Happy Saturday, peeps!

Thank you for propelling Behind The Ivories to 409 reviews this past week! I read and treasure every one of them.
Also thank you to Team Momo, who work tirelessly to help me make this readable. My stories wouldn't exist without them and I'm so grateful they're in my corner.
Alice's White Rabbit and Midnight Cougar are in the editing chairs. AGoodWitch, IAmBeagle, Driving Edward and RobsmyyummyCabanaBoy pre-read.

Thank you for all your votes in the Twific Fandom Awards Round 1.
I made it to Round 2 as follows:
#BusinessClassGirl is up for Favorite LFMAO Fic
Yours truly as LaMomo is up as:
Favorite Mister Rogers
Favorite Potential Best-Selling Author
Favorite Screener

Polls open tomorrow, 3/6, and close 3/13 at 11:59 EST
Thank you to the organizing and hosting team for all their work, and congrats to all fellow nominees. And don't forget to vote for your favorites.
You'll find it by googling Twific Fandom Awards. Not posting links because ffnet at usual will cut them off.

Thank you for all your votes for Business Class Girl in the Top 10 Completed Fics of 2021. BCG and AwkWard made it to #4. I'm humbled and thankful.

I still don't own any of it, peeps.

Time to go back to Boston and EditorWard. Let's see how he's doing after Christmas.


BEHIND THE IVORIES – CHAPTER 8

The new year begins with the launch of our January print issue, which, according to schedule, hits newsstands in the first week of the month.

The timing is perfect to tease the grand opening of Sharps & Flats next month. The online spread debuted on our homepage this morning, and the page views are climbing to such heights that Cheney has been walking on sunshine all day.

According to Ben, we're getting tons of redirects from Isabella Swan's social media accounts. It's no surprise; Jasper told me Ross Whitlock had asked for links in advance so they could plan their own social media blast. The Duckling Army—Isabella's loyal fan club—has been boosting the signal, too. From my covert perch on Twitter, I've seen our follows and mentions increase steadily throughout the day. Most comments sound positive so far. Jasper and Mac deserve all the accolades they're getting—this feature wouldn't have seen the light of day without their outstanding work.

In another corner of the Tatler, when push came to shove, Alice decided not to publish her frequent flyer's letter in print. Instead, she summarized it, redacted the reader's name, and published it online. She managed to group it with a few other letters about the same topic; her reasoning being that it would be less conspicuous.

That particular email, however, still preys on my mind. There is something familiar about the whole thing. I just can't pinpoint what it is. Yet.

"This is a fuck-awesome editorial, Ed," Mac declares on entering my office without knocking or announcing himself, which is standard operating procedure for him. He drops onto my visitor chair, his face still hidden behind a copy of the Tatler. This month's copy, of course.

I still write. My byline goes with the month's editorial in every print issue of the Tatler. And I do reply to "Letters to the Editor," but I'm not as popular as Triple A. I mostly get rants from people who don't agree with our movie, concert, or restaurant reviews. Or who believe we're a congregation of lawless anarchists brainwashing Bostonians with too much liberal thinking. Those emails normally don't get answers, but Tanya and I keep a few of the good ones for a laugh on particularly bad days.

"Thanks, I guess?" I reply from behind my iMac screen, which I turn slightly away from Emmett's field of vision. The man is nosy as fuck, and I don't need him sniffing around my business more than he usually does.

He nods, still hidden behind the magazine. "Seriously, man. I like this …"

And then, fuck my life, he starts quoting from it. To the poor bastard who wrote the damn thing.

"Too often modern life and culture place an oversized value on resilience and on 'not quitting.' 'When the going gets tough, the tough get going' is arguably the most famous and recognizable adage on the topic, popularized by Billy Ocean's 1986 hit song. However, in some cases, quitting, saying no, begging off that one task you're feeling reluctant about could be the healthiest thing you do for yourself. We're often trapped between feelings of obligation and guilt. It's natural to feel we shouldn't let our near and dear ones down. But personal relationships between adults aren't the sort of give and take regulated by strict job descriptions and assigned duties. There's room for understanding. If you're a kid and skip on the chores, Mom will be after you. But that's part of the contract of growing up and learning responsibilities. Always saying yes to friends and family no matter the emotional or intellectual cost to ourselves is a different kettle of fish. And it's up to us to set boundaries for our mental health and strive for healthier relationships. We can't always be expected to pick up the slack for other people. We can't always be expected to be a one-for-one replacement for other people. And we shouldn't be."

