by Brooks, Tori
“Relax, Dev, you’re off the hook,” Jack said. He walked over and gently patted Dev’s shoulder.
“What?”
“She broke down under Jack’s detailed questions,” Kyle said. “For some reason, he just couldn’t understand why she didn’t know your mannerisms or personality better. And he kept asking about a birthmark, which had her very flustered.”
“I don’t have a birthmark,” Dev said, shaking his head in confusion.
“Yeah, Lindsay said that too now that I’m thinking about it. I must have gotten confused.” Jack smiled. “Anyway, she confessed she didn’t actually meet you, although she maintains she was backstage.”
“We’re waiting for a reporter from The Times to drop by. She’s going to give a statement about her ‘mistake’ and then you’ll be clear,” Kyle said.
“The New York Times?” Dev asked.
“Yes. It’s not as big a story as the soldiers killed by the car bomb, but it’s getting attention and they’ll be breaking the fraud wide open. That’s the kind of thing newspapers like to do, you know,” Kyle answered.
Dev nodded and felt a chill creep through him. He didn’t realize until that moment how important his reputation was to him. Sure, Alec, Flynn, and Kenny all talked to him about his image, both as an individual and as part of the band. They even had a consultant on call. This was different. This was him they were smearing. His values, his honor. Dev’s parents always told him to live above the norms of society, but he didn’t think too much about it until that moment, when he realized how many people were watching him. Enough that The New York Times were interested in his life. He was eighteen and setting an example for other teenagers out there.
He’d have to talk to Alec and Kenny, of course, but he would grant an interview after all, and discuss what this incident meant to him. He’d take a stance. He’d tell people how he lived his life; give his views on drugs, alcohol, and sex.
Chapter Nine
Pop rock singer Erika Atlas first saw Devin Giles when he was waging his now infamous war with Jess Baxter online. She quickly became addicted to their website, impatient for each new stop in the tour and resulting prank. She even loved the one where Jess turned it around and smeared Jello on Dev for a change. The cutie was a good sport about it.
A Thousand Words was the opening act for Rushing On, and she’d avoided them when possible after a disappointing weekend with their drummer several months previously. After a couple weeks, she almost hopped on a plane, crashed the backstage party, and endured the awkwardness just to meet Dev. Her manager had a better idea.
As luck would have it, A Thousand Words was getting ready to record their second album while she was recording her third. Mark, her manager, tried to talk her into inviting Jess into the studio with her, but Erika wanted Dev. Not in the studio so much, but she’d seen the interviews and knew he was skittish. She’d start where she had to.
So Mark collected everything he could get on A Thousand Words, then cornered their manager over drinks and confirmed that Devin Giles could actually sing. Alec Franke qualified that with if you could get Dev to stay in the same room with Erika long enough to sing a song.
“Erika, angelfish, I’m just not seeing this as a great idea,” Mark told her after drinks with Alec.
“I really want this. Tell me what he said,” Erika ordered. The girl doing her nails didn’t even look up at her tone and Erika ignored her. She was extremely well paid, as was her sister who was Erika’s massage therapist, and her brother who was her gardener. In fact, the whole family worked for Erika in one way or another.
“First, you know the boys are mentored by –”
“Flynn Peterson. I’m not just messing with a bunch of newbs, I’m going to have one of the big boys involved. I know. I’m not toying, Mark. I want to get to know him, okay? There’s nothing wrong with that. He’s shy. I can read between the lines. I’m going to freak him the hell out. I know that. I thought about showing up backstage at a show. That would have really freaked him out. I think your idea of a professional meet is better. A collaborative effort is good.”
“I meant between you and the whole group, not one on one. There’s no reason for you to single him out.”
“The others shield him. There most certainly is a reason to single Dev out,” Erika huffed.
The nail tech sat back and looked at her, waiting patiently.
“What is it, Tess?”
“Everyone is familiar with A Thousand Words, Jess Baxter is a visible and chatty spokesperson. People want to hear more about Devin Giles. A project with him is giving people what they want,” Tess said.
