36. Maeve
36
maeve
I’ve never felt more out of control of my life than I have over the past five days. I felt like I was out of my body, and watching my life explode in front of me. All I could see was that with one set of leaked photos, and a dumb decision I made when I was twenty, I was going to lose my child, my business, and my husband.
I couldn’t see straight. Thank God I had Logan beside me, who even though I was bringing down his name with mine, didn’t seem to care. No, all he cared about was getting to the bottom of it and doing anything he could, or calling in any favor, to make that happen.
Which is how we’re standing here on my ex’s doorstep, ready to confront them with proof Logan assures me will end all of this.
And I mean, he has a point. When he showed me everything he found, it was like a treasure chest that kept on giving.
“You ready?” Logan asks, holding my hand as we step up to Josh’s front door.
“Yes. Let’s end this once and for all.”
I knock on the door, though Josh knows we’re coming. In just a few seconds, he’s opened the door, but no Vivian to be seen.
“Maeve. Logan. Come in.”
Neither Logan nor I respond verbally, just nodding our heads as we try and assess Josh’s demeanor. Logan thinks he’s also responsible, or at the minimum in the know, but I don’t think so. When I messaged him earlier asking to talk, his answers were normal. He didn’t freak out about me asking for Vivian to be there as well, nor did he make mention of the photos. My guess is that he’s living under a rock, doesn’t know my boobs are on display for the internet to see, or has no idea what we’re about to drop on him. Possibly all of the above.
“Thanks for seeing us on short notice,” I say, sitting on one of his couches, Logan sitting right next to me. I keep my purse tight to my body as it has the folder that contains all of our findings, which also makes me feel like I have a bomb on my lap.
“It sounded urgent.”
“It is,” I say as Vivian walks in. Her hair is big and blonde, and I don’t know if she’s trying to prove a point by coming out here in a workout set that shows off how much bigger her boobs are than mine, but the point is made.
Too bad that’s the only point she’s winning today. Because I’m about to end this bitch. “Vivian. Glad you could join us.”
“It’s no problem, Maeve. I can’t imagine what you’ve been going through,” Vivian says with mock sincerity. “Just a shame.”
The two of us have a mini stare down and it’s at this moment that if I didn’t know she did it, I would now.
But my ex? He’s clearly clueless.
“What happened? Is everything okay?”
“It is now,” I assure Josh. “Some unflattering pictures of me leaked onto the internet. Caused quite a stir. Took days to sort out. I’m surprised Vivian didn’t show you or tell you about it?”
“Well…I knew you had to be embarrassed,” Vivian says.
“See, I want to believe you,” I say as I take the envelope out of my purse. “But I don’t.”
“Why would you say that? I’m a good person, despite what you think about me.”
Neither Logan nor I can contain our laughter. “Oh, Vivian. You’re a proper fool.”
She gasps at Logan’s statement. “How dare you say that!”
“Watch it, Matthews,” Josh says, taking Vivian’s hand. “That’s my wife you’re talking to.”
“Exactly, and it’s my wife that was fucked with. And I don’t stand for things like this.” I hand Josh the first set of pictures. “These are just some of the pictures that were leaked to the media.”
Josh protests at first, but eventually takes them. I should be embarrassed that half of them are of me, half naked, dancing on the bar that Josh used to work at because I thought I was in Coyote Ugly . Some are from that drunken Cancun trip. It took me days of looking at them to figure out where they came from. How did these surface after years? They were never on social media. It didn’t make sense.
Until one night it hit me—they were on my old laptop.
A laptop I gave Josh.
One I’m betting he still has and Vivian found.
“These are from the old bar,” he says, flipping through the printouts. “I haven’t seen these photos in years.”
“I honestly forgot they existed,” I say. “But when we were going through the photos that were leaked, we couldn’t help but notice that a majority of them were ones I remember taking from the old days.”
“Wow…” Josh says like he’s longingly looking through good memories. “I don’t even know where these came from…”
“I do.”
My voice is confident as Josh looks at me, confused—and Vivian looks anywhere but at me.
“Where?”
“My old laptop. The one I gave you. Do you by chance still have it?”
It takes Josh a second to register what I’m saying. “Yeah. I think? It’s buried in my closet somewhere.”
I turn my eyes to Vivian. “Where is it, Vivian?”
She lets out a scoff. “How would I know?”
I figured she was going to play dumb. “We can make this easy, or we can make this hard. Either way, you’re going to leave this conversation exposed for the shit you did. You just get to choose how we get there.”
She rolls her eyes at me. Cool. Hard way. Awesome. That’s more fun.
“This first part is me guessing, so please feel free to tell me what I’m wrong about.” I start laying out more of the photos. “You were auditioning for that trash reality show about Nashville housewives, but the producers said that you’d be a more attractive candidate if you were a mom as well as a wife. They were very adamant in their casting calls about having mothers on the show. So you quickly married Josh and stuffed ideas in his head about taking custody of Jayce. And everything was going to plan until I married Logan.”
I stop for a breath and stare at Vivian, who’s sitting with her arms crossed, trying to pretend I’m not spouting the gospel truth.
“After I got married, you got desperate. So you go digging. Somehow, and somewhere, there had to be something that could help you. And like magic, you stumble onto the laptop I gave Josh years ago.”
Josh looks to Vivian, begging her with his eyes to say I’m wrong. I then watch his face fall as she continues to say silent.
“Nothing yet? Cool. I’ll go on.” I lay out the final photos. “From there, you hired someone to manipulate the picture of Logan and I to make it look like I’m giving Logan a hand job in the middle of a hotel bar.”
“I don’t even know anyone who could do that,” she defends.
