Page 50 of High Notes & Hail Marys

“The fuck you want, asshole?” he snarls, pivoting towards the camera like a bull to a red cape.

“You’re good, Mister Heller,” the kid pipes up. “Sterling, over here!”

GoGo’s eyes are red and dilated, the blue almost entirely swallowed up by the pupil. Hanks of hair have escaped his ponytail and are sticking to his forehead, which is, inexplicably, covered in sweat. He’s grinding his teeth; you can see the tense set of his jaw through his profile.

“Haven’t you ever heard of a private conversation, asshole?” GoGo reaches into the car. Withdraws a water bottle. It doesn’t make sense to you until itdoes. You open your mouth to call out a warning, but it’s too late—GoGo’s launched the bottle through the air and hit the kid on the side of the head. His camera goes flying, hitting the sidewalk with a crunch. The surprise of the impact knocks the kid into the bush.

GoGo laughs, and wipes his nose with his sleeve.

“Fuck all y’all,” he declares, getting into the SUV.

Like a gunshot, Sterling has jumped for the kid in the bushes. As tenderly as a mother, he pulls the paparazzo to his feet, dusting him off. The kid’s glasses sit cockeyed on his nose, and his hair is all fucked up.

As Gabi cries softly, the kid is rambling in a shaky voice, making a lot of noise about assault and freedom of the press and lawsuits.

Sterling’s face is whiter than you have ever seen it. He pulls out his phone.

“I’m really sorry,” he says confidentially, like he’s talking to his best friend. “I don’t know what got into GoGo. The season’s really stressful for him. That didn’t give him the right to hurt you, though.”

To your eyes, the kid looks uninjured. His dignity is definitely hurt worse than his face, thanks to the fact that GoGo is a receiver who couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn. You see his ploy for what it is:a shot at a guaranteed paycheck.

“You all are witnesses!” the kid declares. “I got it on film. My camera…”

He looks down at the pavement, where the aforementioned camera lays in three jagged pieces. The lens is shattered.

“My camera!” he wails.

Sterling shakes his head. “You don’t need to be upset,” he says soothingly. “You just wanted your picture. I get it. I’ll tell you what. I have some amazing lawyers on retainer. I’m willing to cover any legal fees you have, if that’s the route you want to go…”

Your jaw drops. Literally. Has Sterling lost hismind?

“Or,” Sterling continues, “you can let me make it up to you?”

“Huh?” the kid says.

“I’ll replace your camera, obviously,” Sterling says. “And maybe you can give me that memory card? The one with all those pictures?”

The kid squares his shoulders, ready for a fight—

“And I’ll pay you whatever you would have gotten if you sold them to TMZ. You probably got, what? Ten good shots of me?”

The kid nods. You think to yourself that any photos he got weremaybeof Sterling’s shoulder and upper back, due to the bad angle. The pictures would mostly have been of GoGo.

“Ten shots at about five thousand apiece is fifty thousand,” Sterling calculates. “How about we make it fifty-five, for good measure? And, for you being such a good sport, my boyfriend and I will let you take a picture of us with your phone. You can do whatever you like with it. I assume your phone is safe?”

Just when you are mildly concerned that Sterling is going to offer to buy the little shit a brand-new iPhone and pay for his high-speed internet, too, the kid nods slowly.

“That’s… really awesome of you, Sterling. Thank you so much.”

“Gabs? Sweetheart? Are you okay?” Sterling asks, turning his attention to Gabi. While the tense interaction has ground on, Gabi has been hunched over by the bushes, shivering and sobbing silently. Ster’s face is agonized when he looks at her, like he wants nothing more than to attend to his friend. Gabi nods like a puppet, her blonde hair floating in the breeze as her head jerks. She looks absolutely freezing. Sterling shrugs out of his crushed velvet blazer and wraps it around her shoulders. “Go home, baby. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

She nods robotically, tilting her cheek for Sterling’s kiss. His hand lingers on her shoulder when he hugs her, like he doesn’t want to let her go. Gabi gets into another of the waiting cars and is whisked off into the night.

That leaves just you, Sterling, and the photographer. As you watch, Sterling makes a phone call, and covers the receiver to ask the kid for his bank account information. After that, the memory card is handed over. Sterling slips it into his back pocket.

“Come here, Kai,” he says softly.

You know you have no choice, so you let yourself go to Sterling’s side. Without being told, you wrap your arm around his shoulder. Hands jerky with excitement, the kid snaps a picture with his phone. Maybe more than one, who could be sure? Under your palm, Sterling’s body is trembling. You want to scoop him up and carry him to the car. But you wait patiently while he exchanges some last-minute pleasantries with the kid, and even gives him a hug.

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