Chapter 9 Lou
LOU
The headline hits my screen as Houston and I cross the marble toward The Gold Bar’s elevators.
Troy Turner’s Ex Moves On…With His Brother?
I don’t even have to tap it. The preview is enough. There’s Salem with his hand at Troy’s throat, Troy’s heels off the carpet. Troy looks like spoiled milk in human form. Salem looks like the devil if the devil did push-ups.
I set that alert on Troy back when we started dating. I thought monitoring the blast radius would help me keep us steady. It never did. I still have it. Of course, this is what it serves me when I’m finally breathing again.
“Lou?” Houston’s voice is low. He’s already angling his body to block anyone else’s sight line, like he can physically push the internet away from me.
“I saw it.” I keep walking. I’m not going to be the girl crying in a lobby. I’m not going to be any of the girls I’ve been when I was with him. Never again.
We ride up in a square of silence. I stare at my screen and watch strangers write their versions of me in the comments.
I could mute the word “ex” and it wouldn’t matter.
The picture does the work. The story is worse—the two of them bickering over me in Troy’s hotel room.
Like I’m some kind of prize to fight over instead of a person.
Houston doesn’t say anything. He understands that a quiet person right now is better than a helpful one.
The suite door opens, and Salem is standing in the living room. I want to bite his head off.
But next to him, my laptop sits on the table, my garment bag is hooked over a chair, and my sneakers are tied together by the laces on the floor.
Knox is at the table with a legal pad and a list. The TV is muted on the news. The still on screen is the same photo burned into my alert.
I open my mouth to shout, but Salem cuts me off. “Before you see it and decide I woke up today choosing violence, I went to get your things, not to cause problems.”
I lift the phone a fraction. “You grabbed him by the throat.”
“He earned it,” he says without apology. “But I was there to help you. Not to beat him up. Hell, I didn’t even do that. Just roughed him up a little. It wasn’t hard to figure out what was yours—neat piles versus his scattered approach to organization. The place looked like a rat’s nest.”
That sounds about right. When I moved in with Troy, he had two housekeepers just to keep up with him. When he’s on the road, it’s worse, and the hotel staff and I have to make sure he doesn’t fall into a pit of sepsis.
Fuck me, why was I with him again?
Knox flips the legal pad around. Three columns: Keep, Donate, Trash.
Lines under each like he’s about to turn grief into a grocery list. He meets my eyes.
“You can stay with us for now. We’re here a month.
Residency’s got this suite, so you have your own room.
You can lock any door you sleep behind. No strings.
We know you’re basically homeless right now, thanks to Troy, and since we’ve got the space, and we all get along pretty well—”
“Pretty well?” Salem scoffs. “Do you remember last night?”
We all ignore him. I blow out a breath. “This is a lot to throw at me in two minutes, guys. I need to think.”
“Of course,” Knox says, nodding.
I set my phone face down on the bar so I don’t throw it. “I don’t do charity.”
“Good,” Salem says. “We’re not a charity.”
“What are you then?” I ask.
“Men with a presidential suite and the nerve to use it to make a bad situation less stupid.”
Houston slides a glass of water within reach. “You’re not a charity case, Lou. You’re a person we’d like to help.”
That shouldn’t land as hard as it does.
It is hard not to cringe at it, though. The idea of letting someone else take care of me in any capacity is…
well, it’s weird. But I also don’t have anywhere else to go.
I broke my lease in San Francisco when I moved in with Troy.
We’ve been on the road for a couple of months. And my job is more past than present.
I look at my laptop as if it had forgotten me, and we both need to pretend that’s not true. “Thank you. All of you.”
“You didn’t cause this,” Knox says, nodding at the TV still. “It was already there. Today’s just when the light hit it.”
I breathe out. “I don’t want to be the reason you fight with him.”
Salem snorts. “We were already fighting with him. You’re the reason we did something useful between rounds.”
Houston checks the time. “We have rehearsal in an hour. Eat. Shower. Choose a room. If you want us to clear out while you get your head on, we do that.”
“I’m not going to break.”
“No one said you were,” Knox says.
The photo is still sitting in my head. The headline is nothing—lazy copy written by someone who’s never had to block death threats on a lunch break. The picture is the problem. Salem looks like he means to end a story. People like to fill in blanks with blood.
Troy has a small, but loyal fan base. If any of them get the idea to punish the girl who led to that picture, I’m screwed. I have to play this smart. “I’m going to work.”
“Good,” Knox says. “Work helps.”
They move around me without making me feel herded.
It’s a neat trick. Salem kills the TV, finally, and tosses the remote on the couch like it offended him.
Houston opens the balcony door a crack to let new air in.
Knox circles items on his pad, then tears off the page and leaves it where I’ll see it when I’m ready.
I sit at the bar, open the laptop, and wait to see if it still knows my password. It does. My inbox loads like it’s been holding its breath and now wants to dump all of it at once. I filter for clients. Crickets.
The last handful of emails are months old and say some version of Hope you’re well—touching base—circle back next quarter. I scroll through the rejects, the near misses, the we loved your deck but went a different direction notes. I close the window before I drown. Or throw myself out of it.
Okay. Next.