“Oh, Vivian, don’t you realize that I’m fairly good with computers?” Logan says. “And I’m rather rich. Put those together, and it’s very easy to find and trace bank records once you know the road to look down. And sometimes, you find things you don’t even know you’re looking for.”
For the first time since we started this conversation, Vivian looks scared.
And Josh looks pissed.
“Vivian…what did you do?”
“Josh…baby…”
“Don’t fucking baby me.”
“They’re lying to you. Don’t believe them.”
“Oh! We’re not done yet,” I say. “There’s more for Josh to not believe. Logan? Care to explain?”
“I’d love to,” he says, putting down a copy of the email he retrieved. “This is the email that was sent out with Maeve’s photos to the gossip blog. And while Vivian did an admirable job on the surface of sending it anonymously, nothing is ever truly anonymous. Because we were able to trace the email to a coffee shop down the road. And, lucky as we may be, there’s security footage of Vivian there at the exact time the email was sent.”
“That’s just a coincidence,” Vivian defends. “That doesn’t prove anything.”
“You’re right,” Logan says. “It doesn’t. But I’m also then wondering why right after the time stamp of that email went out, another anonymous email went to your custody lawyer. And then after that, an email from your personal account went to a producer at Real Lives of Nashville Wives saying that you’re about to get custody of your stepson and asking if you should film it for them as they reconsider offering you a spot?”
Josh whips his head to Vivian as Logan hands him printouts of everything he just explained. “What the hell is he talking about?”
Oh shit…I mean, I thought all of those emails were pretty damning, but Josh’s reaction has me wondering if Vivian’s been keeping him in the dark about more than my viral topless photos.
“Josh. They’re lying.”
“We had an understanding—you weren’t going to audition for that show.”
“I didn’t think you were serious,” Vivian protests.
“What part was I not clear and serious about? I said that I wasn’t crazy about having our lives on camera. And even if I was, Maeve would never agree?—”
Josh stops mid-sentence. At that moment, it hits all of us what’s going on. It was right there all along.
Jayce is a minor. I’m his primary guardian. For him to be on that show, I would’ve had to sign off on him being on camera. Which I never would’ve done.
But if Josh was primary, and Vivian could eventually convince Josh to do the show, they could bypass me without asking for permission for Jayce to be on it.
“You—God I’m an idiot.” Josh gets up from the couch and starts pacing around the room. “I thought the wedding was quick, but we had talked about it a few times, so I went with it. But the custody thing…now that I’m thinking back…that was all you, Vivian. All you.”
“Should we leave?” Logan whispers to me.
“Absolutely not,” I say. “I’m not missing a second of this.”
I just wish we had popcorn. Extra butter. Light salt.
“It wasn’t all me,” she says, standing up to try to meet his gaze. “You said you wish we had Jayce more.”
“Of course I did! Like, maybe another day a week. But you…you couldn’t stop talking about how much Maeve traveled. After what? Because we picked up a few extra weekends? You…God, how was I brainwashed by my own wife?”
“I didn’t brainwash you!”
Josh stops on a dime and turns to her, now saying this directly to her face. “You were the one who counted how many days she’d been traveling. You encouraged me to file for primary custody. And for what? A crappy reality show?”
“It’s not going to be crappy. It would’ve made my career!”
“Maybe you can still get on,” I interrupt. My voice seems to startle Josh. I think he forgot we’re still here. “If Josh won’t film with you, maybe you can convince one of your other boyfriends?”
She can’t hide her face as it goes ghost white. “Again, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Let me explain, since clearly you’re having a moment or you’re still thinking you can save face,” Logan says, taking the last of the photos from the envelope from me and dropping them on the table. “See, I had a suspicion about you, once we found out that you were the one who leaked the pictures of Maeve. Because, you stayed at the café a while. You didn’t leave after the emails were sent. So I watched a little longer, and I happened to notice you got a visitor. At first I thought he might be your father, as he was much older than you, but then I realized no one kisses their father like that.”
I feel the smile grow on my face as I sit back, arms crossed, and watch this bitch’s life fall apart. Couldn’t happen to a better person.
“So I have a friend who likes to do some private investigating on the side, and turns out, you’re a busy little bee when Josh is at the bar.”
That private investigator was Stella. And boy was she elated when her and Emmett’s new nighttime hobby was to follow Vivian around Nashville.
“The count we have is four,” I say as Logan spreads out the photos with each of the men. “Four different men, not counting Josh, that think you’re in a relationship with them. Hmm…I wonder if reality television has a spot for a cheating bitch who tries to ruin families for her own gain?”
I stand up, ready to be out of this house. “I’ll be filing restraining order paperwork tomorrow. You are never to be around my son again. If you try to go through with this custody case, every single one of these photos will be used, and I’ll find more. Because no one, and I mean no one, fucks with me and my family.”
I turn to Josh, hating that he’s going through this, but until he makes a move, I can’t trust him. “Jayce won’t be here with her around until the courts step in. And just fair warning, I’ll be asking to amend the custody agreement that she can’t be here when you have him.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Josh turns his eyes to Vivian. “Our divorce will be filed as soon as I can get the paperwork done.”
She gasps…the bitch actually gasps like she’s surprised.
“Don’t act shocked,” I say. “You fucked around. Now you’re finding out.”
And with that I grab my purse, turn on my heel, and hope Logan is following me out for my grand exit.
I don’t look back; I just march to the SUV and don’t even take a breath until I’m inside. I throw my head back against the seat and close my eyes. I hear Logan’s side of the car door open and close, and before I know it, we’re pulling out and driving back home.
“It’s over, Love,” Logan says as he takes my hand in his. “The chaos is over.”