“Were you the one who advised him to keep this from us?”
“Was I?” he asks me innocently, but it’s been so long I don’t even remember who said what that day. It was an entire year ago, and what a year it’s been.
I shrug. “I don’t know, man. I just didn’t want to get fired.”
“We wouldn’t have fired you over this!” Godwell says, only for the people on both sides of her to start whispering in her ear, no doubt reminding her that there’s a lot of ‘don’t pull any bullshit’ in my contract, and this whole thing literally started the same day as the wet tee shirt incident. Maybe they wouldn’t have fired me, but I definitely don’t think I’m in the wrong for trying to hide it.
“We’re going to need to see the videos,” says the private detective, Matt Something-Or-Other. White guy. Bulky but gym rat bulk. Crew cut. Still smells like cop. Just shadier.
“Yeahhh,” I drawl, stretching back in my chair. “I’m not doing that.”
“It’s for the investigation. There’s data we can pull from them. Potentially even clues in the videos themselves as to who was recording them.”
“Not happening.”
Andy leans over and quietly reminds me, “They’re not going to share the videos. Just send them so we can get this taken care of.”
“I’m not sending them a video of Tilly eating my ass,” I whisper back to Andy.
Not quietly enough, though, from the way everyone’s eyes suddenly turn away from me, their bodies stiffening.
Oops.
“You said this washerroom, right?” Coach Keenan asks. “So who is she, anyway? From what I’ve seen of her, I didn’t think she was anybody.”
The back of my neck prickles. “You calling my girl ugly?”
Keenan blinks several times before very carefully saying, “I absolutely am not saying anything like that, Sinclair. But this sounds like the cameras had already been set up. We’re just trying to figure out how this happened and how to fix it.”
“Yeah, well, it was her room, and she’s a costumer. That’s it. She makes costumes for actors.”
“And this is the woman you were having Doc Keltner treat, correct?” Emily Hess asks. She says it casually, like she’s just asking for clarification, but she’s as casual as I am. I see her. I know what she is. She’s been waiting for her moment tostrike, and she found it. This is her conversation now. “Natalie Washington?”
Just saying her full name like that is enough to have me straightening in my chair. “Yeah, Tilly.”
“And the baby is—”
“Donovan.”
“—Yours?”
“Oh. Uhh, yeah.” Definitely not how I wanted to make the announcement, and the only relief I get is that there’s a second of everyone either celebrating or cursing, and half the room gets busy with their phones for a couple seconds. I nearly ask if everyone’s sharing this on social media, because that’s not cool at a time like this, but then I remember Bradley and the bet. He’s nodding, pleased, so he must have known Donovan is mine.
Clearly, Donovan is mine. I’m actually a bit offended that so many thought he wasn’t. Look how handsome he is. Obviously, that’s my kid.
I glare around the room, mentally taking note of everyone who didn’t think he was mine. Bunch of assholes. They’re gonna pay—
“Stephanie’s your social media assistant, yeah? She’s getting a team now. I’m scheduling a photoshoot for this afternoon. You’re going to be in long pants and shoes — actual shoes, not slides, you show up in those slides you hobbled in on and I’ll leak those videos myself and you can’t stop me — and Donovan is going to look like the wealthiest baby ever and Tilly better be ready to go full trad wife influencer, Thomas Kincaide painter of light, Nubian princess Betty Crocker here.”
I’m not the only one to say, “What the fuck,” to this white lady saying some shit like that.
She doesn’t even look chastised by it. “We cannot,cannot,have anyone questioning who the parents are of that baby. We need to cover social media with a family that is unquestionable about genetics but absolutely questionable about what’s going on behind the scenes, got it? I need the world to see America’s sweethearts, and I need the world to be able to see a video of you two licking each other’s buttholes and say, ‘okay, yeah, this checks out, actually, because all those Stepford Wife-looking sourdough bitches are clearly faking it.’ Are you getting it yet?”
“This is so fucked up,” I mutter.
“This is the real world. Sorry this is what it is, but if you hadn’t gotten caught on camera paying off a prostitute, she could have just been the girl she is.”
“She is not a prostitute,” I bristle, adding Emily Hess to my shit list even though she was one of the few with stone faces when I announced that Donovan was mine.
