“Have you slept at all?” she asks me.
I shake my head.
“You need to sleep, Ava.”
“I know. I just…I couldn’t.” I rub my hands over my face.
“Have you heard from Gabe since last night?”
As my mouth turns down with sadness at hearing his name, I bite the inside of my bottom lip. “No.”
“Vaughn’s on his way over there now. He just dropped me off, and he’s going to meet Tate and Julian at Gabe’s place. I know you didn’t want him to be alone, so I thought you’d want to know.”
“Thanks, Charly.”
“I saw the news…about Gabe.”
I glance at her. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t tell Bradford Digby anything.”
“I know that. God, you didn’t even tell me on the phone, and you could have because you knew the story was about to drop.”
“I would never share Gabe’s private life with anyone. I just don’t understand how this happened, Charly.” My eyes swell with tears, and I blink them back. “There’s a recording of our private conversation, which Gabe thinks I did. And a contract with my signature on the bottom, giving exclusive rights to Digby.”
“Fucking Digby,” Charly mutters. “That guy has his nose in everybody’s shit. Look what he did to Vaughn.”
Before Charly met Vaughn, he was dating this actress, Piper Watts. Vaughn, Piper, and Cain Acton—Vaughn’s best friend—were on Digby’s talk show, doing a live interview about their upcoming film. Then, Digby exposed that Piper and Cain had been having an affair behind Vaughn’s back. He was humiliated. He took it quite badly for a while, partying and hooking up with multiple women. But that was before he met Charly.
“I just don’t get it. How Digby could say that it was me when it wasn’t. And it’s not like I can call him up and say, Hey, why the hell are you spreading lies about me?”
“It fucking sucks, babe.”
“The thing I can’t get my head around is how he got a recording of our conversation or my signature on that contract.”
“Signatures can be forged,” Charly says.
“Yeah, but it was definitely my writing. I recognized it.” I sigh.
“Well, have you signed anything recently?”
I shake my head. “No…oh, wait. I did sign something the other day for Gabe’s cleaners.”
“What?”
Lifting Gucci into her arms, she shifts around on the bed, sitting Indian-style, and puts Gucci back in her lap. I move on the bed to face her.
“It was this new form. Sadie, one of the cleaners, asked me to sign it. It’s something that their boss implemented just to prove that they’ve done the work.”
“And you’d never signed one before?”
“Nope. That was the first time.”
“Hmm.” Charly taps her lip with her finger.
“What?”
“Just odd that your signature is on a contract that you definitely didn’t sign, and only a few days ago, you signed a form that you’d never had to sign before. Did you read the form?”
“Not really,” I admit.
“So, it’s possible that you signed the contract giving permission to sell Gabe’s story without realizing it.”
“You mean, Sadie? No. No way. And, anyway, it’s Digby who published the story.”
“Digby doesn’t write his own new pieces. He doesn’t need to. He has a team of trashy writers who do that for him. He’s the face, but there’s a whole slew of rats turning that wheel.”
“So, what? You think Sadie has something to do with it? But why use my name? It doesn’t make sense. And how would she have gotten a recording of our conversation? She’s only at the apartment during the day. And she’s not alone. Barb, the other cleaner, is there, too.”
“Hang on…let me think.” Charly taps her fingers on her temples.
I can almost see the wheels turning in her head.
“What’s Sadie’s surname?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s the name of the cleaning company she works for?”
“Floor-to-Ceiling Cleaning.”
“Catchy name.”
“Yeah, I thought that.”
Charly picks her cell up from the bed and starts tapping away on the screen.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting their number. I’m gonna give them a call.”
“Why?”
“To get her name, and while I’m at it, I’ll ask about that form you signed.”
“Charly, you can’t just call them up and ask that!”
“Sure I can.”
