Three hours later, he was in Los Angeles, headed to Shivonne’s office. Quentin was still in the air. He’d be landing within the hour, and then he’d hear the news.
The Internet trolls had crawled out from under their nasty digital bridges and were spewing vitriol all over the news and social media. People were analyzing his music, writing long threads about Quentin’s sexuality. Someone had made explicit fan art of them using artificial intelligence, and it was circulating, getting mixed up in the other rumors, and now people seemed to think that nude images of Quentin and Joel together had been leaked. It truly was a nightmare, and Joel thought he was going to be sick.
He didn’t wait for his rented SUV to fully stop when it reached Shivonne’s office before he jumped out and ran to the door. Harlan was waiting for him, his eyes wide.
Before Joel could say anything, Harlan threw his arms around Joel. “I love you, so much,” Harlan said, his voice muffled by Joel’s shirt, “and I will physically fight whoever did this.”
Joel started crying then. Everything he had bottled up since the leak exploded in that moment. He clung to Harlan. “I love you, too. Please don’t fight anyone.”
“Shivonne is preparing for war. Come on.”
They found Shivonne in a conference room. Her blonde hair was pulled into a tight bun, the sleeves of her blouse were rolled up to her elbows, and she had a violent expression on her face. Three laptops, two tablets, and four different phones were spread out around her.
She gave a curt nod when Joel and Harlan stumbled into the room, and held up a finger to keep them silent. A voice came from one of the phones, amplified by the phone’s speaker.
“Look, Ms. Sharpe, we just print the truth. Your client was spotted—”
Shivonne glared at the phone. “Listen to me right now, Eddie. One, I know where you live and, yes, thatisa threat. Two, webothknow that you don’t just print the truth. Your paper is a load of horseshit, and it stinks worse than your asshole after a long run when you forget to shower. And, three, what you printed regarding my client,be it true or not, is a gross violation of privacy and has led to an international news cycle shitstorm of hurricane proportions, and I need you to know that I will use everyounceof my power in this city—which we both know is a lot—to make you rue thefuckingday you decided to cross me.”
She ended the call and looked up at Joel and Harlan, who were standing dumbfounded by the door.
“That was the editor ofM Magazine,” she said brusquely. “They’re the ones who printed the story this morning. I don’t know how they got it, but they did.” Her gaze softened momentarily as she looked at Joel. “How are you?”
“Not good,” Joel said.
Shivonne nodded. “How do you want to handle this? I work for you. If you want, I can end this story. I can and will make it all go away. It might not be pretty, but I can get rid of it, cover it up, spin it however we want, and you can go on with your life like it never happened.”
If anyone else had made a promise like that, Joel wouldn’t have believed them. But Shivonne the Shark was powerful, and he knew she could do it, if he asked her to.
He took a deep breath. “I need to talk to Quentin.”
Shivonne picked up one of the other phones and pressed a button. “Honey? Thanks for holding. I’ve got Joel here.”
“Honey?” Joel asked.
Shivonne tossed him the phone. “Billy Magnussen, Quentin’s agent. We’ve been taking for two months.”
“The fuck?” Joel said, catching the phone. He didn’t have time to process what Shivonne said. He’d file that away for later. “Billy,” he said. “It’s me, Joel.”
Billy sounded exhausted on the other end of the call. “Hi, Joel. I’m sorry this is happening.”
“Is Quentin there?”
His plane lands in Boston soon. I doubt he’s heard yet, but he’ll hear as soon as he lands. I’m at the airport to pick him up and handle this. The Boston owners are shitting bricks over here.”
“I’m sure they are,” Joel said. “Look, Billy, I love Quentin. You hear me? I love him. I love him, and I don’t give a flying fuck who knows it. We’d hoped that we could announce it on our own timeline. We were going to figure that out later. We didn’t have a plan yet. We didn’t expect this. How are you going to handle things on your end?”
“Shivonne and I had some backup plans,” Billy said hesitantly. Joel looked at Shivonne in shock as Billy continued. “We suspected something was going on between you and Quentin—you weren’t that good at hiding it from us, admit it—and we made plans for different contingencies. Like Shivonne said, if you want it buried, we can make that happen.”
“I don’t want it buried,” Joel said. “But I want to hear what Quentin has to say. When can I see him?”
“He has a game in Boston tomorrow,” Billy said. “He can’t come to Los Angeles.”
“And you can’t cancel your concerts in Albuquerque,” Shivonne added.
“Fuck,” Joel said. “Fuck the concerts.”
“Joel,” Shivonne said.
