by West, Harper
And all of a sudden, I had had enough of being there. "Start working on your apology. You don't have to cop to anything you didn't do, but you do have to make people believe you're going to start taking your image more seriously. I need a list of the reporters who are trying to get interviews with you. I know there have to be more than a few. I'll vet them and run it past your agent, and we'll set something up."
I got up, packing up my things as I went.
"Okay," he said, looking resigned. "I guess I have to trust you on this."
"I guess you will," I replied.
Chapter 4
Kevin
Usually on a Friday night, I'd hit a bar or two, making the rounds with my friends and getting a little drunk to end the week on a high note.
But with the current shit I was going through, and Caro's stern words in my head, I called my best friend and asked him to meet me at my place instead.
I needed a drink, but the last thing I wanted was to have my picture taken and end up on the cover of another magazine. Kathleen would have my fucking balls.
Manny came over with beers and pizza, like a true friend, slapping me on the back as he came through the door.
"Women, man," he said, shaking his head. "I mean...women, right? You gotta love 'em. They're soft and pretty and most of them smell real good, but then they go and do shit like this, and it's like...women."
I snorted, breaking open the pizza box and helping myself to a slice. "Have you already been drinking?" I asked.
"Nah, I'm just saying. It sucks what she's saying about you."
"So you don't believe it?"
He shook his head again. "Of course I don't. I know you. You can get a little wild, but you're a good guy. You wouldn't step out on her."
"Thanks," I replied with a little sigh. "At least someone believes me." Well, that wasn't fair. Kathleen and Caro both seemed to believe that Christine was lying, but neither of them cared very much what the truth was. They just wanted to fix it.
It was their job to do that, but it fucking sucked to have there be that cast on my character.
"You holding up okay?" Manny asked, sitting down on one of the stools at the island in my kitchen. "You look worn out."
"Just been a long week," I said. "This shit's going on, and Kath's been up my ass about it. She hired a new publicist to take care of it, and...fuck."
"What?"
"I know her. The publicist, I mean. We went to college together."
"Oh," he said. "That's good, right? She knows you're not a scumbag, then. Unless you were a horndog in college or something, and then you might be fucked."
"She's..." I wasn't even sure where to start. "Clearly pissed at me. We haven't seen each other in six years, you know? We actually dated in college."
"Was it serious?"
"Kinda? I don't know. I mean. I guess so. But I had dreams, and so did she, so it didn't last. I broke up with her before graduation. I knew she was going to do the same thing, so I just did it first."
Manny raised an eyebrow. "You sure about that? If she's pissed at you, maybe you broke her heart or something?"
I snorted. "Trust me, she was just as driven as I was. I would have just gotten in her way."
"Fair enough."
"Thing is, I haven't seen her since then. And fuck, she looks good now. I mean. She looked good before, but now..." I took a swig from my beer bottle. "She's always had this kinda intense thing going on. She's really 'down to business' about everything, but sometimes she could be so sweet..." I trailed off, and Manny laughed, snapping his fingers in front of my face.
"Don't start going off down memory lane on me," he said. "She's your publicist. If you fuck your publicist, I'm pretty sure you can kiss you career goodbye. Unless she likes it or something, but it sounds like she won't."
"Yeah, yeah. I know." Didn't mean I couldn't think about it, though. "Anyway, the point is, shit's been a mess. I wanted to go out tonight, but I figured I shouldn't risk it."
"Good call. Don't wanna piss off Coach any more than he already is. Man, I don't know what crawled up Chris' ass and died to make her do this shit, but she fucked you over good."
I gave him a flat look because I didn't need to be reminded of that. "She's a bitch," I said. I could say it with no one there to call me out on it. "Plain and simple."
"Yeah, but. Why though? What did you do to piss her off this bad?"
"Who says I did anything?" I muttered. Marrying her was the only real mistake I'd made. Marrying her and then having a life of my own that meant I couldn't spend all my time showering her with gifts and dealing with her drama.
"She's the one who cheated, you know," I continued, taking another long drink. "More than once. She wasn't even subtle about it. She'd tell me she called someone to come unclog the gutters while I was at an away game or that her car had broken down and some guy had been nice enough to give her a lift. Just total bullshit to try and cover her tracks."
"You never talked about that before," Manny said, and I shrugged.
"It wasn't a big deal."
"Pretty sure when your wife cheats on you, it's a big deal," he pointed out.
"She just wanted attention. It was always about attention with her. When I didn't get mad and scream or whatever, she said she wanted a divorce. Happiest day of my life."
"And now she wants more attention, obviously."
"Yeah. Or money or something, I dunno. I haven't seen or heard from her since the papers were sighed and I moved out. She got the house, what fucking more does she want?"
"Your career to go down in flames?"
I chugged from the bottle, draining it easily. "Yeah, well. She can go to hell. I'm not going down that easy."
"Takes more than that to knock Kevin Porter off his game," Manny said, toasting me with his bottle. "But hey, you should listen to this publicist. I know how much being able to play means to you."
