Chapter 18
eighteen
. . .
Lee had always had an overactive imagination, but even that couldn’t have prepared him for the fallout of the world finding out how he and Drew met.
“You should be ashamed of yourself. How dare you manipulate Drew like that?”
“You’re just a hack writer who took advantage of a celebrity to get exposure.”
“You’d better watch your back when you’re out in public.”
The comments on social media were so fast and furious, emphasis on the furious, that Lee considered shutting down all of his socials entirely.
The levels of hatred that complete strangers had spewed at him from the moment the story broke throughout the following days was breathtaking.
He tried not to take any of it seriously, but it was hard not to when those comments turned into review bombs.
“This is something we can manage,” Jerry told him over the phone, when Lee called him the morning after his heartrending parting from Drew. “Even situations like this can be managed with the right PR team. We’ll find a way to spin this that works to our advantage.”
“I’m not interested in spinning anything,” Lee replied, a ball of anger burning a hole in his gut. “I’m done with deceiving the public. None of this was supposed to turn out this way.”
“That’s the thing about this business,” Jerry said, not sounding perturbed by any of the same things that had the potential to destroy Lee’s life at all.
“People get weird sometimes. Drew Oberlin’s rise to fame was so meteoric that even his own fans don’t know how to handle things.
They’ll calm down in time, or else they’ll completely turn on him, and suddenly you’ll be the hero and the victim. ”
“But that’s the point,” Lee said through clenched teeth. “I don’t want to be the victim or the hero. I just want my life back the way it was, even-keeled and maybe a little boring. I only ever wanted to write books and enjoy my friends.”
“But hey! Now you’ve got fame, and I’m working on putting together that juicy contract for you,” Jerry said, far too cavalierly.
“I never wanted fame,” Lee said. “I only ever wanted to be an author and make a living from my art.”
Deep in his gut, he felt an echo of that sentiment as it related to Drew.
Despite what the world thought, Drew wasn’t a superstar, he was a talented actor and creative soul who had only ever wanted to find a place in the industry he loved so he could spend his life creating.
He didn’t have the ego Lee would have expected a star of his caliber to have.
He was just a guy, a charismatic, kind, beautiful man, who was trying to figure life out like everyone else.
“I can get you so much more than that,” Jerry went on. “I can open all sorts of doors for you. And hey, maybe someday Drew will star in a series made from one of your books, you never know. Now, let’s talk about the terms of the contract for this tell-all—”
“No.” Lee cut him off before he could say another slimy word. He’d had it. There were limits to everything, and he’d just hit his so hard it gave him whiplash.
“Excuse me?” Jerry asked.
“No,” Lee repeated. “I’m not going to write a tell-all book about Drew. I’m not going to say another word about Drew to anyone anywhere without his permission.”
“Lee.” Jerry’s tone was flat and impatient, like he was dealing with a stubborn child.
“No,” Lee repeated. “I care about Drew.” He loved him, but that was a whole other can of emotional worms he didn’t know how to sort, especially after the way they parted the other day. “I’m not going to treat him, his life, and our relationship like it’s some cash cow opportunity.”
Jerry paused for a moment before saying, “You do realize that the deal to publish your fiction is contingent upon writing the book about Drew.”
“Then I don’t want it,” Lee said, ready to throw his phone across the room and scream.
It was more than just that, though. It wasn’t the contract, the tell-all, or his novels.
It was everything. He was done with it all.
“I don’t think this is a good partnership,” he said at last, a strange calm coming over him.
“I don’t understand,” Jerry said.
“We still haven’t signed a contract yet,” Lee pointed out, gladder than ever that he’d dragged his feet on actually signing the document Jerry had sent over the week before.
Diana had insisted on reading it first, and she’d been busy with her niece’s summer camp.
“I haven’t signed anything, and I’m not going to. ”
“Come on, Lee,” Jerry said in that condescending way of his again. “Don’t throw your entire career away because of some dick. Lovers come and go, especially the made-up kind.”
“What Drew and I have is real,” Lee said, a frustrated sort of confidence coming over him. “I care about him. Enough so that I don’t want to engage in anything that would ultimately hurt him.”
