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Fuck that noise.
“Website’s a go, publish,” I said, after scanning it. “But give me half an hour. I want to text Hale to confirm we’re on the schedule we gave him. If I don’t hear from him, I’ll assume he hasn’t changed his mind.”
“Gotcha,” she replied.
Then I went to Meta, checked the copy, the graphic, which was of the two of us on each side of his sofa, clipped so we looked like we were facing off, with my branded font across it saying, “Hale Wheeler: Elsa’s Exclusive Interview.”
I said, “Again, half an hour, then FB, IG are a go. You do a TikTok?”
“I emailed it to you.”
I nodded, taking in a breath before I maximized the photos.
They were of Jamie and Nora, standing on the sidewalk, looking glamorous, as usual. Even if the couple were the focus of the picture, Hale was with them, and it appeared they were chatting, ignoring the photographers that surrounded them, of which there were several.
I was about to look away when I saw it.
I peered closer.
Almost out of shot, you could see Hale was holding someone’s hand. That person was not in the photo, but she was reflected in the windows of the restaurant behind her.
She was blurry, but there was no denying it was Blake Sharp, socialite and sister to Alexandra Sharp, who was paired up with John Hendrix, Judge Oakley’s best friend.
I clicked to the other photo Geraldine was offering, and the side of Blake’s body and her hair were in it, but she was ducking her face like she didn’t want to be photographed (which was the new normal for Blake, and it was understandable, after the mayhem that happened at her defunct wedding).
And she and Hale were still holding hands.
This was a close bunch, all who were in the circle of Imogen Swan and Tom Pierce, regardless that those two were now very divorced and had moved on to new partners. That group spent a good deal of time together and rallied around each other often.
But this wasn’t just friends having dinner.
You didn’t hold hands with friends.
And this wasn’t the first time I’d seen those two together. I’d seen the same, with my own eyes, at Mika Stowe’s book launch event.
Hale Wheeler.
Total.
Goddamn.
Player.
“Buy them,” I decided, my voice sounding tight. “I’ll write copy now so we can post them within the hour. Hale looks good. It’ll be a nice follow-up to the interview announcement.”
“You got it,” Zoey said, swiping up her laptop and heading out.
I texted Hale about the announcement going out, and I knew it wasn’t only because the words were terse and informative that I got no reply. The man was busy, he made that clear in his interview. Too busy for women in his life.
I was stewing (while reminding myself I had no right to stew, it had been one date, and it started out fake, it was just that I was unaware it had ended the same way) while writing copy around Jamie and Nora, and what might be happening with them.
I was going to give Hale holding Blake Sharp’s hand a pass. It wasn’t the right thing to do in my line of business. But it was the right thing to do for my peace of mind.
I was also trying to decide if I should use the morsel I’d received from a ferret as the obvious segue it seemed to be.
It was about Gordon Fuller, an ex-co-star of Imogen Swan’s, going into rehab (again). Zoey had since obtained two sources to confirm, so it was good to release.
However, even if it was content, it wasn’t where I wanted to go with my brand.
