“I don’t want to hear what the label thinks or wants. They don’t control us. Isn’t that what you said? They work for us, not the other way around. We are supposed to have the decision-making powers.”
A huff of air expels from Blake, and I can’t tell if he’s pissed or tired or both. I’m not sure I care. “And you do, for the most part. But the PR team has the most experience dealing with controversy.”
“And yet they thought it was a good idea to throw a grieving man in front of a shit-stirring troll like Zach Lawson? By himself?” I scoff. “How fucking stupid can you get?! This whole PR stunt to clean up his image was bullshit in the first place.”
“I know.”
“It was bad enough to force him to get up there and talk about himself as if he’s some kind of broken thing in need of fixing, to be pitied and excused from bad behavior when he didn’t do anything wrong.Hewas the one who was violated, even you said as much. But to agree to an interview with someone that is known to throw rules and basic decorum out the window!”
“I told them I didn’t thinkKeep It Realwas a good idea?—”
“Then where the fuck were you?!” I’m shouting now, anger pulsing through me. “Why didn’t you stop it? The moment Lawson went off script, why didn’t you pull him out of there and tell every last one of them to get fucked?!”
“I didn’t?—”
I interrupt him again, aiming low because I want him to feel as shitty as Jesse does right now. “Let me guess, the intern was cute and nerdy and half your age, so you were distracted?”
“That’s a baseless accusation, and you know it.”
“Do I?”
Blake takes a heavy breath. “The producer asked me to approve some questions that were being called in. I thought it was odd that he pulled me away from the booth to do it, but I didn’t go with my gut. I was gone for maybe a minute before I heard Jesse raise his voice, but the door was locked.
“You know you just played right into their hands, right? All this did is make Jesse look exactly as unhinged as they want him to seem.”
“I know,” he concedes. “I shouldn’t have stepped away. I think it was intentional on the producer’s part, a set up or something. I should have seen it coming. IknowI shouldn’t have stepped away.”
His defeated admission has me stepping back to take another look at our manager. He’s significantly less put together than normal. His hair is disheveled. He’s not wearing his suit jacket, and his shirt is rumpled and unbuttoned at the neck. His sleeves are pushed up his forearms.Blake has tattoos?
I shake my head and pull my eyes away from the tendrils of ink peeking from under the fabric of his shirt sleeves. I’m not letting him off that easy.
“What’s worse is the way Jesse looked when he came back. He was already struggling, but I don’t know how he’s going to come back from this. You let that happen to him, Blake.”
“You’re right,” Blake says. “And I’m sorry. I promised to protect you all better than Francis did, and I failed Jesse today. It won’t happen again. I told the label that Jesse isn’t doing any more interviews for the foreseeable future, and I let them know my concerns about performing on New Years Eve. I have them on standby to cancel, no matter how much it costs any of us. Jesse’s the one who wants to keep it on the books for now, but that was before today. I’ll talk to him about it when he’s ready, but he understandably doesn’t want to talk to me right now.”
“You’re not the only one,” Ari says, walking out of the hallway that leads to the bedrooms. “He’s not in the mood to talk to anyone, just says he wants to go home. How quickly can we have a plane ready?”
Blake looks down at his phone. “Probably within an hour. I already called to set it up.”
“Good.” Ari looks from Blake to me. “You should probably pack up.”
“Pfft. You know I don’t unpack the way most of you do. I just pull my shit straight out of my duffle.”
“Yeah, but you have more hair products than I do and leave your dirty laundry everywhere.”
“You’re one to talk,” I say, letting him lead me out of the living room and away from Blake.
There’s nothing more I can say to him anyway.
I like Blake. He’s a good person and he’s been a good manager, but he fucked up big time with this one. He failed Jesse, and didn’t protect him the way he should have—not from ZachLawson, and not from our own label when they wanted to push these interviews.
When Ari leaves me to grab the rest of his things, I pull my phone from my pocket and stare down at the string of texts. There are new unread messages at the bottom.
Unknown Number: I can only imagine what Zach Lawson could do with the material I’m sitting on.
Unknown Number: You gonna flip when he asks you when you started perving on your little brother?
My hand clenches around the phone so hard I feel the case creak.
