Chapter 1
Quentin
Quentin Hartley tried to avoid scandals as much
as possible. He was a popular hockey player for the Boston Minutemen, one of the most popular players in the league, which was why he had been brought in to host FCL, something that had never happened for a hockey player before.
They’d had other celebrity athletes, but never a hockey player.
Most celebrity hosts were actors, musicians, models, influencers, and the occasional politician.
He’d only been invited onto the show because he’d recently crossed the threshold from professional athlete to celebrity athlete when he went viral on social media last year.
His fans liked the videos he had posted with one of his teammates, Henri Bellancourt, of them doing trendy dances while in their hockey gear.
He’d gone viral and was an instant Internet celebrity.
He hadn’t asked for it, hadn’t wanted it, but couldn’t change it.
Fame like that invited scrutiny, and that was the last thing he wanted.
Quentin wanted to avoid any scandal, any rumor, and any chance for people to dig up dirt in his life.
There wasn’t any dirt to find, but there were secrets, and he wanted those secrets to stay hidden.
Quentin Hartley was gay. Or, at least, he was pretty sure he was. He’d not had many sexual experiences in his life with people of any gender, but he’d enjoyed his experiences with other men much more and had only ever found himself romantically attracted to other men.
He had had a short-lived relationship with one of his teammates, Drew Moreau.
They were both closeted, and they had had a sexual relationship for a while, which had ended more than a year ago, when Drew had suggested that maybe they could explore a deeper relationship, one that involved emotional and romantic connection, not just physical.
The suggestion had scared Quentin, and he had ended things.
If he had taken more time to think about it in the moment, he might have chosen differently.
He had liked Drew, a fact that scared him, and which he didn’t want to acknowledge as the truth.
Drew had left Boston for the summer, spending the next few months in a small town in northern Michigan, where he had met someone and fallen in love.
Quentin hadn’t known that, and when Drew came back to Boston, Quentin had told him that he’d spent a lot of time thinking and was willing to give a relationship a shot.
He hadn’t known yet how he identified, but he had known that the feelings he’d had for Drew had been real and important.
Drew had told him about Gabriel, the man he’d met and fallen in love with, and Quentin realized it was too late for him.
Soon, Drew had been traded from Boston to Chicago.
Quentin’s sexuality was his biggest secret.
He didn’t want to come out because he hadn’t yet figured out his identity, and that was a personal thing, and he didn’t want to have to figure it out publicly.
He didn’t want the public to think he owed them his sexuality, and he feared the judgment he might face from his fans if he came out.
Hockey had become more progressive recently, as had all sports, but there was still a deep history of old thinking, conservatism, and downright homophobia baked into the sport and its locker room culture that made Quentin wary.
So, he kept his head down as much as possible and tried not to invite any scrutiny into his life.
After last night, on Friday Comedy Live, someone might as well have dropped a bomb in the carefully constructed narrative that was his public life. Scandal had reared its offensively ugly head, and now Quentin would have to deal with it.
He sat in a large, air-conditioned conference room on the fortieth floor of 15 Madison Ave, a massive Art Deco skyscraper near Madison Square Gardens in Manhattan.
The building belonged to Steelmont Media, a mass media conglomerate that owned UBC, United Broadcast Channel, which produced Friday Comedy Live.
Also in the room were Quentin’s lawyers, who’d come up from Boston that morning, and who were on the Minutemen’s payroll. There were two of them: Chad Jankowski and Jason Caselli. They were good lawyers, and they looked very stern.
Joel Beckett, the world-famous pop star who’d hosted Friday Comedy Live with Quentin yesterday, and who’d (accidentally) punched him in the face during their closing monologues, sat across from Quentin, looking down at the table.
He was flanked by his PR manager, a woman named Shivonne Sharpe, on one side, and two lawyers in dark suits on the other side.
One was a Los Angeles lawyer, with a bad tan and a gaudy suit, and the other was a more professional-looking New York-type guy.
At the end of the table sat some executives from UBC, including the president of the network, a guy named Robbie Kaschen, and Elias Guggenheim, the octogenarian showrunner of Friday Comedy Live, and their lawyers.
