Page 28 of Protecting Hailey

“No. I toured with the Country Brats the summer after high school and my manager signed me with my record company shortly after that. Everything moved so quickly, I didn’t even think about college until all my friends were graduating.”

“Has Frankie always been your manager?” Christian asked quietly.

“No. After my first manager and I went our separate ways, I met Frankie through Tessa. We hit it off, and it’s been good since then. That was…” I had to think back to the last time I’d been on tour with another band. “Oh, probably three years ago.”

He nodded and pursed his lips.

I wondered about the strange look on his face. “Why are you asking about Frankie?”

“No reason,” he said, but there was something in his eyes that made me wonder if that was true.

Christian pulled up to the front doors of the studio just as I was about to press him about it. “We’re here,” he said.

Frankie, the man we were just speaking about, waited for me at the front doors. I stepped out of the car and walked toward him.

“Hey, doll,” he said when he saw me and kissed my cheek. “Listen, Sam is here. I asked her to meet us because we have to deal with this lip-syncing scandal ASAP.”

“All right. Is Tessa okay with that? I know how she feels about keeping her schedule.”

“She’s fine. I’ve got her remixing some stuff and that will keep her busy for at least thirty minutes.”

He ushered me into the building and down a dark hallway.

Sam waited inside a tiny boardroom with Ingrid.

“Hey Hailey, great to see you. How are you feeling?” asked Sam, standing from the table to shake my hand.

“A lot better, thanks. I think I just needed some rest to heal—"

“Good. Good. Listen, we’ve got a problem.” She sat down and opened the red file folder in front of her. “This is a printout of some of the latest messages on the internet. I’m not going to lie, darling, they’re not good.”

She turned to Ingrid, who passed her a tablet. “And these just came in the last hour. People are saying to cancel you.”

“Cancel me? For what? Having a cold?”

Sam stopped scrolling the tablet and tilted her head. “That’s not funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be. I only did what the producer and Frankie asked me to do. I wanted to cancel the appearance, but they convinced me that using the track happened all the time. Someone fucked up the track and now the world wants to cancel me? I don’t get it.”

“Look, social media has a mind of its own. Sometimes it can spiral out of control, but we can fix it.”

“Good. How?”

She pulled out another piece of paper and handed this one to me. “I’ve written a statement for you. We’re going to post this on your page today.”

I read the statement. It was very apologetic and contained quite a few buzzwords I’d heard floating around lately. There was nothing in this statement that sounded remotely like anything I would say.

I looked up at Sam. “No.”

“No? What do you mean, no?”

“If this statement is going to come from me, it needs to sound like me. Pass me that pencil.” I pointed to the pencil next to Ingrid’s laptop. She looked at Sam for permission.

I inhaled slowly to calm myself. “Sam may be your day-to-day boss,” I said to Ingrid. “But you both work for me. Please pass me that pencil.”

She quickly grabbed the pencil and handed it to me. “Thank you,” I said and began writing over the previous statement.

I scratched most of the original version and inserted my true feelings into the message. When finished, I lifted the paper and read it over one last time. “There. Now that’s something I would say. You can use this statement.”

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