All Note Long (4 page)

The papers were printouts from
GoZZip
and other rumor websites, and the first headline told Michelin everything he needed to know:

“Oh fuck.” He collapsed on his couch, all thoughts of a shower gone.

“There are pictures,” Gloria helpfully pointed out, one bony pink-tipped figure jabbing at the page, like Michelin couldn't see perfectly well for himself.

First shot, him holding out two hundred bucks. Second shot, him dropping the money on Lucky's bag, Lucky looking up with an unreadable expression—seconds before he'd turned into an angry bull and advanced on Michelin. Of course the camera didn't show
that.
The vagueness of the shot made him look more purposeful than pissed off.

The next shot was them making out against the lockers, his hat gone and his face fully visible with Lucky kissing his neck and grinding against him. This photo was followed by one of Lucky whispering in his ear as he showed Michelin out, guilty expressions on both their faces. And the pictures were accompanied by quotes from two “sources” and included a pic of him earlier in the club with his friends. His “well-known, out and proud” friends, as the article emphasized.

“The order of the pictures is all fucked up,” he mumbled. Because of course it was. “That's not how it went down.”

“Oh?” Gloria perched on the arm of the sofa next to him. “Pray tell, how
did
it go down when you had sexual relations with an infamous stripper in one of the city's most notorious gay hookup joints?”

“We-we-we . . . didn't . . .” Oh hell. He couldn't speak again. And did it even matter that there were no orgasms? The pictures presented in that order told a pretty damn convincing story.

“Word is that they got high five figures for those photos. And the story's already rolling. By Monday, it'll be everywhere, all major outlets.” Gloria pushed away from the couch. “I
warned
you.”

“And I told you I wanted to quietly come out.” Michelin was proud of his ability to get a full sentence out. Their argument yesterday seemed years ago now. He'd had yet another magazine feature for the new article, and lying to the writer about his love life
again
had zapped all his energy. He didn't want a parade. Didn't want a press conference. He just wanted to stop lying. And it wasn't that he had some burning desire for a relationship. But begging favors of female friends to be his “dates” for awards shows and the like got really old, as did the last several years of simply going it alone, a strategy that the label had made no bones about hating. “Bring a date to a show. Something small. No announcement. No interview. Something low—”

“Low-key? You call being caught with a stripper—”

“He's a dancer.” Michelin wasn't sure why he corrected her, but Lucky's insistent face flashed before his eyes.

“
Escort.
You think you're the first sugar daddy he's sold the goods to? Kid might be YouTube famous, but he's not a saint, that's for sure.” Gloria paced back and forth in front of him.

“Hold up. He's famous?”

Gloria removed her sunglasses for the apparent sole purpose of rolling her eyes at him. “Lucky Rain is a hot commodity on YouTube with his twerking videos, has been in a half dozen small-budget music videos, and works at a notorious gay bar,” she recited from a page of notes. “And now, will be forever known as the guy who outed Michelin Moses.”

“Wait. He didn't take the pictures.” The angle was totally wrong for where Lucky's phone had been on the bench while they were making out.

“Don't be naive. He paid one of his little friends to do the dirty work while you fucked.”

“No.” Michelin couldn't say why he was so certain, just that he was. Lucky had been so pissed about the money, so adamant that he wasn't selling sex. Michelin had known he'd screwed up the moment Lucky advanced on him full of outrage at the mere idea that Michelin might want to pay him for his company. Goddamn Carter and his stupid advice. And Lucky had been genuinely freaked out on the phone. “He's a good guy. He doesn't deserve to have his name dragged through the mud.”

“Michelin. Do you
ever
think of yourself first? You're
destroyed
and you're worried about some kid who's probably laughing all the way to the bank. What were you thinking?”

“Home fries.” Michelin leaned back against the supple leather of the couch. “I was thinking about home fries. And not wanting to eat alone again.”

“Oh my god. You were really thinking that stripper could be your
boyfriend
?” Gloria could not have looked more shocked had Michelin presented her with a gold engagement ring on bended knee. And Michelin hadn't been thinking
that.
Not exactly. More like that Lucky was a nice guy who made him acutely aware of how damn long it had been since he'd been touched.

He opened his mouth to protest, but Gloria was already rolling ahead. “Wait. That's it. You like this kid, right? And somehow you're sure he's not in on the take?”

