THIRTY SEVEN: F**** FRIENDS

He was gone when I woke up this morning. I admit, I was pissed off, but just as I concluded I was duped again, I saw a folded sheet, placed under my cell.

  I held it for a few moments; everything I worked to hide so meticulously in the past three months seemed to evaporate like acid in one night. I was scared. How could he do this to me? I began to shake. Why was I shaking? Stuff it, kill the suspense; I was opening the letter.

 Minna,

 Gone to studio.

Taken laptop. Ticket is under your cell. Come backstage tonight, show Quincy your ticket to get it back.

Later,

AJ

Shit. 

He took my laptop. What the hell was I going to use for the article?! Maybe I could ring him- no, he didn’t leave a number.

Okay, don’t panic. You just fucked an undeniably sexy popstar, but he doesn’t seem to have half a brain.

What the hell am I going to do?

          

Okay, okay, chill, I know, how could I take Prescott’s precious baby? But I had to, no two ways about it.  

After last time, I figure she’s gonna freak about fucking again. She’s got this weird barrier thing that she seems to put up once she gets intimate in any way; so I’ve taken it in my own hands and taken her laptop as ‘insurance’- insurance so she has to see me to retrieve it.

I can’t say I’m a changed man, because I’ve got a rep to uphold, but judging by this morning’s paper, my rep as a ‘playa popstar’ just upped a notch-I got snapped with Louise last night.

Whoo hoo…. Kevin freaked as soon as I walked into the door.  

“What is this? Another fuck friend?”

“Hey, we didn’t do shit or nothin’ okay?”

“Then ‘do ‘nothin’ more discreetly, okay? They’ve got pictures, man”

“Don’t believe everything you see” I seethed.

But it’s not the stuff they see that’s important- the stuff the fans and the press never see- man, that’s the stuff you don’t want to get out.

“Management wants to see you after recording”

Not again.

So I waltz in there, waiting for the spiel. Eric usually has more to say than is necessary, but hey, he’s lookin’ out for us, so-

“AJ, I see you getting some sort of social life out there, paintin’ the town all sortsa colors”

“Ya got a problem with it?”

“No, no actually I like that. What I don’t like is the reporter thing you’ve got on the side”

“I don’t see-“

“Exactly, AJ, you don’t see the vision” He eased up from his chair and walked up to where I sat. Where was he going with this? “Which is why I’m the one who keeps you focused- you do the work, I direct the vision”

I raised my eyes, surprised by where he was heading. “Like I said, I love what you’ve done with the ‘player’ thing. Fantastic. Brilliant.” he lit up a cigar and took a puff “But with this reporter girl, Prescott” he sucked hard on the cigar; I could see the ashes falling like black snow onto the dark carpeting, making this white ash. “Keep the player, ditch the relationship. It ain’t gunna work if you have a woman on your arm. You ain’t gunna succeed”

I listened to a few more moments of this propaganda before I left his office.

Minna and I- we’re just fuck friends right?

But do I want it this way?

 

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