I don't even look at him while I keep tinkering with edits on another of Jasper's pieces for next month, and Ben's stats on our page views keep popping up in my Slack chat box. I don't need a limelight shone on my own ideas. I'm well acquainted with what I wrote.

"Damn, Ed! That was … something."

"Uh-uhm. I know. I wrote it, remember?" I quip, pointing to myself.

He sits up, throwing the magazine on the table with the cover facing upward, and leans his elbows on the rim of my desk. The irony isn't lost on me that I'm sitting here with my closest friend, coworker, and unofficial shrink while Bella Swan's face stares at me from a picture he took.

"You haven't been yourself since November, man. What's eating at you?"

I try to ignore him. Mostly because I'd rather we didn't do this in the office. And partly because I don't know if I can put it into words.

"You don't want to talk to me now? Really, Ed?"

He's not going to give up. I know him. Mac is nothing but persistent, and if he suspects there's something wrong with me, he won't let it go until I tell him.

"We're at work, Mac. I'm not particularly inclined to spill my guts with the rest of the newsroom sitting ten feet away from me."

"We could close the door," he offers with a shrug.

"Which would be a dead giveaway to anyone in this office. Open door policy, remember?"

"So what? You're the boss, change the rule."

I save my edits and roll away from the keyboard. He's not giving up. So I might have to meet him in the middle.

"How about we reconvene after work?"

"Are you stalling?" he asks, a shrewd look in his eyes.

Yes, I am. "I have too much shit on my mind, Mac. Give me time to sort myself out. You doing anything tonight?"

He leans his head to the side, observing me with those keen baby blues of his. "I was doing someone, but …" And there he goes with the salacious smile. Mac and his revolving door.

"Gross, Mac. Yuck. Please don't regale me with your latest conquest. I don't want to hear about it."

He vehemently disagrees with my lifestyle. In fact, he never loses a chance to tell me how much he disagrees with it. Far too often, he provides details because oversharing has never been an issue with him.

"See, I thought I was providing a valuable service to a friend. You living vicariously through my exploits."

On a good day, this would just turn into less than wholesome banter for five minutes, after which I'd throw something at him, and we'd each go our own way for the rest of the day. But lately, it's been first one thing, then another. Fucking Kate resurfacing. The botched interview. The aftermath of it. Me blaming my sorry ass for it. My obsessive googling of Isabella Swan. I've tried to rein it in. I ended bottling it all up. I've been too … unsettled. And this time, Mac's jokes fall flat.

"You're not servicing anyone but yourself, Emmett. Grow up, for fuck's sake. I have work to do."

My office phone rings—with perfect timing to interrupt this conversation, which veered very quickly from pointless to disturbing. Mac doesn't make any move to leave.

"Yes, T?"

"I have a call on line one for you," she says. As a rule, she provides more information than just "a call," and she never says on which line the call is. She simply puts them through. Something is afoot.

"Is that a call you think I should be taking? Who's calling? The President? The Governor? My mother?"

When her next words register, I'm suddenly glad I'm irritated with Mac and didn't put her on speaker. "Well, I know for a fact McCarty is in there pestering you, so I thought I'd help. But you do have a call, and it might be best if you took it once Mac has left the building, so to speak."

"Uhm. Being secretive, are we, Reynolds?"

"Do you trust me, boss?"

"That's a given. Put them through." I turn toward Emmett, who now looks slightly chastised. "I gotta go back to work, Mac."

He finally lifts his gaze to meet mine, and replies in a monotone, "Yeah, sure," then stands to leave.

When he closes the door behind him, I go back to Tanya, who's still on the line. "Is he gone?"

"He just walked past me looking like someone kicked his puppy," she replies.

"Okay, now the intruder's left, you can tell me. Who's calling?" I'm curious because she's normally not this tight-lipped.

"Jacob Black from Sharps & Flats. I told him you were in a meeting because I wasn't sure you'd talk to him."

"That's a surprise, but I can hardly shun the man. He gave us a ton of free tickets. Put him through."

