Page 90 of Rebooting Conor Flynn

Chapter 22

CONOR

“Gotcha!” I yelled at the silent buttes crouching in the distance.

Noelle raised her eyebrows and studied me over the top of her wine bottle, which she seemed to have polished off in an alarmingly short time.

She’d want to finish off the rest with the news I held in my hand.

“What are you crowing about over there? Get your total score for Fortnite, or what?”

“Better than that, baby. We got that snake right where we want her.”

“Ashley?” Noelle gripped the arms of her chair. “What is it?”

I knelt beside her chair and held out my phone for her to read the message.

“Thought you should see these.” She rubbed her eyes and squinted. “See what? Your phone just locked.”

I tapped the screen and opened the photos that would solve everything. “Here. Do you see who that is?”

Noelle’s mouth dropped open. “That’s Ashley and Tomo. Now that’s what I’d call in flagrante delicto. He’s got his hands up her blouse, and hers is...no.”

“Yes! In his pants.” I dragged my finger on the screen. “There’s more.”

“Wow. At least we do it in the privacy of the bus.” She covered her mouth. “It looks like they’re backstage. Who sent those?”

“No clue. I don’t recognize the number, and it doesn’t come up in my contacts.” I took a gulp of my Guinness, which had just reached a decent temperature thanks to the warm night. “Our guardian angel.”

She drained her wine. “Do you think they’re legit?”

“If we hadn’t heard her discussing them with Tomo on the bus, I might be suspicious, but we know there are pictures out there. She admitted it.”

“It could be a trick. Maybe Ashley herself sent them, hoping we’d expose her.” Noelle jiggled her wine bottle back and forth.

“That would be some serious 3D chess on her part. I can’t think why she’d want those to get out.”

“Why would someone send them to you? Who took them?”

Noelle massaged her temple with two fingers, clearly not as thrilled with this development as I was.

“Maybe someone felt sorry for me.” I waved an arm in the air as if grasping for possibilities. “Maybe someone’s sick of her shit. Ashley had reason to be worried about these. They incriminate the fuck out of her. Playing the poor victim while she’s out shagging a backup dancer. Doesn’t look too broken up there.”

Noelle nibbled on her fingernail. “You’re not going to post those.”

“I’m not going to do it, but you’re the PR person. I’m sure you can find someone to post them for us, or I will.” I held up my hands. “Then she can’t pin this on me. I didn’t even start it, but if she wants to play dirty, I can get down in the mud with her.”

“Conor Flynn, down in the mud.”

Even though Noelle made a joke, she had a crease between her eyebrows.

“What’s wrong? You don’t think we should get these out there? It would stop the hate against me. I’m not gonna make any statements, but if people think she’s hot for a dancer, they’re not gonna hate on me for snogging you.”

“Except...” Noelle twisted her fingers “...the pictures are going to expose Ashley and make her look bad—again. The point of this tour was to improve her image—Dina made that clear to me. These pictures are going to reaffirm everyone’s opinion of Ashley.”

“And if Ashley comes off bad, you’re gonna pay the price. They can’t blame you for Ashley’s behavior, Noelle. You weren’t guilty of taking or posting the Tomo pictures.” I gave her a wink. “Not that anyone is going to know.”

She stood up suddenly and gripped the balcony railing. “I don’t know if my being the responsible party is going to matter in the end, Con. I’m in charge of this tour’s publicity. Ashley’s manager had one request—redeem Ashley’s reputation, and Dina implied that my job depended on it.”