Chapter 28
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Mikey had known, deep down, Damian was going to respond like this, but he wasn’t sure he could’ve been prepared for just how vehemently dismissive he was of the relationship taking shape between Mikey and Luke.
The minute Mikey told him what had happened between the two of them, and about their boyfriend status, his face twisted up like he’d bitten into something either sour or rotten.
“What?” Mikey demanded. “You’ve been after me to get a boyfriend because it would be good publicity. Well, now I have. I thought you’d be happy.”
Damian just scowled. “I didn’t mean to jump into bed with a disgraced country singer,” he snapped. “And I think you know that. I meant find someone worthy of you and who’ll help your image. God, do I have to do everything?”
Mikey didn’t like the way Damian was speaking, and it made him think something sinister was going on, something just under the surface. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what was going on, but he knew it was there, lurking just out of sight.
“Just promise me you won’t do anything mean,” he blurted out.
“What kind of mean gay do you take me for?” Damian asked, batting his eyes in exaggerated innocence.
The kind of mean gay you are, Mikey thought.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just…you seem so dead set against our relationship. I don’t want you to do something to damage it.”
“Oh, you sweet summer child,” Damian said, “if I wanted to destroy your relationship with Luke, there’s nothing you could do to stop me.
” He huffed out a long-suffering sigh. “Very well. If you want to go down this road, then who am I to stop you? You’re a big boy.
You can make your own decisions about who you date and when. ”
Mikey narrowed his eyes and then looked at Tricia, to see what she might have to say. She just blew a bubble with her gum, though.
“Oh come on,” he said. “I know you have to have an opinion. You have an opinion about literally everything I do.”
She just shrugged, though. “I already said I think he’s hot.
And if he makes you happy, then you should go for it.
I mean, who knows? The two of you having a romance might even make this whole concert worth it, and if it works, then the memoir will sell more, and then your album will also sell more.
It seems like a pretty decent win-win for all of us. ”
Mikey didn’t like to look a gift horse in the mouth, but everything seemed just a bit too easy. Tricia, of course, was always going to take the path of least resistance, because she didn’t like confrontations. Damian, though…he just didn’t trust Damian not to actually do something spiteful.
Yeah, that settles it. I’m really going to have to do something about him, find someone else who can do the work he does for me. He’s not irreplaceable, however much he might think he is.
It was oddly empowering to think about cutting Damian loose. Of course, he wasn’t going to be able to reveal his decision just yet. He needed to wait until Damian had done what he needed him to do, and then he could start thinking about ways of replacing him.
“So, uh, now that’s settled, I actually do have a favor to ask of you,” he said.
God, how he hated feeling like he was begging Damian to do something.
But, as he’d said to Luke, there really was no one else who could manipulate the press quite like Damian.
He honestly had no idea how he did it, but he was some kind of sorcerer.
Damian looked down his nose at him in the way he’d perfected over the years. It was the look similar to the one his mother gave him, and he hated it.
Be patient, Mikey, he reminded himself. If you can get through a phone call with your mother, you can get through this.
“And just what would that favor be?”
“I want you to make sure the press is nice to Luke when we make our relationship official,” he said.
He held up a hand to ward off whatever snarky thing or objection Damian was going to voice.
“I don’t want to pull rank on you, Damian, but remember you work for me.
Besides, this relationship will be good for both of us.
It’ll be just the kind of publicity we’re always chasing. Like Tricia said, it’s a win-win.”
Damian looked like he was going to argue–Mikey knew the devilish gleam he got in his eye too well–but at last he just shook his head.
“Okay, fine,” he said. “If that’s the way you want it, then that’s what you’ll get. I’ll make sure the press goes easy on Luke.”
Mikey couldn’t resist pushing.
“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?”
Damian scowled. “What else do you want me to say, Mikey? You asked me to do something, and I said I’d do it. Isn’t that enough?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just you don’t seem to like Luke that much, so why aren’t you making a bigger deal?”
Tricia huffed off to the side.
“Give him a break, would you, Mikey? He already said he’d do what you wanted. Just let it go at that, huh?”
“Okay, fine. Just as long as I have your word you’re not going to do anything nasty.”
Damian put his hand in the air.
“I solemnly swear I’ll do everything in my power to make sure your relationship with Luke works out,” he said.
Mikey gave him another narrowed gaze and then, when he didn’t see any signs Damian was lying to him, he let it go.
“Okay,” he said. “So, let’s talk about the concert.”
He quickly filled them in about how things were going with the music and, as he recounted what he’d managed to pull together with Luke, he felt again the joy of reconnecting with his art.
Luke Carter, you’re a miracle worker, he thought.
Tricia, at least, seemed very much on board with his ideas. He caught her nodding along with him as he spoke, while Damian…well, Damian was never really excited or enthused about much of anything, so he wasn’t surprised at his lack of enthusiasm.
When he was done recounting the week and the music they’d put together, Mikey was excited all over again. Right then he just wanted to call Luke and demand they meet up again.
No, it’s okay to wait a bit, he thought. You can’t spend every single waking moment together.