"You got it."

"Oh, and, Tanya?" I catch her before she disconnects.

"Yes?"

"Thank you for the diversion, too."

&&&IVORIES&&&

The rest of the day melts away in a litany of more phone calls, more meetings, more editing, and more writing.

When I clock off for the day and shove Tanya out the door, it's close to seven p.m. On a Friday. Alice and Jasper tried to coax me into going out to dinner with them, but true to my new motto, I begged off.

My earlier tiff with Mac left a bitter aftertaste in my mouth. I need some time to myself to regroup. The familiar push and pull of the train as the T rolls me through Boston toward home lulls me into one of those halfway meditative states where the outside world fades into the background. Stop after stop, snippets of the conversation with Jacob Black pop into my mind.

Predictably, he called to thank us for our feature on the club. We don't do puff pieces, and Jasper didn't go easy on either Jacob or Bella Swan in his interviews, but he built a rapport with both of them. It would have been more logical to thank Jasper instead of me. But Jacob showed his chops as a businessman and leader by calling right up to the top of the corporate ladder. Manager to manager. I respect that.

With an entrepreneur's consummate ability to network, he quickly veered the shoptalk into small talk territory, which revealed that he's moving to Boston for a year to oversee the club's start-up period properly. It turns out he's leased a loft in the same development where I live.

He's close friends with Bella Swan—unbidden, the thought hits me just as the T regurgitates me at the Kendall/MIT stop on the Red Line. Logic would dictate she'd visit him at his home. But I don't know where she lives, or whether she'd have a reason to move to Boston, too. I don't know why I'm gaming out these scenarios in my head. Scenarios that have zilch to do with my life and me.

This fruitless string of thoughts occupies me during my walk from the T stop toward home, while the rational part of my brain runs an inventory of my fridge and pantry to figure out what's for dinner.

Once I remember there's one last batch of frozen homemade meatballs Mom gave me, a jar of sauce, and plenty of pasta, a plan starts to emerge. Spaghetti and meatballs it is. Cooking will distract me and save me from waiting for long take-out delivery times on a Friday night in Cambridge. Two birds, one stone.

On entering my building, I dodge a couple of overly talkative residents loitering around the ground floor lounge, and walk straight to the mailboxes and elevators. While I'm in the elevator—alone, in a stroke of pure luck—I leaf through the bundle of mail I just retrieved. Overdue Christmas cards, junk mail, political flyer, more junk mail, one lone bill—that I mentally note to switch to paperless—and an official-looking large envelope in a creamy, classy card stock. With an embossed logo for Senator Caulfield's campaign.

A litany of colorful, if inappropriate, descriptors that careen further and further into profanity pour off my lips. I cannot believe the gall of that family. In fact, I can. I just didn't think they'd act on it. But maybe my reaction is unjustified and exaggerated—like so many of my reactions of late. Maybe I should, more rationally, suspend disbelief for a second, walk into my loft, take a seat, and open the damned envelope before I decide how to react to whatever is in it.

And that is exactly what I do. But that bloody envelope taunts me. It's taunting me so much that, instead of stripping off my clothes and taking the extra-long shower I crave, I park my butt on the couch, throwing the pile of mail on the coffee table.

Without even looking for a letter opener, I slide a finger under the flap and unceremoniously tear it open. The posh outer cocoon reveals more posh stationery inside—an invitation to a fundraiser at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. It's one of my favorite places in Boston, but there's no way in hell I'll show my face at a political event for the prime piece of political scat that is Senator Maxwell Caulfield III. No fucking way. I'm not going to lend any legitimacy to the candidacy of a homophobic Caligula-in-the-making when there's already an orange, full-blown one in the White House. No thanks.

An additional card slides out of the envelope when I throw it back on the coffee table. It lands squarely on the junk mail pile—good call. However, the smaller card is handwritten in a flowery, elegant script I used to know. Kate's handwriting.

The audacity of the woman must be genetic; it's clear. What the fuck does she want from me now? Why does she reach out in a fucking campaign fundraiser invitation from her father? Oh, wait. That band of scheming bastards never makes a move without informing each other. This is a coordinated attack. The stationery might be the campaign's, but the invitation is from Kate. Why? Let's read this missive straight from the desk of the uncontested Cruella de Vil of East Coast newsrooms.

