His life had been on public display since he was fifteen, and he had wonSiren,a popular singing talent show. That win had led to a record deal and, eventually, placement as the lead singer in a boy band, Good Treble, with four other boys. The five of them had stuck together for half a decade and had finally disbanded when Joel was twenty-one. He’d been a solo artist since then, and had just released his third solo album:Northern Sun.He was about to take the album on tour around the world, and he couldn’t afford negative press before it.
For ten years of his life, he had been a public figure, a celebrity. Good Treble had been hugely popular with the teens, and Joel had quickly been labeled a teenage heartthrob. Now twenty-five, he had managed the transition into adult sex symbol as well as he could, though it was never easy having that many eyes on you, and that many opinions offered about you.
He knew that people liked to talk, and they had a lot of nothing to say. He was used to trolls and idiots on the Internet. He knew not to take it to heart. But he hated how people, like faulty toilets, always liked to bring up old shit.
The elevator dinged and opened into the large lobby of 15 Madison Ave. Joel and his people stepped into the lobby, and the lawyers had to leave. God knows, Joel was paying them enough by the hour; he didn’t mind that they were leaving now.
“Where are we doing this lunch?” he asked Shivonne. He liked her, and trusted her, and knew that if there was any PR crisis in the world, she could and would handle it. That didn’t mean he liked her solution for how to mellow things out with Quentin Hartley.
Shivonne named a nearby restaurant. It was a nice, expensive place, the sort of place where Joel and Quentin could eat without being bothered by fans. Shivonne would tip off a source she trusted in a tabloid, some lucky photographer would snap a picture, and Shivonne would “leak” a statement to the tabloid. Later that day, the picture would circulate all over socials and the tabloids, along with a comment from an “anonymous source close to Joel” that the two had become good friends during their time on FCL, and that the nose debacle had been a funny accident. Everyone’s happy, and Bob’s your uncle.
It was a good plan, but for it to work, Joel and Quentin would have to stay at lunch long enough for a paparazzo to get pictures of them that looked realistic and not staged.
That part didn’t appeal to Joel.
He hadn’t enjoyed his week spent onFCLrehearsing with Quentin. Quentin was everything Joel wasn’t. Joel was well-disciplined and precise; Quentin seemed casual to the point of being lazy and irresponsible. He goofed off in rehearsals, ad-libbed lines, missed his marks and cues, and got distracted talking and laughing with the cast and crew of the show. It constantly frustrated Joel, who was taking time out of his busy schedule to be onFCL. It was good exposure for his upcoming tour, but they were in the thick of rehearsals for the tour back in Los Angeles. The tour manager, a man named Alexander Braun, had been calling him constantly with questions. Joel didn’t like Alexander; they didn’t agree on details about the tour. Braun had managed the tours for several other famous singers, and he had been the record label’s choice for the tour, not Joel’s choice. He had many ideas for how things should go, and his ideas always focused on what would be most profitable, not on what would be most authentic to Joel’s artistic expression.
The lunch with Quentin would delay Joel from getting on the plane back to Los Angeles, and Braun would be displeased. They had a meeting scheduled for that afternoon to go over some details about the tour.
Joel wanted a moment to himself, but it was rare for him to get any privacy. He needed a moment to breathe before going to lunch with Quentin. He needed to get his thoughts in order and compose himself before lunch. Quentin had a way of getting under his skin that no one else did. They barely knew each other, and he frustrated Joel to no end. He was infuriating, and he seemed shallow. Joel didn’t have time for shallow people.
There was a car waiting for Joel at the back entrance to 15 Madison Ave. A large black SUV, driven by a hired driver. Joel never entered or left buildings through the main entrance, because that was where people on the streets might snap photos of him.
He got in the car with Shivonne and leaned his head back on the seat. He was exhausted from the week, but he knew that he had a marathon of a tour coming up. He found touring to be less exhausting than he found things likeFCLand dealing with public disapproval.
“I’m emailing you a file,” Shivonne said. “I had one of my assistants pull together some research on Quentin so you at least have something to talk about at lunch.”
“Yippee,” Joel said, pulling out his phone. “Is it all about his fantasy football league?”
Shivonne gave him a stern look. “You could at least try to be nice.”
“You didn’t have to spend the last week with him,” Joel countered. “We have nothing in common, and he’s rude.”
“Well, dust off your acting abilities and pretend to like him. Think you can do that?”
“I expect an Oscar for it next season,” Joel said, and closed his eyes.
Chapter 3
Quentin & Joel
Joel’s team had picked the place for lunch, an upscale tapas place called Claud, which made no sense to Quentin. He was dreading the lunch with Joel. Almost every time they’d interacted in the past week, they’d had the buffer of other people around them. This would be the first time it would be just the two of them, with no one else to talk to.
He took a hired car to the restaurant, and while they sat in the congested Manhattan traffic, he texted his manager, Billy Rasmussen, who was back in Boston. Billy had been asking for an update and felt awful that he hadn’t been there.
Quentin:Update on the meeting today. It went well, Joel was annoying, and now we’re going to have to fake a friendship so that the media and our fans don’t go nuclear on us. Yay.
Quentin’s driver laid on the horn. “No need to hurry,” Quentin said. “I’m in no rush to get to lunch.”
Billy’s response buzzed on his phone.
Billy: PR friendship? What will that look like?
Quentin:We’re about to get a staged lunch, and a photographer will see us do it. And Shivonne—that’s Joel’s PR manager—is going to release a statement that we’re friends. Then they’re getting me tickets to one of his upcoming shows.
Billy:Are you going to go?
Quentin:I think I have to.
