The Glasshouse (Lavender Shores Book 6)

by Rosalind Abel

  Harrison’s expression went cold and rigid. “What?”

  “I don’t know. Andre flew Nick to New York last night, and apparently he mentioned some agent approached Will about it.”

  Harrison’s eyes narrowed. “Shit. That can’t be good.” He started to get out of bed. “I don’t even know where I put my phone last night.”

  I thrust mine at him. “Here.”

  He paused on the edge of the bed, then slid back to sit against the headboard and took my cell as if it was a bomb. Which it probably was. It only took him a few seconds to find the clip, as it was already trending. He tapped it so it filled the screen, and held the phone up so we could both see as I joined him against the headboard.

  The interviewer was one of the reporters from an entertainment gossip blog. She’d been one of the main ones to cover Harrison and Will’s breakup, and his and my video at the glasshouse.

  The way the video started made it clear that it was only a portion of the interview as there was no introduction. It didn’t show her asking whatever the question had been but started instead with Will’s response.

  “For the past several weeks, I’ve been soul-searching. You’re completely right when you compared it to someone ripping the veil back and revealing that the life I’d been living was a lie. I just hadn’t known it.”

  Though Will’s eyes glistened as if on the verge of tears, he was his stunningly handsome self, in an expensive suit. He looked well rested and composed, even if his hands trembled in his lap.

  “I keep playing moments of Harrison’s and my life over and over again in my mind. Trying to figure out what I’d missed. I keep thinking there had to be a sign, some hint that it wasn’t real, but I can’t find it.”

  The reporter leaned in, the picture of concern. “Do you question if Harrison ever truly loved you, or do you think it was all for ratings?”

  He shook his head, his mouth moving silently for a few moments, and then he lifted his chin slightly. “I almost want to say that that is the case. That it was fake from the very beginning, but I just can’t accept it. Plus, doing the show wasn’t even Harrison’s idea. I was the one who jumped at the chance.” His brows furrowed. “Although I keep replaying that as well, wondering if I was somehow manipulated into thinking it was my idea. But then again, right before the wedding, we were in talks of doing a show about the honeymoon, maybe even our lives after, and Harrison was making it look like he clearly didn’t want to do that. Had me feeling I was the one twisting his arm or manipulating him.” Will shook his head again and his gaze grew distant. “That’s what I kept thinking after the wedding. That I’d caused him to run. That I’d pushed too far. But then that video of him and Adrian Rivera….” Another shake of his head. “It made me think of when we first got together, and how he told me stories about that first sex tape which outed him. How it nearly devastated his life. But then here we were again. Maybe it had all been a setup. What are the chances of that happening two times to the same man? I must’ve played the part of a fool.”

  Rage coursed through me. “That little bitch. That Motherfucking asswipe. He’s dragging your name through the mud, trying to make you look like some manipulative asshole so he can have another moment of fame. I never would’ve dreamed Will was such a lying bastard.” I reached for the phone, ready to turn it off and spare Harrison from hearing anything more.

  “No.” He put his hand on my arm and held on to the phone. “Will isn’t lying, and he’s not milking it for the camera. It’s honestly how he feels. Though he sounds calmer now, that was exactly what he was accusing me of the last time we spoke. That’s really how he sees it.”

  Twenty-One

  Harrison

  As I watched Will onscreen, I barely felt anything. I was numb. Once more caught unaware, and in many ways, though I wasn’t even onscreen, I felt more exposed than I had when I’d been naked in front of the entire country.

  At Adrian’s anger, I only felt guilt—that I’d hurt Will by running from him, by the video with Adrian.

  I had loved Will. Desperately. And seeing him brought it all back. I wasn’t still in love. That, I thought, had been stomped out somewhere in the middle of filming our show. Somewhere in there, we’d lost each other. But I knew Will Epstein.

