Eye Candy (14 page)

Chapter 35

I
t felt funny sitting at home watching my show live. I shook away that thought.
Rumor Central
was no longer my show. I needed to get that out of my head.

I heard the back door open and the clink of my father's keys as he tossed them on the bar. I knew it wasn't my mother because she was off getting some kind of eight-hour spa treatment. Besides, when I was a little girl, I used to wait for the clink of those keys to let me know my daddy was home.

“Hey, Daddy,” I said as he walked into the den.

“How's my sweet pea today?”

“Not good.” I turned my attention away from the TV and back to the email I'd printed out from our family attorney. Just when I'd thought my week couldn't get any worse, I got this email that WXIA was moving forward with plans to sue me for quitting and violating my
Rumor Central
contract. “Can you handle this? I can't deal with this stuff,” I said, handing him the email.

“What's wrong?” he asked, taking the paper.

“The station said they're going to sue me,” I said.

“Oh, that.” He waved me off as he set the paper down. “Walter called me about that.”

“You don't seem fazed,” I replied. I'd been sitting here stressing for the past hour, and my dad was acting like it was a summons for jury duty.

“Darling, if I had a dime for every time someone threatened to sue me, we'd be even richer than we are.”

I smiled at my dad. I loved how it took a lot to make him sweat. The only time I'd seen him nervous was when a former partner had gotten caught up in some illegal activity and my dad was worried that his name would be tied to it. But as usual, my dad had come out on top.

“How do you know they're not really going to sue?” I asked.

My dad smiled. “Let's just say that whole dangerous trip to Cancún they sent you on left them wide open.”

“What do you mean?” For spring break, we had taken a senior trip to Cancún that the station all but forced me to film. They were hoping I could get some dirt since a lot of young celebrities went to the Spring Break Fling. That's when Evian had faked her kidnapping after going off with some guy during a game of truth-or-dare. We'd gone crazy trying to find her and had gone to some pretty shady places, but nothing had happened to us, so I didn't know what that whole trip had to do with anything.

“You're seventeen, sweetheart,” my dad explained. “The station placed you in a position that could've ended very badly in pursuit of a story. So, we reminded them that, as soon as their lawsuit was filed, we would be pressing charges for endangering the welfare of a minor.”

I frowned in confusion. “But I agreed to do that.”

“By the time we got through in court, you'd be a young, naïve, starstruck girl who was coerced into putting her life in danger for the sake of ratings.”

I couldn't do anything but smile. My dad could be ruthless. I guess he wasn't a multimillionaire businessman for nothing. “So you think they bought it?” I asked.

“Oh, they have to take it back to the bigwigs, but I doubt they want to mess with a Morgan child,” he said, squeezing my cheek. But then his voice turned serious. “I want you to take some time off and enjoy the rest of your senior year and the summer.”

“I'm trying.”

“You have the rest of your life to be an adult and live a lavish life. Enjoy your youth. And since you start college in the fall, you especially need to just relax.”

I couldn't respond to that because it wasn't written I was going to college. I mean, people went to college so they could get good jobs. I had a good job.
Or I used to
, the little voice in my head said. Regardless, I definitely wasn't about to get into that with my dad, so I just nodded and said, “Thanks, Dad.”

He leaned in and kissed me on the forehead. “Of course. You don't worry your pretty little head about this nonsense. Walter and I have it handled. Can you tell Sui I'm going to take dinner in my office tonight?”

I pulled out my phone and started browsing Instagram when I saw a text come in.

I frowned when I noticed it was from Alvin. I opened the message. He had sent it to me and seven other people. The guy that I loved had really and truly sent me a good-bye note via a group text? I didn't know whether to be mad or hurt. And now, knowing that Marisol was moving to Seattle with Alvin, I couldn't help but wonder if I had ever really meant anything to Alvin at all.

Chapter 36

I
couldn't believe I was sitting outside Alvin's house, ducked down in Sui's car, watching him load his U-Haul. What in the world had I turned into? Divas didn't do this. But I couldn't let him leave without saying something. I just had to figure out what.

I'd tossed and turned all night. His group text had really disturbed me and I'd thought about calling him to go off, but I needed to do this face-to-face.

I didn't see Marisol anywhere around, and believe me, I was looking, because the last thing I wanted was her to have the satisfaction of seeing me grovel.

I took a deep breath to give me strength, then pulled up behind the U-Haul. Alvin was walking out with a box. He stopped when he saw me and didn't say a word as I slowly got out of the car and walked toward him.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” he replied.

“So, you're all packed?”

“Yeah,” he said, walking around me and placing the box on the back of the truck.

“What about your mom? Are you really going to leave your mom?” I asked, just because I didn't have the courage to say what I really wanted to say yet.

“My mom is straight. My cousin is going to come move in here. She was all too happy to have a free place to live, so Mom will be taken care of,” Alvin replied. “And I'll be back and forth.”

That actually brought a smile to my face. Seattle was on the other side of the country, but knowing that this wouldn't be the last time I saw Alvin gave me a little glimmer of hope.

