Somewhere Only We Know(68)

When I reached the office for Rumours, the lights in the lobby were harsh and cold. The security guard let me pass to the elevators.

It stopped on the twenty-eighth floor and the office actually had people in it even though it was past midnight. The celebrity news cycle was real. I walked by cubicles filled with people working late shifts and filing last-minute stories. They barely glanced up as I passed by. One of these cubicles might be mine after tonight.

The thought wasn’t reassuring.

I rapped on the open door to Trevor’s office, a spacious one with floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of the entire city. It was lit up in rainbow behind the glass, dreamy-looking in the fog. I could barely stand to look at it.

Trevor waved me in. He was on the phone, lounging on a black leather sofa, his expensive sneakers propped up on a glass-topped coffee table. Trevor always had the best shoes and I had admired them. He was in his late twenties, exercised like a fiend, was always on some paleo diet, and had a vintage pinball machine in his office. Trevor was kind of millennial goals.

I stood there awkwardly for a few seconds while he wrapped up the call.

“Hey! Jack!” he finally said after he tossed the phone onto the sofa, bouncing off of it in one agile swoop. “Word on the street is Lucky’s back with her people safe and sound. Tell me you got something.”

“I did,” I said, holding up my phone. “I’ve been with her for the past twenty-four hours.”

He whistled. “Wow, that lady-killer face of yours does a lot of good for us, huh?”

I smiled uncomfortably. “Well, she found out. So. She hates me now.”

There was no sympathy from Trevor. His finely sculpted shoulders shrugged in his expensive sweater. “Tough luck. But you got the story, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You did good. Maybe I’ll even let you write this one.”

I looked at him sharply. “What?”

He pulled his laptop over to the coffee table and motioned for me to sit next to him on the sofa. “You were the guy she spent the whole day with, hopefully spilled her guts to. You should be the person who writes this scathing profile, no?”

I sat down. “Scathing?”

“Of course. That’s what’s going to get us global attention.” He tapped on his keyboard, not looking at me. “She’s supposed to be this angelic girl-next-door, beloved by her fans. The South Korean president confesses to being a fan, too! She performed at his daughter’s twelfth birthday party!” He turned the laptop around and I saw a photo of her posing with a preteen girl in braces, both of them making peace signs.

“So, let’s see the photos.” He held his hand out. I handed my phone to him after a second’s hesitation. He plugged it into his computer and the photos populated the screen.

One by one, my day with Lucky was laid out in a tidy grid. Photos of her eating, of her looking, of her doing. Her face gilded by sunlight, mysterious in shadow. Happy, contemplative, curious. Each one twisted the knot in my chest.

“Oh, look at that one,” Trevor said as he jabbed at the one of her leaning over the edge of the Peak, her hair fluttering in the wind, her face tilted up toward the sun. She looked so happy.

“She looks hot. That’s an ass shot.”

My blood ran cold. “You’re not using that one,” I clipped out, barely keeping my anger in check.

Trevor made a face. “What? Why not? And also, you have no say in what we use or don’t use.”

“Isn’t this my story?” I kept my voice measured, even as an icy fury gathered inside of me.

Trevor kept scrolling through the photos. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. Let’s see what you got out of romancing this bitch.”

Right.

I yanked my phone from the cable and the photos disappeared from the screen.

“What are you doing?” Trevor looked at me in shock.

I stood up, shaking slightly. “You’re not getting these photos. Or the story. Or anything from me. Ever again.”

Trevor laughed. “Excuse me?”

Lucky deserved better than this. Her words echoed in my head: You’re too terrified to try anything.

She was right. I had taken this path because it was easy. It was safe. The work kept me at a distance from caring about anything. I let my fear of becoming like my dad keep me from figuring out who I wanted to become.

For the first time in my entire life, I saw things so clearly.

When I walked out of his office, I heard Trevor yelling behind me—that I’d never get work at any tabloid again, that I was through in Hong Kong media.

I kept walking.

Out of this office.

Down the elevators.

Through the lobby.

Into the Hong Kong night.





SUNDAY





CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN


LUCKY


When I landed at LAX Sunday morning, the fans were waiting for me. They had been anticipating this for months. The Later Tonight Show was a red-letter date with its own countdown on my official website.

I was wearing sunglasses along with a baseball cap. Sunglasses to hide the fact that, despite being bone tired, I hadn’t been able to sleep on my flight over. And the pink wig was back on.

As expected, I had gotten chewed out by Joseph when I got back to my hotel in Hong Kong.