  Though they kept talking, I got lost in studying him. Not so much listening to the words but recognizing the sound of Will’s voice and the look in his eyes. I did know the true Will. And I saw past his composure with the reporter, past his flawless appearance. There was hurt behind his eyes, true hurt, and pain in his voice. Through our months filming the show, I’d learned clearly when he was simply going through the lines, and he wasn’t doing that with the interview. He felt betrayed, and he truly believed that, somehow, I had twisted our entire relationship, wondered if I’d planned it from the beginning.

  The video stopped right as a reporter started to ask another question.

  I sat there, staring as the video scrolled up on its own and made way for the next one to start automatically, probably continuing the same interview. I hadn’t meant to, but I’d done that to Will. I’d been the one who’d fallen out of love—if that was what had happened—for whatever reason. I was the one who hadn’t understood until I was standing in front of him, getting ready to pledge our vows, and realized I couldn’t do it. Hadn’t realized until that very second.

  I was the one who had run. I was the one who’d hurt him.

  I’d looked into those eyes that I had loved so desperately and felt nothing but terror. Not of him—not at all. But terror nonetheless, even though I wasn’t sure of what.

  Adrian was stroking my arm and saying something, but it wasn’t cutting through. Neither was the video that started to play on the phone, until a voice from my past took my breath away.

  My father filled the screen. He was standing outside our childhood home, the same reporter interviewing him from the bottom of the steps as he remained on the porch. He looked older. So much older in the past couple of years since I’d seen him.

  “He was my pride and joy. Sure, he had some rough moments as a little kid, but he pulled it together.” Unlike Will, Dad had no skill at appearing in control as he spoke. And though I heard some hurt in his voice, I knew him too. It was nearly all anger. “But now, when I think about those early years in Harrison’s life, the very things I worried about then are the things he became. Shameful things. But I never would have dreamed he would be parading them in front of the entire country the way he has. I never thought I’d be thankful that his mother had passed so she wouldn’t have to see what’s become of her son.”

  I sucked in a breath at the words, feeling a physical slap, and then a spark of anger, fury. “You fucker. Mom would kill you for saying that. She knew. She knew what I was.” Suddenly, I realized tears were flowing.

  Adrian tried for the phone again. “Baby, turn it off. You don’t need to see this. You don’t.”

  I shoved him away, harder than I meant to, and kept staring, floored by what my father was saying.

  “He’s a good actor, my son. Though I didn’t know it. Had me fooled all those years, had me so proud of him. The whole time he was living that secret double life. Doing vile things. Made me believe I had a son I could be proud of. Now I can’t show my face to my friends. Can’t even show my face in public.”

  Adrian snatched the phone and turned it off. “Sorry, you gotta stop. This isn’t right. You don’t need to put yourself through this.”

  I didn’t fight him on it. I didn’t have the strength.

  Whatever fury had sparked had combusted and died, once again leaving me numb.

  Adrian kept talking, touching me, trying to soothe, trying to make things better. I knew that. I really did. I shoved him away again. “Stop. Just stop, Adrian. Leave me alone.”

  Leaving the hotel and driving back to Lavender Shores was little more than a blur. I remember going through the motions, aware of Adrian attempting a kind word every once in a while, but I was beyo
nd functioning.

  As we drove past the farm, something clicked, and a tidal wave of claustrophobia crashed over me. And I reached for the door handle, ready to throw myself from the car. “Adrian, stop. Pull the car over. Please. Stop it. I can’t breathe.”

  He said something, but it was lost to me. Even so, he pulled the car to the side of the road.

  Before he came to a stop, I threw open the door and leaped from the car. He’d slowed enough that I only stumbled for a second and was able to catch myself, giving my knee barely more than a twinge of pain.

  I couldn’t get any air. Couldn’t think. My heart was about to explode.

  Then Adrian was in my face, commanding me to breathe, telling me to look into his eyes.

