22. Vincent
22
VINCENT
J ust when I thought I could go home and try to drink away my Evermore launch stress, a text came in from Paul.
I know it’s late. But I need to talk.
Rather than try to hash it out over the phone, he asked to come over. It wasn’t like I’d be able to sleep anyway, so I told him to head to my place. He was waiting in the lobby by the time I arrived home, pale and bleary-eyed.
“You look like shit,” I said as I strode over to him.
“Yeah, thanks. You don’t look so hot yourself despite the tux.”
We gave each other a weary handshake side hug combo.
Of course I was wearing the drama of the night across my face. I could keep it together in public, but now that I was home with one of my oldest friends, I could finally acknowledge to myself how fucked up my life was at the moment.
But Paul had asked for my support. This wasn’t about me or my problems.
We rode up the elevator in silence while Paul stared down at his shoes.
“Drink?” I asked as we walked into my dark penthouse. I flipped the lights on but kept them low to set up what was bound to be a confessional.
“You have to ask?” he chuckled. “Bring the bottle.”
Paul headed for the balcony while I grabbed my best bottle of scotch and two tumblers. When I found him outside, he was hunched forward in a chair, head bowed. I wordlessly poured him a glass and nudged it against his shoulder.
I dropped into the chair opposite him. “Talk.”
Paul took a long draw of scotch, closed his eyes, then sighed. “That helps a little.”
“Give it two more glasses, and you’ll be feeling no pain.” I was looking forward to the same sensation.
We drank in silence for a few minutes. I wasn’t about to push Paul to unleash what he was dealing with. Sometimes just being there for each other was enough. Finally, he started talking.
“Things aren’t good with Chloe,” he admitted quietly. “They’re actually pretty shitty.”
I frowned at him. “What do you mean? You’re newlyweds. Commence happily ever after. The bad stuff isn’t supposed to come for years.”
Paul leaned back and looked up at the starry sky. “Yeah, that’s what I thought too. Turns out Chloe has been hiding a lot of shit from me.”
“Hold on.” I leaned forward abruptly. “She hasn’t been?—”
“No, no cheating, but she’s still been keeping secrets from me,” Paul cut me off. “I thought we were back to normal after all the drama on the way to the altar. She was acting totally fine. Happy, even! Then out of nowhere, she realizes she’s missing one of the antique earrings her grandmother had left her. It was her ‘something old’ in the wedding. She knew she took them off in the suite after the reception, but after that, we got tied up in getting ready to leave for the honeymoon. We had to pack in a hurry after the brunch in order to make our flight the next morning, so she didn’t even notice it wasn’t with the rest of her things. But a couple of nights ago, she was going through her stuff and couldn’t find it.”
I wasn’t following how a missing earring could blow up enough to require a middle-of-the-night visit. “Did you call the hotel?”
He nodded. “Immediately. They tore the room apart looking for it, but it didn’t turn up. And Chloe had a total meltdown. Like, I didn’t recognize her she was so upset. At one point she was crying so hard she was hyperventilating.” Paul’s expression went sheepish. “And that was when I said the worst thing you can say to an unhappy woman.”
“Paul, you didn’t,” I sighed.
“Oh, I did,” he replied ruefully and took a long draw of scotch. “I said, ‘Calm down, it’s just an earring.’”
Now his visit was starting to make sense.
“It was like I kicked through a dam. She just… unleashed right in front of me. Fell down to her knees. I ran over to try to comfort her, to just hug her through the pain, you know? She pushed me away.” Paul looked haunted by the memory of it. “And once she caught her breath, she started talking. She said she wasn’t happy, and she hasn’t been for months. That she felt like I didn’t take her concerns about the run-up to the wedding seriously enough. That I never carried my weight when things got rough.”
“Paul, come on,” I cut in. “How much more could you do? You got us all assembled Avengers-style for her a few times. I don’t get it, what more does she need?”
“She said there were a bunch of times when she felt like she was drowning, and I wasn’t there for her. But I’m not a mind reader! She’d have a flare-up when things got dicey—totally understandable—then she’d go back to business as usual. But she wasn’t being honest with how tough everything was for her. How is that fair? I can only help if I know help is needed!”
He drained his glass and thumped it on the patio table next to him. I immediately leaned over to refill it.
“It’s not fair,” I agreed. “She should’ve shared how she was really feeling.”
“ Thank you,” he said angrily.
“But,” I continued, “are you really telling me she’s that good of an actress that you couldn’t tell things were off? I mean, there were signs, right? She was a pendulum swinging from stable to inconsolable every other day—maybe that’s something you both needed to talk through.”
I reflected on my own feelings about how things had been going with Piper. I’d suspected that she wasn’t being honest with me about how she was feeling, yet I’d done nothing about it. And like what happened between Paul and Chloe, everything had exploded.
He shot me an angry look. “Are you suggesting I was ignoring how she felt?”
I didn’t answer him, and he looked down to pick at his nails.
“Okay, fine,” he finally admitted, deflating. “Yeah, I noticed things were still weird between us, but I was trying to focus on the good. What’s wrong with that?”
“Absolutely nothing, but you still need to give your partner the opportunity to open up.”
He crossed his arms and glared at me.
“Why do I feel like you’re blaming me for what happened, Vincent?”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” I replied. “Honestly, I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault. It sounds to me like Chloe was holding back. It’s not right that she expected you to read her mind when she was struggling. On the other hand, maybe you could’ve pushed a little more when things felt off. It’s just…” I shrugged. “Complicated.”
