Chapter 29
Unsurprisingly, Luke ended up seeking out Bryce and Katrina.
He was feeling happier than he’d ever been in his life and, while he still wanted to keep some of the best parts of this past week to himself, he also wanted to share some of it with his two best friends.
They’d been with him through the tough times.
The least he could do was share some joy with them, too.
They all agreed to meet up at–where else?–Bob’s lunch but, as he was headed there, he got a call.
Luke wasn’t expecting a phone call–no one ever called his cell phone, mostly because he was rarely anywhere where he had a signal–and so when his phone started buzzing, he wasn’t sure at first what he was actually hearing. When he looked down at it, though, he saw an unfamiliar number.
Hm…not gonna answer that, he thought.
He slid the bar to “ignore” and prepared to go on about his day, but the damn thing started buzzing again.
They can fuck right off, he thought, but then decided he was going to answer it and give them a piece of his mind.
“Who the fuck is this?” he demanded as he finally answered the phone.
The person on the other end seemed taken aback for a minute–they stammered out a few syllables–but then they seemed to get a firm hold on themselves.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but is this Luke Carter?”
“Yes?” he said slowly. “What can I do for you?”
“My name is Deirdre, the scheduler for the show Morning Fun with Gina LaBun. How are you doing today?”
He knew all too well who Gina LaBun was, and he didn’t think anyone calling from her show was good news.
“I’m doing okay,” he said, reluctant to say too much more. He’d learned the hard way it was always better to be circumspect when talking to people like this. They were always looking for the slightest excuse to drum up controversy and sow discord, and he wasn’t about to give them the satisfaction.
I’ve had enough of doing that, he thought.
“Great!” Deirdre chirped. “I’m calling today to see if you might like to record an interview with Gina to talk about the recent revelations about your being forced out of the closet.”
A stone seemed to take up residence in the pit of Luke’s stomach. He had no idea what she was talking about, and he wasn’t at all sure he wanted to know.
Still, something forced the next words out of his mouth.
“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” he said slowly, trying to keep his breathing under control, trying to keep his mouth from running away from him. “Would you care to explain?”
“Well, it’s recently come to light that your former NACA colleague Mikey Smiles was the one responsible for leaking your secret to the press.” She hesitated again, clearly unsure what he would say next. “Do you, um, have anything you’d like to say in response?”
There were a hundred, a thousand, things he’d like to say, so many things they threatened to choke him.
He wanted to strangle Mikey, and he also wanted to strangle himself for ever being stupid enough to believe whatever had taken shape between Mikey and himself was anything other than a lie, anything other than just another of Mikey’s attempts to massage his image and make himself feel better about his own miserable existence.
All of these things crashed through his brain so quickly he couldn’t sort out from one the other.
Say something, idiot!
“Um…no comment,” he said finally. It was a painfully inadequate thing to say, and he knew it, and so, seemingly, did Deidre. She didn’t even bother to hide her huff of impatience.
“Surely you have something to say about the fact your former friend was the one responsible for your career imploding,” she said.
The bluntness of what she said was the clearest indication yet she was under pressure–presumably from Gina LeBun herself–to get a story, no matter what she had to say or how much she had to offend her potential interview subject.
“You’ve been in the middle of preparing for a concert.
Surely this puts some sort of a damper on the preparation, doesn’t it? ”
Shit.
Just the mention of the concert was enough to send him into a full-blown spiral.
There was no way he was going to be able to go through with it, no way he was going to be able to look at Mikey again in the same way, if even a bit of what she said was true.
He had to fight down the urge to just throw his phone into the nearest trashcan, get in his truck, and drive back to his cabin, where he would stay and never try to come out again.
“Like I said,” he repeated, more patiently than he thought he was capable of, “I have no comment at this time, and I don’t think that’s likely to change.”
“You know,” she said. “There are plenty of others who’re going to report on this. The sooner you get ahead of the story, the sooner you’ll be able to make sure people hear your side first.”
And that, in a nutshell, was why Luke had never really had any interest in being the kind of music star Mikey had always been.
