the men in white coats. I spin back around to look at her, standing proudly.
“You’re crazy. The label’s not going to drop me for a prima donna like you. You might be a star, Lexi, but you’re also a huge pain in the ass,” I say, stepping back toward her. “And even if they’re stupid enough to drop me, Brando’s not.”
Lexi licks her lips like she’s preparing to bite.
“You seem pretty certain that you know what Brando will do.”
“I do.”
“Are you sure? How long have you known him? Three months? Four? Try four fucking years with him. Four years that took us from a shitty studio apartment in Harlem to the Hollywood Hills. Four years to understand each other, to know how to make each other happy, to know how to push each other’s buttons.”
“Those years don’t count for anything,” I snarl, losing some of my self-control. “You made sure of that the instant you cheated and left him, left the real music. All you cared about was money and fame.”
Lexi’s unfazed. “That time must have counted for something – the only reason you’re even here is the bet he made to get me back.”
I clench my fists and hold them tightly to my side.
“Maybe he loved you at one point. But not now. Not after the way you treated him,” I say, the shakiness of the words letting both of us know I only half-believe it.
“And how exactly did you treat him, Haley? I saw the way you kept your distance from him on the tour, even though he wanted so badly to have a little taste of whatever it is you’ve got. I heard about how you assumed the worst of him the second you heard the Rex Bentley story broke out. You didn’t even give him a chance to explain, did you?”
I stand there stiffly, my mouth open as if to say something, but the shaking tension of my body, the stabbing fears in my mind, are too much to handle. Lexi’s got a point.
“You keep acting like I’m the one who’s fucking up your relationship,” she continues, “but the truth is, you’re the one who got in the middle of ours.”
Lexi laughs when she sees I’m too shaken to talk, and starts walking toward the door. She opens it, and looks back over her shoulder.
“I’ll tell you one thing you don’t know about Brando,” she says. “He’ll sacrifice everything he has, for the one thing he wants.”
She steps through the door, but just before she’s out of earshot I find my voice.
“You’d better hope he still wants you, then.”
Chapter 15
Brando
I drive home before going to Majestic to meet Rowland, calling the small team of college students I hired to manage Haley’s website and her social media to tell them they need to get their asses to my place as soon as possible for an emergency meeting. Even though I drive with all the impatient recklessness of a man with hours left to live, they’re in the lobby by the time I arrive, laptops under their arms. I bring the five of them into my apartment, seat them in the lounge, and stand in front of them like a general about to give the briefing for a suicide mission.
“Okay, guys,” I say, clapping my hands, “listen up. The next couple of days it’s crucial we put a mark on this thing. I’m going to need all of you to work like motherfuckers right now. Whatever I’m paying you, triple it. Now we can’t stop this story from spreading, but we can try and shape the conversation a little bit.”
I point to a couple of the wide-eyed students opening their laptops hurriedly. “Steven, Jessica: You take social media. Haley is nervous about her sore throat – she still hasn’t had it checked out. She’s gutted that she missed the New York show, but the tour went great, she’s eternally grateful to her fans for their support, and can’t wait to finish off the al
bum. Act like you don’t even know about the Rex Bentley thing, you’re above it, it’s just some dumb rumor that you’re way above even acknowledging.
“Ross, Michelle: Find the freshest, biggest articles on the story – the ones that everybody else is linking to. Make multiple accounts, and comment on them. ‘This is just a dumb misunderstanding,’ ‘how is this even news,’ ‘daughter or not, her show was still awesome,’ that kind of thing. Make it seem like the logical reaction to this is disbelief and scorn for the guys who write about it.
“Simon,” I say, looking at him with keen intent, “here’s what I want you to do. Make a fake account, and message the people I’m going to give you the email addresses for. Tell them that you’re a source close to Haley. Tell them that they’ve got the story wrong, Rex Bentley is not her father.” I pause for a second while he nods. “Mick Jagger is.”
“What?” he says, incredulous. Everybody else turns to look at me. “That’s ridiculous!”
