Chapter Twenty-Three #2
“Come on, don’t be a bitch, Adriana!”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Skye had probably heard worse. I’d put a dollar in the swear jar later for good measure.
“What did you just call her?” Jake yelled back.
“Don’t bother,” I hissed.
“I didn’t call her anything just yet. I told her not to be a bitch. Ruining my fucking shot!”
“What’s happening?” Skye asked. She started to lower the newspaper to figure out the commotion. Sheila and her town pride had made my life torture this year, but she had three kids and the reflexes to go with that. She steadied the newspaper and sat down next to Skye in an instant.
“Skye, sweetie, hold that there for just a few minutes, okay?” she cooed. Of course, she knew Skye. Sheila worked at the park. And everyone at the park adored that kid. “Just because your daddy doesn’t want people to take pictures of you.”
“How about you move along now?” Jake tried to wave the paparazzo off. Obviously, that didn’t work. He stayed with his camera perched.
“I’ve got all day, honey,” he cackled, not even looking at Jake. “The sooner you give me something to work with, the quicker I’ll be on my way. Your choice.”
“Excuse me?” Anger bubbled in my veins. “Did you seriously just threaten to stalk me and this underage girl all day?”
“Frankly, I’d prefer some shots of you and Brooks making out, but I’ll take what I can get.”
Of course. Of course, once again, a man was trying to profit off my sex life. Taking sneaky pictures of me getting a little hot and heavy with my would-be fiancé would result in a nice little paycheck for him, right? Who gave a shit about consent?
“Fuck you.” My pulse drummed in my ears like that metal song Esra had played for me.
The rush of blood like the scream of the singer.
It spurred me toward the photographer. He raised his camera and was happily clicking away as I barreled at him.
My eyes zeroed in on the press badge on his chest. Tennessee Daily Star.
“Harassment of a minor. Stalking. Sexual harassment. You wanna make this a legal battle between us and the Daily Star?”
“Sure,” he scoffed without lowering his camera. “I’d like to see you try.”
Oh. Hell. No.
I heard them like echoes in my mind. Every comment.
Every DM. Dozens of women thanking me for the music that gave them the courage to stand up for themselves.
Every single one of their voices clear in my head even if I’d never spoken to them in person.
This man wouldn’t make me feel small, not when I had them, and they had me, and we were all the same. All over the world.
I screamed like I’d screamed that metal song when I’d smashed my guitar. I had let myself be cornered one too many times. I grabbed his camera, and I screamed and I smashed it into the ground, smashed it like the guitar until it was nothing but broken plastic and glass.
The man started yelling at me, but I couldn’t hear him over my own voice.
It was a guttural scream. Raw. Angry. Done.
He crouched down, scrambling the pieces of his camera together, but I still held on to the largest part of it. When my voice finally died, I fumbled the SD card from its slot and dumped the camera’s dead hull in the pap’s lap. For good measure, I spat on it.
Breathing hard, I looked up, to find that a circle had formed around us. Fuck. The color drained from my face. I’d just lost my shit in the middle of the town square. I was barely a celebrity and had gone berserk on a paparazzo. That was bound to make headlines. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I swiveled around, trying to find Skye and Sheila. Instead, I realized that the people around me stood shoulder to shoulder. It was an actual circle. And I could put a name to each and every single face.
“Excuse me, thank you.” Sheriff Diaz pushed through between Mrs. Cornish, my now-retired high school English teacher, and Cassie, the teen girl who had just served us slushies.
“Thank god,” the paparazzo grunted. He wasn’t getting up, just digging around in the gravel. Sure, let him put on a whole show.
“What seems to be the matter here?” the sheriff asked and raised her brows. The size of Wild Fields didn’t really warrant us having our own sheriff, but the town could double in population during summer season, so we had one anyway.
“This bitch—”
“Ah-ah.” Diaz wagged her finger in the pap’s face. “I was talking to Miss Banks.”
“I…I…” I wasn’t sure what to say. I wasn’t sure where Skye was. I couldn’t talk to the police like this, not when this could go on record, and the custody hearing was so close, and Brooks had secured a job and a house and a wife-to-be to win it.
I’d just ruined everything.
My minefield had blown up in my face.
“It was self-defense,” Cassie piped up.
“What the fuck?” the pap grunted.
“Sir, I am not talking to you right now. If you keep interrupting, I will take you to the back of my car and you will wait to give your statement at the police station. Are we clear?”
