Emaly looks up at the order board and scans the options with the same contentment that’s been on her face this whole time.
What the hell is happening?
When it’s our turn, she pulls me up to the young woman at the cash register. “I’ll have a large caramel macchiato withwhipped cream, please. What are you getting, Winter? It’s on me.”
The sound of my name on her lips seems so familiar that it takes me off guard. “I, um…” I wet my lips and wince at my awkwardness. This whole situation is so confusing. “Just tap water for me. Thanks.”
Emaly’s smile slips a fraction like she wants to tell me to get something else, but I’m grateful when she doesn’t as she hands over her card to pay.
It’s not until we’re sitting down at a table in the corner that she giggles. “You can breathe. I’m not here to attack you or dump my drink on you.”
I toy with the cup of water they gave me. “I don’t really understand what’s going on right now. Did you know who I was in the grocery store?”
She shakes her head, wincing as she rubs her temple. “Not right away. It wasn’t until I looked at you for a minute that it clicked. You look pale. Are you okay?”
I take a sip of my water. To stall. And because I feel parched suddenly. This woman is married to a man riddled with adultery scandals that I’ve been hired to fix, and she knows my name. That’s not a coincidence. Does she think I can help her? Feed her information? Help seek vengeance?
Emaly starts digging through her bag and produces a bottle of Advil. “Sorry,” she apologizes with a shy smile. “I’ve got the worst headache.”
I notice the slight shake to her hands as she tries opening the cap, so I reach out to help her. She accepts the bottle and cap graciously, pouring two pills into her hand and swallowing them with her drink.
Clearing my throat, I squirm in my seat. “I have an NDA that tells me I can’t speak to anyone about your husband,” I explain slowly. “Not even spouses or next of kin.”
The chortle she gives me is half-snort, half-laugh as she dumps the pill bottle back into her bag and settles in her seat. “I figured as much. But don’t worry, I wasn’t going to try making you give me any information on him. Actually, it’smewho wants to offeryousome intel that I think can help.”
I blink at her. “Like…For revenge?”
That has to be what this is, right? The scorned wife goes to someone to feed them information on their cheating husband. But if she really wanted to do that, why not go to the press directly? Media would have a field day with any information she’d share with them on Moskins. I’m sure TMZ has reached out to her numerous times before to offer her a good payout.
Her grin widens. “I can see why you’d think that, but no. Our situation is a bit complicated. And I’m not really at liberty to say how because that goes deeper than we have time for me to explain. But I want you to know that he’s more than he seems. He comes off as a dick, but he’s not. Not really.”
Should I be entertaining this? It can’t be good, considering it’s a conflict of interest. Or is it? He’s my client, who I’m tasked to get into people’s good graces. Who better to help me with that than his ownwife?
So, I bite. “He wears a mask,” I reply.
It’s not a question, but an observation. He was good with everyone at the soup kitchen. He did something nice for me. But he’s snarky. Unfiltered. Sometimes, I can’t tell which version of him is the real one. Canshe?
Emaly nods. “I blame his manager and agent for a lot of that. Ever since he was a rookie, he’s had to present himself in a certain way in public. And when you’re young, it’s easy to mold yourself into what people think you are. And people see him as a closed off, entitled playboy. He’s run with his reputation because it’s easier than convincing people otherwise.”
Is she saying that his reputation is false? I’ve seen the proof. “If that’s the case, then I feel bad for him. But my job isn’t to deep dive into his psyche, it’s just to make him look…better than he has been.”
You know, where it looks like he isn’t cheating on you?Is she really not going to say anything about that? You’d think she would. If I were in her shoes, I’d be livid. Once, when a guy broke up with me, I’d let my emotions win and posted that he had a small penis on an anonymous forum. Kourtney and my first taste of alcohol may have influenced that decision. Needless to say, he’d been pissed about it, and I took down the post a few days after the damage was done.
But Emaly doesn’t seem like the type. According to the articles I read and the research I dug into, she’s never commented on his affairs or scandals. There’s nothing about her opinion regarding their relationship that paints him in a bad light. I’d bet money, as little as I might have, that it’s because Moskins’s agent convinced her not to.
“I can see it on your face,” she says gently, watching me a little too closely. “You believe the side of him that everybody else does. I get it. He’s a great actor. But you’ll see. He’s not that way. He’s different.”
“They always say they’re different, Win,” Kourtney says, passing me another tissue so I stop using my shirt to dry my tears. “Men will literally say that two seconds before sticking their dick into another woman. Trust me, he isn’t worth it.”
Those words hit me like a brick. I’d sworn to my sister that my ex, my first real love, was different. It’d been a rocky relationship that ended with him cheating on me because I wouldn’t sleep with him and me drunkenly posting online about his penis. Which I’d never actually seen. But I had thought, naively, that he was the infamous one so many people seek to find.
Turns out, he was just a douchebag who wound up getting another girl pregnant while we were seeing each other. They had three kids, got married not long after, and are divorced now.
Karma is a bitch.
“Look,” I tell Emaly. “It’s not my position to see him a certain way. He’s my client. So whether he is one way or not doesn’t matter to me.”
Thomas Moskins is a paycheck.
