Chapter 7
seven
. . .
Everything was chaos from the moment Javier walked through his office door on Monday and it stayed that way through to Friday, but he felt like he was walking on air all the same. The daily text banter with Desmond might have had something to do with that.
“The plants miss you,” Desmond texted on Monday, causing Javier to smile in the middle of trying to figure out how they would be able to afford rent and to pay his and Maisy’s salary for the month.
“Are they not getting wet enough without me?” he texted back, memories of the taste of Desmond’s body distracting him completely.
Desmond replied with a blushing emoji.
On Wednesday, Javier texted, “Have you kept your closets neatly arranged?” in the middle of the day.
Desmond replied with, “Yes, but if you’d like to come over and rearrange something else for me at some point, I wouldn’t mind.”
Javier had needed to excuse himself to take a walk and cool down after that exchange.
By Friday, there was no escaping that Desmond had claimed a massive piece of him, and that wasn’t going to end anytime soon.
“I don’t know why you’re smiling so much when we’re about to have our arses handed to us,” Maisy said as the two of them rushed to prep for the meeting they were already late for in Canary Wharf. “I’m not being Chicken Little when I say the sky is falling.”
“You don’t need to worry about a thing, tía,” Javier told her, grabbing his satchel off his desk and slinging it over his shoulder like he was dancing along to some secret soundtrack. “We’ve got this. How’s Melanie doing? Did you two kids have a night last night?”
“Er, Javier, love,” Maisy blinked at him as she grabbed her purse and followed him out of the office, “now is not the time to be asking about my partner or my nights. As far as this meeting goes, we most certainly do not have this.”
She was probably right. The only reason they were heading to Canary Wharf for a meeting with Brent Singer, the artistic director of Westferry Media Group, was to beg and plead for Brent not to cancel their contract with Rivera Talent.
Javier had thought everything was going well with the partnership, but after the problem in Cheltenham with Olivia, things on Brent’s end had gone suspiciously silent.
“All we need to do is sit down with Brent face to face and talk things out,” he assured Maisy as they made their way down in the lift and out onto the street, heading for the Tube.
“I know that Brent shares my vision for how talent and clients in this industry should be treated. We were on the same page once, and we can be on the same page again.”
Maisy made an uncertain sound, then rummaged around in her vintage handbag, which looked like someone had handknit it in the sixties, for her bank card to enter the Underground.
Deep down inside, Javier was more worried about their upcoming meeting than he wanted to admit.
Westferry Media Group wasn’t just a client, they were essential to the continued success of the agency.
Brent was in charge of half a dozen different magazines and other media outlets that routinely needed exactly the sort of talent Javier had in Rivera Talent’s roster and that he hoped to sign going forward.
Everything had worked out swimmingly between the two of them before, but if he was honest, there had been a few rumbles of discontent.
He ignored them and put on a smile, listening to Maisy giving him a run-down of her week and how things were going with Melanie, as they made their way down to the platform and hopped on a train.
He didn’t want to think about everything that might go wrong when so many other things in his life were suddenly going right.
He only wanted to think about Desmond.
“Since you’re grinning so much and not really listening to a word I’ve been saying, I take it things are going well in your social life at the moment?” Maisy asked above the screech and rattle of the underground train, a knowing grin on her face.
“Last weekend was amazing,” Javier said, unable to hide his giddiness over the whole thing.
“Ooh! And was it more than just the concert on Friday night?” Maisy’s grin widened.
“Yes, it was, but a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell,” Javier replied with a smug smile.
“Go on, then,” Maisy laughed, nudging his elbow as a few of their fellow commuters looked on with veiled curiosity. “I kiss and tell you everything, although from the look of things, your telling will be more interesting than mine could ever be.”
“It was a perfectly lovely weekend,” Javier said cagily, letting the lingering joy push everything else out of his mind, if only for the moment.
“Hold on,” Maisy said, turning to face him more fully as they neared a stop. “Weekend? As in Saturday and Sunday, too? Wasn’t it only supposed to be that concert on Friday night?”
“It was so much more than just the concert,” Javier said, knowing full well he looked and sounded like a dreamy fool. It wasn’t like him at all, but it was nice to step outside the box of seriousness and responsibility he’d built for himself over the past two years.
