“He’s hardly my hero,” Quentin grumbled. “He’s stuck up and self-centered, and was always late to rehearsals.” He shook his head. A small part of him knew that his dislike of Joel wasn’t entirely rational, but then again, there were just some people you didn’t click with. Joel was one of those people for Quentin, apparently. Everything Joel said or did managed to get under Quentin’s skin.
“We didn’t get along at all during rehearsals,” Quentin said. “And after the whole face-punching incident, his PR team wanted to make sure that a scandal didn’t develop. I don’t know if you saw that selfie he posted, but it was at a staged lunch.”
“I saw the paparazzi photos online,” Henri said. “You’re gettingreallyfamous now. Out and about with Joel Beckett. How does it feel?”
“Annoying.”
Henri laughed again. “That’s got to be an exhausting way to live for him, with everything managed by a PR team.”
Quentin didn’t want to feel sympathetic for Joel, so he just shrugged. “Maybe. He didn’t seem to mind all that much.”
“Did youaskhim?”
“No. I generally tried toavoidtalking to him.”
“Even at lunch?”
“It was a very awkward lunch.”
Henri sat to put his skates on. “At least you don’t have to see him again.”
Oh, the irony. Quentin sat heavily on the bench beside Henri. “If only,” he grumbled. “I’m supposed to go to one of his concerts in a few weeks so that we can have another staged ‘friendship’ moment. His PR teamreallywants it to look like we’re cool.”
“Your life is so hard, hanging out with celebrities and going to free concerts. His new album is good! Have you listened to it?”
Quentin sighed. “No.”
“Maybe you should.”
That night, after Quentin returned to his apartment, showered, and ordered himself dinner, he sat on his couch and looked at his phone. He scrolled through social media, looking at recent posts and photos where he was mentioned. Countless people and news outlets had reposted the paparazzi photos of him and Joel, and the selfie Joel had posted. A few people had also managed to screenshot the picture from Quentin’s story before he’d taken it down.
He didn’t bother reading the comments. People had plenty to say, and the comments and posts he did manage to skim were mostly people wondering if this was genuine.
Good job,Quentin thought.It’s not.
Quentin was not always comfortable with his status as a celebrity athlete. For the first couple of years of his career, he had been anonymous outside the world of hockey. Hockey fans knew his name and face, and no one else did. His newfound fame on the Internet, even beforeFCL, was still alien to him. He hadn’t gotten used to it yet, and he wasn’t sure if he ever would. People seemed to think that because he was famous, they could comment on him or his choices. They thought they could speakforhim, and that was what annoyed him the most.
Plenty of people, and not just hockey fans, had been calling for Joel’s “cancellation” after he accidentally hit Quentin in the face.
Quentin might’ve been pissed at Joel and thought he was an all-around annoying person, but he didn’t think Joel deserved to get publicly harangued on the Internet for something that had clearly been an accident.
At least the photos seemed to have done their job. There were already fewer posts about the whole face-punching incident. A few people were still hanging onto a “conspiracy” that the whole thing was a PR scam. If only they knew how right they were.
Quentin’s food arrived, and he went down to the lobby to pick it up. He’d ordered from a Vietnamese place near his apartment, and the food smelled amazing. He returned to his apartment, shucked off his shoes and his sweatshirt, and took the food to his couch, where he sat, shirtless, to eat.
His apartment was his safe place. It was the second apartment he’d had in Boston. His first had been smaller, not as nice, and he had upgraded when his NHL salary allowed him to. It was spacious and modern, all clean lines and smooth surfaces. The furniture was sleek, but comfortable, and the walls were a soft gray. He had the newest appliances and simple, tasteful art on the walls. He’d used a decorator on the place, because he didn’t know what pieces to put together himself. He was thinking, someday soon, of upgrading again, this time to a house, and he wanted to decorate the house himself. He’d thought of maybe having one built, something specifically to his designs. He’d like a home, a real home, where he could put down roots and stay. He didn’t think much about the long-term future and what his life might look like someday, but when he did, he liked to think that his future might involve the need for a house.
Until then, it was just him and his apartment—and his bún ch?.
He usually put a movie on while he ate, but now he had a different idea. Henri had suggested that Quentin listen to Joel’s latest album. Quentin liked music, but he’d never listened to any of Joel’s solo albums. He’d listened (against his will) to Good Treble’s music plenty when he was in high school, and he’d always assumed that Joel’s music would be a similar sanitized teen bop style. Quentin preferred rock or the oldies.
On a whim, he pulled out his phone and searched for Joel’s latest album online. The album was calledNorthern Sun,and according to a press release, Joel had recorded it last year over a six-month stay in Stockholm, where he had worked with a famous Swedish producer. He said that the album was inspired by 1970s glam rock, synth pop, and “French New Wave cinema.”
Despite himself, Quentin was intrigued.
He found the tracklist online and pulled up YouTube on his TV. There was an entire visual album to go with the music: twelve music videos, one for each song, with interludes of spoken word poetry. It sounded like much higher art than what Quentin had expected.
Food ready, he looked for the first video on YouTube, and settled in to watch.
