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“Gail, this is my brother, Alex,” Bella tells the editor. “And my nephew, Harlan.”
Gail stands to shake my hand, smiling kindly. “Pleased to meet you, Alex. And you too Harlan!”
She speaks to Harlan in a baby voice.
“Do you like candy?”
She offers him some hard candy from a bowl, and Harlan looks at me for permission first.
“Go ahead,” I incentivize him. “One piece!”
“Oh, he’s so well-behaved!” Gail says, impressed. “So, Alex… I already know a little bit about you from what your sister has told me and from searching online, but I want to hear about you straight from the source!”
I blush instantly. Fortunately, Bella notices and comes to my rescue immediately.
“My brother can be bit shy, Gail, but you know, he’s truly remarkable. He excelled as a student-athlete and performed exceptionally well in the admissions process for the Naval Academy…"
Liv looks at me with wide eyes, certainly unaware of these aspects of my background. I appreciate that she’s taken an interest.
But then again, isn’t that part of her job?
“How long did you stay with the Navy?” Liv asks, sounding genuinely curious.
“Ten years,” I inform the ladies in the room. “Half of it as a SEAL.”
“I don’t know how a person can be a seal and then be a person again…” Harlan says to Gail, shaking his head, fully serious. All faces in the office light up with smiles.
“Then what did you do after that?” Gail inquires.
“I got married,” I say, hugging Harlan. “Then almost got divorced for investing all of our money in a cybersecurity startup, which thankfully paid off…”
“Paid off!” Bella laughs, shrugging her shoulders. “You act as if 10 billion dollars falls off trees!”
“Bella, it’s impolite to talk about money like that!” I interject.
Liv chimes in with another question. “You do a lot of charity work, right?”
All the while, she has kept a professional demeaner, but she keeps staring at me with longing eyes. Her gaze demand to know why I rejected her, but I also sense curiosity there.
“Yes, with low-wage communities all across the country, but I personally became involved with Helding Heights right here in San Francisco,” I say. “It’s very rewarding.”
Gail tents her hands over the table and smiles with triumph while looking at me, as if she were a cat that just scored a big piece of tuna.
“How comfortable are you with reporters and photographers following you around to document your life, Alex?” Gail asks, and I already know my answer.
“If the reporter and photographer are these two, respectively,” I say, my hands gesturing towards Bella and Liv.
Gail punches the air, apparently taking a liking to the idea, and I lean down to kiss the top of Harlan’s head when I see him mimicking her gesture.
Bella is grinning widely, but Liv glares at me as if asking what the hell I am doing.
“Okay,” Gail says, taking pen and paper in hand. “Tell me a little about your routine so we’ll know when and where these two can follow you.”
Liv and I exchange another glance. I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure this girl is planning on murdering me.
Chapter Three
LIV