He hated having to pay attention to every single detail of his public persona, hated the way everyone scrutinized every little thing he did, hated the fakeness of it all.
He wanted to spend his time making music, using the power of music to tell stories, and connecting with people on a human level.
There was nothing really human about all of this.
In fact, it was downright dehumanizing to see yourself as nothing more than a product for other people to consume.
He was tempted to hang up the phone, but instead he took a deep breath. He was going to tell Deirdre exactly what he thought of her and her boss. At least it would delay having to think about Mikey’s betrayal.
“Look,” he said, “I don’t know what you’ve been told, and I don’t really care who told you. Whatever happened between Mikey and me is in the past, and it’s going to stay there if I have anything to say about it. And you can take that straight to Gina LaBun.”
And then he really did hang up the phone. Not for the first time, he regretted having a cellphone in these situations. It would’ve been infinitely more satisfying to slam the phone at home in her ear.
Fuck, he thought. What am I going to do now?
He needed to have it out with Mikey right away. The sooner he had this fight, the sooner he could go back to the cabin and forget about everything.
He fired off a brief, terse text to Mikey saying they needed to meet immediately and, when Mikey responded asking him what was up, he just reiterated they needed to meet. He then drove right to the hotel and parked, waiting for Mikey to show himself.
When Mikey came to the parking lot, Luke panicked a bit at the look of panic on his face, even though it was exactly what he’d wanted to see. He wanted Mikey to know something was up but not to know what it was. He’d been lying to Luke this whole time, so why shouldn’t he suffer a bit, too?
Distantly, Luke was aware he wasn’t being at all fair.
After all, he hadn’t even given Mikey a chance to defend himself.
Instead, he’d just leapt to conclusions.
Still, if he knew anything about the way journalism worked, he doubted the producers of Gina LaBun’s show would’ve bothered reaching out to him unless the story had substance.
Unfortunately, Mikey was also looking just as handsome as he’d been when Luke dropped him off—dressed in what Luke thought of as his “pretty boy” clothes—and though it was a bit messed up, something about the vulnerable look on his face made him even more attractive.
Damn it, he thought. This would be so much easier if he wasn’t looking adorable.
Mikey got into the car, his usual smile flickering like a lightbulb about to go out. Luke thought about driving off somewhere else but then decided against it. He wanted to get this out of the way as soon as possible.
“So,” he said, lips numb, “I got a call just a little bit ago.”
“Oh yeah?” Mikey asked. “Who from?”
“Deirdre from that stupid show with Gina LaBun,” Luke said, and he could feel his blood pressure spiking. His pulse was pounding in his ears, and it was all he could do not to start shouting or something worse.
No, he wasn’t going to do that with Mikey. The two of them could have an honest conversation.
“So,” he said, “did you or didn’t you tell the reporter I was gay? You know, back in the day? You know, back when someone found out, somehow, I had a secret thing going on and somehow managed to take photos of me kissing a guy? Was it you, Mikey, was it you?”
The words were falling out of his mouth so fast he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to put them into any kind of order. He wanted to shake the truth out of Mikey, make him tell him everything that had happened and, just as importantly, why, why he’d betray someone he’d once said he’d loved.
Mikey’s incapable of loving anyone but himself, he thought.
“Look,” Mikey said, and now it was his turn to start gabbling, to ramble on in the desperate hope he might get to something vaguely resembling coherence.
“It wasn’t the best time in my life, and there were a lot of things going on, and I was afraid of getting outed myself, and my team said I should probably try to do something to control the narrative, and they said since the press were already sniffing around you it wouldn’t be so bad, you had less to lose, and so I just went with it and called the reporter and then things just spun out of control, and now here we are. ”
Now here we are. What a fucking stupid thing to say.
“You know,” Luke said, “I’m not even sure what pisses me off the most. That you did all of it, or that you knew you did it and haven’t said a word, despite the fact we’ve been together all this time. You could’ve told me at any point, and yet you didn’t.”
He paused and took another breath.