“He's not. And he's . . . okay.” Michelin said the last bit cautiously, sure he wasn't going to like what came out of Gloria's mouth next.

“Did
you
set this up? Because I have to say, you're not freaking out half as much as I expected.” Gloria's eyes narrowed at him.

“I don't freak out.” Except when he did. Like when confronted with the hottest guy he'd ever seen, in a club he'd had no business being inside. But she didn't need to know that. Just like she didn't need to know that inside he was a wreck. This was a moment he'd feared for close to two decades—ever since he was sixteen and played his first show—and now that it was here, he wanted to toss himself in a bottle and then back in bed, in that order.
I'm not ready.

He'd thought yesterday, briefly, that he might be. The burden of lying seemed so heavy, especially when Gloria wanted to cut him off from the few people whose company Michelin actually enjoyed. Michelin managed without the entourage that had seemed so necessary when he was first starting out—he had a business manager he communicated with almost solely via text, a stylist he saw before each big appearance, and a financial wizard who dealt with him through lengthy emails and mercifully short phone calls. And Gloria. Couldn't forget her. But none of them compared to the brief pleasure of being in the company of the younger guys, living vicariously through their excitement and discovery. And she'd wanted to take that away from him. So he'd rebelled for a moment. Let himself think about stopping the lies. But deep down, he'd known it was impossible.

Except now he had to deal with the absolute worst case scenario, and all he could think was,
be careful what you wish for.

“Your album drops in two weeks. We have to fix this.” A small, brittle smile appeared on Gloria's face. “And I think I know how.”

“Y
ou want Lucky Rain to be my boyfriend?” Michelin was on his second cup of coffee, and he still wasn't quite sure that he understood Gloria's plan. He'd demanded time to shower and eat while she made phone calls. They were in his dining area, Gloria on her tablet with her phone on a fancy little stand in front of her. She'd been typing and texting ever since he'd made her stop pacing and sit at the table while he made some coffee.

“Right now the story is up on
GoZZip
and a few other sites, but it hasn't hit the major outlets. Judging by news cycles, absent terrorism or a big hurricane on the east coast, you'll be the biggest story by Monday morning.” She spoke with the sort of finality of a news anchor describing a fifty-car pile-up.

“So you're saying I should be praying for a natural disaster?” Michelin took a long swallow of the extra dark roast he had shipped down from Seattle.

“I've already checked the weather. Twice.” Gloria gave a dismissive wave. “No. What I'm saying is that we preempt the news cycle. Get you a story going up tomorrow on one of the biggest LGBT news outlets, with a sit-down interview with someone big a couple days later. Create a tidal wave of press that covers the story and spins it our direction.”

“Explain to me again how Lucky fits into this?” He pushed some eggs around his plate, certain he wasn't going to like her answer. Sitting here with Gloria felt weird. He wasn't used to eating with other people. Wasn't used to other people in his space, period.

“We've got the fact that you're well known as a total hermit. No one can argue with you if you say you've been seeing this dancer a few weeks now. And you guys got frisky on his break, someone photographed your tender moment, and the money part is a huge misunderstanding and smear campaign by people who don't get that love is love.” She smiled broadly, exactly like a woman who'd spent the last hour sucking down Gay PR 101.

“And you think this will . . . do what exactly?”

“Give you a bit more respectability. Like those politicians who marry the mistresses they were caught cheating with. All's forgiven for a great love story.”

“But I'm still going to be gay. And out. And the conservative fans are still going to hate that.”

Michelin hated that that mattered to him. But it did. It was why even as he'd toyed with the idea of coming out, he'd known he never would, or at least not any time soon.

“They love you.” Gloria's tone was encouraging, but somehow less than convincing.

He loved his fans right back, something he tried hard not to show too deeply. But he loved the eighty-seven-year-old grandmas who saved up to come to his Lincoln show and he loved the gun-racked Texans who packed the stadium for his Dallas show and who waited three hours afterward for autographs. When his first country album
Hard Water
dropped, these blue-collar folks were the ones who embraced him most, who shot the album up the charts. Visions of their fan mail flashed through his head, the fans telling him how they played his music at tailgating parties and graduations and family reunions.