“Exactly,” I say. “You can’t kill a story like this, but you can make it so confusing and exaggerated that nobody gives a shit anyway. Disinformation. When people don’t know what to believe, they believe none of it.”
Slowly, as the idea sinks in, Simon starts to nod, then opens his laptop with enthusiasm.
“I’m going to have a meeting at the label now, I’ll be back later,” I shout behind me as I go for the door. “Don’t let me down, guys. Haley’s counting on you.”
I slam through Rowland’s doors like a bull through the gates, the sound of his secretary confirming my appointment already behind me.
“I’m squashing the story, Rowland! Don’t make any statements from the label, my team is going to handle this. I know you think this is good for Haley but—” I’m already at his desk, standing over it with my palms on the steel when I notice. “What’s Lexi doing here?”
I turn my gaze back from her crossed legs, casually bouncing up and down, toward the concerned, almost frightened, look on Rowland’s face. He locks his fingers in front of him on the table and fidgets.
He talks slowly, carefully, like a doctor on a death ward. “I don’t really know how to say this, and I’m pretty surprised myself, to be totally honest with you, but I—”
“Haley’s getting dropped from the label,” Lexi interrupts with dark relish. “I’ve just told him. It’s me or her.”
“What?” I say, my eyes switching between the two like I’m watching a frantic tennis match. “Is this some kind of joke?”
“I don’t exactly have a choice,” Rowland whispers through gritted teeth, as if Lexi wouldn’t be able to hear. He raises his helpless eyes to mine, almost like he’s begging for a way out. “Lexi’s pretty much made up her mind.”
I turn to her.
“Why are you doing this?”
“I don’t like the way this label is run,” Lexi says, springing out of her chair and standing beside me. “What was Haley doing on my tour? She doesn’t even have a full album out! And you were supposed to be managing both of us, Brando, but I didn’t see you running to my side very often.”
“You seemed to do perfectly fine on your own,” I growl.
“Exactly. I don’t like sharing. And as long as Haley’s on the label, I know I won’t be getting all the support I could be getting. It’s me or her.”
I turn to Rowland. “This is ridiculous. Lexi signed a contract. She can’t leave, right? Isn’t that what you told me? That this whole business is about tying up artists even when they don’t want to be?”
“I’m only part artist – I’m all businesswoman,” Lexi purrs maliciously. “Anyone tries to stop me from quitting and I’ll destroy Majestic from the inside. A couple of tweets and I’d have every one of my fans boycotting your records. Maybe throw in a sexual harassment lawsuit. Yet another case of the big, bad record industry taking advantage of a poor, innocent girl. I can bring a shit storm raining down on this label that you people will never recover from.”
Rowland’s face goes white, and he jumps up from his chair. Lexi flutters her eyelashes and laughs. Now the three of us are standing around the desk.
“You see this?” he cries, despairingly. “What the fuck am I supposed to do?”
“You’re supposed to drop Lexi, and keep Haley!” I shout back. “She’s the one who killed on this tour, not Lexi! She’s the one with the potential to take us to another level!”
“You think I want to drop Haley? She’s fantastic, I love her! But I don’t have a choice!”
“Yes you do! Lexi’s giving you one!”
Rowland slumps back into his chair and spends a full five seconds rubbing his forehead before looking back up at me. Lexi just watches us, all self-satisfied amusement and dancing eyes—loving every second.
“Haley’s had two hits, Lexi’s had five. Haley hasn’t even released an album, Lexi’s had a number one. The tour was great, but it was still Lexi’s name on the top of it. Even when you get past the simple numbers of the thing, I don’t know what the hell is going on with Haley. One minute she’s fucking up a gig because she can’t tune a guitar, the next minute she’s pulling out of the grand finale to the tour. And now there’s a weird story connecting her to Rex Bentley that you won’t let me use to her advantage because of her ‘feelings.’” I take a step back. I know what’s coming. “I’ve made my choice, Brando. Haley’s gone.”
“Then so am I,” I say, stalking toward the door.
