Chapter 10
?l-effaith- Aftermath
Rhys
Richie’s let me down.
Actually, that’s way too weak a phrase for what that tosser’s been up to.
Richie’s committed the ultimate betrayal – spouting off on social media about how shit his job is and how much he hates working here with me and Cai. He’s screwed me right over with only two weeks until we go on tour. I’m fucked.
I chuck my phone onto the small coffee table and stretch my neck from shoulder to shoulder, wincing at the crack of my joints.
Being hunched over the device for hours has taken its toll, and I’m getting way too old for this shit.
At some point this morning, the sky grew grey.
The clouds sucked out all the natural light that usually shines into my office.
I’ve been so engrossed in reading all the ways Richie detests me, I didn’t notice I was squinting.
My eyes ache, but the light switch is all the way over the other side of the room.
God, this is a massive fuck up.
The first text warning me about what he was tweeting came in at breakfast, which I was eating with Gethin, Cai, and Lucy in some weird team-bonding ritual Gethin pulled out of his arse.
A deluge of pings came quickly after my second cup of coffee, a river of messages and screenshots flooding my phone.
I’ve been stuck in my office ever since, my coffee long cold, and a canyon growing in the velvet cushions from where I’ve been sitting in the same position for hours.
Everything was going swimmingly with the tour.
Plans are in place, my crew all hired. Everyone knows where they need to be and when.
And he had to go and pull this bullshit.
Fuck. I need to speak to him. I find my phone, open my address book, and am about to press the green button when an alert flashes over my screen.
REMINDER: REHEARSALS. ONE HOUR.
No. Not yet. I need more time to digest what’s going on and to work out a plan.
My minutes numbered, my brain churns faster.
Richie talking about any part of his job breaks about a hundred policies and nullifies his contract immediately.
But he’s a good worker, normally. If I fire him, I’d have to train someone new to do his job in about half the time I usually get.
But if I don’t fire him, it’s giving him permission to continue spouting off about us.
A double rap at my door interrupts my train of thought. When I left the breakfast nook, I warned everyone to leave me alone. Didn’t tell them what was going on. No point, until I knew the depths these messages went to. ‘Bother me at your own fucking risk,’ is what I said to them.
Whichever fucker daring to knock must have listening issues. Or is an idiot. I wait, hoping whoever it is will go the fuck away. But they knock again.
‘Come in.’ Might as well be resigned to this fate.
Lucy pushes the door open. Ah, great. Exactly what I need.
A lecture about my time-keeping skills and how I never accept her meeting invites.
Me and her’ve been getting on okay the past couple of weeks.
Sure, at every meeting I moan about her alerts and she complains about me blasting music while I work.
Must suck being in the office next to mine.
But otherwise, we tolerate each other. Some days, I can see the value of her being on the team.
Then she wipes my optimism away with a comment about how I choose to work, or a bombardment of alerts where one would be enough.
She’s carrying a folder under her arm, and her hands are loaded with her phone and tablet. A business call.
Not that she’d come and speak to me for any other reason. Apart from our first family dinner and her forced breakfast with us this morning, she doesn’t bother with us socially. She’ll come if Cai needs her at an event, but otherwise, she does her job, then goes home.
‘I can come back if you’re busy,’ she says.
I could tell her to leave me alone. That I have something more important than planning and meeting replies to deal with, but a break from the Richie drama might be nice. Unless she says something wrong. Then I might explode.
‘Rhys?’
Shit. I’ve been staring into space. I straighten in my seat, and she takes the chair opposite me without invitation.
‘What’s up?’ I ask.
‘I need to speak to you about a few things.’
I wait for her to continue, but nothing else comes. Instead, she fiddles with the folder she dumped on top of my phone, opening and closing the cardboard flap. Come on, Lucy. You came to me. If you’ve got to talk to me about something, then talk to me. Stop wasting my time.