I blinked.
No one was helping him up. Sheriff Diaz levelled him with an icy glare. People weren’t moving, staying in their shoulder-locked circle around us. Blocking us off.
“Self-defense?” Diaz asked, turning to Cassie.
“He was stalking her,” Cassie said and nodded.
“He was yelling profanities across the town square, is what he was doing,” Mrs. Cornish added. “Screamed at Adriana and little Skye for everyone to hear. Called her ugly names.”
Little Skye? Jesus, that girl had a fan club in this town.
“Okay, could I get a show of hands who heard those profanities?” Diaz asked and scribbled name after name on her notepad when almost everyone raised their hand. “And the camera?”
“He dropped that. It broke,” Jake Benson chimed in. “Flimsy things, those modern cameras. All plastic.”
The sheriff turned to me, her face softening. Voice lowered she said, “This isn’t really how it works. I’ll have to take people’s statements. But for now: Do you want to press charges?”
“You want me to file charges? But I’m the one who—”
She silenced me with a raised hand. “Adriana, think. So far, I have a dozen people who have confirmed he was yelling profanities in public, so I’ve already got him for disorderly conduct. Do you want to press charges for harassment?”
I shook my head. I doubted this show would hold up in court, and I didn’t want to chance it getting to the custody hearing.
“Okay, then, up you go.” Diaz slapped her hand against the pap’s shoulder.
“She stole my SD card,” he grunted.
“Yeah? You can make a report at the station.”
“Station? What the fuck? This bitch attacked me and smashed my camera.”
“Oh, fun. More insults. You’re not helping your case here”—Diaz walked the man off—“and tourist season is over, buddy, so I have all the time in the world to investigate a middle-aged piece of shit yelling profanities at twelve-year-old little girls who just wanna have their slurpees in the park.”
Getting his actions thrown back in his face like that by the police, the man faltered in his steps and almost kissed the dirt.
Mrs. Cornish trotted over and rubbed a bony hand up and down my arm. The rest of the crowd dispersed, opening gaps for tourists and onlookers to bend and twist, trying to see what the commotion had been all about.
Only Cassie hovered, too. She bit her lip and wrung her hands in front of her. “I saw the video. And I just wanted to say that I really like the song.”
“Thank you,” I said automatically. My voice came out a hoarse whisper. I’d barely registered her words, still mentally stuck on the paparazzo encounter.
“I got a guitar for Christmas and, uhm, if it’s okay with you, I would love to play your song.”
I blinked, trying to focus on Cassie. “Yeah, of course.”
“Do you have a TikTok or something where I can find the full version?”
A deep and bitter laugh sobbed up my throat and I clutched my hand over my mouth.
The adrenaline of the situation was wearing off, leaving only absurdity and trembling muscles.
And now this girl was asking about a song I’d released four years ago, that had been part of turning this entire town against me. And she had no clue.
“All right, all right, why don’t you go look after your girl, and I’ll show this one where to find your music.
” Mrs. Cornish patted my arm again, but this time she turned me toward Skye, who was sitting next to Sheila Benson in the gazebo, headphones on, tablet balanced on her knees, straw hanging from the corner of her lip like a cigarette.
“Did you tell the paparazzo to leave?” Skye asked when I approached.
“Yeah, I did,” I mumbled, still feeling a little loopy.
“I find them scary. You can’t just go around and take pictures of people. That’s not cool. Sometimes I don’t want my picture to be taken.”
“I agree.”
“Do you need a ride, girls?” Sheila asked, concern still etched into her features.
The absurdity of that question slapped me in the face.
Months ago, her pushing her wineglass off the table at the Rattlesnake had been one of the dominos that made me reach out to Brooks.
Plus, her husband running the one-person ride service in town, so I had trudged home through the rain.
“No,” Skye said before I could even think through the logistics of transport. “Addie’s got a car, but it’s an old one, and Dad keeps saying he’s going to buy her a new one, but he hasn’t done it yet.”
“We’re good. Thank you, Sheila. You too, Jake.”
“We’re going to the thrift shop now,” Skye announced.
I’d have to properly thank Sheila for keeping Skye distracted from the paparazzo, because part of me wanted to go home, curl up, be miserable, try to forget today ever happened. But I knew that it was easy for me to get stuck in bed like that.
“All right.” I grabbed the few shopping bags we had accumulated. “Girls’ day isn’t over yet. Let’s go.”