But there was one person I hadn’t heard from yet. The one person who actuallyhada right to demand to know what was going on here, if anyonedid.
So I called Jessa Mayesmyself.
No big surprise, Brody picked up. Once the auditions wrapped, he would’ve been on the first plane home to Vancouver to be with her. Though he sounded remarkably calm when he told me, “The band knows Seth is there withyou.”
“And let me guess. They’re not happy aboutit.”
“I’d say they’re confused,Elle.”
“We’re just talking,” I told him. “You don’t want to talk to him, and Jesse doesn’t want to talk to him, but I do,Brody.”
“And you think this is the way to go about that? There are ways to handle this, Elle. Formal channels. You shouldn’t even be speaking with Seth Brothers, much less jetting off to Hawaii with him, without a written contract beforehand to protectyourself.”
“I don’t need a contract to have a conversation with an old friend,” I toldhim.
There was an ugly silence, at the end of which he said, in a low voice, “You need to think about protecting the band,Elle.”
“This isn’t about theband.”
“Then what the hell is itabout?”
“Can you please put Jessaon?”
“She’sbusy.”
“Is she there with you? I called to talk toher.”
“Brody!” I heard Jessa, somewhere in the background, and I could just picture her: standing there with her hands on her hips as Brody held her phone out ofreach.
I took a deep breath and forged on, forcing out the words I did not particularly want to say, but had to. “Brody, don’t you think that if I’m sitting here with a man who raped Jessa Mayes, that I have a problem with that, and maybe I need to hear it from her if that’snotthecase?”
I heard some fumbling and then Jessa’s voice again, muffled. “Jesus, Brody!” There was more fumbling, then Jessa was on the line. “He didn’t… Is that what Brody told you? That Sethrapedme?”
“No,” I said, relieved to have her on the phone. “Not directly. But that’s what he said to Seth when he broke his nose, right in front of theband.”
“Oh. My. God.You broke Seth’s nose?” That was muffled, and clearly aimed at Brody. I heard him grumble a reply, but I couldn’t make out thewords.
“We, uh, all heard him say it,” I told her. “So you can imagine how that’s left us all…disturbed.”
“Um, yeah. I’d say so.” Jessa did not sound happy. Clearly, she had no idea what actually happened that night. Had no idea what Brody had accused Seth of in front of all of us. “Seth Brothers is not a rapist, and he didn’tdoanything to me. So if you hear Brody or my brother say any such thing, you can tell them to—oh, God.Yuuuck.”
I sat up, alarm spiking through me. “Youokay?”
“Ugh… The baby just rolled over. I swear, it’s like having an alien insideyou.”
“Oh.” I exhaled. “Sorry to be calling you with this, Jessa, really. I know it’s bad timing.” It was.Clearly.
“It’s fine…” But there was a groan of discomfort in hervoice.
“I’ll let you go. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just really need to know… Are you okay with me talking to Seth? He’s here with me, in Hawaii. We’re at Woo’splace.”
“Elle, you don’t need my permission. You can talk to whoever you want to.” Then she whispered into the phone, “Brody’s pissed,though.”
“Inoticed.”
“I’m sorry, I should really go. The baby’s all kicky in the morning and Brody’s gonna pop a knuckle squeezing his stress ball. I need those hands to massage my hips and my swollen feet or I won’t get any sleep. I barely slept allnight.”
“Of course,” I said. “Tell him, for what it’s worth… I’m sorry. I know he doesn’t want you upset rightnow.”
