Let Me Be the One (17 page)

“Holy shit,” Jason whispered. “Well, it can’t be them. It’s got to be fake.” He clicked through.

Brian closed his eyes. He pushed away from the desk. That bitch on TV said she wasn’t surprised. Boy, was she going to be surprised when she got slapped with a lawsuit for that stupid remark. The image of Suzi and Logan imprinted itself on the backs of his eyelids.

“Jesus, would you look at the number of downloads,” Ty said.

A phone started to ring. Marc answered, so Brian assumed it was his.

“We just heard,” Marc said. “It looks like somebody filmed them having sex in the back of a limo, but it could be fake. Oh.”

Marc’s “oh” lingered in the air. Ty kept running his fingers through his hair as if the motion would help order his thoughts. Brian tried to cope with the fact that, even with his eyes closed, he could see that picture. He also remembered Suzi the last time he saw her. She’d been at one of Sandy’s backyard parties. Smiling and laughing. The joy in her eyes like bottled sunshine.

“I don’t believe it,” Bear snarled. Brian focused on his friend. Bear’s face was dark red and a vein throbbed at his temple. “It’s fake.”

Brian slouched against the window frame, mind blank. There was nothing to think. Nothing to cover what had happened to the sweet, innocent girl who’d come to dinner the first night with a bottle of wine, wearing a knee-length skirt and a turtleneck. Who had gone barefoot most of the time Savitar was in West Virginia. Suzi didn’t want to be the center of attention. She preferred to sit at home and write her stories.

“Candy says it was them. They were at a movie thing for one of her friends last night, and they were wearing the same clothes as in the video.” Marc shook his head.

“How could they fucking let this happen?” Bear paced across the room. “Didn’t anyone check out the limo company? You don’t think Logan did it on purpose, do you? You can’t see him as well as you can see her. Naw, he wouldn’t do that.” Bear started chewing his fingernails. “Do you suppose someone at their office was in on it?”

“Why would they do that?” Ty asked.

“To break them up. What better way? She’ll be so upset she won’t ever want to see him again. Sons of bitches.” Bear stalked into the hall, ranting.

“You don’t think Logan did it, do you?” Jason’s face was white and rigid. “He’s terrified of losing her. She won’t want to be without his protection and his lawyers now.”

“Unless she left him already,” Ty said.

“I gotta call her.” Brian snatched his phone off the dresser and found her number.

“Good idea. We need to talk to them.”

Them, yes, talk to them. Both of them. It rang and rang until it went to voicemail. He shook his head as he redialed. Jason stomped out of the room. Ty, Rudy, and Marc leaned over the computer. Brian caught snatches of their conversation through the ringing, but none of it made sense. Bear stomped up and down the hall cursing.

Jason walked back into the room with his cell to his ear. “Logan? It’s Jason. We just heard.” Jason stopped as if he didn’t know what to say beyond that.

Brian tossed his phone back on the dresser. Ty danced around Jason as if he wanted to climb through the phone.

“What’s your plan?” Jason asked.

Brian folded his arms. Logan was a guy. He was probably thrilled the world got to see him boning his hot girlfriend. Who cared what his fucking plan was?

“And Suzi…? No, I don’t need to… Here, she can talk to Ty.” Jason thrust the phone into Ty’s hands like a hot potato.

“Hello?” Ty paused. “Hello? Suzi? How are you?”

Brian sidled closer, not sure what would be worse, talking to her or not talking to her.

Jason sat down on the bed. “Logan said they’ve shut down the website, and they’re suing everyone and their brother.”

Ty frowned as if he was trying to do trigonometry in his head. From the sound of his questions, he was getting very short, direct answers. Not at all the chatty Suzi they knew.

“What about Suzi?” Marc asked.

“Logan said she went into shock. They had a doctor come look at her.”

“A doctor?” Brian asked. Now, it did feel like someone had reached into his chest and ripped out his heart. Poor Suzi.

“Logan said she was catatonic when he told her. She threw up, and then she wouldn’t move. Doctor said she was acting like she’d been raped.”

Rudy crossed himself.

“Brian’s here. Did you want to talk to him?” Ty shoved the phone at Brian.

Brian grabbed it before Ty dropped it. “Hello Suzi?”

“Hello.”

What did you say to someone who felt like they’d been raped? “You need anything?”

