Page 93 of Good Guy Gabe

“I’m trying to help. But literally the only requests that have come in are for—”

“I’ll take it. Whatever is. If I gotta be not-so-fresh in a fucking field of daisies, I’ll do it.”

“Blaise—”

“Actual tampons? I’m down. You know how many times I’ve had to stick a tampon up my nose? Four times, Andy. Four. Times. And I will do it again.”

Andy sighs once I give him the room to talk. I’ve been told I’m bad at talking over people, but seriously, I will jam yet another tampon up my nose. The last one got stuck. They had to use tweezers and a saline wash to get it out. I’ll still do it.

If it’ll get me through the next payment, if it’ll keep this video from getting leaked, it’ll be worth it.

“Blaise, they’re all local spots. Car dealerships. Mattress shops. The pizza place down the street. Pennies.”

I drop my head back in my seat. It’s a nice seat. A custom Ferrari. If I sell it, I could get six figures from it. I can’t be driving around in an old beater on my salary – not even for reasons of pride, I just don’t have a way to explain where all my money’s going – but I bet there’s a way I could frame this where management will hire a driver for me on their buck.

“What are you thinking?” Andy asks.

I swallow hard. What I’m thinking, what’s actually spinning in my brain, isn’t what I’mthinking.

“I’m thinking my career is over, Andy.”

“Are the tapes really that bad?”

I nod. I don’t want to talk about what’s on the video. I don’t want to tell him about how the most intriguing woman I’ve ever seen in my entire life — from the neck down, thanks to the masks— duped me into saying stuff that out of context makes me look absolutely disgusting and depraved.

I’m not saying I don’t have my kinks, but what’s on the videos I’ve been getting sent, the way they’ve been edited? They sound like I hate the women I fuck. They sound like rape.

I want to vomit thinking about it.

And every time I’m sent a new video, I’m asked for more money. Every time, there’s another zero on it. She has to know that I’m tapped out. The payment I just made will leave me on McDonalds until my next bonus comes through. If she demands more next time, I’m sunk.

These videos end me.

“I still have a guy working on this,” Andy promises me. I’m sure he does, I’m the Cuba Gooding, Jr. to his Tom Cruise, but his guy hasn’t been able to track this girl down yet. I’m running out of hope as rapidly as I’m running out of money.

“I gotta go. Gabe’s having a party. I’m late.”

“Okay, send Gabe my congratulations. Tell him if he needs a new agent, I’ve got plenty of room for him. And hey, we’ll get through this, okay?”

I hang up on that, unable or unwilling to give him the energy I’ve been storing up for my appearance at this party.

Myappearance. Fuck. Gabe’s my best friend. He lives with me. This isn’t an appearance, it’s a celebration.

Shots are passed to me the moment I walk into the house. When I ask where Gabe is, Bodley nods down the hall toward the bedrooms. “With his girl. Where you been?”

“Just dealing with shit is all.” I tap my empty shot glass on the counter to get Bodley to pour me another one. “It’s cool,they’ll be out later.” After they’re done with their lame romantic sex.

I give myself a good shake, screw on my party face, grab the tequila in one hand, margarita mix in the other, and head out the back door. “Mouth margaritas, bitches!”

Most of my teammates are shaking their heads, no, wildly. Thompson’s clearly tempted to tackle me when, instead of dumping the booze on everyone else like I usually do — whether their mouths are open or not — I tip my own head back.

It tastes awful.

Fuck, it’s all room temperature.

And I’d do it again if Merrick didn’t reach out from the hot tub and snatch the tequila from my hand, passing it to the stranger on the opposite side of him.

“Well, I don’t want this,” she says.

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