Dear Ed,

I know we didn't part on the best terms, but your support for Dad's campaign would mean a lot to us as a family and to me personally.
I can't wait to introduce you to my Lauren, and I seem to remember that you liked the museum.
I hope we'll see you there.
Kate

The fucking nerve of the fucking woman. I'm tempted to throw it into the fire. Or better, stage a ceremonial pyre upstairs in one of the fire pits on the rooftop deck. Somehow, I psyche myself into not using the wall as an unforgiving pad for boxing practice. At this point, if I want to stave off an explosion, I need to walk away.

I leave the letter from Satan behind in the living room and trek to the other end of the loft into my bedroom. Even from the top floor of the building, this apartment gets a side view of the park sprawled one block over. Luckily, I didn't buy this place for the view; I got it for its outrageous, oversized bathroom. Frosted glass enclosed shower with dozens of jets—it could easily fit two people, but hasn't, so far—his and hers sinks, a long counter in between, and the absolute MVP—one of those floor-to-ceiling, wall-mounted towel warming racks. The European-made, insanely expensive contraption is, in fact, a radiator, but it ensures this irritated fucker doesn't have to traipse around the bathroom wet and naked to hunt down a towel after every shower. The towel warmer is right there within arm's reach every time I get out of the steamy enclosure.

After leaving a trail of discarded clothes from my bed to the shower, which my nitpicky tendencies will require me to pick up later, I step into my steamy haven. As I stand under the jets with my hands propped against the wall, hot water slides over me, working out the kinks in my muscles.

I go through the mental steps I learned a long time ago, following the trajectory of cascading water as it washes off me, falls to my feet, and disappears in a spiral down the drain. I imagine all the frustrations of the day wash off and drain away in between deep, cleansing breaths. It works. To a point.

My hackles still rise when I reminisce how my conversation with Emmett also went down the drain, and not in a good way. He's not one to hold grudges. That would be me. I'm too much of a morose, brooding fucker to let go of things easily and quickly. The entire, stupid thing will hide somewhere in a corner of my brain until the command center decides it's fucking Mac we're talking about here, and since the guy is the closest thing I've got to a brother, a ten-minute stupid disagreement is stupid, and I'll let it go. But I also know I have to allow myself to feel things, no matter how disorienting or unsettling they may be.

I've barely turned off the faucet, slid open the shower door, and reached for a deliciously warm towel that a loud, persistent banging on the front door disturbs my earlier quiet. In fact, it fucking makes me jump.

I didn't hear the intercom, and granted, I was in the shower for a solid half hour, but because the loft is damn huge, I had the intercom ringer adjusted to an obnoxious volume and pitch just so I could hear it from basically everywhere. Even then, whoever's standing on the other side has made it through the building's front door without ringing the doorbell. Wondering who's trying to tear down my door, I walk into the kitchen and throw a glance at the security camera.

One look gives me all the answers I need. I secure the towel tighter around my waist and reach the front door with a yell. "Coming!"

When I open, Mac stands there frozen in place; his fist still raised mid-air, ready to pound on my door for the umpteenth time. "Oh. Hi. It's me."

I can't stop the automatic chuckle that escapes. Captain Obvious is in the building. "Hi, Mac. What's up?" And why didn't you call before showing up? Oh, wait. He might have had reason to think I'd send him packing. Might.

"I come bearing gifts," he replies, hoisting two six-packs of beer up to eye level. "I even got the good stuff from Cambridge Brewing."

He's buttering me up with craft beer. And I was planning to smooth things over anyway. "Wanna stay for dinner?"

He raises an eyebrow. "What's for dinner?"

"Spaghetti and meatballs. Come in, you doofus," I entreat him. Throwing a quick look around behind him, I hope nobody can see me in my current classy attire.

Mac steps inside, and with the practiced ease of someone who knows his way around my place, he sets the beers on the kitchen island and transfers them to the fridge. "Whose meatballs are we eating for dinner?" Legit question because I've been known to make my own from scratch. Mac has a fine but oversized palate. He's a food connoisseur—only, the big box version.

"Mom's. But they're frozen. She gave me a few batches after Thanksgiving, and this is the last one. You picked a good day for inviting yourself to dinner."