Quentin felt like he’d been called into the principal’s office, and he hadn’t even done anything wrong.
His nose hurt, and when he’d gone to the ER last night to get it fixed, he had learned that it was broken in two places, but he wouldn’t need surgery.
They’d reset it, which hurt like hell, and told him to avoid getting knocked in the face as much as possible in the following weeks while it healed. Oh, and he should try not to sneeze.
Great.
He shifted in his seat, trying to get comfortable. He wore a plain white T-shirt, blue jeans, and a leather jacket. He felt underdressed, with everyone else in business attire, except for Joel, who looked fashionable in a dark red sweater over a white collared shirt and loose black pants.
“This,” Robbie Kaschen, the president of the network, was saying, “Is not good.”
“No shit,” said Chad Jankowski, and Quentin hid a smile at his lawyer’s way of speaking. The hockey lawyers weren’t fancy New York types at all, and he liked them more for it.
Robbie looked sternly at Jankowski. “It looks like we broadcast an assault live on TV last night,” he continued.
“It wasn’t an assault,” Joel said, speaking for the first time in that meeting. He had a nice voice, a little raspy.
Shivonne Sharpe, his PR manager, laid a soft hand on Joel’s arm. “Let the lawyers talk,” she whispered. Then, louder, “I agree that we shouldn’t use that word. It has a certain weight to it, I think we’d all like to avoid.”
“Would we?” Jankowski said, cocking his head.
Quentin and everyone else looked at Shivonne.
Apparently, in the entertainment world, she was known as Shivonne the Shark.
She was a brilliant and ruthless PR manager, and Joel was her only client.
She looked to be about forty, had long blonde hair, deep brown eyes, and a stern, beautiful face.
She wore a black suit and a white blouse and seemed to be all about business.
“We would,” she affirmed, looking coolly at Jankowski. “What my client did was not assault. It was an accident.”
Quentin shifted his attention to Joel, who was still looking at the table. Quentin honestly wasn’t sure it had been an accident, though he also wasn’t sure he believed that one of the most famous singer-songwriters in the world had intentionally punched him in the face.
All week long, during FCL rehearsals, Quentin and Joel had clashed.
They were very different men, with very different personalities and styles of communicating.
They were strong-willed and stubborn, and Quentin thought Joel was an arrogant diva.
He had made demands for his dressing room, had shown up late to the first day of rehearsals, and had always been ducking out of meetings or delaying them to call his people back in Los Angeles about other things.
He didn’t seem to have any respect for the people of FCL, and definitely didn’t have any respect for Quentin.
He’d barely looked at Quentin the entire time they’d rehearsed together, and, despite being friendly and warm with the cast and crew of the show, had been nothing but cold to Quentin.
It didn’t make sense, it hurt Quentin’s feelings, and left him frustrated and resentful.
And then, in their final monologues, Joel had gestured wide, like an actor at the end of the play thanking the crew in the wings, and had whacked Quentin right in the nose.
So, maybe it wasn’t on purpose, but it looked really bad, especially considering how they’d not gotten along all week.
“Our client,” Jason Caselli said, “has said that he and Joel didn’t get along during rehearsals and filming. Can anyone corroborate that?”
“I can,” said Joel’s slick New York lawyer. “Mr. Beckett has confirmed that several times.”
“Mr. Guggenheim?” Caselli asked, turning to FCL’s octogenarian showrunner.
The old man, who wore a pale blue suit and an oversized pink bowtie, smiled. “I didn’t notice anything. I spend most of my time in my office. I just have final say on the jokes.”
That was true; Quentin had barely seen Guggenheim during rehearsals. The man was old and had been running FCL since it started, back in the late seventies.
“They may not have gotten along,” said Joel’s Los Angeles lawyer, “but our client did not assault your client.”
“Shall we play the episode?” Jankowski growled.
“It was an accident,” Joel said, despite his PR manager’s insistence that he shut up.
“I promise. It was an accident.” Finally, the singer looked up and looked straight into Quentin’s eyes.
Quentin felt a shiver of distaste run through him.
He found Joel annoying, frustrating, and rude.
He wanted to get away from the singer as soon as he could.
