She leans forward, her brown eyes blazing with a fire that her frosted Karen hair frames just right to make anyone who might have ever been a manager of anything quake with fear.
“Sinclair. Listen to me. Ignore everyone else in this room because no one else is going to be able to salvage this. It’s just you and me.”
I obey. I let everyone fade away. I don’t even wave goodbye. Because if I get fired now, I have no idea what I’ll do. Tilly’s finances are even worse than I could have imagined. She laid it out for me yesterday, about how she’s been genuinely concerned about rent in the next couple months.
“If this video leaks right now, you will lose your job. You will be too much of a liability. There are too many people involved. It’s going to cause too much of a disruption. There’s too much money we’ll lose. And frankly, this is why Morales ispaid what he’s paid — Morales, whose girl is a PR nightmare, but they don’t have a single sex tape in existence because they’re not stupid enough to lick each other’s buttholes anywhere but the privacy of their own home — so the hit to the team isn’t going to be nearly as bad as the loss of our big sponsors.
“And realistically, we have no control over what happens to these videos. You get that, right? We could sign the entire team over to your sextortionists, and they could still leak those videos. So the only —the only— thing we can do is stay ahead of it. And listen, if this was Drew Cohen? Or Gabe Shaunessy? Or even Wes Foster? This wouldn’t be happening. They’d be cut. That’s it. Soyou are welcomethat I’m going to save your career, got it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t involve me in your kink.”
I want to exchange a look with Andy, but I don’t want her to castrate me.
“Now, since Natalie Washington is a costumer for a major production company, this is the luckiest day of your fucking life because she’s registered with IATSE.”
“Yahtzee?”
“International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. If you watch the credits of the movies she’s costumed, you’ll see her name right there, Natalie Washington. Earliest listing is from five years ago, and that is incredibly useful because it validates why she wouldn’t change her name. Which makes this your million-dollar question: is she your wife?”
“Nope.” Although, shit, I regret not asking her before everything went to hell.
Emily Hess leans even closer.
“Is she your wife?”
I tilt my head to the side, wondering what I’m missing. “No?”
Once more, much more slowly, she says, “Is . . . she . . . your . . . wife?”
“Y-yes? I can . . . shit, I’ll see if she’ll—” I fumble for my phone, thinking I’ll just text her and see if she’s okay with marrying me. And since her name’s already in credits, it doesn’t make sense professionally for her to change her last name.
Still, I’d like it to be hyphenated. Can that be done without messing up the Yahtzee thing? Would she want that from me? Will Sinclair-Washington fit on the back of my jersey? Oof, Gabe’s jersey, maybe. Not mine—
Andy snatches my phone out of my hand before I can actually type out the text and shakes his head.
Right, yeah, not the time to text.
“And was she your wife when these videos were filmed?”
“No, obviously not.”
Emily Hess actually leans over so far that she’s lying on the table, her ass in the air, I’m pretty sure with at least one knee on the seat. She stretches her arm out and grabs my hand. Squeezes it.
Digs her talon-like nails in.
“Blaise. Blaise. Listen to me, Blaise. Is this a video of you and your wife,your pregnant wife,having a little bit—”
“This was the night she got pregnant.”
“Having a little bit of kinky funbecause you know that you’re about to have eight months before you can get away with these kinds of shenanigans again, only for some terrible element to film you and your wife —your wife,Blaise,your wife— in your marital bed?”
I stare her down, deciding whether I should complain that she’s drawn blood on the back of my hand, but probably it’sbetter to ignore that and just explain to Tilly later. Really, I’m not going to have to explain it when everything else is going to be a mess. I give myself some time to think, ultimately needing to point out, “I don’t think this is something I can lie about. This is, like, public records shit.”
Emily smiles, but it’s faint, and it’s creepy. A twitch at the corner of her lips that looks like it’s going to go Joker if it stretches further. “I will make this happen.”
I guess that’s why legal’s not here.
