however, was solved when I saw the flame and skull tattoo that wound up the forearm of the very hot firefighter who had just driven me to my car.
“I kissed Beau?!”
Holy shit!
“No.” I shook my head. “No, no, no, no!”
How had this happened? And why didn’t I remember any of it?
I concentrated, hard, trying to remember something, anything…but it was no use.
Maybe it was Photoshopped. Maybe this was someone’s sick game. Maybe it wasn’t me.
I clicked open the next link and saw that there were three pictures, all taken from different angles of the kiss. Outlet after outlet was reporting on it and the hook was all the same, I had been caught cheating on Drake.
“No!”
He was the bad guy. He was the cheater.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there in shock, reading headline after headline accusing me of cheating on Drake. I wanted to scream, cry, and throw up. But instead, I just sat there feeling totally numb.
When my phone rang, I jumped and almost fell out of my chair. My phone flew out of my hand and landed on the parquet floor. When I picked it up, I saw it was Hannah.
“Hel—”
“I have three ways I can spin this,” she interrupted my greeting. I’d always appreciated her no-nonsense approach. She never freaked out, not that I’d given her anything to freak out over in the eight years we’d worked together. But I’d witnessed plenty of other clients blow up their lives and she was a master at putting Humpty Dumpty back together again, no matter how many times they had a great fall.
“I don’t even remember the kiss. I was drunk. I was upset and I went to a wedding with Gam, and I was drunk.” I repeated. I didn’t know why I felt like I needed to defend myself to Hannah. She could care less whether I actually had cheated on Drake or not. She probably wouldn’t bat an eye if I’d killed someone. All she cared about was my image. I think I blurted it out because she was the first person I’d spoken to since seeing the news.
“Option one: we release a statement saying exactly what you just told me. There’s nothing wrong with going the honesty route, it’s just that I have a feeling he’ll spin it to come out looking like the victim.
“Option two: we do nothing. I have a feeling that Drake is going to make the most of this and milk it for all it’s worth. You do the opposite. Don’t talk to anyone. You remain silent for the next week. That will just fuel him to steal the spotlight even more. He’s going to do the talk show circuit and if you say nothing, by the end of the week it will be a feeding frenzy to hear what you have to say. Your name will be trending, your IMDB score will go up, and I’m sure your social media will get a significant bump of people following you to see if you say anything. Then we get you on a show to tell your side of things.
“Option three: we leak, from sources, that Drake has been cheating on you. You said you took a photo, right? We leak it. Then, you release a video on your Insta story, explaining that you were blindsided by his infidelity and you went to find comfort in the arms of an old flame.”
“Old flame? He’s not—”
“Old flame plays better than random hookup.”
“But he’s not…we didn’t…” I stopped myself. Since I didn’t remember the kiss I guess I couldn’t say with any sort of authority that we hadn’t hooked up. The thought wasn’t as horrifying as I would’ve thought it would be. The only regret I’d have if we had was that I didn’t remember it. “I don’t even know him we can’t just—”
“Beau Briggs. Thirty-two. He had a couple of hit songs. One of them stayed at number one for six weeks. He dropped off the music scene suddenly after opening for Gwen Stefani on the European leg of her tour. He cancelled a tour for his debut album, but never gave a reason publicly. There were rumors about drugs, his personal life, even that he was gay and he didn’t want people to find out. He hasn’t been heard from in ten years.”
The bottom dropped out of my stomach as I replayed our interactions today. He must think I’m some sort of psycho for behaving like nothing had happened between us.