Erika smiled. “Great job.” She turned to Mark. “There you go. Straight from the fans. And she’s absolutely right. Jess diverts the attention away from Dev because he can’t take it. The reporters let him because Jess is so good at it, but the fans are begging for more about Dev. They’re not given information aside from the basic stuff. Panel interviews, nothing intimate. Even his skateboarding videos online are getting a ton of hits because there simply aren’t enough pictures and videos of him. Dev’s in demand. I think it’s reasonable for me to ask for him.”
Mark nodded. “Fine. Reasonable, not practical. Alec would love it. Kenny would love it. Dev would have a break down.”
“Kenny?” Erika asked.
“Kenny, the lead guitarist, he more or less runs things. Alec is their manager. Flynn is their mentor, and Dev’s stepfather; not that Dev listens to him from the sound of things.”
Erika frowned.
“Hey, he turned eighteen in April, he’s a kid. He lost both his parents and has Flynn instead.”
Erika shook her head, she didn’t get it. What was wrong with Flynn Peterson? He was a legend.
“Flynn has a history of failed relationships and drug and alcohol abuse. A year ago his stepdaughter tried to have him killed. That was just after he married Dev’s mother,” Mark said.
“Oh, God!” Erika said. Tess was apparently listening also because she stopped buffing Erika’s nails and uttered something that Erika didn’t catch.
“Yeah. Flynn and Teri’s lawyer covered it up as best they could, but you can’t bury something like that completely. It was about that time the rift started between Flynn and Dev. No one knows for sure what’s behind it. Reporters have pried, but they can’t get enough to write a story. There’s blood in the water, but no body.
“So about Dev, he’s shy. He has a girlfriend, angelfish,” Mark looked at her when he said this.
“He’s eighteen. They come and go.”
“Yes, they do.”
“Just want to meet him. Doing a duet, remember? What else?”
“Right. Shy, girlfriend, college.”
“The girlfriend’s in college with him?”
Mark hesitated. “No. The girlfriend’s in high school in Seattle. Dev’s in college –”
“At MIT. Alone. I assume anyway. He’ll be going back this fall?”
“Yes.”
“The girlfriend is still going to be in Seattle?”
Mark sighed. “In high school. Yes.”
“That’s too bad,” Erika said with mock sympathy. “I’m sure I could meet Dev at a studio in New York or Boston. I can work with his busy schedule.”
“Very kind of you. Shy.”
“I don’t want to scare him. Listen, I just tweaked Want to be with you to make it a duet. You heard it, right?”
“It should be fine.”
“Well, this is round one so we can use my band or his. I’ll be flexible and easy on just about everything I can just to get this boy in the studio.”
“Will he expect that on round two?”
“I’ll tighten things up slowly. Bit by bit as we go. That’s how women train men, you know.”
“I didn’t.”
“It’s so you don’t know you’re being trained.” Erika blew Mark a kiss and picked up her appletini, watching him through her eyelashes as she took a sip. She wanted Dev,
and somehow she was going to get him.
○ ○ ○
MIT seemed different when Dev returned. People still stared at him when he went to class the first week back, but not as many as his first semester. He worried whether they followed the highly publicized paternity suit, or if any of his classmates were in the audience when he toured this summer. Now that the paternity suit was proven fraudulent, it was the second possibility that bothered Dev more.
College was about his academic interests and he wanted to leave the rest of who he was behind when he was here. Dev realized he couldn’t completely. Bryan, Kenny, and Jess were friends and part of his job. He couldn’t just put that side of him on a shelf when he was at school, he still had responsibilities. Lindsay appealed to his intellectual side, but she wasn’t here. She didn’t really understand.
The people he cared about were pulling him opposite directions, and he recognized he was just going to have to live with that. Still, it felt as if he were two different people sometimes, living two different lives. But it was all still him and it was just too hard to keep the different pieces of him separate.
