"Like what? What'd you want to do?"
"Find those guys, take care of it."
"How?" I asked.
He shrugged. "I had a few ideas."
From the tone of his voice, I could only imagine.
"So what happened?" I said.
"So we go back to her place, and I should've known something was up. The place looked like—" He shook his head. "Well, let's just say it looked like she was expecting company."
"Romantic company?"
"Yeah. And she asks me to hold her, and starts kissing on me, and one thing leads to another."
I snorted. "Yeah. I bet."
His gaze snapped to me. "Go ahead. Joke about it. You and everyone else. I should be used to it, right?"
I felt the color rise to my cheeks. "I'm sorry," I said. "Really." And I was. He might deserve a lot of things, but he didn't deserve ridicule, not for this.
"It's alright," he said. But from the look on his face, it obviously wasn't.
"No," I said, my voice softer now. "It's not. I don't want to be like everyone else. At least, not about this."
"That's the thing," he said. "You'renotlike anyone else." He reached for my hand. "Not about anything."
I didn't pull away. His hand felt big and strong around mine. I fought the urge to fall into his arms. It always felt so good there, like the home I never had.
"So what happened then?" I said.
"So we had sex. Obviously."
Lots of sex. Although I'd never seen the tape, I'd read plenty about it.
"So a few days later, the footage of it hits all these Web sites, and Brandy's gone." He made a scoffing sound. "To Hollywood, L.A., whatever. Big surprise, huh?"
"What about your friend?" I asked.
"The next time I see him, he's driving a Jag."
"Did you confront him about it?" I asked.
His voice got an edge. "You might say that."
From the look on his face, I probably didn't want to know how the confrontation ended. "So what about Brandy?" I said.
"What about her?"
"You ever see her again? I mean, I read about that thing in Beverly Hills."
He'd left her half-naked in the bathroom of some posh restaurant, then beat the crap out of the bouncers who tried to stop him from leaving.
"Yeah. About that," he said. "Her acting career? It wasn't exactly taking off."
"It seemed like it was going alright," I said.