  I had no idea how much time passed or when my breath returned. My chest ached, as did my head. Everything. I glanced back at the farm, still in view, and then the other way, knowing that Lavender Shores was waiting for us. “I can’t go back there. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”

  Adrian reached for me once more. “Okay, baby, we don’t have to. We don’t have to go to Lavender Shores. We’ll go wherever you want.”

  I just shook my head, no more words coming.

  Another blur of time and Adrian began to speak—maybe he’d been speaking for a while, I wasn’t sure. All of it alternating between soothing and defending me from the video. But I finally clicked back in when he mentioned my father. “… and like anyone can believe him. He’s obviously just doing it to get attention himself. He said, right there on the porch, that he’s too ashamed to be seen in public, but there he is, doing an interview with a reporter.”

  “Money.” I hadn’t meant to say the word. Or even to speak. Didn’t know I was about to. But as my voice reached my ears, a little pebble of strength plopped inside of me. I said it again. “Money. I don’t know if Will got paid for that interview or not, but I guarantee you my father did. That’s the only way he’d ever admit to or talk about having a faggot for a son on national television.”

  “That just makes it worse. Nobody should believe that if they’re paying for interviews. They probably told him what to say.” Adrian paced in front of me, his shoes scraping small pieces of gravel on the asphalt at the edge of the road. “Andre did say that Nick mentioned something about an agent contacting Will. He must’ve got paid, too.”

  That grasped at me as well. “What?”

  Adrian paused, looking back at me. “What?”

  “Who contacted Will?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know, Andre didn’t say. Just an agent of some sort.”

  “Agent?” That made no sense. “That’s not something an agent would set up. That would only be a….” And at that thought, the suffocating fuzz that seem to be choking my brain burned away. “Fuck.” I pulled out my phone, anger seeping in to replace the void.

  Angela answered on the first ring, her voice a strange combination of chipper and annoyed. “Harrison, baby. Finally. I’ve been calling you since early this morning. We’ve got some damage control to do, sweetheart. Where are you?”

  For just a minute, no, for less than a second, my brain told me I was wrong—or my heart, or my delusion, something. It said there was no way the woman who’d been by my side through all of it would do this. But it really was less than a second. “You set up the interview with my dad and Will, didn’t you?”

  There was more than a second then. Many seconds passed as Angela debated whether she would lie or be honest. I knew that was what she was doing. “Yes, sweetie, I did.” I nearly felt relief when she went for honesty. That sensation fled quickly as she rushed ahead. “And it was the right call. You have disappeared from all social media over the past several weeks. No one was mentioning the name Harrison Getty. No one. You had ceased to matter.” Her voice slowed and had a ring of pride in it. “You matter again, Harrison. I put the whole world at your fingertips.”

  Though I’d called her in a fury, all I felt at those words was hurt. “Don’t you get it? I wanted to disappear. I didn’t want them talking about me or saying my name anymore.”

  “That’s not how it works. That’s not what you signed up for. That’s not what you agreed to when we started out on this together.” She used the tone, that stern mother voice that somehow blended with the ring of absolute protection.

  “Angela, I told you to go back to your other clients. To get new ones. I didn’t want this.”

  “Well, too bad, Harrison.” There was nothing mothering as she spoke then. Just cold business. “I didn’t put all this effort and care into you to just throw it away. Without me, you would’ve been nothing. Absolutely nothing. You would’ve spent what remained of your career just a football player, just an average quarterback, not getting any attention. At the most, you’d have some football cards traded for you, but even those wouldn’t be worth anything. You’d have blown out your knee and been forced into retirement. And you either would have stayed in the closet or become one of those so desperate for attention you would have outed yourself after a couple of years, but nobody would’ve cared. I made you you, Harrison. I made Harrison Getty. I made you a household name, an activist, a legend.”

