Chapter 2
I giggled as I rode the elevator to the newsroom floor, mentally reliving my madcap morning. In the few months I’d been tracking down celebrities, I’d never interacted with any of them like that. Like people. I wondered why Micah had approached me when he had nothing to gain from it. Not gonna lie. It made me feel a little bit special to be singled out by him. I lectured myself not to go and develop a crush on someone so completely out of my reach, but it was too late. I was smitten.
A stomach growl warned me I needed to grab something to eat soon, but I wanted to catch Zion before Andy came back from lunch.
Thankfully, the office was practically deserted. I skulked toward my desk, trying not to attract the attention of the office busybodies. Derek was too busy shoveling forkfuls of tikka masala out of a Styrofoam box to pay me any mind. A blob of brown sauce clung to his hipster beard, and I suppressed a gag. A few tables over, Leonard quietly blew steam from his coffee as he read a competitor’s paper, squirreling away more gossip into his encyclopedic memory.
We didn’t have cubes like the other offices. Our open-concept department looked like some kind of art studio or architectural firm. Black wooden tables lined one wall that had tall bright windows. Instead of watercolor paper or blueprints, these workstations held state-of-the-art flat-screen monitors—usually two or three per dock. Simply drop a laptop onto the port and stalk away. And instead of rolling around in comfy office chairs, we had to perch on high stools. Andy thought it encouraged us to work in the office as little as possible. We were meant to be out on the street.
As I settled in front of my computer and connected my camera to the server via WiFi, I caught Zion’s eye and silently invited him to come hither with a stealthy sideways jerk of my head. He dropped off his stool and sidled up beside me.
While I searched the share drive for the picture of Micah I’d just uploaded, Zion laid his chin on my shoulder. As soon as the image opened, he sucked in a sharp gasp. “You ran into Micah Sinclair?” Zion had been at this job for years but still got excited about celebrities, especially the beautiful ones. He leaned forward, as if he could touch Micah right through the screen. “Yum. Did you ask him about his breakup?”
That was the story I couldn’t quite remember.
Zion’s wiry hair nearly poked me in the eye, and I shoved his head out of my face. “Uh. No.”
On my second monitor, I typed Micah’s name in the search bar. The first headline that popped up read: “Micah Sinclair Single Again?”
Competing aches twisted in my gut. The word single might as well have stood in thirty-foot-tall neon letters in my mind. The thought of an allegedly available Micah Sinclair flirting with the very available me made my nerves effervesce.
But the word again knocked me back to reality, reminding me that he only showed up in the news in conjunction with a brand-new, or a recently former, girlfriend. He might be available, but he probably flirted in his sleep.
Still, I couldn’t contain my grin as I studied Micah’s adorably bratty expression in my photo. Even though I’d surprised him, he looked like he’d somehow gotten one over on me instead of the other way around. Like he’d tricked me into taking his picture. And, damn, was he ever photogenic.
Zion said what I was thinking. “He sure is pretty.”
I zoomed in, and Micah’s features filled the screen. He’d been so close when I’d snapped the picture, I hadn’t gotten much below the neck. What a shame—he had a great build. Still, those eyes. Blue like sapphires. Sparkling like the sea.
“I’d kill for that skin. So smooth.” Zion’s dark skin was dotted with black spots. To me, they were just a part of him, but I knew he felt self-conscious. “It’s not fair. He looks Photoshopped.”
I patted his cheek. “You’re beautiful, Zion.”
He dismissed me with a quick roll of his eyes. “Can you filter out the glare?”
“I’m not sure if it’s worth bothering. Without a comment, Andy’s not likely to use it.”
Zion nodded at the photo and graciously said, “If he’d been looking at me like that, I might have been a little tongue-tied, too.”
I rested my elbows on the table and dropped my chin on my hands, appreciative of the spiritual pat on the back but tired of always needing one. “I wasn’t tongue-tied, Zion.” I looked around for eavesdroppers and whispered, “I didn’t have a clue who he was.”
