Page 138 of If This Gets Out

“Right,” scoffs Ruben.

“However,in the process of announcing your relationship, you have defamed us, and done irreversible damage to our brand. You signed a contract stating you would never publicly speak against Chorus, and you couldn’t fulfill your end of the bargain. So, it is with great sadness that I have to inform you that we will be taking legal action against all of you. There will be extreme punishment for what you just did.”

“Wait, Dad, what?” says Jon. “You’re doing this all because Ruben and Zach came out?”

“This has nothing to do with Ruben and Zach being together,” he says, his voice finally rising. He quirks his head to the side, like his emotions surprised him, and he needed to wrestle them back into submission. “This isbusiness. You signed contracts agreeing to boundaries we set, and one of those boundaries was that you would not defame us. People are already calling us homophobic and the media is already running stories falsely accusing our company of homophobia due to your words, when we never said either of you couldn’t come out. You have proven you can’t be trusted. You went against us, have shown you are unreliable, and have done huge damage to our brand. This is the consequence.”

“You can’t be serious,” says Angel. “You know this is going to look like you truly are the homophobic assholes everyone is calling you, right? Because that’s exactly what you’re being.”

“I repeat, we at Chorus have always prided—”

“Oh, don’t give me that!” says Jon. “Ruben told us everything. He told us you pressured him to stay closeted foryears.”

“We did no such thing. We simply advised Ruben and he agreed to wait for the ideal time—”

“Which never came! Dad, do you even see how messed up this is? You made him deny who he is, and then you tried to do it to Zach!”

Geoff clenches his fist, and then releases it. “I won’t argue with you about this, Jon. By saying what Ruben and Zach did on live television, in what was clearly a premeditated ploy, you have defamed us, and we will be seeking compensation.”

We have a five-album contract with Chorus, with two remaining. That means, for our next two albums, they will gettheir huge commission no matter what, and we can’t get new management, since the new team would need to take us on for free. So Chorus can make our lives a living hell while suing us for everything we have. And from the sound of things, Geoff is planning on doing all of that.

“You can’t do this,” says Ruben. I can hear the defeat in his voice, because he’s smart, and he knows that’s not true.

Geoff grins. “You’ll find that we can.”

I look around the room.

Geoff is backed by an entire team of the best lawyers in the world. Jon, Ruben, and Angel all look so young compared to them.

We lost.

And we’re trapped with the very people who are going to break us.

TWENTY-NINE

RUBEN

“What were you thinking?”

I raise tired eyes as Mom greets me at the door with a red-faced glower. “I don’t know,” I say, truthfully. The only answer I can give is a useless one. I wasn’t thinking about our contract terms, or being sued, or what finally standing up for myself would mean for the band. If I had, I would’ve stuck to the script, and simply announced my relationship with Zach.

Instead, I’ve ruined everything. I’ve destroyed us.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“You’re sorry. You’resorry? You went up on that stage and you recklessly…”

Her words fade into muffled humming. My eyes trail past her to take in the living room while she shouts. It’s empty. Dad’s not here. Not that he’d step in if he was.

So, who will?

Who’s going to have my own back if my parents won’t? If management won’t? If my friends aren’t here?

I drag my gaze back to Mom. She’s sneering at me, throwing her arms up while she bellows loudly enough for the neighbors to hear.

The words bubble up.

Then the dam bursts.

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