Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
ALEC
“Man…you know I told Ellie I didn’t think you could pull Vanessa,” Shaw muttered to me from his seat beside me in the greenroom area.
I’d been zoned out, reading through a script for an upcoming episode while we waited for our cue to step out before the audience. We’d been booked together—since we were brothers on the show, after all—to promote Kinfolk , on a show that was more like a traditional talk show than what Van and I had done with Arnez and Arizona.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, and he shook his head as he showed me his screen—filled with a surprisingly high-definition photo of me with my tongue in Vanessa’s mouth. “Oh, shit ,” I whispered, taking the phone from his hand to scroll through the whole photo set—a total of five pictures of Van and I at the sushi place looking hella cozy.
“Secret safe with her my ass,” I groaned, handing Shaw his phone back.
“Huh?” he asked.
“Man…the damn server recognized us but made a big deal swearing up and down she wouldn’t tell a soul—which, neither of us believed that shit, but damn . Pictures?!”
Shaw shook his head. “You’re both hot news right now, bro…you’ve gotta be a little bit more careful than this—especially if you’re trying to keep the relationship private.”
“That’s the thing,” I groaned, dropping my head into my hands. “There isn’t a relationship, not right now. I’ve been trying to…prime her to it, I guess,” I admitted. “She’s got all this shit going on with the media, everybody at her neck, so she’s not really trying to give any fuel to that fire. I thought we were tucked off enough to get a little privacy, but damn. I clearly thought wrong.”
“I don’t believe you were thinking at all,” Shaw chuckled. “Not about that kiss, that is. It’s nothing to have dinner with a coworker, but this looks like your ass got caught up.”
“I…can’t deny that like I want to.”
“I know you can’t.” He laughed. “You and Vanessa is a good look though.”
I scoffed. “I doubt those comments would agree.”
“What comments?”
“The comments on the post.”
“There’s no comments on that post,” Shaw said, dead serious as he looked me in the face. “You haven’t learned that by now, man? There’s never comments on the posts. That’s not even a thing that exists.”
I chuckled at him, shaking my head. “ Clearly , I need to be approaching this from your line of thinking.”
“You absolutely do. We’ve been in this business too long to not have those blinders up, for our sanity. I’m still working on pulling Ellie in—we probably need to get Van on the same train too.”
I nodded. “Yeah, probably so. As a matter of fact, I probably need to reach out to her—how wide do you think those pictures have gotten?”
Shaw cringed. “Ellie sent it to me. So if she’s seen it, I’m sure she’s already talking to Van about it.”
“ Shit. I need to call her,” I said, already pulling my phone back out and navigating to her contact. Just before I hit the button to initiate the call, a production assistant came rushing up, asking if we were ready.
“Can I just have like…five more minutes?” I asked—a question that was answered with a boy are you crazy look.
“I realize I posed that as a question,” the PA said. “That’s my bad. But…no, you can’t have five minutes. You’re being introduced in ten seconds. Go, now .”
Damn.
Damn.
Damn.
“Let’s go ahead and get this over with, man. I’m sure her people have her covered for now,” Shaw reassured, clapping a hand on my shoulder. Really, as much as I might want to resist, I didn’t truly have a choice.
Our cue was happening right now.
I didn’t really have a choice.
I followed Shaw out to the set with a smile on my face, waving to the audience like I didn’t have a care in the world, when really, I lowkey wanted to throw up.
Thinking about Van at home, seeing what should’ve been yet another private moment unfolding for the world to see had me feeling more than a little unsettled.
And then the host actually brought the shit up.
At first, we got lulled into a false sense of security—all the questions were about the show itself, and the public reception so far. Then, it got into a bit of career talk—Shaw’s most recent big role, asking us what we had coming up, all that.
The first question that toed the line was about Ellie—but it was innocent enough, and they’d already gone public, so no big deal, not really. Shaw took it in stride, taking the opportunity to brag on his lady, so really …it was fine.
Then the host looked at me.
I already knew what was up.
“So Alec—you’re commonly seen as the guy any parents would love for their daughter to bring home. Every public relationship you’ve had has been with a woman of a certain… type ,” he started, pausing for the live audience to react.
And they did.
A few groans here and there, but mostly laughs and nods that immediately got under my skin, prompting to look him in his face and ask outright, “What type is that?”
“Uh…wholesome?” he answered, as he scratched his head with one finger, sending a confused look out to the audience. “But the same can’t be said for your latest fling with Vanity— a female rapper whose raunchy lyrics and uh… risqué outfits are her biggest claim to fame. Look at this,” he said—still talking to the audience.
Heat rose to my face as the very same pictures Shaw had alerted me to came up on a big screen off to the side for the audience to see.
Lots of gasps and activity.
“What do you have to say about this, Alec?”
