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Kline pressed his lips together and considered his answer before meeting her eyes. "I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I one thousand percent don’t know."
"Okay," Jill nodded quietly. "Well, let me know when you do.”
He reached out and gave her hand a squeeze, then withdrew when the door opened, and Stephen Colbert walked into the room to begin the prep interview. The man greeted his guest and offered a smile to Jill before leaning to kiss her cheek.
"Hey, sweetie," she grinned to him, "I haven't seen you in a while."
"You won't come on! My booker's been trying to get you for weeks."
"I'm in LA now. Just here finishing up the divorce. You've not met Kline, have you? He and I go way back. We used to run around together a lot in the lean days."
Colbert was surprisingly pleasant and welcoming to Kline as he said they had met, which put Kline at more at ease than he had been since arriving. Jill stayed for a minute longer, then excused herself to get some tea while the men prepared for the taping. She watched the show from the wings and was tucked into a dark corner with a great view when Kline was introduced. He stepped from between the draping curtains to uproarious applause and several screams, flashing his winning smile and waving to his adoring public, before shaking Stephen’s hand and settling into the first chair in the line.
The interview started well enough, but then Stephen asked Kline if he had any reaction to the new photos.
"What photos?" Kline asked.
Colbert laughed derisively and mimicked back, "What photos? You know," he went on in regular Colbert voice, "the latest pictures of you and your mystery girl ramping up to triple X. Nice tattoo by the way!"
The audience laughed, and Kline felt his jaw tighten. Stephen pulled up a couple of the pictures, black bars censoring everything but his identity, and Kline did a double take. "I hadn't seen those yet," he forced out, sounding much more amused than he thought possible. He pointed at a shot of his ass that would surely be pixelated out later. "I see they got my best side.”
The bubble of tension burst as the audience laughed with him and stole some of Colbert’s thunder. Kline felt like his soul left his body, finishing out the interview in a state of shock, gracefully dodging more probing questions with relative the muscle memory of media-training, managing not to punch the host in his smug face. They finished the interview with some parting comments about Knight and the upcoming Oscars where he was presenting.
“I’d say we’d be getting to see more of you soon, but… Now, we can only see less of you!” Stephen shook Kline's hand and sent him off, still the shining It Boy to the crowd that clapped until well after they'd cut to commercial.
Jill met him backstage as pale as he was. "Are you alright?" she asked. "Can I do anything?"
"He fucking ambushed me," he said, under his breath, still walking down the corridor towards the dressing rooms. "I have to call Roland. Christ, I have to call Rhiannon."
He started patting himself down, "Where the fuck is my phone?”
"My driver is waiting. Come on, I'll get you out of here."
“Where is my goddamned phone?” He roared, and Jill grabbed his arm.
“Be quiet! Here, use mine!” She pulled up Rhiannon’s number from the last conversation they’d had. “Here.”
Kline snatched the phone away from her as though she were a thing, not a person, punching the dial button and pacing. "Rhi?" he asked, when the call connected. "Have you seen the pictures? Are you okay?"
"I've seen them. Everyone's seen them," she said, fighting to keep her voice calm.
"I'm so sorry-- I didn't know. I was taping Colbert and he brought them up. I called as soon as I could. Are you okay?"
"Colbert brought them up? On the show?" she said, her voice rising.
"Yeah," he said, "he ambushed me with them."
"What did you say?"
He paused. "Fuck if I know. I have no idea. I was doing good not to pass out."
Rhiannon heard a voice in the background and Kline snorted. "Apparently I said, 'at least they got my good side' as Stephen was showing my ass."
"I can’t talk to you about this right now," she said, quietly. "I have to call my parents before someone else does."
"Right," he said, "Call me later."
"On Jill's phone?" she snapped, saying just before hanging up. "Sure thing."