“Yeah, Quentin and I didn’t get along,” Joel said. “Happens. Not everyone is going to get along. We argued a lot during rehearsals and had different ideas about how some of the sketches could go.” He raised an eyebrow, which had a little scar through it. “Do you agree, Quentin?”
Quentin didn’t like Joel’s tone, which seemed condescending, like he was talking to a kid, not someone who was his same age. “I agree,” Quentin said.
“But I wouldn’t hit him, not on purpose,” Joel said, more softly. “I’m not a violent person. I wouldn’t do that.”
Begrudgingly, Quentin believed him.
He decided he should say something, too.
“Look, I think we can all see that there won’t be any love lost between Joel and me here.
We didn’t like each other from the start.
No offense, Mr. Guggenheim, but your producers didn’t pick well when you put us together.
I hope we managed to give you a good episode before the accident at the end.
But I think it was an accident, and I don’t intend on pressing any charges. ”
Robbie Kaschen, who’d looked for the last twenty minutes like he was trying to pass a kidney stone, relaxed. Shivonne Sharpe’s posture grew a little less tense.
“That’s good,” Robbie said. He looked at Quentin’s lawyers. “Does the team plan on bringing any charges against Mr. Beckett?”
“Not if Quentin doesn’t want us to,” Jankowski promised.
“I don’t want you to,” Quentin said.
“That settles it,” Robbie Kaschen said. “Thank you all for your time.”
“Wait,” Shivonne said. “I don’t think we’re done.
The accident last night was viewed by 5.
1 million people live, and more have seen it online since then.
My client goes on tour in less than a month, and Big Hockey has their panties in a wad and are trolling him online.
It’s a PR nightmare for something that was an accident.
” She nodded at Quentin and his lawyers.
“I know you’re not to blame for the fans saying nasty things at my client, but the fact remains, they’re saying some terrible things.
Accusing him of being violent, of hating the sport, of trying to sabotage your career. ”
“That’s ridiculous,” Joel said, looking shocked. Quentin wondered if he looked at social media or if he kept strict boundaries to keep away from it.
“It’s war online,” Shivonne said. “Big Hockey against the Beckettes—those are Joel’s fans—and we’re trying not to feed the fires from our end. But simply not feeding the fires isn’t enough. I think we need to actively fight them.”
“What do you have in mind?” Caselli asked.
“As I said, Joel goes on tour in less than a month,” Shivonne continued.
“We’re offering Quentin a VIP ticket to attend the tour—more tickets, if he wants to bring a friend or two—and when he goes to the tour, he’ll take some pictures with Joel, we’ll post them, show that they’re friendly, and that’ll be that. ”
“That’s in a month,” Jankowski said. “That’s a whole year according to our news cycle.”
“Which is why,” Shivonne continued, “we’re also going to get some ‘candid’ photos of them today, at lunch, eating like the friends they are.
” She was speaking through closed teeth.
She really was the shark. “We’ll release them along with a statement, saying that Joel and Quentin became friends during the show, bonded, and that what happened last night really was an accident, and there’s no bad blood between them.
The concert in a month will prove that they’re friends.
Trust me,” she said to Quentin and his lawyers, “you want this, too. The Beckettes are a ruthless bunch. They can get anyone canceled. Hell, if they all mobilized to vote, they could shift the entire political framework of this damn country.”
“It’s true,” Joel added softly.
Quentin sighed. It wasn’t a bad idea, but it was also a terrible idea.
One of the things he’d been looking for about the end of this week was that he’d never have to see Joel Beckett again.
Now he’d have to get lunch with him today, and then see him again in a month.
It was a miserable idea, but Shivonne made a good point.
Joel was a global superstar with dedicated and powerful fans, and Quentin had already seen some of the hateful comments directed at him by Joel’s fans.
“Quentin?” Jankowski said. “What do you think?”
“I don’t like it,” Quentin admitted, “but I see her point. I don’t want to have any fangirls after me. As long as it’s just a staged lunch and a few photos, I can live with it.”
“And you get to go to a free concert,” Shivonne added, like that was a bonus.
“Lucky me,” Quentin said, feeling incredibly unfortunate with this turn of events.