“I have to say, Mikey,” Tricia said. “This is more excited than I’ve heard you be about anything musical in…a long time. I really like to see it.”
He blushed a little. It must have really been bad if Tricia had noticed it.
“Was I really so dead-eyed?” he asked.
Tricia shook her head.
“It’s not that. It’s just…for all the time I’ve known you, at least since your late days with the band, you’ve never really seemed very excited or invested in the music part.
You usually just seemed to be going through the motions, almost as if you’d lost sight of what brought you to your career in the first place.
Now, it’s like you’re a whole different person. I like it.”
“I do too, for what it’s worth,” Damian said begrudgingly. “I guess maybe Luke is good for you.”
As he sat there listening to his friends praise him, thoughts of Luke and what they were doing together dancing in his head, Mikey smiled. Unlike so many other times, this time it felt like it came from the heart.
It’s all gonna be okay, he thought. I can feel it.
A few minutes later Tricia said she was going to go take a nap, and Damian said he was going to do the same. After a few minutes, however, he came back, a very concerned look on his face.
“What’s up?” Mikey asked. “I thought you were going to go take a nap?”
“There’s something I have to tell you,” he said. “And you’re not going to like it.”
A cold fist grabbed hold of Mikey’s chest, because when Damian said he wasn’t going to like something, he meant it.
He sighed and leaned back, closing his eyes.
“What is it?” he asked, not even bothering to open his eyes.
A moment of silence followed, and acid started churning in his stomach.
“Do you remember a night last year when we went to Luke’s concert, got drunk, and you told me all about him? And I wondered what you saw in him?”
Mikey’s eyes flew open. He leaned forward, his mind already scrambling to put together the memories of that night.
They were hazy at best and, though he could remember bits and pieces, for the most part they were nothing but an alcohol-fueled haze.
Even so, a dark and terrible suspicion was taking shape in the back of his mind.
“I think so…,” he said slowly. “What about it?”
“Well, I never told you, but you made a few calls that night,” Damian said, and he actually sounded…
hesitant, like he didn’t want to bring any of this up but didn’t really see much choice about it.
“I tried to keep it under wraps as long as I could, but the truth is you were the one who called the paparazzo who eventually found out the truth about Luke.”
Mikey was pretty sure his heart stopped, as he tried to map what Damian had just revealed with what he knew to be true about that night.
Damn it, he thought again and again. I really wish I hadn’t been so drunk. I wish I could remember what happened. I mean, maybe Damian’s lying.
“And I have worse news,” Damian said. “Apparently the guy decided to blab the truth to Gina LaBun of all people. I just got the e-mail from her producers just a few minutes ago. They’re going to be reaching out to Luke soon, I think, to see what he has to say about the fact his soon-to-be collaborator had a key role in ruining his career.
I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen or how long it’s going to be, but I’m guessing it’s not going to be too far from now. I’m really sorry.”
Mikey snorted. He highly doubted Damian was sorry, because Damian wasn’t really sorry about anything, particularly when it came making sure Mikey stayed under his thumb.
“Why do I get the feeling you know more about how Gina got ahold of this than you’re letting on?
” he asked. The truth was he was pretty sure Damian was behind everything, but he wasn’t about to make the claim until he had the evidence to back it up.
It was one thing to think about firing Damian in the abstract, it was quite another to think about accusing him right here and now.
“Think about it, Mikey,” Damian said. “Don’t you remember what you were like a year ago?
You hadn’t yet come out, but you were going to.
You were just waiting to do it on your own terms so you could control the narrative.
Then there was also this chatter Luke might be going to take the initiative and do it for you.
I distinctly remember you saying you were going to make sure he didn’t get to write your story before you were ready to write it yourself. ”
A part of Mikey’s mind told him this was all too neat to be true; something it didn’t add up. Sure, he’d been drunk, but he had trouble imagining even an earlier version of himself would be capable of doing something so terrible.
“I know you don’t want to hear this, Mikey,” Damian said, “but let’s be real. You’re just as desperate to keep your career as I am, and you were even more desperate back then. I know you better than you know yourself.”
Mikey couldn’t breathe, and he felt like the walls were closing in around him. He wanted to call Luke and tell him…what, exactly? That he’d been the one who’d brought about the end of his career, even if he couldn’t remember it?
Now, thanks to Damian, bits and pieces were swimming up out of the soup of his memory.
He wasn’t quite sure he could remember all the details, but he thought he could hear snippets of a conversation with a reporter, could hear someone’s voice–his own, he supposed–telling him he should keep an eye on Luke Carter, that he’d been seen with other guys and that he could get a major scoop if he tried.
His hands gripped the arms of his chair as the memories started to crash on him.
“Luke’s never going to be able to forgive me,” he said. “And I don’t think I’d want him to.”
To his surprise, Damian actually had a sympathetic look on his face. Mikey didn’t know whether it was fake or not and, to be perfectly honest, he didn’t care. It was nice to know someone, at least, was going to be on his side when the shit inevitably hit the fan.
Which, as it turned out, happened much faster than either of them had anticipated, as his phone began to ring.
It was Luke.