Chapter 45
Dear me/ journal/ god.
I kicked Finley in the shin during soccer practice today and he cried a lot. Coach Mittal suspended me for the next two games and Mom grounded me even though I told them it was an accident.
Whatever. It’s Wednesday and we have dinner with the Cloutiers on Wednesday nights so I have to go do that now even though I’m not in a good mood.
Update: My incident at soccer came up at dinner and when I told them how hard Finley cried, Alice smiled down at her plate.
She was wearing her mermaid fin earrings today.
The ones Mom and I got her for her birthday last year.
I picked them out because they matched her favorite dress, but I told Mom not to tell her it was me.
She wears them a lot even though they weren’t very expensive so I guess she really likes them.
Update: Adrien high fived me when I went out to practice dribbling and said “the little shit deserved it. I didn’t like him either.” When I asked him if he’d ever met Finley he said he didn’t need to. And then we practiced together for a bit.
Even though Adrien is really rich, he’s not that stupid.
Clarification: Alice’s favorite dress is green-blue and it makes her look like a mermaid. That’s why I thought the earrings matched.
Dominic
“You.”
I pried my eyes open and attempted to raise my head, but sometime between when I’d gone to bed last night and rolled out of it this morning, my skull had turned into a ball of lead.
It took a few tries, but I eventually got it to loll in the desired direction.
Adrien snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Wake the fuck up. We need to talk.”
Talking was good. Talking was progress. Talking was what I’d been trying to get him to do for the last three weeks. “Aight.”
He sighed, half shaking his head. “Come on.”
I may have dozed off then. Because I didn’t recall entering a vehicle or crossing any borders, but both of those things must have happened, because when I came to, we were inside a forest.
“Here.” Adrien put a large mug in front of me, acting as though it was perfectly normal for a kitchen to be situated on this type of terrain. “Chug that.”
He rustled about while I downed the coffee. As soon as I was done, he was tossing a plated bagel in my general direction and refilling my mug. “I’m not hand-feeding you.”
“Uh… ’kay.” I knew I was confused, but I wasn’t sure why. Not until much later, when the plate was empty and Adrien was dumping the remainder of the pot into my mug. “Wait, why would you hand-feed me?”
“Fucking finally.” He got rid of the empty pot and braced both hands on the edge of the counter. “Now. Do you or do you not remember how many times over the last four weeks I’ve asked you to leave me the fuck alone?”
I looked around. “Where are we?”
“My apartment.”
I frowned, not sure I believed him. The leafy vine creeping down the shelf to his left was brushing his arm like it wanted to wrap around it. “Is your apartment in the room with us right now?”
“Dominic. People are starting to write fanfic about us. You have to stop. My CFO’s assistant forwarded it to my wife because she thinks you’re courting me.”
“Oh.” I sipped my coffee, glancing down at my watch. It was barely 5:30.
“Oh? That’s all you have to say?”
“About what?”
“The fanfic.”
“What fanfic?”
“Our fanfic.” He slapped the counter a few times. “Wake the fuck up. Someone posted about it on Gossip Gorilla this morning. I need you to nip it in the bud before it catches fire and blows up.”
Hold up. “Someone posted fanfic about us on Gorilla?”
“You own the fucking platform. How the fuck do you not know?”
I shrugged. “It’s not my job to know. I’m not involved in the day-to-day operations of 6Queue anymore. Or any of my other companies.”
My job was to identify businesses that had potential but were undervalued due to piss-poor management, buy them up for pennies, then assign an appropriate team to restructure and rebuild.
I was a CEO overseeing a team of other self-sufficient CEOs.
My level of involvement was up to me. I could half retire tomorrow, let everyone know that I was available for emergencies only, and that would be that.
I wasn’t attached to any of them.
This wasn’t what I’d grown up dreaming of doing. The plan had been to get a double comp sci, finance major, then start a gaming company with my childhood nemesis.