“What?” He spoke too loud, and nosy Leonard glanced up at us. “How’d you get a picture of Micah Sinclair if you didn’t even know who he was?”
That comment released the kraken. Leonard left his desk, holding his coffee mug in both hands. “Ten bucks he approached you.”
I double-blinked in shock. “He did. How did you know?”
He set his mug on my desk. “Micah Sinclair is attracted to paparazzi like a moth to a bug zapper.”
I recalled how Micah had gotten right up in my camera, how weird I’d found it that he didn’t even notice the celeb down the street, how curious he’d been about me. And everything clicked into place. So much for feeling special. Still, something didn’t add up. “If he wanted the publicity, why didn’t he tell me who he was? I would have at least interviewed him.”
He shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe he figured you should already know.”
Ouch.
“I just didn’t recognize him at first. I should have, but he started talking to me like a regular person, like I was the interesting one.” My tone sounded defensive even to me.
Leonard’s shoulders relaxed as though he remembered I wasn’t any competition, that I was the hapless fresh meat who still needed to be patronized like a newbie. “Ya know, I’ve noticed he’s friendlier to photographers than reporters. Maybe he’s a narcissist. Or maybe he likes the publicity without embracing the invasion into his privacy. Can’t say I blame him considering what he’s usually asked.” He shook his head and mimicked, “Micah, did you break up with your girlfriend?” He tsked. “Poor kid. He is a musician after all.”
Leonard had worked here longer than Andy even. He had war stories about everyone, and his words hung in the air like an invitation to ask him to share more.
“Have you ever interviewed him?”
He twisted his lips, like I’d asked him if he’d ever ridden the subway. “Of course. Several times.”
“And?”
He paused to rifle through his mental filing cabinet a moment, then proceeded with an air of authority. “The first time I’d even heard of Micah Sinclair was when that Rock Paper article came out.”
Zion said, “Oh, right,” at the same time I said, “Huh?”
Douchelord Derek, forever eavesdropping on everyone, called over. “That was over a year ago. They might not have run that story down in Podunk.”
I shot eye daggers at him. “We get the Internet in Georgia, Derek.”
Zion started Googling. “I remember that. ‘The Pretty Boys of Rock.’” I assumed he was repeating the title, though knowing him, he might have been waxing nostalgic over eye candy past.
Leonard grabbed the reins of conversation back. “The Rock Paper had put out a spread of the hottest chicks in rock. It was fifty pages of sex kittens in leather and heavy makeup. They got a ton of blowback from it for focusing on women’s looks instead of their music. Sexist, you know? So a couple of issues later, they put out an equally offensive article, featuring as many attractive male rockers as they could dig up.”
“Offensive, sure.” Zion had found the article and was slowly clicking through the ad-riddled slide show, ogling photos of huge rock stars like Jon Bon Jovi and Adam Copeland. I reclaimed the mouse from him and powered through a series of people I didn’t recognize until I found Micah, showing more teeth than the rest of the brooding rockers, and dressed like he’d dug up his wardrobe at a rummage sale: tight garish red pants, green Converse high tops, and a ripped T-shirt for a band I’d never heard of. But with that face, Micah easily filled the “pretty” quota for “The Pretty Boys of Rock.”
I read the blurb out loud, “Micah Sinclair, thirty-one years old. He’s a Libra, and ladies you should know that means he’s a lover.” I snickered and couldn’t read the rest without laughing. “But what you may not know is that this bad boy of rock was raised strictly religious. Touring the country in an End Times cult as a child, young Micah Sinclair sang uplifting church songs years before he brought everyone down with a song called ‘Gravity.’ Oh, good Lord.”
“Exactly,” said Leonard. He strolled over. “May I?”