“Not engaging in it will hurt you,” Jerry said, not even a hint of nicety left in his voice. “You’re not only throwing away a lot of money here, you’re destroying your chances of ever being published.”
“Of ever being published traditionally,” Lee agreed. “But I’ve been publishing on my own for over half a decade now, and I’ve done pretty well for myself.”
Jerry snorted. “Self-publishing is for hacks who aren’t good enough to make it in the real publishing market.”
That was a big old lie that legacy publishing kept telling itself to feel better about losing a sizable chunk of the market share, but Lee didn’t feel like getting into the whole argument about how the really successful self-published authors made more money than most authors who were published traditionally.
Jerry would probably have some counterargument anyhow.
And it wasn’t about the money, it was about agency and being able to work on his own terms at his own pace.
It was about being the man he wanted to be, for Drew’s sake and for his own, and doing things the way he knew was best.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’ve made up my mind. I no longer want to work with you. We’re not a good fit. I won’t be signing your contract. Thanks for your consideration, but it’s a no.”
That wasn’t the end of the conversation.
At least, not from Jerry’s perspective. He spent a few more minutes trying to say anything and everything to get Lee to change his mind.
But it wasn’t going to change. He’d meant everything he’d said when he’d expressed his loyalty to Drew and to himself.
He wouldn’t compromise who he was, end of story.
Eventually, it was the end of the call, too. Jerry gave up, said a few grumbling words of goodbye, and ended the call. Lee had never been so relieved to be hung up on in his life.
That relief only lasted a few minutes, though. As soon as he’d gotten up and made himself a cup of tea, the aching gloom of the way he’d left things with Drew gripped him, making the tea taste sour no matter how much sugar he put in it.
Had he and Drew broken up? Was that what the painful goodbye they’d said the other night was all about? It sort of felt like it. But not entirely. They’d kissed before he left, which had to be a good sign. But the very fact that Drew would think he would or could throw him under the bus hurt.
Drew’s suspicions might have been a complete deal-breaker, if Lee hadn’t let himself be swayed by the suggestion that Drew was just using him for his own gains as well.
No matter what his mum said, and maybe it was paradoxical, but the vehemence of Drew’s reaction to the idea that Lee might have sold him out was enough to clear up his own suspicions about whether Drew was just as shallow and image obsessed as Jessica.
If he really didn’t want him, he wouldn’t have been so sideswiped by the idea that Lee would write a book about him.
None of those things helped at all to focus Lee as he sat down at his computer, intending to assess the damage to his career.
The picture wasn’t pretty at all. Some contingent of Drew’s fans, or maybe Jessica’s fans, who knew, had gone on all the sales and review sites to give his books an avalanche of one-star reviews.
None of the reviews themselves had anything to do with the stories or his ability, but that didn’t save them from the overall star-ratings going straight into the toilet.
At the same time, sales continued to be better than they’d ever been for him. People might be saying they hated him, but they were buying the books.
Not that it made him feel better at all.
Nothing would make him feel better until he could well and truly sort things with Drew.
He looked at his phone for what felt like the millionth time in an hour, hoping to see a new text from Drew.
He’d sent a few in the last couple days, asking if Drew was okay and if there was anything he could do.
Drew had replied with one or two words at a time, saying he was fine, but giving hardly any other information.
It wasn’t a complete break or a total blackout between them, but it was so far from what Lee wanted that he hardly knew what to do about anything.
He’d finally given up on checking book reviews and moved on to gingerly picking through the messy landscape of his social media when his phone rang. Desperate for any conversation with Drew at all, he snatched at it.
It wasn’t Drew calling him, though. It was Javier Rivera.
“Hi, Lee,” Javier began in a sympathetic voice when Lee answered the call. “Have I caught you at a good time?”
Lee blew out a breath. “I’m not sure there’s such a thing as a good time anymore,” he said, sinking into his computer chair and pushing a hand through his hair, which knocked his glasses askew.
“Yeah, I was afraid of that,” Javier said. “How are you holding up?”
“Oh, you know,” Lee gave his very British answer. He blinked and sat straighter as a few things came together in his mind. “I should be asking you the same question,” he said. “Rent-A-Boyfriend has gotten as much media attention in this whole debacle as either Drew or I have.”