And those small-town fans, those were the ones he was most likely to lose. His heart contracted. They wouldn't see him as one of them anymore, even though, truth was, he'd gone country to sing the most authentic music of his career, to finally be the musician he wanted to be and not be packaged by the label like his rock band, Speed Kills, had been. He'd lost the entourage he'd surrounded himself with for his failed pop solo career. He'd been so proud of himself for finally making the changes that broke him out of a decade-long trance. He'd written the music for
Hard Water
. He'd overseen every step of the production. Hell, even the photograph on the album cover was of the old well on his uncle's property. He
was
country, but he wasn't sure country had a place for him.

And here was Gloria, trying to spin things when all he wanted was a nap. He clenched his hands to keep them from shaking. Boyfriend. No boyfriend. It didn't matter. His days at the top of the country charts were over.

“That's a nice try. But I don't think we want to rope the guy into my mess any more than he's already being smeared by it. I say we just issue a simple, ‘Yup. Gay' statement on Monday and then just let the chips fall—”

“Michelin. I don't think you understand me.” Gloria leaned over to tap the area of the table closest to where Michelin was sitting. “You don't pay my salary. The label pays me. And you don't come up with the plan here. You
follow
the plan. And Stu Wockman himself says either we clean this mess up or they're not releasing the new album.”

“What?” He dropped his coffee mug with a clatter against the counter.

“They'll cite technical issues or some such for the delay, but they aren't going to put
anything
behind your release if you don't find a way to come out of this with some positive PR of
some kind.”

“How do we do that? People are going to—”

“That's my job. Trust me. And you might be my first gay country singer, but, honey, I rehabbed Billy Huggins's reputation after that DUI that injured a minivan full of Girl Scouts. I've got this.”

Michelin nodded because, really, what choice did he have? He believed in
Cold Sunrise,
every bit as much as he had
Hard Water.
And
Cold Sunrise
was the album he was dedicating to his mama, and he couldn't let it languish just because the label wanted to play hardball. If the record label thought he needed some spin on this whole mess, then he'd take a whirl in Gloria's washer.

“I guess the real question is how are you going to convince Lucky?”

“Leave it to me.” Gloria winked at him, which reminded him of all Lucky's winks last night. It was entirely possible that the two of them matching wits and carefully timed winks might be the highlight of this whole damn mess.

* * *

Lucky was no stranger to shit days, but this Saturday was on track to make his top five list. First, his landlord was having kittens about the paparazzi camped out on the lawn. Then Lucky had had to dodge said cameras and questions just to get to his piece-of-shit car to get to work. Not to mention all the texts from angry family members, curious friends, and random contacts who all wanted to make their opinions on the
GoZZip
article known.

And now he was at work, and he
knew
there were more paparazzi lurking around, waiting for some drama or a few pictures of him shaking his ass. And ordinarily he didn't mind club goers who ignored the “no pictures” signs, but tonight he was in a
mood
and so didn't want to deal. And no surprise, both Dwayne and Rod had called in sick, which meant a condensed rotation with fewer breaks for the rest of them. Carlos had been nowhere to be seen, but Lucky had a feeling a smackdown was coming from that corner, too.

Adding to the fucked-up-ness of his evening, a female patron was sitting at the bar, nursing a Manhattan and eying him with undisguised speculation. Blond, rail thin, and somewhere between forty and sixty—in this town with all the plastic surgeons, it was hard to guess. She wore an expensive white linen pantsuit that no more fit into The Broom Closet than Lucky would fit into whatever country club she'd fallen out of. He'd already fended off two rude patrons wanting to know what his price was. Last thing he wanted was to tell some wannabe sugar mama no way, no how, but as he hopped down from his platform, she made a beeline right for him, blocking his path to the hallway and his microscopic break time.

“Lucky Rain?” she asked in clipped tones.

“Not interested.” Lucky tried to step around him, but she stopped him with a proprietary hand on his arm.

“Oh, I think you will be.” Her smile reminded Lucky a bit of that cartoon fox that his nephews loved to shout at on the TV. Sly and up to no good. She pulled him closer so that she could talk directly at him, ensuring there was no chance the club music ate her precise words. “You're a hard man to get a hold of. I'm here on behalf of Michelin—”

“The hell?” That was fast. And it figured that fancy lady was a lawyer type, not looking to collect a boy toy. When Lucky had seen the headlines, his first thought had been what a damn fool he was. And his second thought was lawsuit. Which was why he'd done the incredibly stupid thing and called Michelin in a panic. He knew about the big judgments stars had gotten for defamation. And fuck if he could lose more cash over this mess. Or more reputation going down the drain. As it was, no one would hire him for a while, unless it was out of morbid curiosity.

