Page 35 of A Crazy Kind of Love
“You’re as bad as Andy. I’m not going to exploit this friendship.”
He shrugged. “Then find out when she’s going to see Adrianna again, and get her to invite me along.”
“What is it with you? It’s like you’ve got a crush.”
His eyes grew wide. “I know! I’m starting to wonder if I’m bi after all.”
“I think you’re just infatuated. She’s pretty impressive.” I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “But you’d have beautiful babies.”
I scanned Eden’s email once more. “That’s odd. She uses the same excuse as Andy did for us to meet.”
“Whatdya mean?”
“Andy said that I should befriend Eden while Adam’s away. And then get dirt on her.”
“You’re not planning to, are you?”
“No, I wasn’t. But now Eden’s saying that she’s bored while Adam’s away. It’s weird. You don’t think she’s trying to befriend me for some reverse espionage?”
“To get dirt on Andy? Who would even care?”
“No, I mean, maybe there’s more to her apparent friendship than meets the eye. She’s got a vendetta against Andy. How could she use a friendship with one of his employees?”
Zion shrugged. “To feed him bullshit stories?”
I chewed on my thumbnail. “You don’t think she’d use me that way, do you?”
“I dunno. Does she think you’d use her that way?”
That was a great question. How could either of us trust the nature of this tentative friendship?
Chapter 12
Look at this interview my daughter published.Josie Wilder!
I woke up to the notification ding that followed my mom’s weird reposting of the article on Facebook. Zion had correctly predicted it would show on the front page of our website even if it was only a teaser with a link to the entertainment section. He’d incorrectly predicted that Andy would take credit. But when I saw the headline, I wished he had.
“Creatively Bankrupt L.L. Stylez Lashes Out at Music Industry.”
The picture centered below the headline showed L.L. at his worst. The burst feature on the camera will capture every change in expression. Some flatter the subject, while others . . . not so much. The one printed in the paper caught L.L. with an expression that could be described as entitled. His frown, combined with a curl of the nose like he’d smelled something rotten, gave the impression he merely condescended to share the sidewalk with the handler who, unfortunately, appeared harried to L.L.’s left.
Had I misjudged the entire situation, or had Andy found a way to pull a story out of thin air?
I scrolled through my photos, wishing I’d taken video. When L.L. had talked to me, his face had looked beatific. But distracted on the street, under the fire of a paparazzo, he came off frustrated. Still, there were pictures Andy could have used to put L.L. in a better light, and he’d chosen not to. And my name stared out at me in black-and-white.
Here was my moment in the sun—a front page headline. Not just for an opportune picture, but with news. Something relevant for a day. And I felt a cold finger down my spine. This article was ugly and unfair. But I knew Andy’s version would generate more clicks and bring in more ad revenue.
As Zion and I rode the train in to work together, I asked him, “What should I do about this?”
He leveled a shut-up-with-your-first-world-problems stink eye at me. “You got on the front page! That’s awesome.”
But I felt like I needed to tell Andy I wasn’t comfortable with his changes. On the other hand, he already saw me as weak. So I went into the office and suffered through the “Huzzah!” from my coworkers as I walked through the door. I pantomimed a modestly proud response, waving and ducking my head until I got to my desk.
Andy’s mood was uncharacteristically upbeat. He didn’t criticize me at all and even complimented me on the solid interview. I bit my tongue and swallowed down my discomfort with his sketchy tactics. But for the first time in days, he didn’t ask me anything about Eden or Micah. I hadn’t told him Zion and I would be seeing Micah at his show later that night. I didn’t question the silence or poke the sleeping bear.
After about an hour, my Twitter stalking paid off, and I got a tip that Chris Hemsworth was walking around Greenwich Village, heading toward Washington Square Park.
In order to avoid raising suspicion, I slunk out of the office and then high-tailed it uptown to the park, where a crowd had gathered. I grabbed my camera and ran over.