But shit happened. And I’d adapted.
Not satisfied with my answer, Adrien tapped at his phone and handed it over. “Fix it. Now. Otherwise, it’ll be all over the internet by noon, and I’ll have to kill you.”
I scrolled past the pictures—Adrien, grinning behind a set of mics at some sort of press conference; me, wearing a dark suit and walking the carpet at an event I had no memory of attending—and scanned the article.
“…allegedly knew each other growing up… ten-year age gap… Dominic’s jealousy-fueled tirade…
allegedly purchased 6Queue Media when Cloutier rejected his advances and cut ties…
sources are saying the rumors were all lies, meant to get Cloutier’s attention…
nurse who was on shift claims he witnessed an altercation between the two…
followed him to the hospital… Cloutier finally snapped…
” I trailed off, a small alarm triggering in the back of my head.
There wasn’t a single thing about a fanfic in here. This was real, and if left unchecked, it would go viral before breakfast.
Straightening, I tried to look up my name, but the search function wasn’t working. It wouldn’t let me latch long enough to type anything.
That wasn’t supposed to happen.
What the fuck was going on?
“Kill it,” Adrien demanded, more forcefully this time.
I went to click on the homepage icon but decided to scroll down to the comments first, just to see what type of engagement it’d gotten so far.
tatiana7878: Now THIS is tea.
banana-allergy-and-me: Let me get this straight. All the stuff they released about Adrien Cloutier was defamatory bullshit? All because Dominic wanted to get with him and it wasn’t reciprocated? The fuck?
Advanced-Islander replied: Yup. All those “sources” were allegedly planted. Dominic deserves what’s coming. Guy can get fucked.
colorblindreptile replied: People don’t talk about this enough, but Cloutier’s deeply passionate about the environment. Rumors aside, he’s contributed more money to rainforest preservation and biodiversity conservation than anyone else in his tax bracket.
Birdsofprayer: Have you guys seen the security footage of Dominic’s car running in the hospital parking lot for six hours? Imagine visiting a sick family member, you’re already stressed and shit and then you come out and find your stalker waiting for you outside.
justice-for-trolls replied: the fuck is wrong with people
Advanced-Islander replied: I’d have decked him too.
deeepsilk88888 replied: This is terrifying. Dominic should be behind bars.
Those were the only comments so far. No one else was typing, and the view count didn’t seem to be going up yet. Strange… Were the bots suppressing—
“Dominic. Hey.” Adrien smacked the counter again. “You need to wake up and listen to me. Call whoever you need to and kill this. Right now.”
Tension was snapping off him, and for the first time this morning, I was conscious enough to recognize it wasn’t from anger.
It was fear.
“I’m not fucking around. Kill this. Now.”
“Have you read it?” I asked. “The article and the comments?” Did he realize how heavily they weighed in his favor?
Frustration clawed up his neck. His teeth clenched. No answer.
Nodding, I gulped down what was left of my coffee. “I told you I’m not involved in any of the day-to-day operations anymore. Thanks for breakfast.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Which way’s the door?”
“I’m assuming Alice doesn’t know yet?”
“She’s still asleep. This won’t affect her.” I had bots and staff all over that. If her name was ever dragged into any of my messes, it was immediately taken care of.
He swiped his phone off the counter. Began tapping.
Dialing. “Hey, it’s me. No, I know what time—obviously it’s a fucking emergency, you’re the one who flagged it,” he gritted out.
A glare was chucked my way when I stood up.
“Family meeting. My place. I’ve got Dominic, but you’ll need to grab the gremlin. She’s still asleep, apparently.”
He hung up.
“Fifteen minutes. Twenty if you’re lucky,” he said. “That’s how long it’ll take before Gampy gets to her apartment, wakes her up, and she calls me. At which point I’m going to send her those links.”
“How do you know she’s not at my place?”