"Yeah, well, I may be an insensitive oaf, but I know when I fuck up."

I snort at his assessment. For Mac, self-deprecating humor is the first component to his apologies. I walk into the kitchen and put a pot of water on the stove. The meatballs and sauce have been slowly warming in the oven since before my shower. "Let me grab some pants. Unless you'd like me to go au naturel."

Now it's his turn to snort at me. "Nope. No way. There's stuff I don't need to know. Grab those fucking pants, Ed."

Ten minutes later, I've picked up my mess in the bedroom, donned a pair of sweatpants and an undershirt, and I'm back with Mac in the kitchen right when the pot begins to boil. The pasta's ready in no time, and finally, Mac and I can sit down side by side at the breakfast bar.

"Cheers," he says, clinking his bottle of Hefeweizen to mine. At least, he went and picked good beer to crash my solitary Friday night.

"Cheers. Look, Mac …"

"No, Ed. Let me do things properly, will ya? I fucked up. I'm sorry."

"It's okay. We butt heads sometimes. It happens."

He waves me away before answering. "I shouldn't have pushed. I've been a little too invested in your business lately, and again, I'm sorry."

I shake my head while trying not to choke on a meatball. "It's not like you were talking to yourself. I contributed to the fuck-up. It's been a weird few weeks, man."

"So I'll ask again, what's doing? Because you're not okay, Ed. That much I can tell."

After a sip of my beer, I sit back and look at my best friend. The man who's been at my side for the last ten years through thick and thin. Even while Katyusha missiles rained down on us.

I decide to start my homegrown therapy sessions by taking the long way around the mountain of shit I'm dealing with. "Senator Caulfield's campaign had the unabashed chutzpah to send me an invite to a fundraiser."

Emmett's eyes grow as wide as saucers. "You gotta be shitting me!"

"Nope. And Kate thought it would be a great incentive to my participation to include a personalized note."

"This I gotta see."

"Have at it. It's lying somewhere on the coffee table."

Because he's that literal and has a soft spot for good gossip, Mac jumps off his stool and runs to the living room. It doesn't take him long to find the object of contention. "Holy fuck, is she delusional or what?" he erupts, carrying the invite and note back to the table. "You're not going, are you?"

"A fundraiser for her father? You fucking kidding me? I will be busy that night. On another planet. On another dimension. Abducted by aliens. Anything."

"Ah. Good to know," he concedes, relieved.

"Please tell me you don't take me for that much of a sucker, Mac."

"No … No, I don't. I just have no clue how you want to play this," he hedges. "You've been pretty buttoned up about it since her ladyship's big announcement. J and I were a tad pushy, again, I'll admit it, but … we care, man. That's all."

Once I've swallowed the last bit of meatballs and wiped my mouth like my momma taught me, I turn toward Mac, who's walking over to the fridge to get fresh beers for both of us. "I'm not playing. That's it."

"I … did not expect that."

"What would you have me do? Endorse the Senator? Tweet congratulations at his conniving bitch of a daughter? Nope. Not giving them the satisfaction. I don't owe them jack squat."

He nods, then plonks himself back on his stool. "Well, I guess you've thought this through. Are you truly, really okay with the whole shebang?"

I contemplate his arguably gauche choice of words for a minute, but then decide to let it slide. It would divert the course of the discussion into inappropriate territory. "The sting of her betrayal back then cut me so deep that now I can't trust anything she says or does. The fair-minded side of me says good for her; she's finally found herself. My cynical side wonders how long this phase will last, especially if her father doesn't win re-election. She made her opinion of me crystal clear years ago. At this point, anything else is piling insult on top of injury. Of course, she's still the most self-absorbed person on the planet, but what the fuck did we expect?"

"Yeah, well, I remember those days in Amman. You weren't waking up, I didn't know when we'd finally get medevaced out of there, and her only concern was her own damn career. That Mellon girl, she's a food show host, right?"

I shrug, completely uninterested by this turn in the conversation. "Mellon, Mallory, whatever. But yeah, I think so. Not that I care."

"Can I use the engraved invitation for target practice?" Emmett Ulysses McCarty, the king of non-sequiturs.

