CHAPTER THIRTY
EVAN
“IT’S FOR THE BEST,” HAMPTON says.
Liar. He’s only telling me that so I’ll stop asking questions, pay attention to the rope, and belay him in a way that’s safe.
We’re at Ascent, both of us trying to up our game so that Mateo’s climbing skills won’t make us look hideous by comparison. I feel dizzy for Hampton because I’ve been spinning him in circles, conversationally speaking. He asked how it was going and I told him the official version, where things between Becca and LiveLyfe “didn’t work out.” I admitted that it was a big loss and that I kind of missed her. He said it sounded like a crush, then called me a pussy.
“You don’t believe that,” I say.
His leg is hooked around this enormous stalactite-shaped jug that serves as this route’s starting hold. It’s not the right way to climb the route. He’s using it as a chair a third of the way up the wall. That’s how long I’ve kept him there.
“Okay,” Hampton says, shifting in his harness, “it’s not for the best. You wish you were still fucking this girl.”
“It’s not like that.”
“You weren’t fucking her?”
Beside us, a woman shoots us both a sharp glance and shuttles her kid toward another part of the wall. Shouldn’t he be in school?
“I was. But I mean—”
“Oh. I see. You were in love with her.”
The rope slips and Hampton totters. It wasn’t entirely accidental.
“Look,” he says. “Whatever you want to hear, that’s what I agree with. How about you let me climb or let me down?”
“It’s a simple question,” I say.
“Maybe one we can discuss on the ground.”
I take up the slack. Because Hampton had settled again after I let the rope slip, this unseats him again.
“Just tell me,” I say.
“Okay. Fine. It’s clearly not for the best, as far as you’re concerned.”
“Are you just saying that so I’ll let you down?”
“No. Dude, listen. I have plenty of opinions. But it’s hard to think while you keep tension on the rope and the harness is smashing my balls.”
“Okay. Then belay off.”
I move the rope. Hampton jerks like he’s terrified, and this tosses him off the stalactite. I wasn’t planning to let him down, and certainly wasn’t going to drop him outright, but now that he’s dangling, I have to lower him. The wall has a negative pitch, so he’s swinging away. I’d have to put my hand on his back and give his dangling ass a push if he wanted to get back.
He comes down. He unties as I unthread the rope. I think he’ll yell at me for my shitty belaying and lackluster attention, but Hampton does something unexpected. He puts his hand on my shoulder and looks me in the eye.
“Look, Evan. The thing is, I can’t give you an opinion. Because you’re not asking for one. This isn’t a discussion. This is you saying things, and I’m supposed to respond. A puppet could—”
“I—”
“But for what it’s worth, I liked you better with her.”
“How so?”
Hampton looks around the gym as if he doesn’t want anyone to hear. His personal brand is sort of caustic, and I don’t think he likes people knowing that he’s more than an asshole. His hand is still on my shoulder, our heads bent in conspiracy.
“Truth? You’re too Type-A without some counterbalance.”
“We’re all Type-A,” I say. “Look at how you run Expendable Chic. It’s an obsession. It has to be, to build a billion-dollar business.”
“There’s a difference between Type-A and dedicated. I’ve offloaded everything from my plate except for meetings and strategy. I don’t even write my emails. Who writes your emails?”
“I do.”
“Sucker,” he says. “Control freak.”
“It’s not about control.”
Hampton rolls his eyes. “It’s about control. You don’t want someone in your stuff. You don’t want someone to blow it all for you.”
“Blow what?”
“Your dick,” Hampton says.
I wait for his moment of immaturity to pass. It does, but he has to roll his eyes again, this time at my unwillingness to play along. Then he gives me the real answer.
“Your fragile little bubble, man! The little Evan-world you insist on living in, where you can always have it both ways. You’re head of what might be the world’s most famous company. Every fifteen seconds magazines are writing articles on you. But you’ve always fought it. You want all the advantages of being public and all the benefits of being private.”
“Don’t you—”
“You don’t want anyone to recognize you, and at the same time, you’re trying to be the face of LiveLyfe. You shun attention, but then I hear you going on and on, trying to get attention for this new idea of yours — not just from the Syndicate, but from the public. You want people to appreciate and love your brain and all the stuff that it makes, while maintaining your privacy. You can’t have both.”
“What does any of this have to do with Rebecca?”
“Well, how forthcoming were you with her about your plans?”
“I told her everything.”
“Including the reason you’re looking for a new thing? Including the mastermind group of billionaires ready to back it?”
I shake my head. “There’s a strict cone of silence over the Syndicate.”