“No.” Her voice was thin and distant. She almost sounded stoned. Had they drugged her?

“You know if you need anything, you can just ask.”

Ty walked out of the room.

“I don’t think that will be necessary.”

“Well…” He glanced at Jason, trying to figure out what to say, but Jason backed away as if he thought Brian was going to hand him the phone. “At least it’s off the Internet now. Not many copies could have gotten out, right?”

“It’s a download. All the pirating sites Jim checked have it.”

Whoever Jim was. Savitar’s head of security? “Yes, but you can get that pulled down.”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“What d’ya mean?” He heard the soft, wet sound of her licking her lips and then a sigh. She liked being smart. Fortunately, he’d never minded having things explained to him. He knew how Internet pirating worked, but if it made her feel better, he’d listen. As long as she was talking and sounding like herself, she could talk about anything she wanted.

“As long as one person has the file on their computer, they can just post it as another torrent. It’s the head of the hydra. We cut off one, and two more sprout.” Her voice was sounding warmer, more like her.

He sat down on his bed beside Jason. “So as long as somebody has it, anybody could get it.”

Jason snarled at him.

“Yeah,” Suzi muttered, sounding at least fifty percent normal. “Though I can’t understand why.”

She wouldn’t. Unfortunately, Brian was stuck between wanting to see how beautiful she was when she made love and sick over the fact that weirdoes were spying on her for their jollies. “People are nosy. Your publishers are probably loving this.”

“They’re in shock.”

“But it’s good advertising.”

“Good is relative.”

“Didn’t you say all advertising was good advertising? Scandal, death, all that stuff is good for sales.”

Jason buried his face in his hands, obviously certain that Brian had lost it.

“I don’t think it was as bad as that.”

“It’s relative,” he said.

She almost laughed.

“Candy said you were at a movie. Was it any good?”

“It was wonderful, but I’m required to say that because a friend of mine is in it. Logan fell asleep.”

“He fell asleep?”

“At least he doesn’t snore. It was a period piece. Not his thing.”

“We were just about to watch a movie.”

“I’m sure Logan would rather have seen the movie you guys are watching than the one we saw. I liked it, though.”

“You like Keats.”

“I love Keats.” He thought she might be up to ninety percent normal. Now, she mostly sounded tired. “Did you get my email?”

“I haven’t looked today.”

“I sent you a story yesterday.”

“It’s not romance, is it? You keep trying to trick me into reading romance.”

“You’d like my romance.”

“I don’t read romance.”

“Fine. It’s not romance.”

Now she sounded like the girl he adored. “Good. I need new reading material. I’m in the middle of a divorce, and I’m depressed. I need something creepy to cheer me up.”

“You’re depressed? My life just went through a blender,” she grumbled playfully.

“You know if you need something, you just have to ask. We’re in—where are we?” he asked Jason. Jason shrugged. “We’re on tour, but if you need anything.… Have you talked to Tessa?”

“Jason’s sister? She called not long before you did.”

“See, the Touchstone machine is already working for you.”

She laughed. The genuine, lovely Suzi laugh. “Did you want to talk to Logan?”

“Sure.” Brian didn’t want to talk to Logan, but couldn’t think of a delicate way to escape it. “Just remember. If you need us, just call. I mean it.”

“I know. Something about you and oxygen, right? Here’s Logan.”

Brian grinned. She remembered that comment about him being her oxygen. Good. If things ever did go south between her and that idiot who couldn’t manage to protect her, he’d be right at the front of the line.

“Hi Brian,” Logan said. A door closed on his end of the phone.

“You talked to Tessa?”

“She was doing her fire-breathing lawyer thing. I’m glad I’m not on the wrong side of her. I heard you ask about sales. We’ve both had an uptick. Suzi’s been out of it, so I’ve been talking to people. Shitty way to make sales.” Logan’s misery leaked through the phone, making Brian feel bad for him, too. No way had Logan rigged this. “Hey, thanks for talking her down.”

Making a phone call in the middle of a crisis? A buck or so. Getting to be the guy who talked her out of shock? Priceless. “S’nothin’. She’s all right then?”

“She comes and goes. Sometimes, she’s just like normal, and then five minutes later she’s wigged out again. I thought she was going to have a nervous breakdown when I told her.”

“But you stopped the guy who did it.”

