Chapter 10 #2
I fight hard to hold back a laugh at Carla’s words.
That’s not new information to anyone in this room.
Paul throws his hands up in despair, but it’s hard to find any sympathy for him no matter how much I try to look at the situation from their perspective. Paul’s preying on Alexander’s vulnerabilities and doesn’t seem to have his best interests at heart.
“Can you help?” Paul turns toward me.
I want to read him the riot act, but think better of it. This isn’t my battle, it’s Alex’s.
“Afraid not.” I head to the door without saying another word, nodding at Rob as he steps aside to let me to leave the suite.
Tuesday
The lack of communication from Alexander and his team since Sunday had me all but convinced he’d gone ahead and entered rehab.
That was, I was sure he had until I noticed the final list of VMA performers on MTV’s socials this morning.
Alexander’s name was still there, right at the top and opening the show.
The sight is another blow to my chest.
But as the saying goes, it’s out of sight, out of mind.
Yet I can’t seem to escape him. The pictures of him from the Brewed shoot stare back at me from my laptop.
“How was the trip?” Pietro asks across the boardroom table, rolling the cuffs of his shirt up toward his elbows.
“Exhausting, but everything went well. The video director reckons she’ll have a first draft of the advert to see Friday.”
I’ve become so adept at being truth-adjacent, I barely notice the lies leaving my mouth these days.
“Great, and the press shots?”
“Got them through an hour ago.” I spin my laptop round.
Pietro grabs it and scrolls through the selection of images. They were taken at the end of the shoot, just as dawn was breaking through the window of the store.
“Isn’t he usually clean-shaven?” Pietro looks up briefly, his brows furrowed.
“Yeah. Apparently it’s something to do with the character in the film he’s shooting.”
I shake my head, wishing I didn’t know that information. That I didn’t know anything about Alexander. That I hadn’t started to slowly open up again, like a flower blooming, only to be cut off once more.
“Looks good on him.” Pietro continues to scroll through the gallery before stopping and turning the laptop back toward me.
“That. That is the money shot.” He leans over the top of my screen, pointing at an image of Alexander leaning toward the camera, his hands cupping a black Brewed takeaway cup.
His warm, inviting smile is framed by his perfectly groomed beard, and his frosty-blue eyes complement the snowy window behind him perfectly.
The morning glow of the sun, just starting to shine through the glass, gives him an almost angelic look.
It’s a far cry from how I left him less than thirteen hours later.
“It’s a great shot.” I snap myself out of being transfixed on Alexander.
“Has the Brewed team seen these yet?” Pietro asks.
“I’ve shared the download link with them.”
“Great. Has Alexander’s team come back on the activation events Chloe emailed about?”
Two beats pass, and Pietro glares at me, awaiting a response.
What do I say?
The reality? That all my communication has gone unanswered?
Should I lie and say I’m due to speak to them shortly?
Or should I tell him the truth, that I had wanted to kill Chloe, as lovely as she is, the moment I read that email?
That her proposal to run a bunch of activation events coinciding with the campaign launch is the last thing on earth I want to do.
That, given how I’ve been treated by Alexander’s team once again, I want to be as far away from them all as possible.
“I’m just waiting to hear back from Paul on Alexander’s schedule.” This, at least, actually is the truth. I’ve just omitted to add that I’ve yet to ask them for dates.
“Okay, keep me posted. I take it you’ve heard the news about Sara?” Pietro shifts in his seat as he clasps his hands together.
“Julie filled me in,” I say, closing my laptop.
Julie had pulled me aside when I arrived yesterday to let me know the news.
Sara had emailed in her notice late Friday, after leaving the office, and wouldn’t be returning to work.
To say I was relieved was an understatement.
After all the drama of the weekend, the last thing I’d needed was to come back and deal with her passive-aggressive attitude toward me for Tony’s firing.
The only issue now is that we are two team members down, and I don’t have anyone to assist me with the various accounts I’m working on.
“I’ve emailed HR to start finding replacements for Tony and Sara, but in the meantime, I’ll need you to help pick up the slack on Tony’s accounts.”
“You got it,” I say as Pietro gets up from his chair.
To be honest, I could do with the distraction. Work and the gym got me through the aftermath of Alexander the last time. No doubt they will again. But first, I need to get home and watch the VMAs.
And despite how I feel, I hope Alexander makes it through in one piece.
The Ben & Jerry’s cookie dough ice cream is putting up a fight. The container, frozen to the bottom of the freezer drawer, tests my strength and patience as I wrestle to break it free.
If only my personal trainer could see me now.
It comes loose just as Andrew yells at me from the living room. “It’s starting!” he calls.