I gave him control of my mouse, and he Googled something else. Before he clicked the link, he said, “So reporters latched onto that bit about the church and immediately began publishing articles like this.” He clicked through to an article topped by an enormous image of Micah snuggling with a gorgeous blonde on what must have been a private beach. The photographer had been so lucky as to catch Micah with his pants down, literally. His entire body would have been exposed if not for the pixelated fig leaves obscuring the very thing that made the picture interesting.
Zion shook his head and said, “Mm-mm-mm. That boy is delicious. Look at those shoulders.”
I was looking. I’d been sitting on those shoulders less than two hours earlier. My stomach flipped at the thought. Out of nowhere I felt a stab of irrational jealousy toward the girl on the beach. I probably should have felt sympathy for her. He’d probably dumped her soon after the picture was taken.
Leonard gave us a chance to drink in our fill before picking back up. “The hint of hypocrisy fueled these kinds of stories for a while.”
The things I learned working in this department never ceased to amaze me. “Fascinating.”
“Oh, I know. At the time, I thought it was going to be like watching a total train wreck. I even went and did a bunch of research on this cult he was in. His parents anyway.”
“Yeah?” I leaned in, intrigued. Gossip sold for a very good reason.
“They were called Maranatha, which I learned means something like ‘the return of the Lord’ or whatever—you know like the what-do-you-call-it?”
“The Second Coming,” said Zion. Leonard and I turned and stared at him, eyes wide. He put a hand on his hip. “What? I was raised Southern Baptist.”
I said what we were both thinking, “You said ‘second coming’ with a straight face. Not even a ‘That’s what she said.’” Leonard cracked up. I enjoyed working with these people when they weren’t all jockeying for the best stories. That is, when Andy wasn’t around to drive everyone to compete.
Leonard still held everyone’s attention when he continued. “I happened to run into Micah soon after, and I asked him about it. You know their family had toured the country on this bus they called the Salvation bus. They crisscrossed the U.S. like the Partridge Family, except instead of pedaling pop music, they were selling the apocalypse.”
Nobody said a word for a moment, until we couldn’t handle the suspense, and a chorus of “What happened?” sprang up. Leonard smiled, always the attention whore. “Ah well, that’s what was funny. He told me about how great it was to travel town to town and meet people, playing his guitar. The way he talked about it, you’d think I’d asked him about his latest musical tour.”
Zion said, “You mean his parents went around the country preaching the gospel and what he got from it was how to become a traveling rock star? That’s kind of hilarious.”
Leonard pointed at Zion in agreement. “I think that’s why the story never really went anywhere. Micah didn’t let the religion aspect catch and hold. He deflected it without really denying it or apologizing, so the story never got very big. But it did make him one of those people who are interesting for being interesting.”
The door swung open, and everyone flew to their stations. Andy rushed in on some kind of mission. He’d probably caught a celebrity dropping her baby. The newsroom bustled with renewed activity. Fingers clacked on keyboards, and every eye turned away from our fearful leader as he wended his way toward his office. When he approached my desk, I ducked my head, but it was too late.
Andy’s eyes landed on me. “Jo! How’d you make out with Emily Mortimer? Get anything we can use?”
Zion straightened up, my personal savior. “She got a pretty picture of Micah Sinclair we could use for an out-and-about shot.” Since he’d talked me into taking the job here, he always tried to help me navigate the trials and tribulations of working for the devil.
Andy’s ruddy face moved through the calculations quickly. “No text?” Zion’s silence answered his question, and he went on, “How’d she run into Micah Sinclair and get no text? Did she ask him about his breakup?”
“I’m right here, Andy.” I didn’t want to confess I hadn’t recognized Micah. “He didn’t stop. I barely got this picture.”
Andy glanced at my monitor and clucked. “That’s not the face of someone in a hurry. What did he do? Stop and flirt?”
He took a few more steps toward his office, and I sputtered out, “It was the best I could get.”
Wrong answer. Andy spun around, drawn to me like Sauron’s eye to the one ring. “I bet you I could go on Twitter and in five minutes find a better amateur fan photo of him from today.” His mouth hardened into a frown, which was how Andy showed perverse pleasure. “Slide over.”