“Really? Because you could have fooled me.” Fortuitously, there’s a magazine on one of the little tables throughout Ascent in easy reach. Hampton points at Caspian’s face. The headline reads, Inside the Trillionaire Boys’ Club.
Hampton picks it up, eyes the cover, then drops it back on the table and continues.
“It’s not just Caspian being Caspian. The idea from the start, with the Boys’ Club as a sub-group inside the Syndicate, was to build this first with the most press-friendly guys among us. Remember how Nathan envisioned our start? You had to be under 50, ideally under 40, sub-30 in a perfect world. You had to be a man. And you had to already be in the media spotlight. He wanted to create a group of handsome guys up to strange purposes, and then tease the world. Ask his woman — or Onyx’s, or Caspian’s for that matter — if they heard rumors about the Club even when it was under a strict cone of silence.”
Hampton shrugs. “You can’t have it both ways. When you told Mateo and me about this girl Rebecca, you were clearly into her. Then we looked her up and knew where this was headed. Evan Cohen is charming and gets what he wants. She was single, if a little nuts regarding her exes. We talked about you while it was going on. Thought it’d be fun to watch you thrash and burn while she unleashed the crazy all over you. But that’s not what happened. You seemed better while you were with her, not worse.”
“I wasn’t with her.”
But wasn’t I? We sure spent plenty of time together. And slept in the same bed. Hung out when there wasn’t even business to share.
Hampton doesn’t contradict me. He knows he doesn’t have to. “You stopped with your crazy schedule. You weren’t constantly on the go like a dickhead all damn day, and you finally relaxed a little.”
“Right. I dropped a lot of balls. That’s why this is probably for the best.”
“Uh-huh,” Hampton says. “How many balls got dropped when you stopped micromanaging Every. Little. Detail. By yourself? How many things didn’t happen that should have?”
I think, feeling a retort close at hand. Nothing comes.
“Exactly,” Hampton says. “None. Nothing got dropped. You stopped doing all that little shit, and yet the important stuff happened anyway. Because you’ve built a business, dude. Because you’re smart and have a system to pick up the things that you drop. And half the shit that you stopped doing to make time for Rebecca? It was pointless. It didn’t need picking up.”
This feels wrong, but I can’t say why. My mouth is slightly open, but I have nothing to say.
“You’re trying to justify a way of living that doesn’t make sense. Is this for the best? Hell, I don’t know, man. She does have a big mouth. She does blab to everyone about everything. But since you had that fight and she stopped coming into LiveLyfe, how much has she written about you?”
Again. Speechless.
Quieter now. “She hasn’t written about you, has she?”
“No.”
“So, she can keep her mouth shut if she wants to. She does have a filter if she knows that something is important. Or is important to her.”
Something clicks inside me. I’ve checked her sites. I’m on her email lists. I’ve been waiting for my turn on the chopping block — for the day Evan becomes the new Steve, ripe for public ridicule. But I’ve heard nothing beyond that silly stuff about “Ray.”
I wonder what that means.
I’m afraid I already know.
“Like I said. Maybe it’s for the best because maybe having her in your life and business is too big a risk. Maybe she is too much of a wildcard like Callie thinks. But fuuuuck, man!” Hampton makes an exaggerated gesture, all arms and scrunched face. “If you ask me, your Type-A ass needs a wildcard!”
I let that settle. Unfortunately, it feels right. I don’t see how this happened. I was using Hampton as a sounding board. I certainly never expected good advice. Who would have thought Hampton Brooks, who magazines have called “The Slumlord of Clothing,” would turn out to be such a sage?
“I fucked up, didn’t I?”
I don’t need an answer. Still, Hampton nods.
“And not just in the argument. The whole thing. End to end.”
“End to end.” Hampton is nodding slowly, solemnly, as if I’m now realizing a truth that’s been in front of my face for years. “I know you, man. You never really let her in. Maybe you took her to your place, but how much did you tell her about your past? Maybe you took her out, but how much did you hide her from the world?”
“I didn’t think she’d want the attention.”
“Her? Or you?”
Dammit. He’s right. I thought I was creating business intimacy, because I was too slow to realize there was another kind at stake. I wanted to keep things low-key, but to Becca it probably looked like I was ashamed, keeping my toy in its box.
We sort of fell into a relationship. I sort of fell into caring for her, and her for me. Before I knew it, she deserved another side of me, and a glimpse at what I normally hide. We became lovers accidentally. Only now I realize how much I really loved her.
“Shit,” I say. It’s all so obvious now.
“Shit indeed,” Hampton echoes.