34. Maeve
34
maeve
Normal weeknights when it was just me and Jayce included dinner, bath time, and then him either playing a game or watching television while I worked on designs from the couch.
These days it’s the same—only now I have Logan next to me working on his computer. And after Jayce goes to bed, we usually have sex.
That’s definitely a change from the old days.
It’s been more than a month since Jayce and I moved in, and while I was wondering how my son would handle the move, it’s been the easiest transition I could’ve asked for. Yes, there is the added pain of driving him to school each day since we’re now out of district. But the school knows about the custody situation, and has said as long as we can get him to school, he can finish out the year, and by then we’d know what Jayce’s home life would look like.
And it better look like this, because right now is pretty perfect. Especially now that Logan’s put his computer away for the night and has started rubbing my feet.
“Mommy? Can I have a snack?”
I check the time and see that it’s just after seven. “A small bowl of Goldfish.”
Logan looks over to me. “Can I have a snack too?”
I don’t know whose puppy dog lip is more ridiculous, Jayce or Logan’s. Though, a little snack does sound good. “Popcorn?”
“Extra butter, light on the salt,” he says, finishing my thought. “Be right back.”
He leans down to kiss my forehead as he and Jayce head off to the kitchen.
What is this? Is this domestic bliss? I mean, I know it’s not going to be this way forever, but even if some of our nights are like this, I’d say that I’m one lucky woman.
I don’t bother wiping the smile off my face as I feel my cell phone vibrate next to me.
Stella: Maeve, I’m going to preface this text thread under the category of “Don’t Hate Me.”
Ainsley: Stella…what did you do?
Stella: Nothing bad.
Quinn: But probably nothing good.
I look at which thread this is, and realize it’s the sisters-only chat. Usually this thread is reserved for girl talk or to bitch about Simon. But if she’s giving me a warning and no one else, I have to wonder what she’s up to.
Maeve: Just tell us, Stella. I guarantee we won’t hate you.
Stella: I know you won’t, but you’ll probably tell me to stay out of your business.
Maeve: Stella Leigh…
Stella: I might’ve gone on a very deep internet stalking mission to dig more into Vivian.
Ainsley: Stella…
Quinn: Good. I’ve never met her, but I hate her on principle.
Maeve: Stella, while I appreciate your efforts, my lawyers are on it.
At least, I hope they are.
Stella: Hear me out. After you told us about Josh wanting custody and that it seemed to pop up around the time that he and Vivian suddenly got married, I had a weird feeling about it.
Ainsley: We all did.
Stella: Exactly. So I started stalking her social media, which, there wasn’t anything on the outside that was glaring. But! I searched her saved stories—and this woman saves everything—and noticed she’s discreetly posting about auditioning for something and also hinting that it’s back in the reality world.
Quinn: She was fifth out of ten in a singing reality show. Literally the definition of mid. And she wants to do it again?
Stella: No, see, that’s what’s interesting. It doesn’t seem like she’s doing another competition. She’s been posting a lot about lifestyles, and daily vlogs, and things that seem more like she’s going more for influencer rather than country singer.
Ainsley: Who would want to take lifestyle advice from her? She’s not a good person.
Quinn: A lot of people are trash, so I’m guessing other trash people?
Maeve: Focus! Stella, what does any of this have to do with the custody case?
Ainsley: Wait! Isn’t there a new reality show about to start casting in Nashville?
Stella: Correct, dear sister. Real Lives of Nashville Wives.
I think about it for a second and then I remember I read something about that when Logan and I were coming back from Los Angeles.
Maeve: Wait, are you telling me that you think Vivian is auditioning for this show, and that’s why she suddenly married Josh?
Quinn: And more dastardly, are you saying that she wants Josh to have primary custody of Jayce so she can act as if she’s bonus mom of the year?
That’s…that’s absurd.
Right?
I mean, who would go and put together a family just to get on a likely-to-get-canceled-after-one-season reality show?
Stella: I’m not saying anything. I’m just saying that I’d bet my new boots and my Chanel bag that this woman has had at least an audition. And that the timing is suspicious.
“Who are you texting, Mommy?”
I look up from my phone to see Jayce and Logan coming back into the living room, snacks and drinks in hand. And yes, I didn’t ask, but my husband knew to bring me a Diet Coke.
“Your aunts,” I say. I want to see if he wants to FaceTime them, but the second everyone gets settled, we hear an alert that the gate is opening.