“Because you’re too stupid in the mornings to drive, and she lives four blocks away.” He rechecked his watch. “That’s one minute down. If you’ve got any calls to make, now would be the time to do it.”
I slipped my hands into the smooth pockets of my running sweats, considering him. “She’s not going to get dragged into this if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Even if that’s the case and you somehow manage to keep her name out of it—and even if she stays off the internet until shit calms down—how do you figure she’ll feel watching what the fallout of this will do to you?”
I shrugged. “What will it do to me?”
He huffed a sarcastic laugh. “Get fucked, Dominic.”
“No, seriously. What will it do? If anyone would know, it’s you.”
The bitter amusement in his eyes sharpened, but he still wouldn’t answer the question. “What about your mother? If this blows up, how do you think it’ll impact her?”
“It won’t.”
“Jesus, you cannot be this fucking daft! This will tear her to shreds. Call your fucking people!”
“I don’t need to. She won’t hear about it, and even if she does, it won’t matter. She’ll forget it happened.”
There was a brief pause. “What?”
“Alzheimer’s. Early onset. Most days, I’m lucky if she even remembers that I’m her son. Any other arguments you want to make?”
His brows pinched, but his stance softened.
I was surprised Robert hadn’t spilled the beans yet; he’d never been all that keen on minding boundaries.
Choosing to put a temporary pin on the topic, Adrien let out a blunt sigh. “Call your team, kill it, and we’ll sit down to talk.” Then, in a firm, unwavering tone, “Trust me on this one. Please.”
“I can’t.”
“We both know that’s bullshit. Make the call.”
“No.”
“Dominic—”
“No, dude. No.” I didn’t give a fuck what they said about me.
This was my one chance to fix my big fuckup, and like hell I’d give it up.
“You know what this will actually do? In two hours, if that, every major news outlet and social media platform is going to be screaming about how majorly you’ve been wronged.
People are already talking about your environmental work, and I’m willing to bet good fucking money that by the end of the workday, your reputation will have been redeemed by the same algorithms that tore it down. ”
Then maybe he’d actually agree to fucking talk to me, and Julie would be able to look me in the fucking eye again.
I dragged a rough hand through my hair. “Alice is putting up a tough front, but this is hell for her, man. The best thing I could do at this point is to let her go. But I’m a selfish bastard who knows what it’s like to be without her, and it’s…
misery doesn’t even begin to cover it. I wasn’t living.
I wasn’t even surviving. I was just… waiting. ”
Constantly waiting until I got to see her again, talk to her again, fight with her, play.
The girl wore my heart on her fucking sleeve, and I’d cling to her until she finally got sick of me nipping at her heel like a lovesick puppy and kicked me to the curb.
“I’m too selfish to let her go,” I reiterated.
“But if the second-best thing I can do is throw myself under the bus so she’s not forced to choose between me and her family when Christmas rolls around, then so fucking be it.
Yeah, it’ll suck. Yeah, she’ll be pissed.
But the truth will come out eventually, shit will die down, your reputation will continue to benefit from the boost, and I’ll be able to fucking breathe knowing that she didn’t give me this chance in vain.
“I don’t deserve her. You’re right. But holy shit, dude, would I do anything to be the guy she deserves.” Let them rake me over the coals. I didn’t care, as long as I got to stay in this dream with her.
Adrien’s face had gone painstakingly blank, though I thought I saw a glimmer of something like recognition pass over his eyes before they flicked to something behind me.
“Addy?” I turned to find Ria squinting at the two of us, her brown hair ruffled and disheveled from sleep. “What’s going on? Everything okay?”
Adrien cleared his throat. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.”
She tilted her head like she’d picked up on something peculiar in his response. I became invisible as she sauntered toward him and placed a palm on his cheek. Nothing was said, though Adrien gave a gentle shake of his head before placing a tender kiss on her palm.
I looked away just as my phone went off.
Gampy had made it. My gremlin was awake.