Chapter 16
Haley
I’m still in shock over Lexi’s visit when there’s a knock at the door. I stop doing laps around the living room and pulling at my hair to turn and look at it. There’s another knock. I step slowly towards it. When I open it, I can’t control myself. I leap onto Brando, bury my face into his neck, clutch his back as tightly as a lifesaver. For the past hour I’ve been wondering if I’ll ever see him again, if the one guy who can make me feel like he does is about to disappear from my life forever. The idea alone crushed me, chewed me up, made me feel like a ghost. Just seeing him again is enough to make me break down.
“Haley,” he says slowly, pushing me off him gently and closing the door behind him, “I’ve got some bad news.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head and feeling my heart grow heavy. I back away slowly. “No.”
His face is serious, unhappy. I pray he doesn’t speak, gathering every bit of strength in my body to tell him not to speak, and it’s still not enough. I bury my head in my hands.
“The label dropped you,” he says, bluntly and sadly.
I look up slowly, feeling like somebody put a hot towel on my face.
“And you chose Lexi.”
His face changes. “No, I didn’t. Rowland did. Majestic did. Not me.” He pauses, realization dawning. “You knew about the ultimatum?”
I nod, steeling myself for an answer I probably don’t want to hear. “So what did you choose?”
“Haley,” he says, rushing toward me and lifting my face in his hands, “why are you even asking me that? I chose you. Of course I did. I quit on them. Same as last time. Same as when we had to go it alone before.”
Something inside me cracks open, releasing a flood of happiness that flows into every fiber of my body. I pull Brando’s face to mine, as if the feeling’s too much for one person, and the only way I can share it is by pressing my lips against his. A kiss more intimate than erotic, but no less necessary.
When we pull away slowly, Brando gazes inquisitively into my eyes, brushing away a tear-track from my cheek.
“How could you even doubt that?” he asks gently.
“With Lexi back and the way things have been going with us, I just thought—”
“Don’t think,” he says, affectionately.
Brando drives us to his apartment like we’re racing a jet, only stopping to run into a coffee shop and come out a few minutes later with a carrier tray of coffees and a bag of donuts.
“Who is all of this for?” I ask, as he puts them in my lap and revs the
car away.
“You’ll see.”
We get to his apartment and Brando bursts through the door like he’s about to perform a robbery. I follow behind and try not to be too surprised when a bunch of college students immediately crowd around me, grab the coffees, and then go back to sitting around the open laptops on Brando’s coffee table.
“What’s going on?” I ask as Brando stands in front of them. “It looks like you’re running a sweat shop in here.”
“Haley, this is Michelle, Simon, Ross, Steven, and Jessica. Guys, you know Haley.”
They mumble a distracted greeting in unison like an uncoordinated choir group. Still confused, I raise a hand weakly in response.
“So, what’s the situation?” Brando says, his voice turning authoritative.
“We can’t do anything,” Jessica says, shaking her ponytail. “Every time we post something about the sore throat we get a hundred replies – every one of them about Rex Bentley.”
“Same here,” Ross adds, “we’re commenting, but it’s getting lost in the mix. It’s a drop in the ocean compared to what’s going on. It seems like every two minutes another site posts the story. We can’t keep up.”
“No takers for the Mick Jagger story so far. Sorry,” Simon shrugs.
I glare at Brando with bewilderment at this last one. He shakes his head in a clear ‘don’t ask’ gesture.
“Shit,” he says, walking to the window. “Okay. The bottom-up approach isn’t going to work.”
“Why doesn’t Haley just do an interview?” Jessica says. “She doesn’t have to go in deep. Just deny it with a word and leave it at that.”
“This is the internet,” Brando says, turning around. “There are no ‘denials’ and ‘confirmations.’ There’s just ‘admitting’ and ‘ignoring.’ Haley’s got everything to lose, and everything to gain from this. If she goes on record and denies it, all that will happen is that this thing will get another boost. People expect her to deny it. The only time denying something works is if you’re too big, or respected, or have nothing to—”
Brando 2 Page 8
