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“What story?” I ask, but I’m already moving. I walk into the bedroom and grab my phone, purse, and the heels I’d worn on the trip down. When I walk back into the living room, he’s still standing in exactly the same spot as he had been when I walked out. He looks like he got hit on the head by a brick and is trying to regain his senses.
“Why are you standing there? I thought you said we had to go,” I snap impatiently.
He blinks. “You’re coming with me? You don’t even know what’s going on.”
I groan in disgust. “Of course, I’m coming with you. Whatever’s going on, we’ll kick its ass together. And then, I’ll kick your ass myself. I’m the only one allowed to do that,” I say grimly.
He throws his head back in relief and then reaches out as if he’s going to grab me.
I take a step back. “Whoa … No. Not now. If you touch me right now, we might end up fucking. And that would just make things worse, and we’ve got to go, right?”
“I don’t deserve you,” he says quietly from where he’s standing. The sincere gratitude in his eyes is so disarming, I want to crumble into his arms and cry. But now isn’t the time. He’s about to tell me something terrible, and I need to focus on that because apparently, its not just something he’s kept from me. It’s something that’s going to be on the news.
Instead, I say, “Yes, you do, Graham. We’re stuck with each other. No matter how badly we try to fuck it up. Let’s talk in the car.”
He takes my hand, and we leave.
Rage
Graham
Apollo hasn’t said a word since I finished my story. Well, she did say “Don’t,” when I tried to hold her hands as we got off the plane. When we got in the car after we landed at Teterboro, she pulled her phone out. She sent a few texts, then put it away. She didn’t even look at me. Her face is toward the window.
“Apollo, please. Say something. Anything,” I say, my nerves on edge. I’ve got two disasters on my hands, and one of them is sitting less than ten feet from me killing. I can’t take the silence.
She turns her head slowly. Her eyes are so flat that I flinch. “I need to use the bathroom.” She turns to face the driver and in a much warmer tone, says, “Can we stop at the McDonald’s, please?” she asks.
“We’re so close to your house.” That’s the last thing I expected her to say. We’ve just exited the West Side Highway at 125th Street. Her apartment is only eight blocks away.
“I can’t hold it,” she says blankly and then turns back to the window. He pulls into the McDonald’s on our right, and she starts to open the door. “Apollo, talk to me,” I ask her with as much control as I can muster.
“Later. I promise,?
? she says, and for the first time since we left Florida, she looks me in the eye.
I pull out my phone and send Amber a text to tell her we’re here. I text Dean and ask him to call me. I scroll through some emails from Darren.
Five minutes go by, and I look up at the driver.
“Hey, she hasn’t come out, has she?” I ask him.
“Nope,” he says, but his eyes are on his phone, and I know he has no clue what he’s talking about.
I climb out and walk over to the McDonald’s. Just as I reach for the handle of the door, my phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s with a terrible foreboding that I pull it out my pocket and open the text from Apollo.
“I’m going to find her. I’m going to kill her.”
“Then, I’m going to kill you. Dead.”
My stomach churns. She’d listened intently as I told her all of the sordid details. When I told her why I’d really gone to LA, she had looked at her lap and hadn’t looked at me again. I knew she was angry. I just wasn’t sure which of my offenses she had considered the most egregious.
My phone rings again. This time, Dean’s name pops up, and I answer immediately.
“Man, you have got to stop keeping secrets from me. This shit is very, very bad.” Dean is the most unflappable man I’ve ever met. The only time he looks like his blood isn’t actually ice water is when he’s talking to or about his wife. He sounds shaken, and that makes my stomach churn.
“You’re my agent. Why would I tell you what my old job used to be?” I say defensively.
“I’m not just your agent,” he chides. “I’m your fucking fixer. You have got to trust me, or I can’t work with you. In every single aspect of your career, you pay me to negotiate, pitch, and act for you. How can I do that when I only know what you want to tell me? If I had known about this, I would have pushed back on the morality clauses in your fucking contracts.”
