Page 31

In the foyer, you all say your goodbyes.

While Sandy is helping Jamie into her coat, and you’re thanking all the gods in heaven that the evening is almost over, GoGo lurches over Gabi’s shoulder and paws at her breasts.

There doesn’t seem to be any provocation for it.

It’s almost a backwards hug, but not quite, just his bigger body dwarfing hers as he gropes her.

Gabi laughs high and shrill, and bats at him ineffectively.

“Stop, baby. People are here,” she said softly, her face turning tomato-red.

Sterling’s mouth is a tight line.

“Not cool, man,” he tells GoGo tersely. “Save it for when you get home. You’re embarrassing her.”

GoGo guffaws, and slides his hands down Gabi’s hips. “You jealous, bro?”

To his credit, Sterling doesn’t dignify that with an answer. “I’m asking you to stop humiliating my friend,” he says coolly. “Your fiancée.”

“She doesn’t mind. Do you, li’l mama?” GoGo nuzzles his face into the side of Gabi’s neck, his hands on her thighs. Gabi’s lush lower lip is between her teeth. She looks acutely distressed.

“Baby, let’s go,” she mumbles softly. “I think I see the car outside.”

GoGo straightens, and looks over his shoulder at the doors .

“It’s fucking blacked out!” he says, his voice far too loud to be socially-acceptable.

In the dining room, the three waiters who served your table (and doubtlessly just want to go home) are trying not to be obvious about listening in.

“You don’t see shit! Fine, I’ll leave you the fuck alone. Remember that you asked for that.”

He storms towards the doors. Sandy moves to grab his arm, but GoGo shakes him off irritably. He shoves the heavy doors open, letting the chilly night air in. Gabi totters after him, almost tripping to catch up.

“Jesus,” you swear. Something tells you to follow, and you take long strides toward the exit. Sterling follows.

“You guys stay here,” he tells the Covellis.

At the curb, Gabi has caught up to GoGo, who has the SUV door open.

“Baby, please,” she pleads.

“Get in another fuckin’ car, Gabrielle!” he shouts. “I’m goin’ the fuck home alone.”

She puts a hand on his shoulder beseechingly.

He bats her off, irritated. Undeterred, she reaches out and clutches at his chest and back, like her tiny body could contain GoGo.

He makes a growling noise in his throat, grabs Gabi by the upper arms, and shoves her.

She goes reeling backwards, almost falling on her ass.

Her beautiful face is shiny with tears and snot.

There are streaky red marks on her skin from his rough fingers.

When it happens, it's like a train wreck playing out in slow motion. You are heading in GoGo’s direction—what you are about to do to him, you aren’t sure—when Sterling clears the doors, and a lone paparazzo, who was hiding behind some bushes to the left, pops out like a jack-in-the-box with a Nikon.

It’s a short, skinny kid with blocky glasses like Clark Kent, and he doesn’t say a word.

Just starts snapping furiously, the eye of his lens trained on Sterling and yourself.

Sterling doesn’t see him at first, but GoGo does.

“The fuck you want, asshole?” he snarls, pivoting towards the camera like a bull to a red cape.

“You’re good, Mister Heller,” the kid pipes up. “Sterling, over here!”

GoGo’s eyes are red and dilated, the blue almost entirely swallowed up by the pupil. Hanks of hair have escaped his ponytail and are sticking to his forehead, which is, inexplicably, covered in sweat. He’s grinding his teeth; you can see the tense set of his jaw through his profile.

“Haven’t you ever heard of a private conversation, asshole?

” GoGo reaches into the car. Withdraws a water bottle.

It doesn’t make sense to you until it does .

You open your mouth to call out a warning, but it’s too late—GoGo’s launched the bottle through the air and hit the kid on the side of the head.

His camera goes flying, hitting the sidewalk with a crunch.

The surprise of the impact knocks the kid into the bush.

GoGo laughs, and wipes his nose with his sleeve.

“Fuck all y’all,” he declares, getting into the SUV.

Like a gunshot, Sterling has jumped for the kid in the bushes. As tenderly as a mother, he pulls the paparazzo to his feet, dusting him off. The kid’s glasses sit cockeyed on his nose, and his hair is all fucked up.

As Gabi cries softly, the kid is rambling in a shaky voice, making a lot of noise about assault and freedom of the press and lawsuits.

Sterling’s face is whiter than you have ever seen it. He pulls out his phone.

