He turned to go, but was followed by, “How do you respond to Jessica’s allegations, then? You haven’t made any secret of the fact that the two of you have been friends, at the very least, for years. How does this betrayal make you feel?”
He didn’t bother to answer or even to turn around. He knew how he felt, though, and betrayal was too nice a word for it.
As he stepped up into the trailer, everyone already inside dropped what they were doing and turned to stare at him. Their expressions ranged from sympathetic to suspicious. Even more alarming, when Drew fetched his phone from the locker where he’d stored it during the action-packed scenes they’d been filming that night, it had more or less exploded with calls and text messages.
“You okay?” Sawyer asked, coming over to the lockers to join him.
Drew glanced up from scrolling through the first few messages, which contained more or less the same outpourings of shock and expressions of concern. “You heard the accusations?” he asked.
“We’ve all heard,” Sawyer said. “The crew was all poring over their phones as soon as I stepped into the trailer. Jessica really isn’t happy.”
That wasn’t even close to what was going on.
“So…so is it true?” one of the young wardrobe assistants asked in a quiet voice as Drew pulled his street clothes out of the locker and moved to a curtained-off area to change.
He didn’t answer her. Let her take that however she wanted. He was too stunned by his life yet again being thrown for a loop to answer her. Even though it dawned on him that his silence would probably be taken as condemnation.
As he changed, he scrolled through his calls and messages to see if there was anything at all from Jessica. Unsurprisingly,there wasn’t. There were a few texts and a missed call from Abby, though.
All Drew wanted to do was call Abby. For comfort, maybe. To explain? Abby already knew everything. To see if Abby had some sort of statement or justification from Jessica? Definitely.
Mostly, he wanted to talk to his friend. The old saying that it was lonely at the top had never felt truer.
Sawyer was waiting for him when he finished changing and left the trailer. “Do you want me to walk you to the car?” he asked. “And just to be clear, I’ve seen you and Lee together, and I’ve seen the way Jessica was around you. I’m on your side.”
“Thanks,” Drew said, both accepting the offer and acknowledging his support.
They managed to get to the car, where Sawyer left him so he could get home to his husband. As soon as Drew had some privacy, he called Lee.
“I saw everything,” Lee answered right away.
“How are you holding up?” Drew asked. He could endure just about anything in the celebrity world, but Lee hadn’t signed up for any of this.
“About as well as could be expected,” Lee answered. “Actually, I’m close to your apartment right now. I didn’t think you’d want to be alone tonight.”
The relief Drew felt was epic. “I should be there in a few minutes. If they don’t let you through the gate, just wait and I’ll make sure you get in.”
Under any other circumstance, that would have been good advice. But by the time Drew’s car approached the gates to the apartments, there was another small crowd of reporters and photographers. Even from the car, Drew could see them all hounding Lee as he waited.
Drew jumped out of the car the second it stopped and pushed his way through the wall of people to get to Lee. He didn’t carewhat they did to him, but if they went after Lee, he would have to chuck his nice guy image out the window and start throwing punches.
“Drew! Drew! What do you have to say about Jessica’s accusations?” more than one reporter called out as Drew joined Lee by the edge of the gate, throwing a protective arm around his waist.
“We’re not taking any questions,” he said, shielding Lee as best he could as they forged through the thick, jostling bodies to where the guard had just opened the gate for them.
“Is it true that this whole thing is fake and that you’re really dating Jessica Nightingale and have been all along?”
“I am not dating Jessica Nightingale,” Drew said, loudly and firmly. Never had any statement been truer than that.
“I’m sorry this whole thing is happening,” Lee said in a hollow, frightened voice as they escaped into the courtyard of the apartments, then into Drew’s building. “Those people are terrifying.”
“I hate them,” Drew said, venting the building emotion within him in those three words.
“Jessica went all out to expose everything,” Lee went on as they made their way up to the apartment, then secluded themselves safely inside. “I assumed she was angry about all this, but I had no idea she would be so vindictive.”
“Neither did I,” Drew said, immediately pacing the living room as soon as they were locked safely away from all the people who wished bad things on him. And there were probably a lot more than he was currently aware of.
He paused his pacing to toss his coat aside and empty his pockets, then walked back to Lee, who had been standing in the middle of the room, watching him with a pale face and eyes wide behind his glasses. “How bad is it really?” he asked, coming to a stop in front of Lee.
