“Your eye is fucked up.”
“Oh, yeah, it happens when I blow too hard.” His chuckle does everything but ease my worry.
“Look, if there’s somewhere—”
“Don’t judge,” he snaps, “‘lest ye be judged,’ or some shit like that.”
“All right, man, all right.”
“Lighten up and be a fucking teenager,” he says, running his knuckles over my scalp. “You’ve still got a few days left.”
“I’ll try.”
Eyes glazed he grins over at me as I drag him through our living room. “I’m going to take you to TCL and then we’re going to get piss drunk.”
“What’s TCL?”
“God, you’re clueless. It’s like having a kid brother,” he says, hugging my neck tighter while his head wobbles as if he’s lost control of his motor function. “We’re going to pick out our star plots, my man, have a five-star dinner on me, and then we’re going to call Gina Juice over to service your birthday needs.”
“Gina Juice?”
“You won’t be questioning that name the minute her lips land on your cock, bro.”
“I’ll pass,” I say, tossing him into his bed. “All right, man, need anything?”
“I’m good.” He nods repeatedly, a
nd I decide to leave his door open to keep an eye on him. I’m halfway out when he speaks again. “I have it on good authority that good things are coming our way.”
“Yeah?”
He swallows, keeping his head forward. “Yeah. Night, man.”
“Morning, Blake,” I say with a chuckle, slapping my palm on the frame of his door before I leave him.
I spent my twentieth birthday alone at a bar down the street from our apartment while Blake holed up in his bedroom for the next week. He claimed he had the flu. Thinking back, I didn’t hear him cough or sneeze once. We hadn’t bothered buying another TV since we pawned our last one, so the apartment was eerily quiet. I spent a lot of my time reading then, and I can still remember the tick of the black plastic clock above our kitchen sink. The minute he emerged from his bedroom freshly showered, he’d made good on his promise, and we dined like kings before strolling down the walk of fame and picking out a spot for our stars. I’d passed a second time on Gina Juice. That name alone had my balls shriveling. At the premieres and after parties, everything seemed fine. No one had issues. Smiles were wide. None of it made any sense.
I suppose I should be grateful I haven’t been mentioned in any of the tabloids other than the norm, but I can’t even bring myself to care. Tossing my tablet on the table, I lean back in my chair wracking my brain for any hint in past conversations, any clue as to what happened as Mila walks into the kitchen to start some coffee. I have industry relationships with two of the women who’ve come forward and mentioned his name, and I shoot off a text to my assistant, Nova, to set up meetings with either if they’ll see me. I’m resigned to figure out what in the hell Blake has to do with any of it before the press does.
Minutes of silence pass as Mila busies herself with her morning routine. It’s only when she sets some juice in front of me and runs her fingers through my hair that I relax a little. Catching my gaze, she gives me a hesitant look.
“What is it?”
It’s pointless to tell her the media lies because she knows they do. It’s pointless to reveal that I knew he was guilty, but I wasn’t sure of what. How could I have been so fucking passive? The more I think back, the more I realize just how much got swept under the rug. I was just as guilty of playing blind to his demons and only reacting to his outbursts. It was all suspect, the late-night calls that had him bounding out the door when we roomed together, the whispers in the hallways of the parties we attended. And the fighting. Blake was a ticking time bomb during those early days. What in the hell was he doing at all those parties? And why hadn’t I ever come out and asked?
Mila slides a chair back and sits directly in front of me, in wait. She’s just as eager for answers.
“I don’t know what he’s buried with. I don’t know, Mila.”
She eyes my tablet with the latest article. “You mean those women?”
“None of them have implicated him. They just keep saying he was there.”
She wraps her hands around her coffee cup. “Maybe they blame him for not putting a stop to it?”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Amanda doesn’t either and she’s just as confused.” Her voice has a chilled edge to it. She sees my guilt and gives me a pointed look. “You don’t think he…” She widens her eyes, so I catch her meaning.