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“But” he growls. “No publication on earth, even shitty, desperate ones like Ignition, would print your little story without proof,” he starts ticking his fingers. “My express permission, or at the very least, a verifiable admission from me. Without any of those, though, all you’ve got is one very strange erotic fan fiction involving yours truly.”
I glare at him, simmering in the chair.
“Now, as I was saying, why don’t you make yourself useful and go grab us a drink from the kitchen?”
“I’d rather—”
“Yeah, I’m sure that list is vast andveryangsty and interesting. But save it for the fan fiction, sweetheart.”
He stands, ignoring my lethal glare as he moves past me, to the kitchen where he dropped his backpack—presumably full of drugs and alcohol—earlier. I hear him moving around, and the sound of a bottle being cracked open.
And then, as sudden as the lightning still flashing outside and making the lights flicker in here, it hits me.
Without proof, my express permission, or at the very least, a verifiable admission.
It’s that last part that clicks with me, the part about “verifiable admission.”
Say a famous person is giving an impromptu press conference, like on the steps outside a courthouse or something. They’re not handing out signed consents for every reporter there. They’re givingimpliedconsent to print their words, so long as it’s verifiable that the video, or voice recording, or the notes, are ofthem.
I happen to be holding a recording device—my phone—in my hands. And both Maine, where we are, and New York, where Ignition is, are single party consent states when it comes to being recorded.
My eyes gleam.
Yeah, maybe this is pretty low. It’s definitely morally gray, at best, to do what I’m about to do. But…I make peace with that, being that Jackson is, well,Jackson.
Quickly, I open my phone and navigate to the voice recording app. It doesn’t matter that there’s no internet out here. It’ll record and save it locally on my phone, and I can email it to my work laptop later when I get back to New York.
Genius.
I tap the record button and quickly put the phone face-down on the armrest, just as I hear footsteps coming back from the kitchen.
“Cheers.”
I blink in surprise when a glass—alargeglass—of whiskey is thrust into my face. My eyes drag up to see Jackson standing over me, sipping his own drink as he eyes me.
“Oh, I…”
He sighs. “Please tell me you’re not sober, or don’t drink or something. You’re approaching a superhuman level of being a square prude.”
I smile thinly as I snatch the glass from his hand.
“Idrink, thank you very much. Just not as much as you, jerk.”
“Let’s hope not.”
He taps his glass to mine before going back to the sofa, where he lies back and kicks his feet up again.
I swallow.
“So, why did you come out here?”
He levels a withering, cold glare at me, and I roll my eyes.
“What, I can’t be curious? Do you have any idea how many people out there are asking themselves this exact question? Jackson, I’m just curious.”
“As a fan,” he says dryly.
“Yes, as a fan.”
