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Ella swirled the straw in her smoothie cup, unable to stop fidgeting. She had torn the team apart, and now it was time to tell Tara, who was always an advocate of the Ella–Jay dynamic duo.
“You’re ruining your smoothie,” Tara offered. “It’s already a soupy mess. Consistency is half the battle.”
Exactly. Consistency. And that was Tara—consistent. She’d always been there with the truth whenever Ella needed to hear it, never wavering, even if the delivery hurt. But that was one of the reasons why Ella appreciated Tara’s insight. She would tell Ella if firing Jay was the wrong move.
“Jay met with the FBI today.” Ella stilled her straw. “Then he sort of… crossed the line.” His attitude problem had to be jealousy based. Everything had been fine until Bishop showed up.
“I did too,” Tara offered.
“Oh. Good.” Everyone played a part in nailing the bastard that was screwing with her. Didn’t Jay see that? Each person was part of the team, playing their role. “But with Jay… he’s got a problem with Bishop.”
“No shit, chickadee.”
Ella’s eyes bugged. “Well, if you know that—”
“Honey, the whole world knows that. I’m surprised even fans aren’t commenting on that.” She smirked. “Well, if Bishop would ever go on video, they would.”
“That’s not his role in all of this.”
“And what is his role?” Tara sucked on the straw, tilting her head, waiting for gossip.
“I fired Jay.”
The straw fell off Tara’s bottom lip as it dropped. “You didwhat?”
“He asked if I was sleeping with Bishop.”
“Well…” Tara’s cheeks blushed. “I kinda did too. Are you going to fire me?”
“He did it in an angry way. Like he threw it in my face and yelled it a few times.”
Tara pulled the straw back into her mouth. “Well, shit. When did that happen?”
“Right after his meeting with my agent.”
Tara sipped the smoothie then chewed on the straw. “Hmmm. How about that shit?”
“I wanted to let you know, so that, I don’t know. This is awkward. I just thought you should know.”
“It’s not awkward. Bishop’s hot. You’re single. I get it.”
Ella blushed. “I always thought you wanted me back with Jay.”
“No.” She put her cup down. “You and Jay are ratings gold. When you two do a video, it’s like whoa.” Tara tossed jazz hands. “I’m a ratings whore. You know that.”
“You’re not pissed?” Ella asked.
“God… fuck me sideways. You’re going to fire me, anyway. Let’s get it over with now.”
“What?”
“When you two first broke up, Jay asked me if I could help play matchmaker in getting you guys back together.”
Ella blinked. “Meaning what?”
“You had some red-carpet event you were going to, and he wanted to escort you. You’d had some nutso fan letters within the couple weeks before that event. So… he wrote one up, and I let you see it.”
“Tara!”