“Mike’s gone into hiding. He's refusing all press interviews, is saying ‘no comment’ to everything and poor Joanie, his secretary, is dealing with all of it. He is absolutely on radio silence, Diane, so I think that you could pretty much say whatever you want about this and Mike won’t care.” That was all a lie, but Diane didn't have to know it. Besides, it was probably pretty close to the truth of what Mike was about to experience as the next twenty-four hours rolled out.
She snorted. “Yeah, Mike doesn’t care. Mike cares about Mike.” She sized Jeremy up, her eyes raking over him. “Why?” she asked.
“Why what?”
“Why are you coming to me with this idea?” Her eyes were half-lidded, the idea of fame obviously loosening her up. “What’s in it for you, Jeremy?”
“Me? I just had an idea.”
“What’s your idea going to cost me?” she asked, leaning forward, trailing her index finger along the skin of his forearm. His pants tightened involuntarily and he barely suppressed a cringe, reminding himself that it was an involuntary reflex and not an indictment. This he had not expected. He and Mike may very well share women here and there, but it was always at the same time. Not like this. And not this one.
“Consider it a freebie,” he said, pulling back. “I just saw an opportunity to help a number of friends out.”
“Nobody does things just because or to be nice,” she said, a condescending look on her face. “That’s so 1950s.”
“I’m a throwback.”
“You’re up to something.” She sat back and crossed her arms over those gorgeous, cosmetically enhanced breasts. “What’s this going to cost me?”
“Your time,” he said, smiling. “Because once you claim that that’s you, you’re going to be hounded for months, if not years. You’re going to gets requests from The Today Show, from CNN—hell, you might get an exclusive with Barbara Walters. And even if Mike decides to be a monk and hide in the hills forever, you won’t be able to do that. Instant celebrity. You will be able to name your price.”
Diane frowned, rolling her eyes. “No, not name my price. I don’t need money; my family has more than enough of it.”
“Then name your time slot and your channel,” he said, finishing off his meal, starting in on his coffee.
“So, Mike fills my slot and I get a new one.” She laughed.
Now he had her. The hook was in and he was slowly cranking the reel. “Diane, you’re going to be the woman all over every website, every newspaper, every magazine. But you better hurry, because time is fading.”
“You’re right,” she said, grabbed her phone. “Where do I start?”
He knew the answer to that and then in unison they both said, “TMZ!” She began texting furiously and Jeremy called for the check. Best thirty bucks he ever spent in his life.
She wasn't answering any of his phone calls, texts, or emails. Mike brooded, staring at the television, while Jeremy mocked him mercilessly as he skittered through a hundred different cable channels, catching each as it had a segment on the video.
“She’s hot, man. Oooh, I like how the hands there go toward here—”
“I'll kill you if you say one more word.”
“But—”
“Dead. You’re dead.” Mike threw the first thing he could find—Jeremy's abandoned phone—at him, hitting right on at the temple.
“Ouch!” Rubbing his head, Jeremy laughed. “Bad sport.”
“This isn't a game.”
Tap tap tap. Using the phone, Jeremy pulled up something on his screen. The sound of voices, muted. “It's playing on YouTube—nine different uploads. The most popular hit 900,000 views already.”
“Fuck me.”
“Someone already did.” Jeremy's palms flew up in a gesture of supplication as Mike damn near charged him. Rage raced through his bulging veins, arms itching to hurt something. Someone.
Jonah.
The asshole had done it. Intern his ass. Honor among weasels; he wondered how much Jonah'd been paid for that clip.
“Sources say the dark-haired beauty riding Michael Bournham's pole remains a mystery—” Click. Jeremy moved on to some Oprah channel, paused three seconds, and moved on. The rotation made Mike sick. Too many channels were running one particular ten-second snippet of the video of him and Lydia, a moment when he thrust up into her and she tipped her head to the right, the gesture so sexual and intimate it made him hard just thinking about it.
“Thank God you didn't say her name,” Jeremy commented. “Or that her face is never on camera.” He seemed to think something over, then added, with a low whistle, “That is one hell of a nice ass, Mike.”
“Thanks. I've been doing lunges and thought no one noticed,” Mike said sourly.
Pointing to the television, Jeremy said, “No, I meant—”
One glare was all it took. Jeremy slumped down and shut up. Good.
“What a mess,” Mike hissed, disgusted with himself for letting this happen. “Could this get any worse?” His stomach growled. When had he eaten last? The aroma of oregano and something cheesy filled his nostrils. “Are you cooking something?” he asked Jeremy, agog at the thought. Jeremy's idea of a kitchen utensil was his phone.
“I ordered pizza an hour ago, Mike. It’s in the oven on warm,” was the answer, Jeremy's eyes glued to the television. Mike grabbed a few slices of pepperoni pizza from the oven, snagged a Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout from the fridge, and plopped down on the couch, munching away.