“You've been ignoring your phone.”

“Been a bit busy.” No way was Lucky answering any unknown numbers after the day's event.

“Can we talk for a moment? I have a . . . proposal.” She was about as convincing as a used car salesman with a three-wheeled Chevy Nova, but Lucky led her to the hallway anyway. No way did he need anyone overhearing her putting the shakedown on him.

And three minutes later, he was thanking himself for seeking privacy. Apparently she was a publicist named Gloria, not a lawyer, and she laid out a plan that involved Lucky getting even more involved in this mess. It was the most harebrained plan Lucky had ever heard of, and he'd heard some whack PR strategies. “You want me to play boyfriends with Michelin Moses? For reals?”

“No. For show. And you'd be handsomely remunerated—”

“What the heck?”

“Your English is terrific. That word means paid—” Gloria slowed her speech, enunciating each word. Yeah, of course she saw a Hispanic dude and made typical rich white lady assumptions.

“I was born in Cali, thanks. And I know what bank means. What I'm not clear on is why your boy
still
thinks he can buy my ass?” Even after all that had happened in the last twelve hours, it still smarted that Michelin hadn't been the shy, sweet guy Lucky had taken him for. Part of Lucky was sad, because he really had wanted to get to know that guy better. Too bad he was a mirage.

“Oh, you wouldn't be
sleeping
with him.” She waved her hand. “Or at least that would be between the two of you to work out—”

“Gee, thanks. And no way. I thought I made it clear to your guy that I'm not for sale. Not for any price.”

“Then think of the publicity if you don't want money. The spotlight would help your . . . career.” Her tone said exactly what she thought of go-go dancers. “He's a pretty low-key guy, but Michelin knows all the right people. He can make things happen for you.”

I can make things happen for you.
He'd heard that before many times from Walter-the-snake, and then more recently from guys wanting a way into his pants. He knew full well how awful that trusting those words could make him feel. And no way in hell was he signing up for Michelin to be his sugar daddy. The guy had already tried to toss money Lucky's way; maybe he hadn't actually meant to
buy
Lucky, but he'd made his disrespect of dancers clear. Not to mention Michelin came with more baggage than the carousel at LAX. And he was old.
No thanks.

“No way. Sorry. Not worth the hassle.” Someone had violated fire code
again
by propping the emergency exit door at the end of the hallway open with a brick, probably to try to get some air circulating back here. The crack in the door beckoned Lucky, made him want to make a run for it, away from this whole mess.

“The hassle? Do you understand what Michelin is dealing with here?” She changed her tone from coddling to stone cold. The hallway was stuffy and hot enough to make Lucky sweat even with the cracked door, but she looked remarkably unfazed.

“Lady. No offense here, but I've got paparazzi camped out on my lawn. I lost a whole night's tips thanks to your guy. I've got two coworkers whose asses need kicking.” And yeah, that hurt. Dwayne and Rod were in no way friends, but they'd still taken his money and lied to his face before turning around and selling the story, probably before Lucky even walked in his front door. He'd been had.
No way in hell am I playing the fool again.
“I'm sorry as heck that he got outed like this, but not my problem. I got my own shit to deal with.”

“You'll regret this.” She made a clucking noise. “What could I say to convince you? Things are already in motion—”

“The hell? You thought my cooperation was that sure? You try telling your boy to do his own dirty work next time, for starters. He wants a boyfriend, he can damn well do the asking.” Lucky stalked away from her. He was done with this whole damn situation.

However, four steps had him running right into Carlos's barrel chest.

“Well, if it isn't just the ho I was looking for.” Carlos's round face was as sweaty and mean as Lucky had ever seen it.

“Hey, I'm not the one who called in sick with zero notice.” Lucky glanced over his shoulder but Michelin's handler was already long gone. Thank god. He didn't need an audience for this either. Funny, for a guy used to spending his Saturday nights in a Speedo, Lucky was developing a real taste for privacy.

“No. You're the reason I've had to deal with media, the ABC, and law enforcement all in the last six hours.”