“We shut down the site, but the jackass is still out there. He didn’t get away with a big payday because it immediately got pirated, so we figure he’ll pop up again. When he does, our security guy wants to crucify him live on network television at prime time, but I think we’re going to have to settle for a civil suit.”

“Maybe we can catch him in a dark alley.”

“Yeah, you can hold him for me.” Logan paused, and Brian could hear the other man cracking his knuckles through the phone. Logan was a lot more freaked out about the whole thing than he was playing at. “I can’t believe she didn’t leave me. I can’t believe some dickwad taped us. And seriously, it was just a spur of the moment thing. We never do stuff like that. What the fuck is next?”

“If I were you, I’d just be careful.” Brian clenched his teeth.
Logan better fucking be careful. Suzi couldn’t take too much of this shit.

“Yeah. That’s at the top of the list.”

“You’ll have to start paying a lot more attention to one another. You’re all you’ve got out there.” Brian was starting to feel like Logan’s dad.

“Yeah. I’m thinking about moving back to Rochester. LA is such a fucking fish bowl.”

Brian swallowed against tightness in his throat. If they moved to New York, he’d never have a chance to see Suzi. They couldn’t meet up for coffee or go catch a movie like they had been. “You could do that. You know, we’re going to England to record in a few months. You guys will be on the road by then. She could come along with us.”

“Yeah, maybe. I’ll ask her. Thanks for calling. We’ll keep you posted.”

“Talk to you then.” He hung up.

“She’s all right?” Rudy asked.

“Logan says she has good times and bad ones. I think she’ll be fine with time. Logan is thinking about moving to Rochester.”

“Might not be a bad idea,” Jason said. “I know I feel a lot more relaxed in WVA. Everybody in Potterville is looking, but they aren’t staring the same way. You know what? I bet a nice little getaway would be good for them. Suzi would love to go back to my place out there.” Jason grabbed his phone and walked out dialing. Marc followed him.

Brian sat on his bed. Meeting up with her all the time in LA was excruciating, anyway. If she was on the other side of the country, he could limit his pain to a couple times a year.

Present

Logan stopped outside the office door and took a deep breath. Picking a therapist out of the phone book was starting to sound stupid. Suzi would have researched it. Asked around for recommendations. Studied credentials. She was going to ask him how he picked his therapist, and he was going to have to tell her he found the name in the phone book. No wonder she thought he was an idiot. Maybe he should scratch this and start over. Do it right.

But it had taken two weeks to get this appointment, and he was going to WVA in a month. If he didn’t show up with some serious therapy under his belt, Jason and Cassie were never going to let him near Suzi. They would kick his ass all the way back to New York and fix her up with some nice guy who wasn’t going to break her heart on a routine basis.

That might not be such a bad thing. Suzi didn’t deserve all the shit he put her though.

Logan opened the door before he chickened out. The reception room was small with soft beige furniture and a coffee table fanned with magazines. The receptionist smiled. “Mr. Fitzpatrick? Good afternoon. Dr. Kennedy will be with you in a minute. Would you like something to drink while you wait?”

“No thanks.” Logan sank into a chair. Her desk didn’t have a panel across the front so he had a perfect sightline under it. Her skirt rode up to mid-thigh, and great thighs they were. She either jogged or spent a lot of time in a gym to get those gams. No stockings. Stockings had their appeal, but the idea of her long, bare legs was pretty fucking appealing, too. She wore standard high-heeled pumps, black, but she only had on one. Her legs were crossed and she was dangling the other shoe from her toes. Nice toes, too. Purple polish. Good feet, nice arches, soft heels. Suzi had hard heels because she was barefoot most of the time. She buffed them to keep them from being scratchy, but they were still tough.

Suzi. Jesus, he was sitting in a therapist’s office to save his relationship with Suzi and was checking out the receptionist.

Logan slouched to the other side of the chair so the arm of the couch blocked his view under the desk. He should have brought something to read. Some save-the-world shit about feeding starving kids or housing the homeless. Something that would impress the therapist so she’d help him get Suzi back.

A door opened at the side of the office. A woman came out, sniffling, and walked by without acknowledging him or the receptionist. Logan leaned his elbows on his knees. He’d written a lot of new material since he’d sobered up. The record company had been real flexible about them delaying their album. Toby thought they were looking for a reason to break the contract.