She grins and puts her cell to her ear. “Oh, hi. I was wondering if you could help me. Sure, yes, I’m in need of a new cleaner, as I had to fire my last one. She was terrible. Anyway, I was just wondering what you have in place to make sure that the cleaners do their job properly. Hmm…mmhmm. A friend of mine has a cleaner, and she has to sign off on the job to say that the cleaner has done the job to satisfaction. Do you have that? Oh, you don’t?” Charly gives me a knowing look. “Okay, that’s great. Just one more thing. A friend of mine uses your service and said there’s a woman who works for you who is such a great cleaner—Sadie…something. Black. Yes, that’s right. Oh, she has, has she? Oh, well, that is a shame. Okay, well, thank you for your time. I’ll be in touch.”
Charly lowers the phone from her ear. “Seems Sadie Black left Floor-to-Ceiling Cleaning a couple of days ago.” She taps her nails against the screen of her phone. “She had you sign a nonexistent form a few days before Gabe’s story broke, and then she quit her job. Coincidental? Me thinks not.”
“Oh my God.” My heart starts to pound in my chest. “So, what do you think? That Sadie sold the story to Digby and used my name? But why use my name? And how did she get the recording?”
Charly stares up at the ceiling, thinking. “Where did you and Gabe have the conversation when he told you all that stuff about his past?”
“At his apartment, in the living room.”
She brings her eyes back to mine, a light flickering on in them. “Maybe she bugged his apartment.”
My eyes widen. “Bugged his apartment? Doesn’t that seem a little far-fetched?”
“Maybe. But some people will do anything for a story. She could have bugged Gabe’s apartment. Gotten the recording of your conversation. And then sold the tapes to Digby.”
“But that still doesn’t explain why she used my name. She’d want the glory for herself, right?”
“Not necessarily. Because illegally recording a huge movie star’s private conversation about his personal life and then publishing it in the press would, without a doubt, lead to a huge lawsuit for whoever did it. But if his girlfriend recorded the conversation and she sold the tapes to a journalist and signed a contract to give him exclusive rights to the story of the century? It would keep the journalist’s nose clean, and he could run the story without repercussions.”
“And, if a lawsuit did happen, it would land back on the girlfriend who recorded the conversation.”
“Absolutely right.”
“Holy shit.” I press my hands to my head.
“Got to give it to Digby; it’s clever as hell. If it wasn’t so fucking deceptive and it wasn’t you and Gabe he was screwing over, I might actually be impressed.”
“I just can’t believe this.” I tug at my hair. “I can’t believe he would go so far for a story.”
“Digby’s a shark with no morals.”
“So, we get that Digby’s behind the whole thing, but where does Sadie fit into the picture?”
“She probably works for him. So-called journalists like Digby have spies everywhere.”
“That’s nuts and a lot scary.”
“It’s the life of a celebrity, I’m afraid.” She sighs, knowing all too well what it’s like for Vaughn.
“I’m going to look up Sadie online and see if I can find anything out about her.” I get my cell, bring up Google, and type in her nam
e, but all that comes up are some Facebook profiles, and none of them are her.
“Check Digby’s website. She might actually be a writer for him. He should have a roster of employees on there.”
I bring his website up. In the search bar, I type Sadie Black and press Enter, but nothing comes up.
“Check Gabe’s story. See who the writer is.”
“I don’t want to. I don’t want to see it.” I put down my phone. I’ve avoided looking at the story. The last thing I want to see is the reason Gabe and I are no longer together.
“I’ll look then. I want to know who the writer is.” Charly starts tapping on her screen. “Hmm. Weird.”
“What?” I sit up straighter.
She meets my eyes. “The person who wrote Gabe’s story is called Sandy White. Sadie Black. Sandy White. Similar or what?”
I grab the screen, looking at her name, reading it aloud, “Sandy White, writing for Digby’s Dirt. You think that Sandy could be Sadie?”
“Let’s find out.”
Charly pulls up another search engine and types in Sandy White, Digby’s Dirt.
A bunch of news stories on other celebrities fill the screen.