“ Fuck you ” was what I really had to say, but…I knew that wasn’t going to help anything.
“It’s unfortunate that private moments can’t seem to stay private,” was what I went with instead. “It’s shocking to me how comfortable everybody is with these sorts of violations.”
“That’s right.” The host nodded. “Vanity recently had a very compromising video hit the public purview—have you seen it?”
“I will smack the shit outta you,” I said, before I could catch myself, and of course, everybody had a reaction to that too, more shocks and gasps like I was the one out of line.
“So the ‘hood’ element of your role is already rubbing off on you, I see,” ol’ boy said, trying to joke his way out of the hot seat.
“It’s hard to pull myself back out of character sometimes,” I played along. “See, Jude would escort you somewhere away from the cameras and see if you still cared to disrespect Kami without a crowd. But since I’m me, and Vanessa is Vanessa, I’ll settle for making sure you understand, I’m not gonna forget a single thing that happens on this stage.”
“Come on, man, it’s not that?—”
“Oh, but it is,” I quickly clarified. “It is absolutely that serious, and absolutely that deep. I know you’ve got a show to maintain, you need your sound bites and viral moments, you want people tuned in, I get all that , my man, I promise you. But what you’re not about to do, is downplay or disrespect Vanessa to my face.”
He blinked, hard, then smirked out at the audience, trying to cover the embarrassment so clearly written on his face. “Well, I guess he told me, huh?”
“That’s exactly what it sounded like to me,” Shaw said, without the slightest hint of humor.
Driving home the point.
The host was flustered, damn near red in the face as he fumbled for a way to somehow maintain the conversation. “So, since you seem so protective of her, we can assume the fling rumors are true, right?”
“I think it’s a good rule of thumb not to assume anything about people you don’t actually know beyond a couple of interviews and clandestine photography,” I answered. “And if did have something to confirm or deny, it wouldn’t be a damn fling . Any woman I speak on, it’ll be because she’s mine , fully.”
“Seems like you’re speaking on Vanity with your whole chest.”
I shrugged. “Again, assume what you want to. But when you talk about Vanessa, you really should come correctly—her biggest claims to fame are the platinum plaques from her own music and the work she’s done with other artists, and most recently, a starring role in one of the hottest shows on TV. Actual, undeniable talent. But that’s not the narrative that gets the people talking, so I understand why you wouldn’t want to focus on it. Pretty sad though, honestly.”
“I…Uh…I think it’s time for another quick commercial break—when we come back, we’ll be checking in with our correspondent on the street,” the host stammered. “But before we go, let’s give another big round of applause for Shaw Bridges and Alec Everett, stars of WAWG’s Kinfolk , new episodes premiering every Sunday!”
We’d barely gotten the cue that we were clear to leave our seats before I was out of mine, already approaching ol’ boy’s desk. Shaw was quick to get in my way, wisely guiding me away the host, who’d already backed up as far as he could go—clearly, he’d caught the hint that I was dead serious about not forgetting what was said on stage.
Violence…wasn’t my thing.
Truly.
It was not my default, and never had been, at any point in my life.
I wasn’t going to touch him—at least, not based on what had happened so far. I just needed him to understand how badly he had me fucked up.
Nobody’s security was having it though.
As it was, I had to simply let it go and get rushed off stage, back to the greenroom with Shaw.
“So…you’re for real about Van, huh?” he asked, laughing at how clearly bothered I was.
“The shit isn’t funny,” I said, and he shook his head.
“The disrespectful shit he was saying, no, that’s not funny at all. You being ready to knock his head off about it? That is hilarious. I’ve never seen you like this before.”
I shrugged. “The world has never been like this to somebody I cared about,” was the only answer I could give. “You heard the bullshit—talking about my type being wholesome .”
“Has it not been?”
“No,” I insisted. “That just…happened to be who I connected with—it was never about that . And not a single one of my exes was wholesome anywhere except the public eye,” I countered. “People always think what they see is reality—meanwhile, the wholesome chicks… you know, ” I said, and all he could do was nod.
Because he did know.
He’d experienced the same damn thing.
But because of her lyrics and outfits, people came right out the gate with the assumptions about Van, who I’d barely even touched yet in real life. The shit was maddening, and honestly… weird .
Even if she was everything they assumed, the things they wanted to say, the way they wanted to treat her…it wasn’t right.
I pulled my phone out, turning it back on—I’d shut it down out of courtesy to the host, which I knew now wasn’t deserved. I flicked away the notifications clogging my screen, intent on completing the only mission on my mind—checking on Van.
Before I could navigate to her number, a fresh text popped up—with her name and number attached. I had my previews turned off for privacy, so I was quick to tap into it.
The message was just a few words that instantly made me smile.
VK: About that “real” date…you’re picking me up, right? What day and time?