“Who’s bothering us at this hour?” Logan says as he checks the cameras. “What on earth is Kat doing back here?”
Logan heads to the door to greet her, but I’m sitting up straight in my seat. Kat has been enjoying life these days now that we’re married—and it’s not just for show—and that Logan is full steam ahead on his new idea. She even told me she might take a vacation this year.
So her coming back to the house, and driving like she’s running from the cops, at seven in the evening is something to be concerned about.
A few minutes later, Kat and Logan walk into the room, both looking pale and frantic.
“Jayce, buddy, how about you go to your room and start getting ready for bed.”
“I get it,” Jayce says with a sigh as he picks up his bowl of crackers. “Adult time.”
My son made a really good joke, and I can’t even enjoy it because Kat and Logan look like they’re about to drop a bomb on me.
“What is it?” I ask once I knew Jayce was out of earshot.
“Now, I want to start this off with saying that I just don’t work for Logan, but I work for you too. So however we decide to handle this, I have your back one-hundred percent.”
I feel my stomach starting to drop. “What is it?”
Kat pulls up her phone and shows me a picture that looks like it was taken on a digital camera in the 2000s.
And in the midst of that group of girls is me.
Topless.
“What the hell?” I say, zooming into make sure that it is me. Which I know it is. It’s from Spring Break 2008. I was twenty. In college. And was living my best life in Cancun, where I didn’t need an ID to drink. Or to enter a wet T-shirt contest where none of the shirts ended up staying on after they were soaked.
“It’s not just that.”
What? I have to blink a few times as Kat takes the phone from me and starts scrolling through more photos. It’s a whole gallery of compromising pictures from that Cancun spring break, to other college escapades, and from my party girl years in Nashville before Maeve Banks made a name for herself in the design field. But what makes me gasp is the final picture, which is of Logan and I the first night we met at the hotel bar.
Our first kiss.
But it doesn’t look like just a kiss. Somehow the picture has been manipulated to look like he’s groping me on the dance floor. I know I was drunk that night, but I don’t remember that happening.
“What the fuck?” I scream, grabbing her phone and looking through them again. “How the hell did someone get all these?”
“I’m not sure,” Kat says. “All I know is that somehow they were leaked to a non-friendly Logan Matthews gossip blog and so now this gallery is live with the headline ‘See the other side of the new Mrs. Logan Matthews.’”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I say, collapsing to the couch. My head is pounding. I feel like I can’t breathe.
“Who did this?” Logan barks. My eyes are just open enough to see him pacing back and forth across the living room. “Whoever it is, they’re fucking done. I’ll ruin them.”
“I don’t know,” Kat says. “Usually if it’s a blog or creator I’m friendly with, they won’t tell me who sent in what, but they’ll give me enough hints to figure it out for myself. But either they know that this site hates me or they just got lucky, because if I try to make a phone call, they’ll run a headline that I’m trying to pay them off. They’re that petty.”
“Fucking wonderful,” I say, trying to control my breathing. “Logan, I’m so?—”
“No. Don’t you dare apologize,” he says. “We all have pictures from our youth that we’d rather not have in the public.”
“Logan, I know you’re trying to make me feel better, but your pictures are you looking dorky in eighth grade. Mine are of my tits on a Tuesday when I won a wet T-shirt contest to a song about a lollipop that wasn’t a lollipop. We aren’t talking about the same things.”
“You won?” Kat asks. “Nice.”
“Thanks, but not the point, Kat. What the fuck? This is… this is so fucking bad.” It’s at that moment that the actual gravity hits me. “Jayce…the custody case.”
The mood in the room drops even more than it was.
These pictures are out there now. I mean, they existed somewhere before this, but now they are available for the world to see, and because of who I married, this is going to circulate like wildfire. Which means that this is going to be brought up at the custody hearing. Now Josh and Vivian can say that I work too hard, I’m never there, and apparently when I’m not there, I’m entering topless contests, always drunk, and making out with men in public.
“Oh God,” I say, starting to hyperventilate. I’m out of control. I’m spiraling. My head is spinning, and I can’t breathe.
“Love. Come here.” I hear Logan’s words and I feel his arms around me, but that’s it. “Shh…find the calm. We’re going to figure out who did this.”
“How?” I say between gasped breaths. “How do you find something like this? How do we stop this wildfire? Does it even matter who?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of this.”
I don’t know if I believe Logan. I don’t know anything anymore.
Because all I can think is this is it. This is the end of my road.