"Are you channeling your inner Whitey?" Mac lives in a formerly run-down brownstone in Southie, within walking distance of Whitey Bulger's former stomping grounds. It's a fact he's strangely proud of.

"You got it! But anyway, I gotta ask, man."

When that is the preface for a question, you know Mac is about to get weird. Or inappropriate. Or both. "Fire away."

"Did you ever … I don't know, have any inkling that, you know?"

I do have an inkling of where he's going with this, but I want him to spell it out. "Did I know what?"

He huffs, visibly annoyed. "Oh, come on, man! You know? Did you ever suspect that she, um, might switch teams?"

Ah. That one. "Can't say I haven't thought about it. And whether I had an inkling or not, all those years ago, I don't know that it matters, you know? She's a consummate actress."

He nods, taking another sip of his IPA. "That's for damn sure. Why do you think she's being so insistent on having you at that fundraiser?"

I reply with a shrug. This one's easy to guess. "Image. Having pictures of me at that event would help them spin the Senator's candidacy as some sort of bipartisan gimmick. He could say he holds the free press in high esteem. I may not be a field reporter any longer, but they know who my mother is and where she works."

"She ain't mincing words, either. That op-ed was a five-engine fire. If they hope Momma C will be kind to them, they've been drinking too much Kool Aid."

"They're a self-absorbed, insular bunch, Mac. They don't give a shit about facts. It's perception they care about."

I hop off my stool and start picking up empty plates and cutlery. When I finish cleaning up, Mac is ready with a third bottle of beer. "It's not just Kate who got you all twisted up, is it?"

With a deep sigh, I think through my answer before speaking again. "No. Series of things."

With an exaggerated gesture beckoning me to elaborate, Mac replies. "Such as? Could it be that a certain piano player is involved?"

Do I spill the beans and endure Mac's potential ribbing and further questions? Better Mac than anyone else. "Not per se. The whole interview fiasco was a tough pill to swallow."

"And I bet it still rankles because you're that much of a single-minded overachiever. Am I right?" he asks, his boyish dimples showing when he smiles mischievously at me. With good reason because, again, he has me pegged.

"Yes, but you ain't winning shit. What can I tell you? I thought I still had chops. Turns out I don't."

He bumps his shoulder into mine. "You're always too hard on yourself, Ed. You didn't really tell me what happened, did you?"

"Hell, no. I barely told J. As I said, tough pill to swallow."

"What went wrong?" he asks with genuine concern, a pensive frown marring his forehead.

"What didn't?"

"Whoa. That bad?"

I tinker with the coffee maker and show Mac a mug. He takes the hint and nods.

I sigh. "She walked out of the interview. And wasn't subtle about it."

"Whoa." I've stunned Mac into repetitive speechlessness. It doesn't happen often. "That's … odd."

I set two steaming mugs on the breakfast bar and hunt down cream and sugar for Mac. My coffee, on the other hand, is black like my soul—a line he often uses to rub me the wrong way. "Odd, how? It's not like you've known her long enough to say what her ordinary behavior might be."

He shakes his head, scratching at his temple. "I don't quite know how to put it into words. You're the writing kind; I'm the guy who takes pics. They last longer. I can't imagine her being prickly. That's all."

"Well, that's exactly how Miss Swan behaved with me. I don't know—no, scratch that. I know what I did to piss her off."

He raises an eyebrow. "Do you?"

"Yeah. I mean, Mom said that it might have been a combination of factors. But I know it was my fault."

"What did I tell you about beating yourself up too much?"

"Yeah, well. I'll keep it in mind," I grumble, taking a sip of my coffee. I'm curious. I'm curious about her. About Bella Swan, specifically. I want to quiz Mac, hear from him what she was like during the photo shoot.

"Are you going?" Mac asks after a while. Him and his non-sequiturs again.

"Where?"

"Sharps & Flats. The grand opening, you moron. Bella's playing."

"She's Bella now?" He's given me an opening. Nothing wrong in grabbing it with both hands.

He shrugs again. "She introduces herself that way. Don't dodge the question. You going?"

"You're a persistent fucker—anyone ever told you that?" I counter, laughing as I swat his arm away.

"On occasion. So?" He prods, rising from his seat to retrieve more coffee. He's not going to let this go.

