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Vera comes out of the kitchen carrying a tray with hot tea and a big slice of the jiggly sponge cake she and Robin made earlier.
“I couldn’t possibly eat another bite,” TJ says.
“Okay.” She places the cake in front of him anyway, then sits down. “Tell me, TJ, what is it?”
“What’s what?”
“You are worrying over something. I can see it the whole day, like you have something to hide.”
“I don’t—”
“And I know it involve Robin and Kit and Lomax.”
“What? How do you know that?” TJ says, sitting straight up.
“Because you keep looking at Kit and Lomax like you kill their dog or something. So guilty face. And,” she adds, as though she isn’t done blowing things up, “I think has to do with Xander Lin.”
“No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t!” TJ snaps, and he hears it then, the raw fear in his voice, turning it sharp-edged. He stares at Vera, his chest heaving, then he buries his face in his hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout at you. I just—everything’s falling apart, and I don’t know what to do.”
“How everything is falling apart?”
“We’ve lost too many clients, and I have to close down the office by the end of the week. Can’t make rent. I fucked up.”
“How you fuck up?”
“Robin.” It feels wrong to say her name in this context, but he can’t deny that the issues do involve her. “I had a difficult client. A lot of my clients are difficult, actually, but this one was particularly difficult. He was entitled, he’d harass me if he saw that his ‘friends’ booked a sponsorship and he didn’t. He’d call me twentytimes a day, leave me nasty messages, demand that I work harder, all that stuff. I should’ve fired him, but he was growing so fast, and I didn’t want to lose him as a client even though he was a terrible human being. One night, I drank one too many beers and bitched about him to Robin. I just needed to spill, I guess, and for whatever stupid reason, I thought it would be okay to tell her this stuff. God, I’m an idiot.”
“Robin is very mature kid,” Vera says. “I can see why you tell her about it.”
TJ gives a mirthless laugh. “Yeah, except then I went to bed, and what I didn’t foresee happening was Robin taking my phone and sending an email to that client, firing him. And not just firing him. She said, ‘You are a spoiled, entitled rich brat, and I no longer want to work with you.’ ”
“Ah,” Vera says, somehow keeping her face straight.
“Yeah. Didn’t go over well. He posted a screenshot of the email online, and obviously it went viral. A talent manager saying that to his client? Unheard of. Half of our clients dropped us within the next twenty-four hours. Kit and Lomax lost clients too, just because they work for me.”
“Oh dear.”
“Yeah. And Robin—I know she was just trying to protect me, I know, but…”
“Is hard not to feel a bit upset with her,” Vera says.
“Yeah,” TJ croaks. He hates to admit it. He hates to even think it to himself, to face the fact that, yeah, actually, part of him is angry at Robin. He blames himself for everything, mostly, but part of him blames her too, and knowing that makes him feel disgusted with himself, because what kind of parent would feel that way about their child?
“You talk to her about it?”
TJ shrugs. “I told her it’s fine.”
“Is not really fine if you have to close down business.”
“No, it’s not really fine.”
“And what this has to do with Xander? Why you are so shady about him?”
“Xander,” TJ groans. “Yet another incident that makes me feel like the worst human alive.”
Vera doesn’t say anything, merely studies him. Can he really tell her? He can’t. Nope. He wrings his hands in his lap.
“I make a guess,” Vera says finally. “Xander come to you and ask you to help him do some big news, and you say no.”