I grab two spoons from the drawer and make my way into the lounge, joining Andrew underneath a blue-and-white checkered throw, and hand him a spoon.
Andrew’s been heartbroken all weekend while I’ve been away, and he’s been as clingy as hell since I’ve been back. He’s barely left the couch since I got home, and insisted that I stay with him when I’m not at work or asleep.
Liam broke up with him via text, saying something about needing space, which triggered Andrew’s abandonment issues again.
Those started when he came out to his Mormon parents and they disowned him and made him leave the community.
Then, a string of exes who’ve either ghosted or broken up with him compounded the issue.
All of which leaves me to witness Andrew’s emotional rollercoaster.
His highs are very high when he enters a relationship, and his lows are very low every time a relationship ends.
But the good thing this time is that his focus is not on me, allowing me to avoid talking about what happened in New York.
That is, until now.
“That’s the guy you just shot the commercial with, right?” Andrew points his spoon at the TV.
I’m stunned into silence when I see Alexander. I instantly get flashbacks to Britney Spears’s infamous performance of Gimme More at the 2007 VMAs, when she stumbled across the stage like a deer in the headlights.
Except Alexander is just standing by the microphone, sweating profusely as the band begins to play. Sweat patches form big circles underneath the armpits on his white T-shirt while he stares directly at the camera. I can almost make out Freddy shouting as Alexander reaches down to strum his guitar.
Just get through this. Just get through the performance.
I will him on as the cutaway shots to celebrities in the crowd show them looking slightly bewildered, which does nothing to alleviate my concerns. Alex stumbles as he finishes Stolen Moments and makes his way from the mic stand toward the piano to start My Anchor.
He looks more like Bradley Cooper’s disheveled character in A Star Is Born than the confident international popstar I met nearly three months ago. Or the frosty-eyed handsome guy who stared back at me from my computer two hours ago.
Please let him make it through in one piece.
My whole body tenses as he plays the second half of My Anchor. His voice and body steady slightly behind the piano.
“Well, that was painful,” Andrew says, turning to me when the performance ends. He reaches into the ice cream with his spoon.
I hand him the carton and reach for my phone, firing up my social media apps to see if the reaction is as bad as I fear. The hashtag #AlexanderVMAs is already at the top of the trending tab.
My finger hovers over the hashtag. I’m reluctant to tap on it, knowing what people will be saying, but my mind needs to know if it’s as bad as what my eyes just witnessed.
Oh my God, is he on something? #AlexanderVMAs
Alexander Morgan looks like a homeless junkie. #AlexanderVMAs
Is Alexander Morgan having his Britney Spears moment? #AlexanderVMAs
Leave Alexander alone! #AlexanderVMAs
The messages are overwhelmingly critical of Alexander’s performance and look.
I throw my phone down on the couch, remove the blanket, and head to the toilet as anger squeezes every organ inside of me, including my bladder.
They shouldn’t have let him go on the show.
They should have pulled the performance. They should have said he was ill.
Goddamn his team.
My blood boils as my muscles tense. My heartbeat reverberates in my ears.
I grab one of the stress balls laying to the side that Andrew’s been using, helpfully emblazoned with the tagline Squeeze Me Not Your Partner’s Neck, lift the toilet lid, and relieve myself as I look at the framed poster hanging above:
Let That Shit Go!
My shoulders drop lower with each successive squeeze of the stress ball.
There’s nothing I can do now.
I flush the toilet, wash my hands, and let out a little prayer that Alexander makes it through the rest of the show before returning to the couch.
The voice of God introduces the actor Aiden Matthews, who looks vaguely recognizable from a couple of films, to the stage. He quickly rattles off the list of nominees before opening the envelope.
“And the winner for best song goes to… Stolen Moments by Alexander Morgan.”
The camera cuts to the side of the stage, where Freddy is shaking Alexander’s shoulders back and forth. A slight smile emerges on his face as he walks out onstage, but fades as he approaches the guy holding the Moonman out in front of him.
“Congrats kiddo,” the man mouths as Alexander snatches the award from him.
He goes in for a hug, but Alexander pushes him off, sending him hurtling backward and almost into the crowd.
“Get your hands off me, you pedophile!” His face scrunches up.
The network quickly cuts the transmission before I can see anymore.
“Jesus! What is that guy on? Was he like that in New York?”
Andrew tips the ice cream carton toward me, but I’m already reaching for my phone again, going to MTV’s website to watch the live stream. But that’s been cut too.
Fuck!
This has gone from Britney Spears to Kanye West versus Taylor Swift all in a matter of minutes. You could maybe write the performance off as having a bad day.
But this.
I don’t know how he’s going to come back from this.