‘And that is…?’ I finally prompt, unable to take any more silence from her when I’m desperate to get on with my own work. ‘Only I’m in the middle of something important, and I—’
‘I finished going through the fan mail,’ she says in one breath. She pulls a wad of letters out of the folder. ‘The ones tabbed with a red sticker are the worst. They’re really graphic, Rhys.’
Shit. There’s a fuck ton more than I was expecting when we found the first batch.
Usually, fans like this peter out when they don’t get a reply, and it’s been months since we’ve had fan mail delivered.
It got too much for us to cope with and we kind of deliberately forgot about it. When I say we, I mean me.
Before I can sift through to the first red sticker, my phone pins with another message. I rub at my jaw. Fucking brilliant.
‘What’s wrong?’
I chew my lip, considering what to say. She’s passed all our checks and she can be trusted in a business sense. She proved her expertise with the letter stuff, too, not needing my input until now. Working with Topaz must have given her a ton of experience with the drama thriving in our industry.
Fuck it. I have to bounce my issues off someone. I pluck my phone off the table, unlock it and open the first email Beth sent, the one with the screenshots of the earliest messages Richie spread on the internet. I pass the phone to her.
‘Be careful. None of it’s nice.’
It takes all of five seconds for her eyes to widen. Okay, I’m not overreacting. She swipes through the pictures, evidence of messages in public forums about how awful his job is, her lips moving as she reads. Then her face pales.
‘The fussy, annoying PA. Such a know-it-all. Must be sleeping with Cai. Kudos to him if he can handle her fat arse. Oh.’ Her eyes water. Shit. I’m an idiot. I should have checked what I was sharing with her first. Just because I have to deal with the onslaught of abuse, doesn’t mean she should too.
After a deep breath, the colour returns to her cheeks. ‘Wh— who wrote these?’
‘Richie.’
Nothing like this has happened before. He was my second-in-command, always dependable.
I considered him a mate. Made sure there was an open door if he needed to speak to me about anything.
Swapped shifts around when he needed time off, paid him fucking well if he did a double. We had each other’s backs.
Now, he’s shitting on me.
‘But I thought—’
‘He was happy with his job? Yeah, me too. But in these messages here’ – I shuffle to the end of my sofa and lean into her to swipe through the pictures until I find the right one – ‘he talks about being a “stand-by” guard, only ever needed at the last minute when I’m too drunk to do my job.’
‘What? You’re allowed time off too, and what else are you supposed to do when you want to go out with Cai?’
Is she… defending me? Weird.
‘Uhm, yeah. Exactly. And it’s in his contract he has to work some nights, though I tried to keep them to a minimum cos he’s got kids. Oh, and I’m sleeping with Cai, too. We must be sharing him.’
‘Lucky Cai.’ Her nose wrinkles, and she passes me my phone, pinching it between two fingers like it’s the same sexy underwear she found the other day. ‘I’ve seen your rotas. They’re good. Well-thought-out. And you communicate with your team if there are any changes. What more could you do?’
‘Right? And the nature of the job means sometimes I do need him last minute. I’d never book him in without checking with him first. And paying him overtime.
He fucking signed his contract, and he’s never complained about it until now.
Must be fed up of being treated like’ – I flick through the screenshots until I find the right tweet – ‘an underling.’
‘But why now?’
‘I guess it’s easier to slag off your boss behind a screen.
He knows I don’t bother with a lot of these apps.
They’re a waste of time and the constant notifications do my head in.
I’ve no idea how Richie thought he’d get away with it, though.
I have eyes everywhere. He knows that. Recruited more spies than I ever could.
Bethan sent me these after one of her friends forwarded a comment about her.
She spent most of yesterday deep diving into his messages. ’
It’s bad enough he went for me and Cai. It kind of comes with Lucy’s territory too, though taking shots at how a woman looks is fucking slimeball level of dickheadery. Gethin’s were deserved because he is a tosser. But my sister shouldn’t be dragged into this shit.
‘He targeted her too? That’s not fair.’
