Page 2 of 7 Nights of Sin

"Yeah, I know who he is. Aren't they divorced?"

She nodded. "Sure are. Which is what her sob story is all about. The tragic tale of how much she loved him and how he was an unfaithful, violent drunk."

My eyebrows hit my hairline at that. "That's a bold claim. They've been divorced for like a year."

"Somewhere in the middle she talks about how she's been searching for the strength to come forward and talk about this. To save anyone else from having to suffer like she has." Sam draped a hand dramatically over her forehead. "But it's just been so hard."

"I'll bet," I snorted. "If half of it is true, I'll eat this keyboard."

"True or not, it's all anyone's talking about right now," Sam said. "Trending on Twitter, and there's been at least six or seven articles dropped on different blogging sites about how people expected this of Porter. The floodgates are opening for this poor guy. They've got pictures of him partying in Cancun, Vegas, Cabo. Arms around random women, drinks in hand. It could all be innocent, but..."

She didn't need to finish that sentence. "But paired with this interview, it looks real bad," I summed up. "Hot water indeed."

"Yep. It doesn't help that the pictures they're pulling up for Christine are all from that movie everyone loves."

I rolled my eyes. Christine Williams was most famous for starring in Rootless, a sentimental film about a young woman who adopts a bunch of refugee kids to keep them off the streets and changes all of their lives for the better. It had been nominated for an Oscar, and probably would have won if a movie about the Civil War hadn’t swept that year.

I did a quick search of her name, and of course all the pictures were of her behind the scenes of the movie, chatting with multi-ethnic kids and looking beautiful and saintly.

Never mind that Christine Williams herself had never so much as publicly donated to any refugee funds, she was now associated with her character, which made her seem more sympathetic. That was just how those kinds of things worked.

Kevin Porter was made to look like a drunk with no impulse control, while she seemed like the wounded party.

I went over to Twitter, and of course, everyone was calling Kevin a piece of shit.

"'Great player, but clearly scum when it comes to treating women well'," I read out loud, quoting the tweets I was seeing. "'Wouldn't pay money to see him play these days '. 'Watch Rootless instead of the game this weekend!' Wow, they aren't messing around with dragging him for this."

The hashtag #JusticeforBriana was trending, and I rolled my eyes. Briana was the name of the character from the movie. It was all so predictable.

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "So you see why we need someone with some skill to handle this."

"We're getting the deal on this?" I asked.

She nodded. "Yeah. Gordon got the call from his agent this morning. I mentioned your name and how well you did handling what's name, the chef."

"Liam Samuel," I said, already lost in thought.

"Right, him. You cleaned that up in half the time they thought it would take, and it made us look really good. You deserve this opportunity more than any of the other dicks in this office."

I laughed. Most of the guys I worked with were dicks who thought they were masters of the spin or something. I kept to myself, kept my head down, and did my work. And opportunities fell into my lap, apparently. This could be such a big break for me. Both of them were big names, and doing this right could mean big things for me.

But god. Did it have to be Kevin Porter?

He was basically a hero when it came to baseball. Joined the team three years ago, after being traded over from a smaller team down south. Now he was basically the biggest name in baseball. He'd led the New York Empires to the World Series twice since he'd joined, and they praised his name everywhere.

It was impossible to talk about the sport without his name coming up. He had something of a reputation for drinking and women, but since he was divorced, no one really cared. His ex-wife coming out with her tell-all was casting a very negative light on his past behavior, and I could imagine his agent was fit to be tied.

Kevin was the kind of star who had deals for shoes and clothes, and he also appeared on commercials for cereal and snacks and kids' toys. He'd been on more than one daytime kid’s show, talking about the importance of sharing or whatever. He was a big name, and those people would drop him like a hot box of garbage if they thought he was going to tarnish their reputation.

"You don't seem excited," Sam said, looking at me curiously. "You do see how big this is, right? If you could fix it so he doesn't lose any of his deals, or even get him more deals after this, you'd be a hero."

"I know," I said. And god, I did know. It was the break I'd been waiting for. A chance to make a name for myself. The person who dug Kevin Porter out of this mess would be talked about for years. And it could be me.

For the low, low price of having to deal with the man himself. Which was a big block.

I sighed and rubbed at my eyes. I'd been staring at my screen for too long, probably.

"I just...don't like him," I said finally, and that was the understatement of the year, but it summed it up well enough.

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