She’d been kept from testifying at the first trial. Hell, she didn’t even know Diesel had gone to jail, and she was furious when she found out. Her testimony this time around changed everything.
For one, it showed that David was a lying sack of shit, and proved Diesel’s story from his first trail. When the judge listened to René recounting story after story about Diesel treating her and Toby’s bruises and about how he stepped in to save them that day he beat the shit out of David, it was all over.
Diesel received a full pardon for his past sentence, and David quickly found himself in some serious, serious shit. The kind of shit not even his money could buy him out of. It also wasn’t long before Danny’s whole story fell apart like wet paper, and pretty soon, he found himself sitting in a courtroom as well.
Fuckers.
After that though, we were free. And after that? Well, I saw what I wanted in life. I saw what was important and what was just filling up my time.
I dropped movies, entirely. They were never my thing, and the only reason I’d ever been stuck into the roles I was in was to get my image out there and sell more records. And if we’re being honest, I was never that good at it. I also took a hard look at what I was being paid to sell in commercials, and I cleaned house. No, I didn’t need to be selling wildly age-inappropriate skirts to impressionable young girls. I didn’t need to be in a commercial selling non-smudge lipstick that included a thinly veiled hint at it not coming off while giving head.
…I mean seriously, how had I ever signed on for any of this shit?
Instead, I reached out to charities. I got my face and my “celebrity” status attached to things that mattered, and causes that needed it. And I’ve never felt more free.
And at the end of the day, it was Diesel who got me back into my first real passion — the love that’d started all of this: singing. He got me back to my roots, and back to what I really wanted to be doing. Not the sugar-pop crap I’d been putting out, either. No, I knuckled down and started writing my own songs again, my way, and in my style. Actually, my first “real” album comes out in a week. And who knows. Maybe it flops, but whatever happens, it’s me. It’s real. And just about every damn song on the thing is about him.
What can I say about the gruff, rough, wild, amazing, gorgeous, sexy man who I stumbled into? Well, he’s been amazing through all of my transitions, I can say that. He was there for me every step of the way, through every obnoxious question on every stupid talk show I had to go on. He even came on some of them with me.
Oh, and that brings me to my favorite part of all of this: the fact that Diesel got a modeling contract out of all of this.
No, really.
It was after one of the talk shows we did together, where he held my hand and politely but gruffly answered the annoying questions from the host about our ages and his history. He was adamantly against it when the talent agency reached out, but eventually, I convinced him to give them a shot. Well, me and his buddies from Sofa King Movers, Kane, Levi, Nash, and Bryce. Apparently, this model agency was looking for “rough and untamed,” and damn if my man doesn’t fit that to the letter.
And all of that is to say, there’s now a thirty-foot by sixty-foot ad for a jean brand of Diesel, shirtless, sitting on a motorcycle, in the middle of Times Square, New York.
And I’m tickled by it.
So that’s life for us now. It’s quieter, in a way, but somehow fuller now that we’ve got each other. Diesel prefers to still work for Kane at Sofa King Movers. It’s not like we need the money, but I know doing a tough job and seeing it through is something that makes him whole, and I respect that.
He moved in with me the day after the impromptu driveway photoshoot. Needless to say, we’ve definitely fixed the “sight lines” on the property, because those outdoor chairs out by the fire pit?
Well, they see a lot of action, let me tell you.