“I’m really sorry,” he says confidentially, like he’s talking to his best friend. “I don’t know what got into GoGo. The season’s really stressful for him. That didn’t give him the right to hurt you, though.”

To your eyes, the kid looks uninjured. His dignity is definitely hurt worse than his face, thanks to the fact that GoGo is a receiver who couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn. You see his ploy for what it is: a shot at a guaranteed paycheck.

“You all are witnesses!” the kid declares. “I got it on film. My camera…”

He looks down at the pavement, where the aforementioned camera lays in three jagged pieces. The lens is shattered.

“My camera!” he wails.

Sterling shakes his head. “You don’t need to be upset,” he says soothingly. “You just wanted your picture. I get it. I’ll tell you what. I have some amazing lawyers on retainer. I’m willing to cover any legal fees you have, if that’s the route you want to go…”

Your jaw drops. Literally. Has Sterling lost his mind ?

“Or,” Sterling continues, “you can let me make it up to you?”

“Huh?” the kid says.

“I’ll replace your camera, obviously,” Sterling says. “And maybe you can give me that memory card? The one with all those pictures?”

The kid squares his shoulders, ready for a fight—

“And I’ll pay you whatever you would have gotten if you sold them to TMZ. You probably got, what? Ten good shots of me? ”

The kid nods. You think to yourself that any photos he got were maybe of Sterling’s shoulder and upper back, due to the bad angle. The pictures would mostly have been of GoGo.

“Ten shots at about five thousand apiece is fifty thousand,” Sterling calculates.

“How about we make it fifty-five, for good measure? And, for you being such a good sport, my boyfriend and I will let you take a picture of us with your phone. You can do whatever you like with it. I assume your phone is safe?”

Just when you are mildly concerned that Sterling is going to offer to buy the little shit a brand-new iPhone and pay for his high-speed internet, too, the kid nods slowly.

“That’s… really awesome of you, Sterling. Thank you so much.”

“Gabs? Sweetheart? Are you okay?” Sterling asks, turning his attention to Gabi.

While the tense interaction has ground on, Gabi has been hunched over by the bushes, shivering and sobbing silently.

Ster’s face is agonized when he looks at her, like he wants nothing more than to attend to his friend.

Gabi nods like a puppet, her blonde hair floating in the breeze as her head jerks.

She looks absolutely freezing. Sterling shrugs out of his crushed velvet blazer and wraps it around her shoulders.

“Go home, baby. I’ll call you tomorrow. ”

She nods robotically, tilting her cheek for Sterling’s kiss. His hand lingers on her shoulder when he hugs her, like he doesn’t want to let her go. Gabi gets into another of the waiting cars and is whisked off into the night.

That leaves just you, Sterling, and the photographer. As you watch, Sterling makes a phone call, and covers the receiver to ask the kid for his bank account information. After that, the memory card is handed over. Sterling slips it into his back pocket.

“Come here, Kai,” he says softly.

You know you have no choice, so you let yourself go to Sterling’s side.

Without being told, you wrap your arm around his shoulder.

Hands jerky with excitement, the kid snaps a picture with his phone.

Maybe more than one, who could be sure? Under your palm, Sterling’s body is trembling.

You want to scoop him up and carry him to the car.

But you wait patiently while he exchanges some last-minute pleasantries with the kid, and even gives him a hug.

He passes him Adalyn’s card.

“That’s my junior personal assistant,” he tells him. “That money should clear first thing tomorrow. If it doesn’t, you let her know, and I will handle it myself. Okay? ”

The photographer, having just dumb-lucked into a pot of gold, is powerless to do anything but nod.

Jamie and Sandy make an appearance on the sidewalk, fingers entwined, looking hesitant. Like they aren't sure if they are allowed to be there.

“It was great to get together,” Sterling tells them. “Everything’s fine. Did you enjoy dinner, Jamie?”

“Yes,” she says. Her smile looks forced. Sandy has a good game face, but Jamie keeps looking from side to side, like she knows she just missed something bad. “Thank you, Ster.”

“Let’s do it again soon, okay?”

The couple makes their exit, Jamie waving her fingers at you guys as Sandy guides her to their car.

When the driver has finally closed the car doors behind you, you reach for Sterling. He looks like a puppet with the strings cut. Defeated. He’s curled in on himself, looking out the window as you guys start to drive away.

“Ster…” you begin, feeling helpless. You put a hand on his knee.

He covers it with his own and pats it softly.

“Everything’s fine, Kai. Long night,” he says. His tone is reassuring, but he doesn’t look back at you.