Page 219

The front page article is outrageous. From the first word, Stephanie May is slammed with a pile of receipts that claim she not only lied about her age – by a decade! – but that she was previously married to a man fifty years her senior and had one kid by him. A son. That she hasn’t talked to since she bailed on him five years ago.

Both Eve and I whistle.

There isn’t a kind word about her. Between the lies and the shitty, neglectful mom angle, it’s safe to say that Stephanie is having one of the worst days of her life. She’s reportedly been dropped by half her promotional contracts and a big director who was scouting her has now decided to go with another up-and-coming actress.

Ouch. Inside, though, I’m howling in laughter.

This must be Carolyn’s work. My hunch that she hired a private investigator must have been a good one because this is the kind of dirt only a real pro outside of the tabloids could have dug up. Stephanie’s career is ruined. Donovan Mathison is mentioned once as her current love interest, with the paper further slamming Stephanie for moving on to the father of the person she was previously involved with.

“For more on this matter, turn to Page 6.”

Before Eve can finish reading the smack about Stephanie, I flip the pages until I’m…

I’m looking at pictures of Ira and me.

“Uh-oh.”

Eve ain’t shitting. Uh-oh is right.

“Romance between two powerful families? A credible source states that heir Ira Mathison and Kathleen Allen, a local rich philanthropist, are getting serious. The couple has been seen enjoying time alone at high-profile restaurants and, most recently, at the opening ball for the reopened The Ace Hotel. But that’s not all! Rumor also has it that these two share more in common than money and work projects. Both Mathison and Allen are known dominant personalities in the local kink scene. So who’s serving who? A photo too salacious to print suggests that it’s Ms. Allen who is making some changes to her personal life.”

Eve yanks the paper from my hands and tosses it into the garbage.

We’re silent. My gut says to call Ira, but my gut also really wants to throw up.

Chapter 77

Ira

Iknow something is terribly wrong when I pick up my phone and see a dozen harried messages from Kathleen.

There’s a gathering behind me. My father, his friends, some of my male friends, a bunch of fraternity bullshit we Mathisons have been sucked into since my grandfather’s time. About once or twice a year, the boys of the exclusive Beta Kappa Phi meet up to talk about the good ol’ days of drinking too much and waking up to find a bevy of women in our beds.

You know, typical male bonding that I’m somehow conned into even though I’m the exact sort of person many of them are talking about “conquering.”

Today’s bonding isn’t what you normally find behind these curtains, however. When I showed up today, I found my father halfway drunk and telling two friends about the horrible way he and Stephanie finally had to break up.

She’s closer to my age than any of us thought. Close enough to say she’s older than me.

Also, she has a kid that she conveniently never mentioned to anyone.

And something about an old and dead husband conveniently targeted for his money.

I mean, the horror story continues.

Here I am, laughing into my expensive beer, wishing I could tell my father I told you so. Yet somehow I doubt that’s why Kathleen is killing my phone. Well, it has to do with the paper, but not for the reason I thought.

Apparently, a little birdie has been talking about Kathleen and me.

“At least one of us is having a good day for love,” my father says, nearly slurring. He never slurs unless he’s depressed and drinking at the same time.

“Were you really in love with Stephanie?” I counter.

To the tune of “you old dog” and “she’s still a hot young piece of ass to me” from his buddies, my father rubs the top of his graying head and says, “That’s beside the point. No man likes being lied to like that.”

“I heard that a private investigator fucked her up,” says my friend Eddie. He was my best friend back when we both joined Greek Life, him in the legacy frat and me in their sister sorority in the days before queers like me got a choice. Real party animal back in the day, bringing home the kind of girls who would go with him until he passed out drunk and then made their way to me. “Followed her for weeks, invaded her hometown, and made life hell for everyone involved until they started spilling her secrets. She had charmed a good number of the men in that town into staying quiet.”

The others nod sagely. Eddie further reveals that he knows this factoid because he used the same private investigator for a business dealing a few months ago.