chapter THREE
Lesson of the Day:
Life is never what you think it is.
Mikka
Jay had nuclear-bombedhis career. I got the call at six in the morning that he’d partied even harder than we had two weeks ago.
“I’ll text you updates, Mikka. But this is bad,” Bob grumbled into the phone. Bob had been Jay’s advocate for so long, an older jolly boss who absolutely loved Jay like his own son. “We can’t keep him tied to the company if this movie deal falls through.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I shot out of bed to walk to the other room, scrambling to put together what he was saying.
“It’s just guilt by association, Meek. You understand. We either get this done or we have to let him go. Guillermo specifically wants him in rehab or he loses the movie too. You need to get that done, get him there, or his career is over and we reassess the clients you work with.”
After we hung up, my phone buzzed with another text from my boss: screenshots of a headline. Someone had caught Jay with lines of coke in the club bathroom. Another paparazzo caught him in the parking lot with a hand up some blonde’s skirt. Picture upon picture upon picture.
Bile rose in my throat at the thought of going to see him, knowing that Jay had partied this hard after hanging out with me and my mother. After he’d injected the idea of him and I together in my head. I couldn’t forget how he’d gripped my hips, run his thumbs along my skin and kissed me like he was desperate with hunger for me.
I guess he’d caught amnesia though. Or he just didn’t care; charming women was what he did.
Our agency wanted me to go retrieve him, to get him in order. But my life was spiraling out into a disorganized mess too. I still hadn’t told Dougie, who was asleep in the next room, what had happened.
How could I? Our relationship had been rough the past few months as it was. My boyfriend through college, through my coming of age, through everything, was on the brink of being my ex.
And that wasn’t an option.
I needed him and he needed me. We’d grown together, found jobs together, lived together. We could beat our little bump in the road together too.
The bump that likely could turn into a mountain if I didn’t come clean about it immediately.
I didn’t dwell because I couldn’t. I needed to wake Dougie up, tell him what had happened, and then go retrieve Jay.
I grabbed my book bag from the table and made a list. If anyone could do this, it was me. I just needed to execute each thing one by one. First on that list was “tell Dougie.”
I looked at him lying on the bed, his light brown hair mussed and his mouth slightly open. He inhaled, and the pale blue sheets over him rose and fell with the motion. We’d picked out those sheets together, the first Egyptian Cotton set we could afford.
Jay had landed a rom-com deal because I had pitched him the idea. He asked me if I thought it was a good move. I remember just how he looked at me, like he really wanted my honesty and I gave it to him. I told him the movie was shit but the payday would be lucrative. He nodded and said that we could both use a payday.
He hadn’t needed one, but I had.
Those sheets marked my first taste of luxury with Dougie but also the point of trust Jay and I had with one another. Since that day, I was honest, and he was Jay, this larger than life fun-loving persona that everyone admired and enjoyed.
Yet, no one saw the toll it took on him to drive that happiness every day.
“Dougie.” I shook his shoulder to wake him.
He grumbled and then cracked an eye open at me. “What time is it?”
“Too early.” I sat down at the edge of the bed. “We need to talk.”
He squinted at me, rubbed his eyes. “What’s going on?”
“It’s my day off, but I have to go handle some things for a client.”
“Do I want to know?” He sat up and stretched one arm over his head while he yawned.
“I don’t have to remind you that we all signed NDAs.” I stopped and took a calming breath when he rolled his eyes. “I’m just reminding you. Jay’s in some trouble. I have to pick him up from a hotel and deliver some news.”