  Like before, at her words, one more piece of surety clicked into place, and I didn’t want to ask. I wanted to close my eyes and pretend it wasn’t so, didn’t want confirmation. But I already knew. “You leaked the video of Adrian and me, didn’t you?” Before she could answer, one more fact slammed into me from the cosmos, so hard that I sank to the ground as I spoke. “You did the first video too.” I couldn’t imagine how she’d pulled that off, but it was true. No matter what she said next, I knew it. “You leaked that video, waited two days, and then called me out of the blue so you could rescue me.”

  This time she didn’t hesitate. “You bet I did. And you’re welcome. You would have nothing, be nothing more than just some forgotten football player, if not for me. You better listen to me now, Harrison, because we can still save this. Make you bigger and better than you ever were before, but if you don’t come to your senses instantly, you’ll be nothing more than a joke. A punch line.”

  I hung up on her and then just stared at the blank screen of the phone, holding the Off button in case she tried to call back.

  I wasn’t sure how long he’d been there, but Adrian’s arm was over my shoulder. Clearly, he’d heard, or at least understood, the whole thing. “None of this was your fault. None of it, Harrison. You hear me?”

  I had to force my head to turn to even look at him.

  “And you are not nothing. You never were. You never could be. You are a good man. Strong and brave. Beautiful and kind.”

  More words fell from Adrian’s lips. Endless strings of all the amazing things Harrison Getty was. All the things I was.

  Only… I wasn’t.

  He was full of shit. He didn’t mean to be, but he was.

  He believed it all. This packaged product of Harrison Getty. He bought it, hook, line, and sinker. Just the way Will had.

  Just the way my father had.

  Adrian’s hand was on my face, his eyes so very close to mine. “It’ll be okay. Let’s just go home. Or we can go back to San Francisco, or we can go anywhere. Let’s go. This will pass, everything will be fine. It’ll go back to the way it was yesterday. We’ll get lost in the farm if you want, we can redo the glasshouse, fill it with a rainforest worth of flowers. We can disappear into the city for a week if you need, anything. It will get better. You will be okay. We will be okay.” He kissed me, quickly but firmly. “I love you. No matter what. I love you. We can get through this.”

  I stared into his brown eyes. So full of love, so full of panic, so full of pain and worry and hope and fear and loyalty, and a billion other things.

  And then they were Will’s blue eyes. The whole world watching us, him getting ready to pledge his love and his loyalty and his devotion to me, to this prepackaged shell of a man.

  And then it was Adrian again. And though the world wasn’t watchi
ng, he was promising all the same things, to the same cardboard cutout that Will had been building a life with. This… thing created by Angela. Formed and molded and shaped into a man of my father’s design.

  Adrian kissed me again and took me by the hand, nearly forcing me to stand up. “Come on, babe. It’s all right. We got this. Let’s go. Wherever you want. Let’s just go.”

  “No.” I shook my hand free then held out my palm to him. “Give me the keys.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What?”

  “The keys! The keys, Adrian!” I was yelling. I thought I was yelling. I wasn’t trying to yell.

  “The keys?” Adrian took a step back and pointed. “They’re in the car, babe.”

  I was halfway to the car before I realized I was running, before the throbbing in my knee sank into my brain, before I could hear Adrian crying out my name. I glanced back, seeing the farm just a few hundred yards away. “Go to the farm, Adrian. Someone can take you home.”

  “Harrison! What are you doing?” He started to jog toward me. “Just stop. It’s okay.”

  No. No, no, no. I wouldn’t do this to him. “I’m sorry. But I can’t do this.” I turned back to the car, calling out over my shoulder as I ran. “I love you. I’m sorry. But I can’t.”

  “Harrison! Just wait!”

  He was nearly to me when I managed to get the door open, slide behind the wheel, and shut the door. With tears already streaming down my face, I cranked the ignition. The car roared to life with a stomp on the gas, and I pulled out into a U-turn, the back of the car fishtailing when I pulled onto the other side of the road and floored it once more.

  Sobbing, I glanced in the rearview to see Adrian running after me, and then slowing down as the distance between us grew greater.

  I drove.

  Twenty-Two

  Adrian