Oskar Viktor’s new line launched, and with it, a new ad campaign. Dev was still the high-profile center of the campaign, something which he had little time for now. The designer recently started showing up at Dev’s photo shoots for the ads and Dev discovered he liked Oskar. His boss had no end of patience with him and helped him get comfortable in the many roles he was playing now. When Dev admitted Kenny and Alec were giving him grief about going public with his opinions of the paternity suit and outlining who he was as a person, Oskar invited him into his office to talk.
Dev wanted to tell the world, and his fans, who he really was. Oskar pointed out the fundamental flaw in Dev’s desire. It wasn’t so much that it’d be bad for Dev to outline his beliefs, but it required Dev opening up more than he would be comfortable with. Dev hated interviews and so far managed to avoid one-on-one interviews with anyone. To his surprise, Oskar encouraged this practice. Kenny and Alec only stopped bugging him about it when Bryan, Jess, and then Flynn, came to his defense; but Oskar thought he was doing the right thing by being elusive. It was already well known he was shy. Why should he put himself in an uncomfortable situation that ran counter to his known image and personality when he didn’t have to? Jess could drop little bits of information that Dev wanted known.
That Oskar saw Jess covered for him alarmed Dev. If Oskar saw it, who else did? Oskar surprised him again by pointing out it didn’t matter. Dev was who he was and Jess was who he was. They were different people, each with his own strengths and weaknesses. It was that they were friends and coworkers that let A Thousand Words take the strengths of the individual members and cover for each other’s weaknesses. It made them stronger as a group.
To give Dev a hand, Oskar launched the Best Friends campaign. A series of one-page ads comparing Dev and Jess. Dev’s manicured, polished appearance with his ‘good boy’ views of life contrasted with Jess’s casual sex appeal and ‘you only live once: party on’ stance. A picture of each, with a short list of beliefs and attributes, every time under the boldly emphasized headline ‘Best Friends.’
The campaign was an instant success. It helped feed the demand for information by fans, and got Oskar Viktor’s ads hung in school lockers and on bedroom walls around the world.
What Dev didn’t count on was Lindsay’s hatred of the campaign. She’d always ignored that tiny bit of his life, but this time she not only noticed, she had an opinion. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t share it with him. He knew she hated the ads, knew she was angry for some reason, but didn’t know enough details to address it. He finally pinned her down and insisted they talk about it when he returned to Seattle for Thanksgiving.
“All right, spill,” Dev demanded Wednesday night. Dev knelt on the Caffey’s living room floor with Lindsay’s hips between his knees and his feet crossed over her thighs to keep her from kicking him. She’d never threatened to before, but she seemed unusually angry this time. Dev’s hands each held one of her slender wrists near her head, and he tried not to be distracted by the way her hair fanned out around her face like a halo. She wasn’t getting off the hook by being beautiful, and pouting wasn’t going to work either, he decided firmly.
“There’s nothing to talk about. The campaign’s running, it’s out there, end of story.” Lindsay wiggled beneath him, evoking a primal response in Dev. He closed his eyes and swallowed his urges down.
“There is something to talk about. I want to know why you’re upset about it. You might as well tell me.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Do you want me to continue the campaign? Do something similar in the future? If I don’t know why you hate it, there’s no guarantee I won’t repeat the mistake or do something you hate even more,” Dev reasoned.
Lindsay’s eyes grew shiny with unshed tears, but Dev refused to back down. He leaned down and kissed her softly.
“Lin, one thing we have is the ability to talk things through. We can’t let that go,” Dev said quietly, recalling Bryan’s sage advice.
She nodded and turned her head to look away. Dev didn’t care for the change, but he accepted it when she started to speak.
“I’ve never cared about other girls having posters of you in their locker. They can have pictures of your cute little smile, I have the real you. Now there are pictures of you and Jess hanging up in everyone’s locker with opposing views of life. It’s a bit of an issue for me when they’re advertising that you’re as celibate as a monk – a big banner ad that I don’t have you. I can’t.