"Jacob Black called me this morning. Even if I'd contemplated skipping it, now I wouldn't. He invited me personally."

"Coolio. Bringing anyone along?"

"Yes. You?" I'm holding on to that tidbit of information just to see how he'll react.

"Get the fuck outta here. Who?"

"Mom and Dad. Who were you thinking I'd bring?"

"I dunno. Someone?"

I laugh out loud. Unapologetic and unabashed—that's Mac for you. "How wonderfully unspecific. There isn't a someone. You know that."

"I wonder …" he starts, tapping his nose with his index finger in a mock pensive stance.

"Yeah?"

"What is it that derailed your interview with Bella? I'm not fucking with you; I'm genuinely curious."

"Other than me beating myself up for it?" I knew he wouldn't let go of this one either. I just hoped he'd give me more time to figure out what the hell I could tell him.

"Yep," he replies, nodding his head rhythmically up and down.

"To be perfectly honest, I think Esme nailed it."

He snickers. He loves my mom. "Momma C rocks. Of course, she nailed it. What did she say, again?"

"Based on evidence we pieced together, neither Isabella nor I were ready for an interview that day. I got guilt-tripped into it by Jasper and his busted back. She had to keep to a schedule, doesn't like the press to begin with, and—"

"It all erupted into a clusterfuck of epic proportions."

"An apt summary, if I ever heard one. But, yeah, that's the barebones version."

"Was she alone that day?" he asks, going to the fridge for another beer.

"What do you mean, alone? Her manager, gatekeeper, whatever, was there. Not in the room. But there, at the club."

"Who? The blonde badass bombshell?" Now he's going for acuity and alliteration. Good to know.

"Ross Whitlock, yeah. Why do you ask?"

He shrugs. "Because. Bella was more relaxed during the photo shoot. Triple B didn't stick around. So maybe, just maybe, if I had to take a wild guess …"

Mac and the phrase "wild guess" are not a good combination in any way, shape, or form. Not because he's unintelligent, but rather because he has a tendency to make mountains out of molehills sometimes. It must be that gossipy bone he has.

"Triple B? You've nicknamed her now?"

"Why not? Blonde Badass Bombshell—Triple B. After all, we already have a Triple A."

Sounds logical enough. Although the little I've experienced of Ross Whitlock tells me she wouldn't appreciate the moniker. "Try not to call her Triple B—or any variation of it—to her face. If you can."

He grimaces, unapologetic. "Too late? I wondered why she sent me packing when I asked her out."

I shake my head. "Good God, Mac. And I thought I was a sexist jackass. You take the cake. But back to the subject …"

"Oh, right. Bella. As I said, she was more relaxed after Triple B left. It's gotta be that Jacob dude. She's all smiles when he's around."

And those pics he took are hard evidence of it. But it's not for me to ponder, dissect, or analyze. Not my province. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

"So?"

"So, you know …" he starts, and leaves his sentence suspended mid-air, his speculation bobbing up and down like a hot-air balloon. Another apt analogy. Hot air, indeed.

"No, I don't know. What?"

"Well, they seem close. That's all." His expression tells me he's aware of the implications of his statement. He simply doesn't care to verbalize it further. The hint is out there.

Not that it's up to me to care about it.

"She's cool, you know, Ed."

I nod. Not because I know but because something shines through in those pictures. Pictures I haven't stopped looking at since the gallery went up on our website. But that's strictly for me to ponder and for Mac not to find out.

"How did you get the idea for the shoot?" I ask him with genuine interest.

"It was all in the name. The club's name. I figured it would tie them all together. The sharp notation sign looks like a hashtag. It's imagery that's familiar to a ton of people now. The flat looks like a little 'b.' Her name's Bella. Jacob's last name is Black. She has a thing for chocolate, but we couldn't quite fit that in. And you never go wrong with glitter." Mac narrates it all in an enthusiastic torrent of words. He always gets like this when he talks about photography. For him, it's about both the shot and the story behind it. Then a few things in his explanation hit me like a ton of bricks.

"The flat looks like a little 'b' … Her name's Bella. … chocolate …"

Dammit.

Choc B Flat.

I know who you are.


He figured it out! He just needed a little time.
And Kate reared her irritating head.
What do we think?

Back next week, someone will finally read a certain interview ...