I pull a sketchpad from the den—hotel notepads are good for grocery lists and lies, not ideas—and a pencil case that still smells like graphite and grade school. I draw a rectangle and then another inside it. Basics.
The basics turn into drawing Sagebrush from memory. The squat stucco box, peeled guitar pick decal, the cracked lot, the door with the heavy handle that tries to shake your arm off if you’re not ready for it.
I reduce it to what matters. No frills. A silhouette that reads at a glance.
I write BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD in a condensed sans and make the baseline sit a little wrong on purpose.
I place the studio’s outline underneath so the words feel anchored to an address, not a platitude.
I mark up a second concept that tucks Sagebrush into the negative space of DRAWING like a ghost hiding where you’d expect a vowel.
It works. It’s not genius. But it looks like me.
I check my email again because muscle memory is rude. Still quiet. Why wouldn’t it be?
I open a new folder on the desktop and title it LNC_Relaunch. I make subfolders and stop before I start color-coding; a brand-new system won’t save me if the work doesn’t come back. I jot a list in black pen, hard lines, no doodles. Brainstorm every idea until my hand cramps.
Salem pokes his head in. He nods at me, a question mark and a period. “You good?”
“I’m upright. That’s about as good as I can say I am right now.”
“That counts.” He wanders away.
I’m surprised he hasn’t apologized for making such a mess of things, but considering his scale of screwups—at least, the ones the public knows about—maybe this is nothing to him.
I put my phone on Do Not Disturb and answer two unpaid invoices with Friendly reminder attached subject lines and a level of chill I’ve earned. I archive three Are you available emails from people who want a free brainstorm under the heading of “coffee.”
No.
I go back to the sketch and push it into the laptop with a quick photo. I trace the shapes in Illustrator and set the type with a default weight while I test angles. I keep it rough on purpose. The point isn’t to make a poster the Strip would buy. The point is to remind my hand how to move.
It’s been no time at all, and my hand is aching to stop.
Suck it up, buttercup.
Half an hour in, the suite key clicks and Knox slips back in by himself. He takes in the room like he’s logging proof of life. He walks over and looks at the sketch without invading the desk. “That’s good.”
“It’s a doodle.”
“It’s honest,” he says. “That reads.”
“Haven’t come up with a client who wants honest.”
“You are the client. For once.”
I get what he means, but I’m not sure it matters. “I let my work get small. Not on purpose. I said yes to what was in front of me. The big stuff takes quiet and time. I got good at waiting for his keys in the lock. No quiet. No creativity.”
“Lost a lot?”
“Most of my regulars moved on. I don’t blame them. The few who stayed got the polite version of me. I hate the polite version of me.”
“You going to fix it?”
“I’m going to relaunch. Lou Navarro Creative. New site. New rules.”
He nods like we’ve already signed a contract. “Good.”
“I don’t know if there’s a market for a woman who wants to make things that don’t apologize.”
“Profound. But there is.” He taps the drawing lightly with one knuckle. “This says hire me because I know what I’m doing, not because I’ll say yes to your cousin’s opinion.”
“The cousin always has opinions.”
“The cousin doesn’t cut checks. Art Director crossed my mind when I saw that.”
I huff. “You’re sweet. I’m stubborn and scrappy. That’s not the same as Art Director.”
“It’s exactly the same. You point at the thing, say what’s wrong or right, and then you make people better.”
“People are the hard part.”
“Always.” He shrugs. “They’re also the part that pays.”
I look at the sketch again and try on the title Art Director in my head. It doesn’t fit. It doesn’t not fit. “Maybe.”
“Put it on the list,” he says. “Doesn’t cost anything to consider it.”
“You sound like a guidance counselor.”
“I’ll take it.” He smiles. “You need anything before I go back down?”
“I need to not be a headline.”
“We’re working on it.”
“Tell Salem I said thanks.”
“You can tell him yourself when we get back.” He squeezes my shoulder and heads out.
I open Notes and draft something I might post later, if I hate myself less.
I’m okay. I’m moving on. Please leave strangers alone on my behalf; they don’t know me.
I won’t be answering questions at this time.
I add a line that says Don’t Google me and decide you know what I deserve.
I delete that one. It’s too honest for the internet.
The internet does not do nuance.
I leave the note in drafts and close the app.
My DMs are already boiling. Half the messages are from people who followed me for Troy and stayed to hate-watch.
Half are from women who are tired. The first group thinks I’m a climber; the second keeps telling me to block the word “whore” and take a bath. Some suggest a toaster bath.
I don’t do any of it. Instead, I stand, shake out my hands, and refill my water.
The suite smells like coffee gone cold and hotel air. I prop the balcony door wider and let the heat in. Vegas is already moving past lunch with a hangover and a smile. I grew up in this light and spent years trying to get it off my skin. Today, it feels almost comforting.
I sit again and refine the Sagebrush silhouette.
I add a sun disk behind it and then take it away.
Too on the nose. I draw a broken pencil over the roofline and hate it immediately.
I sketch a hand instead—just the outline—and let the index finger drag a charcoal line across the facade.
Back to the drawing board sits on that line like it means it. Better.
I can live with that.
Just like living with my childhood crushes. Who I’m sleeping with. Who are my ex’s older brothers.
This won’t get weird at all.