It meant everything to me. "Yeah, I know. I'm gonna try."
Saturday was spent not watching TV or spending much time online. I went for a run instead, and the good thing about New York was that everyone else had a million other things to care about other than me, I wasn't stopped or harassed on my route.
I ran and then came home and showered and made myself straighten my apartment up.
When we'd gotten divorced, Christine ad taken the house with my compliments. It was big and gaudy, and I hadn't wanted it in the first place, but she'd claimed to be in love with it.
I was more than happy living in the city with my apartment, jammed in with everyone else. It was where I felt the most alive.
The gym I liked to use was right down the street even, and I made my way there on Sunday, tired of being inside. It wasn't like I could get into trouble at the gym, after all. On Sundays it was mostly deserted, and I had the machines to myself.
I took myself through my usual routine, doing my reps with my headphones in, blocking out anything but the sound of the machines and the noise of my breathing.
I got in the zone when I worked out, forgetting about whatever might be bothering me, and it felt good to have a chance to do that.
It was the off season, but that didn't mean I had time to get out of shape.
When I was finally done, there was a text from Caro. She wanted to meet again, at the same coffee shop as before.
She had the same number she'd had when we were in college, and seeing her name on my screen was like a blast from the past. I'd never deleted her from my contacts, always letting it carry over when I got a new phone, even though I hadn't known why.
I definitely didn't think we'd ever be talking again. Especially not like this.
I shot back a text confirming the place and time and went to hit the showers.
Dealing with all this shit sucked, but the chance to be around Caro again was an unexpected bright side.
I walked into the coffee shop on Tuesday, and she was there at the same table she'd been at before. Five minutes early. Well. I was five mi
nutes early. Who knew how long Caro had been there.
I hadn't been kidding when I said she looked good. She hadn't grown much height wise, still a good six or seven inches shorter than I was and probably just as mad about it, but her hair was longer. Bone straight and dark black, pulled into a low ponytail that went down her back.
She had those same green eyes, too clever and observant for her own good, and she still held her mouth the same way when she was thinking or reading or otherwise kind of zoned out. Half pursed, the bottom lip pulled between her teeth.
I'd kissed that lip so many times back in the day, and I had to swallow hard against the sudden rush of memory.
I stood there for a second, just looking at her, and then I shook myself and walked over to her table. She was, as she usually was, engrossed in her laptop, eyes flicking across the screen, and it wasn't until I dragged a chair out and sat down that she looked up to pay attention to me.
"Hi," I said, offering her a smile.
"Oh. Hi," she replied, closing her laptop with a snap.
"Something interesting?"
"I don't know if I'd go that far. Christine has been talking to more of the press."
Immediately, I could feel my mood sour. I knew we had to talk about her because she was the cause of this whole problem, and the problem was the only reason I had to talk to Caro at all, but I wasn't in the mood to rehash this shit for the millionth time.
"Yeah?" I said, sounding tired to my own ears. "What shit is she shoveling now?"
"More of the same," Caro said crisply. "Oh, except now she's adding that she thinks you're a bit unhinged."
"Great. Always nice to have more bad things to add to the list." I slumped down in my chair, folding my arms.
I could feel Caro casting a critical gaze over me, but I didn't care. I was sick of dealing with Christine already.
"We have to move quickly," she said. "Christine is being very vocal, with pretty much no discretion about who she talks to, and you've been mostly silent on the matter. Which can seem like an admission of guilt. That's not what we want. Luckily, you've managed to keep it in your pants for the last few days, so it's not like there's any fresh scandal for them to drag up and make this worse."
I shot her a glare. "I am capable of behaving."
"Hm. The internet seems to think differently. Did you know there's a thing going around social media where women from all over the country talk about the experiences they may or may not have had with you?"
"Wonderful," I muttered, rolling my eyes.
"In any other situation, I'm sure it would be very flattering. They make you sound like some kind of sex god, and the while I'm sure most of it is just wishful thinking for whatever reason, it's not doing you any favors now."
I latched onto one part of that because it was the easiest thing to deal with at the moment. "What do you mean 'for whatever reason'? If you'll recall, you were once--"
"Do not," she said, holding up a hand and cutting me off with a stern look. "That is not what we're here to talk about."
"Then what are we here to talk about?" I asked, exasperated. "Because if it's just to go over a list of all the shitty things people are saying about me online, I'd like to take a pass. I have other things I could be doing that are way more enjoyable. Slamming my dick in a door, for example."
It was her turn to roll her eyes, and she leveled a cool stare at me. "Very mature. Let me ask you something, Kevin. Why did you get married?"
That was not what I was expecting to hear from her, and I frowned, thinking it over. "Can I blame it on being young and stupid?"
She snorted and shook her head. "No. Because you weren't that much younger than you are now, and I knew you when you were in your prime 'young and stupid' days, and you would never have done something like that back then."
