Page 61 of I Did Something Bad
“You’re a really good friend,” I say, reversing the car and rolling toward the exit.
“Hey, Khin?” she says, then pauses.
“Mm-hmm?”
“This profile of him you’re writing.”
“Yeah?” I ask casually, even though it occurs to me that since she’s the one who brought it up first, this time alone with May is a potential gold mine for said profile.
“You’re—” She hesitates again. I’m waiting for a break in the stream of cars so I can join the far lane, and can’t look over to gauge her expression. “You’re going to befair,right?”
I see my chance and curve onto the road. “What do you mean?”
“I know you have a job to do, but… don’t take advantage of him? Please? He—” I glance over into her unexpected silence, and find a sweet yet unsure smile spreading on her glossy pink lips. This is the first time I’ve ever seen May… nervous? Tense? “He’s really enjoying spending time with you. I can’t remember the last time he let hisguard down like this with, well, anyone. Especially someone who also happens to be a journalist. It’s been a long, long time since I saw him like this again, all… soft.”
I frown, not enjoying how the lineHe’s really enjoying spending time with youhas given me immediate heart palpitations. “Soft?” I ask, ignoring the first part of what she said.
She nods. “Ty has the biggest, purest heart of anyone I know. It’s this soft, golden thing that he used to wear on his sleeve. You know he used to be one of those people that strikes up conversations with strangers on planes?”
I make a mock gagging sound. “Ew.”
“Right?” She laughs. “But now he… keeps it in a glass case because all the world keeps trying to do is crush it. Like he’s a circus animal and if they prod enough times or at the right angle, they’ll find something that makes him not soft, not kind, nothim. I’ve seen way too many reporters try to catch him out, trick him into saying something potentially career-ruining, all so they can, what, say that Tyler Tun isn’t as wonderful as everyone thinks? I want to tell him to stop being so guarded and distrustful all the time, but I can’t when I see how everyone treats him. So Khin, please don’t… do that, okay? Please be fair? Kind, even?” she asks.
I know I should, at the very least, pretend to be on board even if I don’t think what May’s asking for is completely fair. I’m obviously not going to print hisrealbig secret about his sister, but that doesn’t mean I can’t print any other confessions he relays to me. Especially ones that relate back to his career, like, say, if I managed to get out of him what his big meeting tonight was about. His family aside, everything else he tellsme,ajournalist,is fair game… right?
“I… I will,” I reply, and force the corners of my lip upward, relying on the darkness to hinder her ability to see through my coerced expression.
“Thank you,” she says, but I can still discern something in her tone that tells me she doesn’t believe me wholly. Then again, like she said, I suppose that’s par for the course in their line of work: How close is anyone in their inner circle to being offered the right sum to expose a secret? “Anyway, moving on.” She laughs to brush off the tension that has sunk into the creases of the leather seats. “Are you seeing anyone?”
It’s an innocuous question, one that acquaintances have asked me while we’re waiting for drinks at the bar, but coming from May’s mouth, it’s both shocking and, for a vague reason, feels loaded. “No, I—” I swallow. “I don’t know if Tyler told you, but I recently got divorced. I’m trying to take some time away, focus on myself, focus on new projects, you know, all that usual ‘wellness’”—I make air quotes with one hand—“stuff before I start dating again. Which I will, eventually. But right now, no.”
“I see.” The two words are slow, intentionally so. I peek over again, and again, there’s that sly smile on her glossy lips.
“What?” I ask with a timid laugh that I hadn’t planned.
“Nothing!” she says, but her voice not so much projects as it dances across the center console. It’s the voice she puts on during talk shows, the bright, cheery May Diamond that men, women, and nonbinary individuals alike would inexplicably bend over backward to please. It’s the voice that, paired with her gleaming smile, makes people go,Well, we don’t usually allow this, but let me see what I can do.
“You know,” she starts with an almost singsong inflection. “Tyler’s been taking a break from dating as well, but I’m pretty sure he’s looking to start again. Eventually. Maybe even soon.”
If we were talking about literally any other guy, I would say with complete certainty that she’s trying to wingwoman me on her friend’s behalf right now. But we’re talking about Tyler. Tyler, who was last seen in Sicily with Zoë fucking Kravitz. Not because I don’t think I’m on his level, but because I am not on Zoë Kravitz’s level (nobody is).
Instantly, my brain sparks with an idea. “But he dates a lot, doesn’t he? Or at least, he used to?” I ask, making great effort not to slip into what my friends call my “journalist voice.”
“He’ll goondates, but that’s only because he doesn’t want people to think he’s a recluse loner.”
“People?”
“Industry people. The people who do the hiring,” she says with a rueful scoff. “He—we,” she clarifies, “need to stay relevant in people’s minds. That’s why I do so many modeling campaigns, go out all the time. But Ty doesn’t like those, and he doesn’t like parties, which is another way that people stay relevant. It’s not like one of those fake Hollywood dating PR stunts,” she reassures me hurriedly. “Hedoeslike the people he goes on these dates with, but it’s never serious. He never, say, started watchingLaw & Orderbecause it was Zendaya’s favorite show.”
This time, I have no doubt what she’s doing, and May knows I know. I am usually the cat in the game of cat and mouse, but right now, she’s got my blushing mouse ass cornered.
It is suddenly scorching in here. I glance at the air con to see if it’s still on. Yep, it sure is. “Oh,” I say, and it sounds like I barely managed to scrape it out of my throat. “I have to ask, just to hear straight from the source,” I force myself to say even though I’m now wondering if my voice has always sounded this stilted. “Have you two ever dated?”
“No,” she replies instantly.
“Have you… wanted to? At least on your end?”
May chuckles to herself. “Of course I have. Have you met the guy?”
