Chapter Twenty-Eight
Justin
“Lapdance”- N.E.R.D.
Cobain sniffsmy luggage and eyes me with suspicion.
“There’s nothing in there for you,” I say, popping the top from my beer before I sit down on the bed. Signings wear my ass out. All the travel, the shuffling from here to there. The drinking... I take a sip from the bottle and lean back against the headboard. I grab my phone from my pocket to pull up Facebook and count how many pictures I’ve been tagged in. To read the comments about how everyone wants to fuck me—and the thing is, as arrogant as that makes me sound, it is the truth. I don’t ask for it, but that shit would stroke anyone’s ego.
My screen’s black. I press the power button and the little empty battery pops up.Fuck.I dig around in my bedside table for a charger and plug it in. The second it boots up, the damn phone goes off the rails.Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding...on and fucking on. Cobain sneaks around the corner of the bed, his ears perked up as he stares at the table the phone’s resting on.
Samantha: You’re a fucking dick.
Jen: I hope someone cuts your limp dick clean off.
Leah: Fuck you! Fuck you! FUUUUUUUUUCCCCCK YOU!
Bubble after bubble of texts pops up and I swipe them away. Over seventy texts. My Facebook notifications are going berserk. And then, my phone rings. Marisa.
“Hey babe,” I answer, trying to sound calm although my nerves are rattled and sweats dripping down the center of my back. “I missed you.”
“Fuck off.”
“What? What’s—”
“You’re a complete piece of shit. How many girls, Justin? How many? I mean my god, and then... then how could you let someone get a hold of those pictures. All those pictures.” She falls silent for a second. I hear her sniff. “Do you have any idea,” she takes a breath and oh shit, she’s crying, “any idea what this makes me look like?”
I’m at a loss. “Baby, slow down—”
“Don’t fucking call me that.”
“Fine.” I groan. “Marisa, what the hell is going on?”
“Why don’t you check your beloved fucking Facebook, Justin?”
“I’m not playing games. Just spit it out.”
“Well, someone started a blog and whoever did it, hates you. They bashed you and me and posted naked pictures of girls.” She starts crying.Shit.
“Naked pictures, what are you—”
“And the last one is a picture of me. You took. In your apartment.”
“What!” My pulse is racing, my mind jumbling up in one helluva massive gridlock, because how the hell could anyone have gotten those pictures?Fucking apple and its iCloud... I swear to god.
“I just... I can’t with you anymore. I can’t.” And she hangs up.
The fuck? I stare at my phone. Notification after notification flashes over the screen. Swallowing, I open my Facebook and look at a few of the tags. There’s a link to a website called: Terrible Horrible Very Bad Authors, Jesus Christ, they’ve nearly stolen a title from Judith Viorst. I follow it and my face immediately feels like it’s going to combust. My heart pounds, my fists clench. This blog is slamming me and Marisa and...Bella Beast? I don’t even bother to read over the article about Bella. I could give two shits about that one. I click on the tab so sweetly titled Justin’s Harem and there are the pictures from my iPhone. Naked pictures of all the girls I’ve fucked in this industry. All those girls I spent time and effort denying or downplaying a relationship with to save face have just been outed. With the jab of a few keys, my lies of: I’ve never hooked up with someone in the industry before, come tumbling down like the Berlin wall. Everything has crumbled into a steaming pile of utter fuck.
I bury my face in my hands and groan. At first, I think maybe I can deny it. Say the pictures came from somewhere else. Blame that fuckface Chris Talon, everyone knows he’s a slut. But nope. Half of them where taken on my bed, that goddamn Ansel Adam picture of the Tetons and Snake River glaring like a motherfucking beacon of whoredom in the background.
Author Justin Wild is a ripe cunt. Why would anyone want to read the words, no matter how poetic, of a raging dickhead?That was posted by Emaline Day, one of the biggest names in the industry. “Shit!” I shout and hurl my phone across the room, right at the mirror over my dresser. It hits it with a crack. Cobain tucks his tail and dashes underneath the bed. This is a nightmare. First, my publishing deal goes straight down the shitter and now, now my somewhat unblemished reputation has just caught a case of Ebola. And, I think what may be worse is that I just brought Marisa into quarantine with me.