‘Yeah,’ I agree. ‘I’m glad she could be a super spy for me, but to find out from a friend that some guy is saying awful things about her on the internet when she doesn’t even work here is gross.’
She chews on the lid of her pen for a moment, a sign she’s thinking. All of her is pristine and well-turned out, but she carries these ratty arse biros around with her everywhere. ‘Is there any chance it could be someone else? Like, are you positive it’s Richie?’
‘Come on, Lucy!’ I shift so I’m opposite her, throwing my phone on the table. ‘You saw those photos. Only he could take them. Inside clubs when he’s supposed to be looking after Cai. Rehearsal shots that you haven’t put on Cai’s social media. He took advantage of his position.’
Her lips turn down. ‘What does his non-disclosure say?’
‘Instant termination of his contract. No exceptions. It’s exactly the same as what you signed when you started here.’
‘And do you have other guards booked for the tour?’
‘I have a team of bodyguards who come everywhere with us, plus a raft of others at every location, depending on what we’re doing and where we are. But I need a break too. Richie was always my first call, my right-hand man. Trusted him the most out of all the others. Or, I did.’
‘Is there someone else you can promote into his spot?’
‘Probably.’ I sink into my chair. The constant questioning would usually be annoying, but she’s helping me see through the bullshit and get a vague plan together. Doesn’t stop the whole situation from sucking, but she can’t help me there. ‘But Richie’s my favourite for a reason.’
We’ve worked together from day dot. If it weren't for him, I’d have been out on my backside before my first month was up. Only went and sent Cai to an event without protection, didn’t I? Richie showed up in the nick of time, saved the fucking day and my arse.
I was fucking hopeless with Gethin’s long lists of rules and security procedures. None of them would sink in. Richie took all of that and made it make sense. He didn’t even grumble when I got promoted over him. Kind of accepted it as inevitable. Or at least, I thought he did.
She lifts her hand and shifts in her seat as if she’s about to lean across the table. Her fingers twitch, and for a weird moment, she acts like she’s about to stretch out to touch my arm. Instead she scoops up the letters on the desk and shuffles through them.
‘He’ll be at rehearsals later, won’t he?
’ she asks once all the letters are safely in their folder.
‘Perhaps you could see if someone else could be there to watch Cai so you can take Richie aside and have a chat? It’s always better to do these things face-to-face, especially if you need to show them the evidence to support your decision. ’
Gethin could do this for me. He’s practically our HR person, and I never signed up to be a manager. But Richie made this personal, and I want to prove to myself and everyone else that I can handle it. Still… ‘I’ve never done something like this. It’s gonna be shit, isn’t it?’
‘I’m afraid so.’ Her lips twist into a grimace, and she offers me a sympathetic shrug. ‘I’ll be there. I can help. Be your moral support?’
‘Or you could do it for me?’ She winces and I laugh – a tight noise devoid of any humour.
Yeah, I didn’t think so. Who’d sign themselves up for the world’s most awkward conversation where you have to accuse the guy you’ve worked with for over ten years of breaking his non-disclosure and being a twat on the internet?
Not me, that’s for sure. ‘Nah, it’s fine.
I need to do this myself. Leave the folder with me, and I’ll take a look at the letters tonight. Promise.’
I have a plan. First, get things straight with my boss then go and confront Richie. He’s booked in to be spare eyes at rehearsals. Gethin can come along, in case things go south.
I jump from my seat, fixated on my next steps. If I don’t act on this straight away, I might turn chicken. I can handle confrontation, but only with people I don’t know.
‘I’m gonna have to tell Gethin about this.’ I gather my shit and shove my phone in my pocket. ‘Thanks, Lucy.’
‘But, Rhys, I also need to discuss Cai’s—’
I leave her in her chair. Whatever else she needs to talk to me about can wait. Sorting out Richie has to come first. If he’s left to run riot for any longer, who knows the fucking damage he could do. The fucking opposite of good PR.