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Jason snorted. “I think we both know that’s not true, either.”
“Maybe, yeah. Look, I’m not here to corner you or anything. I honestly just came to pee. But, since you’re here–”
“I’m not gonna fuck you, Danny.”
Danny frowned again. “I suppose I deserve that, too. But, seriously. I normally don’t share my gossip with the subjects of that gossip. But I’ve been hearing things about you recently.”
Jason finished drying his hands, tossed the towel in the wicker bin next to the sink, and turned to face Danny. A few years older than him, the skinny, pale, freckled ginger had made his name on the backs of messy celebrities like Jason. The fact that he’d managed to hide his sexuality from Danny and all the other gossip queens was something of a minor miracle. “What things?”
“Well, nothing serious or credible. Otherwise, you’d be reading about it in my column. But someone’s out there floating rumors about you. It’s just stupid shit. Like you’re cheating on Tae Hyun. Or that you brainwashed him into coming out, and he’s your sex slave.”
Jason snorted. “I brainwashed him? Come on.”
Danny shrugged. “That’s what I mean. Stupid shit. But it’s not just nasty netizens saying whatever evil shit they can think of because you wore the wrong color in your last interview. It’s real people saying this stuff. Hell, two of my friends asked me if it was true that you’re both sleeping with your hot security guards.”
Jason scoffed. “Those guys are so very straight.”
“I know, right? Any gay worth their weight in poppers can see that.” Danny huffed. “Look, I know I owe you, right? For all those years when you were such a fucking mess. I gained so many readers from your dumb ass.”
Jason chuckled. “I gotta say, I never thought the day would come when you’d say something like that to me.”
“Yeah. Well, I saw Tae Hyun’s declaration of love to you, along with the rest of the world. And it warmed even my cold, bitter little heart. You two are the closest thing our community has to a fairy tale these days.” Danny huffed. “It’s a shitty world out there. And we need more stories like yours. That’s why I wanted to warn you.”
Jason couldn’t help but notice Danny saidwarn him. That made it his second warning of the day, and it was only lunchtime. “Do you think it’s that serious?”
Danny shrugged. “Who knows? But I never hear this much shit talk about a celeb unless someone’s running a smear campaign. And it seems like you’ve got a certain evil entertainment empire gunning for you.”
Jason frowned. “You think it’s KBR behind this?”
Danny shook his head. “I said nothing of the sort. But they haven’t exactly been subtle about kicking Tae Hyun to the curb. Right?”
Jason had to agree. It was easy to point the finger at KBR, considering the lengths they’d already gone to fuck with Tae Hyun. Who’s to say their 24/7 global marketing machine wasn’t pumping out a stream of shit rumors about him and his lover just to fuck with them some more. “Alright, Danny. Thanks for the heads up.” He smiled. “Maybe it was good to see you, after all. But don’t quote me on that.”
Jason stopped halfway back to the pool deck. What were the odds that a fucker like Danny Crash would happen to run into Jason in the Sunset Grand bathroom while he was full of juicy rumors? Especially on the same day his father had reached out to Naomi. Something about the whole situation stank. It would hardly have been the first time his father had meddled in his life behind the scenes. He grabbed his phone and headed for the lobby, dialing Min Ji’s number on the way. The Vital Agency lead answered on the third ring.
“Hello, Mr. Park, sir. What can I do for you?”
Jason’s initial request for her would’ve been to stop calling him sir. It made sense to use the comparable honorifics in Korean. But it sounded pretentious in English. Still, he had other reasons for calling. “Hi, Min Ji. I just ran into Danny Crash at the Sunset Grand.”
“Danny Crash,” Min Ji repeated over the sounds of a keyboard clacking. “TheHollywood Hushgossip columnist? Is there a story you want me to kill?”
“No.” Jason realized he’d begun pacing and forced himself to stop. “He actually warned me that there are suddenly a lot of rumors out there about Tae Hyun and me. Has your team noticed anything like that?”
“Ah. We haven’t seen anything unusual on the sites we monitor. That’s not to say that people aren’t talking or saying nasty things about you.”
“Naturally.”
“What sort of rumors, sir?”
Jason huffed, reluctant to repeat them lest he unintentionally manifest them. “That I’m cheating. That I brainwashed Tae Hyun into being gay, and he’s now my sex slave. That we’re fucking the Song brothers. That sorta thing.”
Min Ji paused long enough that Jason wondered if he’d offended her. Then her keyboard clacked away. “Okay. I’ll have my team look into it. If people really are spreading those rumors, we should be able to find them.”
“Any chance you could find out who’s doing it?”
“We could try. Honestly, that would be something more appropriate to ask of Yu Min Kyu or your security team. Would you like me to reach out?”
“No.” Jason shook his head even though she couldn’t see him. “I’ll talk to Seong Hyeon. And Min Ji?”
