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Laila continues, “They sent a message with it that reads ‘I think you’ll be interested in this.’ Maybe someone who’s a little too invested in our musical chemistry?” She sounds perturbed. “I knew we should have just told those reporters there’s nothing going on between us.”
“They may not have believed you anyway,” Mindy says.
Laila sighs. “This is true. But still, why send this video to me?”
Mindy shifts on the bench next to me. “To stir up drama, hoping you’ll take to social media and put me and Luke on blast.”
She humphs. “They don’t know me at all then.”
“Will you text the video to me?” I ask.
“Absolutely. I was going to forward it to you right away, but then I thought I should call first for context.”
“Thank you for letting us know,” Mindy says.
“I’ll send you a screenshot of the number it came from, too.”
“Will you read it out to us?” Mindy asks.
After a second, Laila rattles it off.
Mindy’s eyes go wide. Her thumbs tap over her phone. “It’s from Blake.” She holds it up to show me his contact info.
“Blake? That’s Blake Bonham’s number?” Laila squeaks. “Why is he texting me a video of you two kissing?”
Our eyes lock over the phone, sharing our confusion.
Mindy shakes her head. “I have no idea, but we’re going to do what we can to find out.”
* * *
“Do you think Blake will release the video of you and Luke to the press?” Piper asks Mindy.
We’re all sitting around in Oliver’s living room after sharing the details of the news and the subsequent conversation with Laila with Piper and Oliver.
Mindy and I are on the plush leather sofa. She’s tucked into my side, her laptop set to the side because she was driving herself to distraction searching for any additional news.
Piper is on the loveseat, her legs tucked up underneath her. Oliver is in the kitchen making tea.
“I really don’t know what he’s going to do.”
“Why would he send that to Laila at all?” Piper asks.
Mindy taps at something on the computer before replying. “It can be hard to think like a narcissist, but if I had to guess, I would say he wants Laila to release it to the press or to her fans or somehow put it out there to cause problems for Luke and me that won’t be traced back to him.”
Piper frowns. “Why would he want that?”
Oliver walks into the living room with a tea tray in hand and sets it on the glass table. “People have been assuming Luke and Laila are an item. Upon receipt of this video, in his mind, Laila would believe Luke was being duplicitous and therefore use the video to enact some kind of revenge that would have negative implications for Luke and for Mindy.”
Piper wrinkles her nose. “But why? What does he want? What’s the endgame here?”
I lean forward to grab a mug of hot tea from the tray, dropping a cube of sugar in it and holding it out to Mindy. “My guess is he wants to get back at Mindy for rejecting him. The real question is how do we stop him? What’s to prevent him from going to the press with all of this and making up whatever he wants about you?”
Mindy takes the cup from me and blows on it before taking a sip. “I don’t know.”
Oliver takes a seat next to Piper, resting a hand on her knee. “We should get out in front of it now.”
Mindy nods slowly. “Yes. That would be ideal. Find a media outlet to run a story that we can spin however we want, so we control the narrative before Blake does. But Blake is a superstar. When he speaks, half the world listens. The press doesn’t care about me or Luke. I’m only peripherally famous, mostly because of my former association with Blake. Luke’s star is just now rising. How do we find a way to get the truth out to a lot of people, enough to take power away from anything Blake might put out there?”
