I patted his cheek. “You’re beautiful, Zion.”
He dismissed me with a quick roll of his eyes. “Can you filter out the glare?”
“I’m not sure if it’s worth bothering. Without a comment, Andy’s not likely to use it.”
Zion nodded at the photo and graciously said, “If he’d been looking at me like that, I might have been a little tongue-tied, too.”
I rested my elbows on the table and dropped my chin on my hands, appreciative of the spiritual pat on the back but tired of always needing one. “I wasn’t tongue-tied, Zion.” I looked around for eavesdroppers and whispered, “I didn’t have a clue who he was.”
“What?” He spoke too loud, and nosy Leonard glanced up at us. “How’d you get a picture of Micah Sinclair if you didn’t even know who he was?”
That comment released the kraken. Leonard left his desk, holding his coffee mug in both hands. “Ten bucksheapproachedyou.”
I double-blinked in shock. “He did. How did you know?”
He set his mug on my desk. “Micah Sinclair is attracted to paparazzi like a moth to a bug zapper.”
I recalled how Micah had gotten right up in my camera, how weird I’d found it that he didn’t even notice the celeb down the street, how curious he’d been about me. And everything clicked into place. So much for feeling special. Still, something didn’t add up. “If he wanted the publicity, why didn’t he tell me who he was? I would have at least interviewed him.”
He shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe he figured you should already know.”
Ouch.
“I just didn’t recognize him at first. I should have, but he started talking to me like a regular person, likeIwas the interesting one.” My tone sounded defensive even to me.
Leonard’s shoulders relaxed as though he remembered I wasn’t any competition, that I was the hapless fresh meat who still needed to be patronized like a newbie. “Ya know, I’ve noticed he’s friendlier to photographers than reporters. Maybe he’s a narcissist. Or maybe he likes the publicity without embracing the invasion into his privacy. Can’t say I blame him considering what he’s usually asked.” He shook his head and mimicked, “Micah, did you break up with your girlfriend?” He tsked. “Poor kid. Heisa musician after all.”
Leonard had worked here longer than Andy even. He had war stories about everyone, and his words hung in the air like an invitation to ask him to share more.
“Have you ever interviewed him?”
He twisted his lips, like I’d asked him if he’d ever ridden the subway. “Of course. Several times.”
“And?”
He paused to rifle through his mental filing cabinet a moment, then proceeded with an air of authority. “The first time I’d even heard of Micah Sinclair was when thatRock Paperarticle came out.”
Zion said, “Oh, right,” at the same time I said, “Huh?”
Douchelord Derek, forever eavesdropping on everyone, called over. “That was over a year ago. They might not have run that story down in Podunk.”
I shot eye daggers at him. “We get the Internet in Georgia, Derek.”
Zion started Googling. “I remember that. ‘The Pretty Boys of Rock.’” I assumed he was repeating the title, though knowing him, he might have been waxing nostalgic over eye candy past.
Leonard grabbed the reins of conversation back. “TheRock Paperhad put out a spread of the hottest chicks in rock. It was fifty pages of sex kittens in leather and heavy makeup. They got a ton of blowback from it for focusing on women’s looks instead of their music. Sexist, you know? So a couple of issues later, they put out an equally offensive article, featuring as many attractive male rockers as they could dig up.”
“Offensive,sure.” Zion had found the article and was slowly clicking through the ad-riddled slide show, ogling photos of huge rock stars like Jon Bon Jovi and Adam Copeland. I reclaimed the mouse from him and powered through a series of people I didn’t recognize until I found Micah, showing more teeth than the rest of the brooding rockers, and dressed like he’d dug up his wardrobe at a rummage sale: tight garish red pants, green Converse high tops, and a ripped T-shirt for a band I’d never heard of. But with that face, Micah easily filled the “pretty” quota for “The Pretty Boys of Rock.”
I read the blurb out loud, “Micah Sinclair, thirty-one years old. He’s a Libra, and ladies you should know that means he’s a lover.” I snickered and couldn’t read the rest without laughing. “But what you may not know is that this bad boy of rock was raised strictly religious. Touring the country in an End Times cult as a child, young Micah Sinclair sang uplifting church songs years before he brought everyone down with a song called ‘Gravity.’ Oh, good Lord.”
“Exactly,” said Leonard. He strolled over. “May I?”
I gave him control of my mouse, and he Googled something else. Before he clicked the link, he said, “So reporters latched onto that bit about the church and immediately began publishing articles like this.” He clicked through to an article topped by an enormous image of Micah snuggling with a gorgeous blonde on what must have been a private beach. The photographer had been so lucky as to catch Micah with his pants down, literally. His entire body would have been exposed if not for the pixelated fig leaves obscuring the very thing that made the picture interesting.
Zion shook his head and said, “Mm-mm-mm. That boy is delicious. Look at those shoulders.”
I was looking. I’d been sitting on those shoulders less than two hours earlier. My stomach flipped at the thought. Out of nowhere I felt a stab of irrational jealousy toward the girl on the beach. I probably should have felt sympathy for her. He’d probably dumped her soon after the picture was taken.
