24. Scott
TWENTY-FOUR
SCOTT
My heart thuds rapidly in my chest while I wait for Naz to arrive. Cory hasn’t told me what Naz’s reaction was when he found out the recording device was in the cell booster I brought into his home and installed myself. After all my searching and worrying, I was the one that brought it in.
It’s my fault. Again.
When he left the condo earlier today, we promised each other that everything would be fine. We knew we were going to have to get ugly with each other later and needed the reassurance that we would be okay in the end.
Well, not we. I needed the reassurance.
Now that I know how much I fucked up for the umpteenth time, I really wish we could have had a moment alone before we had to do this part. I’m not sure my nerves can take it. I’m not ready to even pretend this is over.
I better get ready, though. Because if the stomping footsteps across the gravel drive are any indication, he’s here.
The trailer door slams open, and Naz doesn’t hesitate. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I just wanted to talk,” I say softly, trying to catch his eyes. He’s not looking at me at all, and it’s putting me on edge.
“I can’t do this, Scott. You need to leave.”
“Please, just hear me out.”
Cory told him that the recording device was just sound, right? Naz’s body language is so closed off and believably angry I’m actually worried he might not be acting.
“We don’t have anything to talk about, Scott. I already called security. You have five minutes to walk out of here on your own accord.”
“Please, Naz, I—”
“You betrayed me.”
“I didn’t! I promise I didn’t!”
“Then explain how that recording got leaked to every major tabloid and news outlet. The recording you made. The recording you assured me couldn’t be accessed by anyone but you.
So how is it that the entire world ended up hearing—” He cuts himself off, turning his body away from me further, still refusing to look at me.
Even though we have an explanation now, and even though this is all an act to make that person think their plan worked to tear us apart, this hurts. Especially because it was my fault. That recording was leaked because of my incompetence, and there’s no way around that.
“That’s what I thought,” Naz says in response to my silence.
I shake my head violently, even though I know we’re not being watched. “No. No, that’s not—”
“Then say something. Give me something.”
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
“I don’t know!” My voice cracks. “I swear to God, I don’t know how this happened.” A tear falls down Naz’s cheek and my knees buckle. I fall to the ground, looking up at him from my knees. “Please believe me…”
“I want to, Scott. But I can’t.”
“Please don’t do this.”
Naz makes a choked sound, like a cross between a sob and a scoff. “Do you know how much of my life is spent wondering if people actually give a damn or if they’re just trying to get something from me? Other than the guys, I have no one that I can trust.”
“You can trust me.”
“Why would I?”
“Because I love you.”
The laugh that falls from his lips is forced, raspy and painful.
“You don’t love me, Scott. You love the idea of me.”
The way his voice cracks when he says it worries me. Like he actually believes it. I reach out to take his hand, trying to get him to look me in the eye and see that I love him, the idea of him, and the reality of him all the same.
But Naz pulls away, clearing his throat and hardening his features. “You love what you get from being associated with me, the fame that comes from being with me.”
“I never—”
“You can’t tell me you haven’t benefited from this relationship, Scott. You were just a bodyguard, a nobody anyone had ever heard of. And now, they make memes about you. Strangers stop you on the street. Back in New York, it was you they recognized first, not me.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“You sure about that?” Naz scoffs. “Everyone’s looking at you now.” His voice hardens. “You’re the guy who put Naz Lester on his knees. Made him beg. Humiliated him for the whole world to see.”
I think I might be sick.
“Congratulations. You were a nobody. And now you’re somebody. Enjoy your fifteen minutes,” he says, turning towards the door.
I can hear footsteps on the gravel. Cory and maybe one or two others is about to come in here and end this. I’m ready for it to be over, anyway. This is brutal, and I’ve lost sense of what is real or not.
Losing Naz is my biggest fear. I’ve made so many mistakes.
He forgave me when I put him in danger, but how could he forgive me for taking the one thing he cared about.
His pride, yes, but it’s more than that.
That recording obliterated his safe space.
It ruined his chances of ever being able to get out of his head and let go.
“I’d give it all back if it meant I could keep you.”
“You never had me, Scott,” he says, his voice flat and detached. Distant. Like the way he was when I first started and he couldn’t bear to let me see him. “This was always meant to be temporary. Something to do until I got bored.”
“No,” I whisper.
Naz lets out another huff of cruel laughter. And then he finally looks at me.
“I’m a goddamned rockstar. I can have anyone I want.”
With his eyes boring into my very soul, he lands his final blow. “Why would I want you?”
Those are his last words before he opens the door to let Cory and Eric in. Zane is outside, waiting to take my place as Naz’s personal shadow until further notice. Naz looks back once before the door slams shut and I can no longer see him.
“Come on, Scott, get up.”
I shake my head no, forgetting the recording device doesn’t have a visual on us. “No,” I say out loud. “You can’t do this to me. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“All the evidence says otherwise,” Cory says calmly. “But honestly, it doesn’t matter.”
Even though my mind is reeling and my heart is broken from whatever that performance was, I try to remember the lines I practiced. No matter if Naz wants me or not, I still have a chance to make contact with the man who started all this.
“So what? I make one mistake, and I’m just thrown out on my ass?”
“Look, man. You’re getting off easy, a slap on the wrist and some paperwork. Trust me, it could be a lot worse.”
“Paperwork?”
“Consider it your exit interview. Standard stuff. NDAs, acknowledgement of breach of contract, that sort of thing. And you’re going to agree not to try to contact or come within a hundred yards of Naz or any of the members of the band.”
Cory hands me a folder with actual documents inside. Real termination documents, copies of the contracts and non-disclosure agreements I signed when I first started, plus a written record of misconduct.
“Blake should have had you sign these in the office the other day, but you left without finishing the meeting.”
“You can’t do this to me.”
“You did it to yourself, Scott. I’m just following orders.”
With Cory on one side, and Eric on the other, I’m forced to my feet and escorted out of Naz’s trailer, across the gravel drive, and into a waiting car. I don’t fight it. I never would. Even if I wasn’t the one in the wrong.
Inside the dark tinted vehicle, I stare out the window, so far past dumbstruck I’m not sure my brain is functioning.
I can’t be sure of anything. Of what’s real or not.
If this is all part of the plan, or if finding the listening device in the cell booster that I brought and installed was the last straw and they decided to make things real.
I’m not sure how long I sit there while the vehicle idles. The door to the trailer slams shut again, but I don’t look back to see who it is or what’s happening. I can’t bear it any longer.
Finally, the driver and passenger doors open, then shut again before the vehicle starts moving.
The partition is up, blocking me from seeing or talking to Cory and whoever is up front with him.
I don’t particularly want to talk to them either, but I do deserve an explanation or some reassurance. The unknown is killing me.
As the SUV drives by the big house, I look at the lights still on and imagine the people inside. I wonder how Naz’s grandparents are doing with their space being full of rockstars. I wonder if said rockstars are behaving or giving Naz grief. The thought makes me smile.
Maybe someone else would be angry in my situation, but all I can think is that I let them down. And I really hope I have a chance to make it all up to them.