Relationships, love…they had this way of tangling everything up, making even the simplest problems feel like unsolvable puzzles.
And for what?
I tried not to focus on how closely Paul’s scenario matched my own. But then again, he and Chloe were the real deal, despite their current status. That didn’t apply to Piper and me. Surely, no relationship that started with a car crash and went from there to fake dating could actually end in real, lasting love. The idea was absurd.
At least that’s what I kept telling myself. The pain in my chest suggested otherwise.
We drank in silence under a moon that kept disappearing and reappearing behind clouds for I don’t know how long. But it was all we needed in the moment. Quiet, supportive companionship. The other Lost Boys were with us in spirit.
“It’s late, brother,” I finally said. “You want to stay over?”
Paul drained his glass again. “Yeah, that would be great. I think Chlo and I both need some time apart to cool off and figure out what comes next.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “That sounds ominous. Do I need to find you an attorney?”
He shook his head. “Oh, no way. Not even close. I’m not giving up on her. On us . This is a bump in the road—I just have to figure out how to get over it. We love each other, that much I know for sure.”
I finally admitted it to myself. I envied Paul. That he could go through hell with Chloe and still know, deep down, that they were there for one another. He’d found something rare and special. Something I doubted was a possibility for me.
On the surface it looked like I had everything, but I’d never been lucky enough to have a connection like he and Chloe shared. The belief that no matter how dire things felt around you, you’d make it through as a team.
The closest I’d ever come was with Piper, and now that was over. I saw a flash of her anguished face before she walked away from me a few hours earlier. I’d hurt her. Unintentionally, but the damage was done.
Paul stood up slowly. “I’m cooked, man. I need sleep.”
“Same,” I agreed. “You can take that room.”
I pointed down the patio to my best guest room, the one that also had giant windows and balcony access.
“I really appreciate this.” He held my gaze for a minute, like he was seeing me for the first time that evening. “Piper’s brought out the softie in you.”
I was in no mind to talk about her right now, especially when Paul was dealing with his own drama.
“Hey listen, the bulb was out in the bathroom,” I replied quickly, because I didn’t want him to start going on and on about how wonderful Piper was. I already knew that. “My house manager had to order a replacement from Switzerland to fix it. Let me know if there’s a problem with it.”
Paul chuckled. “Swiss lightbulbs. Only you, dude.”
“Good night, Paul.”
He stumbled away, leaving me alone in the darkness to consider my own upside-down life. I pulled my phone out of my pocket to check the latest damage from the showdown with Maya. Amanda had warned me that things were going to get dramatic thanks to what she knew about Jerry, and according to all of my Google alerts, she was right.
Jerry had not only recorded my fight with Maya, he’d posted it on TikTok twice. Once as a teaser with no sound but a dumb trending song that repeated “oh no” over and over to build traction, and then a couple of hours later with the full fireworks.
Thanks to Maya playing to her audience, every word she screamed at me was understandable.
He’d picked up right as Maya straddled me and I’d jumped up, which did make me look like the victim of her unwanted advance. But then, what I’d said about Piper rang out loud and clear as well. I checked the comments against my better judgment.
“ Who the eff would turn Maya down? He’s an idiot.”
“She sexually harassed him!”
“Let’s see this Piper chick! Is she as hot as Maya?”
“Hey Vinny-baby, I’ll fake date you next!”
I closed my eyes. According to Amanda, the TikTok ecosystem existed on a different plane, meaning things could catch fire there but never leak out to the rest of the world. I doubted that would be the case here. I checked The New York Post gossip section next and sure enough, they’d stolen a still from Jerry’s video and managed to create an entire article about the fight, highlighting the fact that it happened at the Evermore launch party.
Which meant that now the rest of the world would be treated to theories and speculation about the health of Summit, why the owner of the company opted to fake date an employee, and then rehash my breakup with Maya yet again. It was only matter of time before legitimate news outlets picked up the story and spun it to meet whatever narrative they wanted to create about Summit. I’d been the subject of a few hit pieces over the years, from articles saying I was nothing more than a nepo baby to quite a few suggesting that my “relentless innovation” was actually a bad thing for our storied brand. This new and unwelcome spotlight thanks to Maya would provide them with endless opportunities to trash me.
Fuck. Things had gone so badly when I’d split with her way back when. She’d loved exploring the best of everything on my tab, and she wasn’t about to let the access it provided slip away. Not to mention being with me—and convincing me to make her the face of some of our most notable brands—got her face out there across the world. It was her dream to star in Summit campaigns while dating me, and ending our relationship meant she’d lose both. She’d found a dozen different ways to talk shit about me in the press, going so far as appearing on talk shows about women in toxic relationships.
The only thing toxic about the two of us was her , but Summit had taken a hit thanks to her endless trash talking.
And here we were again. Matters of the heart had led to a messy complication that would reflect poorly on the only thing that really mattered: Summit. Even while avoiding marriage, I’d still managed to fall into the same trap as my father, letting my personal relationships blow up all over everything, tarnishing the company in the process.
I’d inherited his inability to be satisfied. Was I also going to be chasing down happiness, taking drugs in a jungle just like him, thirty years from now?
I didn’t have the luxury of worrying about that, as I had far too many pressing, real-life concerns to face.
A company thrown into crisis yet again.
A vengeful ex back on the warpath.
And Piper…well, Piper had walked away. And as much as it hurt, I could see now that it was for the best. Our relationship had run its course, and now it was over—just in time for my life to get the hard reboot it clearly needed. No more romance, no more complications.
Lesson learned.
Never again.