“Go on to Images,” I tell Charly. “See if there’s a photo of her.”
Charly clicks on Images. A bunch of pictures of different celebrities come up that link to the stories that this Sandy White has written.
Charly scrolls through the pictures, and one catches my eye.
“There. Stop.” I tap on the picture, enlarging it. My heart is hammering in my chest. “That’s her. That’s Sadie.” I jab my finger at the picture.
She’s dressed up, her hair down and curled, looking really glam. Different to how I saw her in her cleaning uniform, but it’s definitely her.
“Chat show host Bradford Digby, actor Chester Handel, and journalist Sandy White at the 2016 Teen Choice Awards,” Charly reads the text beneath the picture.
“Sadie is Sandy.” I cover my mouth with my hands, getting to my feet in disbelief. “I can’t believe that she did this. That Sadie or Sandy or whatever the hell you call her and Digby did this to me! What am I going to do?”
Charly looks up at me. “You have to tell Gabe.”
“He won’t listen to me, Charly.” I shake my head. “Right now, I’m the last person he wants to see.”
“Then, I’ll tell him,” she announces.
“What?” I say, surprised.
“Yeah. I’ll go see him. I’ll tell Gabe what we know about Digby and Sandy, the cleaner formerly known as Sadie.”
“Charly…I really don’t want to put you in the middle of this. Vaughn is Gabe’s friend. I don’t want to cause problems between you guys.”
She takes my hands in hers. “You’re not causing any problems. That fucker Digby and his bitch sidekick caused problems when they did this to you and Gabe. Ava, you’re my friend, and I help my friends. Hos before bros every time, right?”
She grins, and I force a smile.
“Every single time,” I say as I give her hands a squeeze.
Gabe
“Gabe.”
I hear the distant sound of Tate’s voice, and then a hand shakes my shoulder.
“What? Fuck off. I’m sleeping,” I mumble, rolling away, laying my arm over my eyes.
“Gabe, get the fuck up.” That’s Julian’s voice.
I drag my arm off my face and blink wearily against the morning light.
As I look up, I see the faces of Tate, Julian, and Vaughn.
“Ugh. Jesus. What the fuck do you three want?” I roll onto my side, away from them, facing the back of the sofa. “And how the hell did you get into my apartment?”
“I have a key, remember?” Tate says.
Someone sits on the sofa by my legs.
I open an eye and see it’s Tate.
The look on his face. It looks a lot like disappointment. And it cuts right through me.
He knows. They all know.
Of course they do. It has to be all over the news by now.
GABRIEL EVANS, EX-GIGOLO AND SON OF MURDERERS
What a fucking headline. I bet the press has been pissing themselves with excitement.
I pull my anger on and wear it like a protective shield. “Don’t look at me like that, Tate.”
“I’m not looking at you like anything.”
“The hell you are.” I sit up, resting my back against the arm of the sofa, bending my knees up so that I can rest my elbows on them, and I scrub my hands over my face. “I don’t need your judgment right now, so if that’s what you all came here for, then you know where the door is.”
“We’re not here to judge you.” Julian sits on the coffee table across from me. He pulls a pack of smokes from his pocket. Gets two out. Lights one up and passes it to me, and then lights one for himself.
“Gabe, we’re here because we’re your friends, and we wanted to make sure you were okay,” Vaughn says from his spot where he’s standing, leaning against the window.
Right where I was standing last night when I got the call that changed everything.
“Or did you just come to look at the freak?”
“Gabe…” Tate’s voice is a warning.
I spot a quart of vodka left in the bottle I started on last night. I reach down and grab it from the floor. The cap’s already off, so I take a good drink.
When I’m finished, three sets of eyes are watching me.
“What?” I put my cigarette in my mouth.
“Should you be drinking right now?” Vaughn says.
“I think drinking is exactly what I should be doing right now.”
