Chapter 19 #2
Quentin smiled. “Of course, I do. Joel, you’re…
you’re magnificent. You are radiant. I love you, and I am willing to do what it takes for us to be together.
If that means a secret relationship, I’ll do that.
Whatever it takes. I want to be with you, in any way that I can.
If it means I have to wait to come out, or never come out publicly, I’ll do that.
I know my truth. My truth is that I’m queer, and another part of that truth is that I love you.
That truth matters to me, and I don’t need the world to know that truth for it to be valid and real.
All I need is for you to know it, and to believe it. ”
“I believe it.” He sighed, and then he grinned. He felt full of joy suddenly, and felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “Okay. We need to figure this out, then.”
“Details can be figured out in the morning,” Quentin said. He kissed Joel. “Right now, I just want to be with you.”
They lay together in Quentin’s hotel bed, holding each other. They talked for a long time, not about the future, but about anything else. They held each other and kissed, and made love once more before falling asleep in each other’s arms.
Quentin’s alarm went off early the next morning.
Joel was still half-asleep as Quentin climbed out of bed and kissed him on the forehead.
“I have an early plane to catch back to Boston,” he said, “but I’ll be in touch.
Do you want to come to Boston for a few days after Albuquerque?
I have some home games. We can be together, and we can figure out the future. ”
Joel smiled sleepily. “I’d like that.”
“You can stay here until you’re ready to go,” Quentin said. “Checkout isn’t until eleven, and no one will bother you.”
After another kiss, he left.
Joel didn’t fall back to sleep, but he stayed in the bed, enjoying the warmth and enjoying the knowledge that he’d spoken the truth that he loved Quentin, and giddy at the fact that Quentin loved him back.
When his phone rang, buzzing against the nightstand, he almost didn’t answer it. But when he saw that it was Shivonne, he sighed and picked it up.
“Hi,” he said sleepily. “Don’t worry, I’ll be—”
“Get your ass to Los Angeles now.”
Joel snapped into full wakefulness. Shivonne was practically shouting, and she sounded out of breath. Horns blared in the background.
“What?” he asked. “What’s going on? Are you—are you running?”
“Traffic on the 405,” Shivonne gasped. “I abandoned the car, and I’m running to my office.”
Joel’s stomach dropped. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on is you’ve been conducting a private affair behind my back with an internationally famous hockey star, and I’ve been politely pretending not to notice, but someone got a picture of you and Hartley in Chicago, and now it’s all over the news. Get your ass back to Los Angeles, now.”
Joel dropped the phone and leapt out of bed.
It was a nightmare, but he was awake. Nothing felt real.
He couldn’t reach Quentin because he was thirty thousand miles in the air, flying back to Boston.
His phone was practically blowing up with scandalous news.
He and Quentin had thought they’d been so careful, sneaking out of that hotel in Chicago.
They thought no one had seen them. When had they gotten sloppy?
The photo was all the material the trashy news needed to paint a wild story.
A scandalous affair between two world-famous men.
The Internet was blowing up. Everyone had something to say, and Joel wanted to ignore all of it.
He wanted to crawl into a cave in some distant country and never hear from anyone again.
His phone rang constantly with messages from Ariadne, from his producers, from his family, from other friends.
He ignored every call and every text. He only wanted to hear from Quentin, and right now Quentin was unreachable.
Three hours later, he was in Los Angeles, headed to Shivonne’s office. Quentin was still in the air. He’d be landing within the hour, and then he’d hear the news.
The Internet trolls had crawled out from under their nasty digital bridges and were spewing vitriol all over the news and social media.
People were analyzing his music, writing long threads about Quentin’s sexuality.
Someone had made explicit fan art of them using artificial intelligence, and it was circulating, getting mixed up in the other rumors, and now people seemed to think that nude images of Quentin and Joel together had been leaked.
It truly was a nightmare, and Joel thought he was going to be sick.
He didn’t wait for his rented SUV to fully stop when it reached Shivonne’s office before he jumped out and ran to the door. Harlan was waiting for him, his eyes wide.
Before Joel could say anything, Harlan threw his arms around Joel. “I love you, so much,” Harlan said, his voice muffled by Joel’s shirt, “and I will physically fight whoever did this.”