Her tone was carefully neutral, and I frowned harder, wondering what that was about. But it was clear she wanted an answer to her question, so I sighed and tried to come up with one. "You want the truth?"
"I generally don't expect to be lied to when I ask things," she replied.
I drummed my fingers on the table. "It seemed like the thing to do. My career was going great and just getting better. We went to the World Series, you know? I felt like I had accomplished a lot of the stuff I wanted to accomplish. So getting married seemed like the next thing to tackle."
"Why her?"
I shrugged. "She was pretty and interested?"
She looked at me, like she expected there to be more, but honestly, I didn't know what else to say, and when there wasn't anything forthcoming, she made a disgusted sound. "That's it? You married someone because they were pretty and interested in you? Not because you actually cared about her?"
I shrugged again. "I don't know what you want me to say here, Caro. There's no love story if that's what you're waiting for. I knew her from parties and stuff, and she caught my attention. I caught hers back. We both thought it would be a good idea."
"And now she's slandering your name to anyone who will listen," Caro said. "Good choice."
"It's libel if it's printed," I shot back, mimicking her own words to me.
Caro didn't look fazed. "All I'm saying is you should maybe take some care in who you pick next time. I can pull this out of the water and keep you from losing everything that's so important to you, but only once. You don't get another chance at this."
"Believe me, I'm not looking to marry another narcissist actress."
"No? Planning on going for a nice underwear model the next time?" Her tone was dripping with sarcasm, and I rolled my eyes again.
"I don't know why it matters so much to you what I do."
"It doesn't," she snapped. "Except for when it makes my job harder, and every time your ex-wife opens her mouth to another reporter, I have to work that much harder to keep up with it. I know more about your supposed indiscretions than I have ever wanted to know about anything. "
"Hey, you took the job," I said. "You knew what you were getting into. Anyway, why did you want to know?"
"I'm just wondering what her angle is. To try and gauge when she's going to stop. Eventually people will stop caring, of course, but she can do some real damage before she gets to that point. Is she after money? Or just trying to make you look bad?"
"Probably just trying to make me look bad. I don't know. We didn't part on great terms, as I'm sure you can imagine." I cocked my head to the side, looking at her. "I didn't think you cared."
"I don't care," she said quickly. "I care as much as I need to to do my job. That's it."
"Fair enough. Maybe she'll get tired of running her mouth sooner rather than later."
"I wouldn't count on it. She's at the height of her popularity right now. Everyone wants to hear what she has to say, whether it's true or not. I'm sure she's loving it."
"Wonderful," I muttered. "Well, I guess at least I get to spend time with you, again. That's a bright side to this whole mess. I missed you."
"I doubt that," she said.
We talked for a bit more about the things she wanted to do going forward and how she wanted to handle interviews and appearances.
For the most part I just let her talk, watching as she gestured with her hands, taking in the set of her shoulders and the way she seemed to be pulling statistics and information from out of thin air.
It was clear she was good at what she did. I'd looked up her firm when Kathleen had mentioned them, and they'd represented lots of famous people before. Musicians, actors, politicians, even.
Clearly she knew what she was doing, and I realized with a jolt that there was no one else I'd trust with something like this.
I knew Caro. I knew she was determined and headstrong and however irritated she was with me, she was going to keep working until she turned things around.
It was comforting to know that she hadn't changed all that much.
"Are you listening to me?" she demanded, mid-sentence, and I blinked before nodding seriously.
&n
bsp; "Of course I am," I said back, sounding offended. "This is important."
She looked skeptical, but started talking again, and I kept my face straight to hide my smile.
All in all, things could be a lot worse.
Chapter 5
Caro
It was another late night in the office. I'd finally gotten the information I needed to set Kevin up with some interviews and got him a couple of appearances at women's shelters and children’s homes. Places that would make him look good to be seen at.
There wouldn't be big photo ops, nothing staged or planned out, but I would slip a word or two to people I trusted to get the pictures out there. They'd be candid, which was best for something like this, and it would make it seem like it was something he was doing out of the goodness of his own heart. Not just because he needed the good press.
I typed up more of the plan, letting it all unwind in my head. It was as good a plan as I'd ever come up with, all things considered, and it still fucking rankled that I was using it to help Kevin, who had very much dug this hole for himself.
He was so frustrating.
One minute it seemed like he really did care about what was happening and how it could affect him, and the next he was laughing it off and getting dangerously close to flirting with me.
I didn't know what he wanted, but I knew I was stronger than he was. I could outlast him easily and do my job without succumbing to whatever game he was playing.
And then we could go our separate ways and never have to see each other again.
I hit the enter key on my keyboard with a particularly vicious jab of my finger, right when Sam came to poke her head in.
"I knew I'd find you here," she said. "It's late, Caro."
"I know." The clock at the bottom of the screen said it was closing in on ten. "To be fair, you're still here."
"This office won't run itself," she responded with a wry smile. "You seem like you're in a mood. Did something happen?"