“Gabe, speaking from experience, drinking yourself into a coma isn’t going to help anything,” Julian says.
“Advice from the ex-junkie. Just what I need.” I roll my eyes and then drain the vodka before tossing the bottle to the floor.
Julian doesn’t react. But, still, I feel like a jackass. But I’m too far gone in my own pain to feel anything of real substance right now, so the emotion is gone before it can turn into guilt.
Julian takes a drag of his smoke and flicks the ash into the ashtray. “I’m gonna pretend like you didn’t just say that because I know what it’s like to be in pain and want to dull it with the nearest substance. And you were the only one who was there for me when I needed help. So, you get a free pass, Gabe. You get as many free passes as you need.”
“I don’t need free passes. What I need is to be left the fuck alone.”
“Yeah, not happening,” Tate says, settling back onto the sofa.
“Fine. Then, I’ll fucking go out.” I stub my smoke out and get to my feet.
“Yeah, you’re not gonna want to go out there.” Vaughn thumbs over his shoulder. “The paps are out in full force up front. We had to sneak in through the parking garage. And, from the looks of you, you’re not in any fit state to drive.” He gestures to the empty liquor bottles littering the coffee table.
I drive my fingers into my hair, feeling frustrated and trapped. “For fuck’s sake!” I yell. Then, I pick up one of the empty bottles and throw it against the wall. It shatters, shards of glass scattering everywhere.
The silence around me is deafening.
“You feel better?” Julian’s voice is low behind me.
“No, I don’t fucking feel better!” I whirl on him.
And then all I can see are their faces staring at me. Judging me. As if they know what it’s like to be me.
They don’t know jack shit about my life!
My head starts to pound like a drum. My blood is hot with anger.
“How the fuck am I supposed to feel right now?” I yell. “Everyone fucking knows! And then you three are here, fucking judging me! And I don’t need it! None of you knows how hard it was for me back then! I did what I had to do! And it was my business!” I pound my fist against my chest. “My private fucking business. And I trusted her, and now, everyone knows! She sold me out! She fucking…sold me out.” My vo
ice drops to a whisper. My legs give out on me. I sink to the floor. I put my head in my hands and squeeze my eyes shut. “I fucking loved her, and she sold me out.”
“Jesus, Gabe.” Tate is at my side, his arm around me. “I’m so sorry.”
I lift my head from my hands and stare at him. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m the one who’s sorry. I know this is going to come back on you, embarrass you.”
“You think I give a flying fuck about what people think?”
“I think you’re a kids’ doctor who comes from a pair of murdering drug dealers, and your brother used to let women fuck him for money.”
“Stop thinking about how this affects me, Gabe. You don’t need to worry about me. This is about you. You’re what matters right now. I want to help you. Let me help.”
“I don’t need help. I’ll be fine.” I get to my feet, leaving him sitting there.
“You need to stop this.” Tate gets to his feet.
“Stop what?”
“Acting like I’m still fucking twelve years old. I’m a grown man, and I don’t need you shielding me from shit, Gabe. You should have told me the truth.”
I laugh without humor. “What was I supposed to say? Hey, Tate, remember when Mom and Dad were arrested, and we were on our own, so we moved out here, but I was struggling to make ends meet? Well, I started screwing women for money, so I could pay the rent.”
He shakes his head. “I could’ve helped.”
“You were a fucking kid, who just had his whole world turned upside down.”
“So were you!” he yells, frustrated.
“I’m your older brother.” I slam my hand against my chest. “It was my responsibility to take care of you. I did what I had to do. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
He’s staring at me with a mixture of guilt and anger and frustration in his eyes. He looks so much like me right now that it’s terrifying.
I grab my smokes and light another one up. Staring up at the wall, I take a drag and blow out the smoke.
“Have you thought about how you’re going to handle this?” Vaughn says.
I turn my head and look over at him. “I’m not going to do jack shit.”
“They won’t let this go,” Vaughn says, like I don’t already know.