“Can we watch anything but this?”
Jeremy flipped to QVC.
“Okay, anything but this and Lydia's ass?”
Tossing the remote after turning the box off, Jeremy stole a slice off Mike’s plate and wolfed it down in three folded bites.
“Jesus, do you ever use your teeth to chew?”
“It all digests the same.”
Bzzzzz. Smart phone in hand, Jeremy tapped a few times. When his jaw dropped, Mike groaned. “What now?”
Volleying his head back and forth between Mike and the television, Jeremy finally just shoved his phone at Mike, wincing as he stretched his arm out. “Don’t kill the messenger.”
It was Diane. Rather, a video of Diane on national cable news. “What the hell is she—”
“And so Mike asked me to be part of his reality television series, so I came to talk about the script in his office, and one thing led to another…” Hair flip. Attempt at a sensual smile. Fail as her over-plump lips made her look like a corpse with a pork chop trying to escape her mouth.
“There you have it, folks,” said the anchor. “Michael Bournham's viral sex-tape partner has been exposed. Meet the Hidden Boss? Not anymore. They should call the show ‘Meet the Hidden Sexpot.’”
A spray of beer and half-chewed pizza flew across the room, narrowly missing his arm. “Sexpot? Sexpot? Diane? More like cesspool!” Jeremy shouted.
A sense of relief flooded Mike’s body, extending out to his limbs. Deep breaths helped to restore a little more of his core, that unwavering sense of self that he'd become so detached from these past few years. Lydia was off the hook. Diane—in her weird, self-centered, hyper-affected way— was grabbing the perfect fifteen minutes of fame.
Which saved Lydia from humiliation and the nightmare of a very hungry, very determined press.
He still had the Matt Jones rental, with the GPS within, containing Lydia's address from last night. Not that he needed it—driving past her apartment ten or so times since the media shitstorm hit had branded it in his brain. Tracking her down and trying to explain this mess wouldn’t be hard. Surprising Jeremy, he ran out the door, keys in hand, and was barreling down the stairs before his friend could shout his name.
So much of this was out of his control.
Trying, though, wasn’t.
Some cranky old lady, who looked like the last time she wore lipstick was during the Eisenhower administration, answered the door. “Funny,” she said, “you look very different in the video.” Madge. He'd forgotten, in the frenzy surrounding the video, that she was Lydia's grandmother.
She may as well have spat the words in his face, the wave of revulsion and self-incrimination that hit him worse than any saliva that she could have hocked. Leaving the door open, she turned away and stomped down a hallway. He assumed that meant that he could enter. The apartment was quite nice, simple, but nice, with a homey decor that spoke to a longer history of the family living in the Midwest. Maybe the old woman had moved here for reasons unknown. Hell, maybe she was part of the original settlers from the Mayflower, given her appearance.
The sun shone through gauzy curtains and he felt raw and intrusive, as if he had absolutely no right to be here. The feeling made him waver inside, because Michael Bournham never felt that way these days; he always had a right to be wherever he damn well pleased, within the bounds of the legal system, of course. The ground beneath his feet was shaking like tectonic plates, moving hard against each other, fighting for dominance. Everything felt like that, though—and not just since the damn video had gone viral. Ever since he’d encountered Lydia in the parking lot. Had that really just been a few weeks ago? It felt like years. If only he had given in to his attraction to her when he had met her years ago, who knows where they would be right now. They sure as hell wouldn’t be in this position, with Mike coming to beg her forgiveness.
Beg. Michael Bournham didn’t beg anyone for anything, and yet he would get down on his knees and kiss her feet and make a thousand promises, all of which he would spend the rest of his life keeping, if she would forgive him his foolish, foolish, forgetfulness. In some ways it was her fault—she’d driven him there, so captivating, so alluring, so lovely in his lap, his hands filled with her ass, her hips, her curves, all gyrating on top of him, moving in ways that he didn’t know flesh could connect. She’d driven him out of his own mind, something that no mere mortal woman could possibly do, and yet she had.
He couldn’t blame her; that would be the easy way out, something that a weaker man would claim. Mike might be many things right now, but weak was not one of them—and never would be. He was facing this like a man, standing here in her apartment, uncertain but composed at the same time. Morals, driven into him from childhood through adolescence, made his center guide him. You look people in the eye when you make a mistake. You apologize. You try your damnedest to make it better, and even if they don’t forgive you, you still take whatever they throw at you because you wronged them. That was why he was here. That, and of course the hope she would forgive him, that she would go into his arms again and let him kiss her. Let him love her.
Love. That’s what drove all of this underneath. She had bewitched him. No, he’d let her bewitch him, falling under his own spell, the spell of allowing someone in. No blame could take away what had happened. That damn video was everywhere right now. Everywhere, proving what he’d always said, that the world was getting smaller and smaller at about the same rate that cell phones shrank.