Maisy clearly wanted to know more, but a large and noisy group of teens on some sort of school outing crowded into the car with them, which made any and all discussions impossible until they reached Canary Wharf.
They had a bit more leeway after they left the station and headed south toward the offices of Westferry Media Group, and unsurprisingly, Maisy was still interested in Javier’s love life.
“So you like this guy?” she asked as they walked swiftly along, trying to make up time so they weren’t ridiculously late.
“I do,” Javier confessed, mystifying himself. “I really do. He’s smart and kind and funny, and frankly, he needs someone to look out for him.”
“Interesting,” Maisy said, squinting at Javier in the February sunlight. “I don’t know if I would have pegged you as a daddy that way.”
Javier laughed. “Oh, he doesn’t need a daddy. He needs….” Javier didn’t know how to finish the sentence. He wanted to say Desmond needed a friend, but the very last place he wanted to put himself was in the friend zone.
“He’s a wealthy financial type, isn’t he?” Maisy asked on, a spark in her eyes.
“He is.” Javier nodded. “In fact, he works just over that way.” He pointed down a cross street at one of the tall, shining buildings that had taken over the Isle of Dogs.
“Well,” Maisy went on with a casual shrug, “if this meeting goes the wrong way, then maybe you can hit up your new boyfriend for a bit of cash to see us through.”
She was joking, but her casually lobbed words made Javier feel sick. “I’m not asking Desmond for money,” he said, skin crawling at the idea.
Maisy peeked sideways at him, evidently sensing she’d hit a nerve. “Sorry, it’s just that we’re already hanging on by a thread, and if things keep going the way they’ve been going—”
“Things will be fine,” Javier repeated his earlier assertion. Only now he didn’t feel as confident saying those words. He’d been floating on a cloud of Valentine’s love when they’d left the office, but now the fluffiness had cleared and he felt like they were tumbling down from the stratosphere.
That uneasy feeling continued once they were in Westferry’s offices.
“Javier, hello,” Brent greeted the two of them as a stony-faced admin showed them into the corner office. “And Maisy. It’s nice to see you. Please, have a seat.”
Flashes of Desmond’s office just a few days before sparked in Javier’s brain.
The two offices had a similar view of chrome and glass and city.
Even though he’d been dressed in glitter and feathers and forced to sing for Desmond, he’d felt a thousand times more comfortable then as he felt sliding into one of the comfortable chairs in front of Brent’s desk.
That wasn’t saying much.
“How was your Valentine’s weekend, Brent?” Javier began how he intended to go on, as if the two of them were good friends who wanted each other to succeed and would do anything to make that possible.
“It was fine, fine,” Brent said, nodding too much and not quite meeting Javier’s eyes.
Javier wished he hadn’t had that extra crumpet for breakfast that morning. “Did you do anything special for V-Day?” he asked, hanging onto hope and amiability by a thread.
“Yes, my wife and I went out to supper on Saturday night,” Brent answered, his shoulders still tense, even though he tried to smile. “You?”
“I had a relaxed day,” Javier answered. He almost added, “with my boyfriend,” but stopped himself. For the time being, Desmond was his glorious fantasy, and he didn’t want to share too much with anyone.
“I stayed home with my partner and watched cheesy films,” Maisy added.
“Sounds like the perfect way to mark the occasion,” Brent said, then cleared his throat.
In the infinitesimal pause that followed, Brent met Javier’s eyes, and Javier knew it was all over.
“So I wanted to speak to you in person,” Brent said, sitting forward and folding his hands on his desktop.
“I’m glad we could squeeze this meeting into our busy schedule,” Javier blurted, knowing he should have just kept quiet and let the man break it to him gently. He shouldn’t have lied about being busy either, but he had to save face somehow.
Brent smiled tightly. “I’m not sure this partnership is the best thing for both of us,” he said, his smile turning into a wince. “We’ve given it a good try, but it seems as if our goals aren’t aligned.”
Javier swallowed hard, tasting bile. “I hope we can come to some sort of a clearer understanding of each of our needs and move forward together, then,” he said.
Every last warm fuzzy from his time with Desmond evaporated then and there, leaving him the same desperate, driven, teetering entrepreneur he’d been a week ago.
“I believe that you share my vision for a non-exploitative industry where creators and talent work in collaboration.”