He opened my Twitter tab and searched for Micah’s name. Sure enough, within seconds, he had a dozen tweets showing Micah out on the street today. The one at the very top said, “Micah’s new girlfriend?” Andy clicked a link to a shaky video, and there I was, very clearly perched on Micah’s shoulders, wearing a crazed look of determination on my face.
I knew I was about to get the lecture of a lifetime, but all I could think about was sending that video on to my mom who would get an enormous kick out of it. I made a mental note to watch it two or three hundred times myself—if I survived the next few minutes.
Andy’s head swiveled around. “You said he didn’t stop. What’s your explanation for this?”
I wrapped my arms around myself, starting to shiver. And did my head feel light? I needed to get something to eat and soon, but I’d have to make it through Andy’s harangue first. I closed my eyes a second, but Andy had less than zero empathy for my health.
“I’m waiting.”
When I looked up, Andy hadn’t lost his sneer.
“I’m sorry, Andy. I didn’t know who he was. He came up to me. He actually blocked my shot of Maggie Gyllenhaal, so I talked him into giving me a boost.”
“Nice.” His mouth curved slightly up, and he nodded, considering. “Fast thinking. Shows initiative.” He turned and took in the others who were all completely absorbed in the unfolding drama. “This is what I like to see. Get the shot any way you can.” He rounded back on me. “So where’s the picture of Maggie?”
His praise had lifted my hope, but the last question blew it to smithereens. “I never got it. She saw me and fled.”
He pressed his lips together, and I saw the words incompetent rookie in his eyes. He exhaled. “There may be a silver lining here, though.”
A muscle in my cheek twitched from the stress of dealing with Andy’s mood swings. “What?”
He grumbled, “If you want to get something I can use, stake out the townhouse of Hervé Diaz in Brooklyn Friday night.”
“Friday night?” Ugh. I looked from Andy to Zion, trying to make sense of the assignment. “Who’s Hervé Diaz?”
Zion said, “She wouldn’t know.” He turned to me. “Hervé’s the drummer for Adam Copeland’s band, Walking Disaster.”
Andy rolled his eyes. “You have heard of them, right?”
“Of course.” I’d heard their music to death, and Adam Copeland’s image graced the covers of legitimate big-time magazines.
“Hervé always throws huge parties before their band goes on tour, and his shindigs have become a magnet for all kinds of interesting people. Your new friend Micah will probably show up there, too. See if you can catch his eye. He’s been known to bring the wolves right into the pen.”
“Micah Sinclair is friends with Adam Copeland?”
Andy exhaled his exasperation. “You could say that. Adam Copeland’s engaged to Micah’s sister. Eden Sinclair?”
Of course. I should have made the connection myself. “You want me to use Micah to gain access to his sister?”
I regretted it as soon as Andy’s eyes took on that gleam of zealous self-righteousness he got whenever I talked about the marks like they were people. He loved to hear himself wax prolific on the subject of our holy mission. “Look, Jo. It’s business, and they’re the commodity. If you wanna get paid, you’re gonna have to change your mind-set. You can’t befriend them. They won’t befriend you if there’s nothing in it for them. And without publicity, they cease to exist. Really, by doing your job well, you’re doing them a favor.”
“Right. Thanks for the assignment. I won’t let you down.”
Andy pointed his finger at me. “No, you won’t. Jo, a lot of people would kill for your position. Don’t blow it.” He glared at me, reminding me again of the unblinking eye of the dark lord. “The marks don’t care about you, so don’t you start worrying about them. Okay?”
When Andy used the word mark, he intended to turn the celebrities into an impersonal product. I repeated his words in my head, trying to learn to approach this job with the same ruthless instinct. But when I looked at the picture of Micah laughing while carrying me like an old friend, he seemed so guileless and sweet.
Then again, he’d only approached me because of the camera.
I straightened my back and nodded to Andy. “Okay.”