“Plus my friends know I’m dating you, but only my close friends. They also know my history. And it’s a slap in the face that my friends didn’t hesitate to point out I’m dating the wrong guy. Jess is better suited to me than you are according to those little factoids. Jess! Of all the idiotic . . . never mind. I can’t really expect you to understand.” Lindsay struggled against him. “Get off me,” she demanded.
Dev released her and sat beside where she lay on the floor. He was always sensitive about other people’s opinions of him, so he understood why the opinions of Lindsay’s friends bothered her. Dev was grateful now for Oskar’s support of Flynn’s suggestion not to take an absolute stance on abstinence. He had a loophole.
“Okay, I see your point,” Dev started slowly, trying to step carefully in the minefield he found himself in. “I’m sorry. I wanted to send a message to my fans, and knew I wasn’t saying anything that would be a surprise to the people who know me. I didn’t stop to think about people who were partially familiar with me.
“I suppose I haven’t really thought much about what dating me must be like in terms of school and your friends. We never talk about it.”
Lindsay shrugged.
“Listen, Lin, I didn’t say I was a celibate monk. I said I believed intimacy was for serious relationships. Anyway, we’ve been dating for over a year and a half, that’s a serious relationship.”
Lindsay sat up and faced him. Her piercing blue eyes made Dev want to squirm, but he held his own.
“I’m not caving. I –”
“Dev, why exactly did you back down on that point? Why not just say ‘abstinence’?” Lindsay asked.
He hesitated. “Oskar talked me out of being completely honest. He didn’t have to work too hard. Kenny and Alec threw a fit over the idea of being forthright. Jess laughed, that was annoying. Flynn . . . it doesn’t matter what Flynn thought.”
“What did Flynn say?” Lindsay pushed.
“Not to back myself into a corner,” Dev admitted. “He said never take an absolute stance if you can avoid it. Things happen, people change, and saying ‘always’ or ‘never’ is an invitation for something to go sideways down the road.”
Lindsay nodded again, but didn’t comment. Dev plowed on. “I wanted to let my fans know where I stood. Coming out and adopting the ‘good boy’ image officially was Oskar’s idea. I originally just wanted p
eople to know that paternity suits are bogus. I’m not that kind of guy. Teenagers are watching me. I feel like I should be a role model.”
“You’re a hacker, Dev.”
“You haven’t seen that in my bio anywhere, have you?”
“Okay, so I should go back to my friends and say ‘hey, he said serious relationships and I’m a serious relationship’? You know what that sounds like.”
“No, I’m pointing out what the ad actually says. And neither of us denies our relationship is serious. Or do you?”
“No.” She shook her head.
“You don’t have to explain yourself, or me, to anyone. What we have is ours. You taught me that. You can point out I never claimed to be a monk. They’ll assume what they want after that, I suspect.”
“Do you really want that?” Lindsay asked, giving him a withering look.
“It’s not like they’re talking to the press. It’s just a few of your friends. Even if rumors spread . . .” Dev shrugged. “Considering a few months ago everyone thought I was picking up girls backstage and inviting them back to my hotel room all summer . . . this is local. I’ll live with it”
“And in the future? After I graduate? What then?”
Dev wanted this conversation to be over. He didn’t want to talk about sex with Lindsay. The physical relationship they had already was dangerously uncomfortable. When he was with her, he felt good, but guilt always set in as soon as he took her home and left for the night. Even with the boundaries they’d agreed to, Dev was still uneasy and haunted by the thought that he could turn into Jess or Flynn. The only change he could accept would be slowing things down, but he knew Lindsay wouldn’t like that.
He leaned forward and kissed her. “Let’s deal with that when it gets closer, okay? Right now, I just want to spend time with you.”
“And the guys.”
“I’m sorry, we’re pushing to finish all the songs for the next album. We have studio time booked for Friday and Saturday, then we’ll finish recording and mixing whatever we need to over Christmas break.”