Joel started crying then. Everything he had bottled up since the leak exploded in that moment. He clung to Harlan. “I love you, too. Please don’t fight anyone.”
“Shivonne is preparing for war. Come on.”
They found Shivonne in a conference room. Her blonde hair was pulled into a tight bun, the sleeves of her blouse were rolled up to her elbows, and she had a violent expression on her face. Three laptops, two tablets, and four different phones were spread out around her.
She gave a curt nod when Joel and Harlan stumbled into the room, and held up a finger to keep them silent. A voice came from one of the phones, amplified by the phone’s speaker.
“Look, Ms. Sharpe, we just print the truth. Your client was spotted—”
Shivonne glared at the phone. “Listen to me right now, Eddie. One, I know where you live and, yes, that is a threat. Two, we both know that you don’t just print the truth.
Your paper is a load of horseshit, and it stinks worse than your asshole after a long run when you forget to shower.
And, three, what you printed regarding my client, be it true or not, is a gross violation of privacy and has led to an international news cycle shitstorm of hurricane proportions, and I need you to know that I will use every ounce of my power in this city—which we both know is a lot—to make you rue the fucking day you decided to cross me. ”
She ended the call and looked up at Joel and Harlan, who were standing dumbfounded by the door.
“That was the editor of M Magazine,” she said brusquely. “They’re the ones who printed the story this morning. I don’t know how they got it, but they did.” Her gaze softened momentarily as she looked at Joel. “How are you?”
“Not good,” Joel said.
Shivonne nodded. “How do you want to handle this? I work for you. If you want, I can end this story. I can and will make it all go away. It might not be pretty, but I can get rid of it, cover it up, spin it however we want, and you can go on with your life like it never happened.”
If anyone else had made a promise like that, Joel wouldn’t have believed them. But Shivonne the Shark was powerful, and he knew she could do it, if he asked her to.
He took a deep breath. “I need to talk to Quentin.”
Shivonne picked up one of the other phones and pressed a button. “Honey? Thanks for holding. I’ve got Joel here.”
“Honey?” Joel asked.
Shivonne tossed him the phone. “Billy Magnussen, Quentin’s agent. We’ve been taking for two months.”
“The fuck?” Joel said, catching the phone. He didn’t have time to process what Shivonne said. He’d file that away for later. “Billy,” he said. “It’s me, Joel.”
Billy sounded exhausted on the other end of the call. “Hi, Joel. I’m sorry this is happening.”
“Is Quentin there?”
His plane lands in Boston soon. I doubt he’s heard yet, but he’ll hear as soon as he lands. I’m at the airport to pick him up and handle this. The Boston owners are shitting bricks over here.”
“I’m sure they are,” Joel said. “Look, Billy, I love Quentin. You hear me? I love him. I love him, and I don’t give a flying fuck who knows it.
We’d hoped that we could announce it on our own timeline.
We were going to figure that out later. We didn’t have a plan yet.
We didn’t expect this. How are you going to handle things on your end? ”
“Shivonne and I had some backup plans,” Billy said hesitantly.
Joel looked at Shivonne in shock as Billy continued.
“We suspected something was going on between you and Quentin—you weren’t that good at hiding it from us, admit it—and we made plans for different contingencies.
Like Shivonne said, if you want it buried, we can make that happen. ”
“I don’t want it buried,” Joel said. “But I want to hear what Quentin has to say. When can I see him?”
“He has a game in Boston tomorrow,” Billy said. “He can’t come to Los Angeles.”
“And you can’t cancel your concerts in Albuquerque,” Shivonne added.
“Fuck,” Joel said. “Fuck the concerts.”
“Joel,” Shivonne said.
He sighed. “I know. I’m just angry.”
“We all are. We’ll figure this out.”
Joel closed his eyes. “Call me as soon as Quentin lands.”
“I will,” Billy promised. He ended the call.
Shivonne crossed the room and laid a gentle hand on Joel’s shoulder.
“Look at me, Joel,” she said. Her voice was soft.
She wasn’t the Shark right now. She was one of his oldest and truest friends.
“I will handle this,” she promised. “It will be okay. It might not seem like it right now, but it will be okay. I have several statements prepared for you to review.”
He shook his head. “I’m going to write my own. I need to think.”
And he really needed to talk to Quentin.