“So, what did you want, Maya?” he asked. I couldn't believe how cold and callous he was.

“I just wanted to say good-bye.”

“We did that already.”

“Yeah, in a group text. That's what I've been reduced to? A group text?”

He sighed like he didn't want to argue with me.

“How could you take her with you?” I finally blurted out. “You swore that nothing was going on.” With anyone else, I would've never let myself appear so desperate, but there was something about Alvin. I didn't mind showing my vulnerability.

“What are you talking about, Maya?”

“Marisol. When the picture of you two was in the paper, you said you weren't messing around with her, but something was going on for you to jump back into a relationship with her so fast. I just can't believe you're taking her with you, especially after everything that happened. Do you have any idea how much that hurts?”

He scratched his head in confusion. “What? Who said I was taking her with me?”

“Um, she did.”

Alvin actually started laughing. “First of all, Maya, what I said was true. There was nothing going on. Marisol asked me to meet her because she wanted to tell me that she planned to plead guilty to causing your accident. She wanted to apologize to me and say good-bye because she thought she'd be going to jail for a while. She caught me by surprise when she leaned in and kissed me and I told her that was out of order. Secondly, not that it's any of your business, but she's not going to Seattle with me.”

“What? But I called you last week and she said she was going with you.”

He rolled his eyes and shook his head at the same time. “And you believed her? She came over to get some stuff that had been in my basement that she wanted to leave with her mother before she went away. I didn't know that you had called and I sure didn't know that she had answered my phone. But she was messing with you. She's not going anywhere with me. I'm not involved with her. At all.”

That made me want to jump for joy and cry at the same time. “Oh, wow.” I moved into him with a smile. He took a step back, which wiped the smile right off of my face.

“I'm not involved with anybody. You, on the other hand, are.”

That stung. But I guess I deserved it. “Alvin, I made a mistake. I mean, the whole thing with J. wasn't even like that.”

“Whatever, Maya. You wanted somebody to make you look good, go look good.”

I didn't know what to say. I actually deserved his anger, and judging from the look in his eyes, boy was he angry.

“Alvin, what do you want me to say?”

“There's nothing else for you to say, Maya. I'm not about that life. Never have been. Never will be. I thought I could make you happy, but I can't change the way I look as much as you'd like me too. And despite your text, I will never be hot.”

I looked at him in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“You really gotta do better with texting the right person. I saw the text I'm assuming was meant for one of your girls.
If only Alvin was hot.
Well, I'm not.”

I was speechless. I remembered Tamara calling me out during that meeting, so I'd quickly pressed SEND, thinking I'd sent the text to Kennedi.

When I didn't say anything, Alvin continued, “Yeah, I don't know who you were trying to text, but it went to me instead.”

“A-Alvin, let me explain.”

He held up his hand. “It's all good, Maya.” He shook his head. “I'm not what you want.”

“Yes, you are,” I cried.

“No, I'm what you want till some real eye candy comes along. I need someone who wants me for me. So, I'm gonna holla at you later. Take care of yourself and stay out of trouble.”

Then he turned and walked back in the house and my heart told me that was the last time I'd ever see Alvin Martin.

Chapter 37

I remember my grandmother used to play this old blues song that went something like that. When I was little, I'd had no idea what that meant. But now, I think I knew.

I'd lost Alvin, and as much as J. Love got on my nerves, I might as well just kick it with him. I know we'd had our share of problems, but I really didn't feel like starting all over on the dating scene. I'd lost my job; the least I could do was hang on to my guy.

We'd been hanging out at his place all day. I usually didn't like chillin' alone in his crib for too long because he was used to getting any woman he wanted. And I didn't want to put myself in any tempting position. But so far, to my surprise, he didn't press the issue.

“I'm about to take a shower.” J. Love walked into the living room, where I'd been sitting and flipping through the latest issue of
Miami Hot Gossip.
“You good?” he asked, even though it seemed like he was just asking to be asking.

“Yeah.” I closed the magazine. I'd wasted enough time. I needed to do my homework in case J. wanted to go do something after he got out of the shower. “Can I use your laptop?” I asked him. “I might as well go ahead and look up this stuff I need for the history final paper.”

“Yeah, it's on the dining room table.” He pointed across the living room. He didn't say anything else, which had sorta become our story. It's like we didn't have as much to say to each other anymore. We didn't have fun. We didn't even really talk, and I had no idea why things had changed. I could tell it was only a matter of time before things fell apart for us altogether.

I opened up the laptop, logged on to Google, and started pulling research. At least if I printed some stuff or at least got the links, I'd have all the info so when I got home I could just pull what I needed.

I had been working for about five minutes when J.'s IM dinged, letting me know he had a message. It was from someone named Cale.

That made me frown.
Ol' boy is out the picture
. What did that mean?

I hesitated, then glanced around to make sure J. was still in the shower. I don't know what made me type:

I knew J. would have a fit if he knew what I was doing, but something in my gut told me I didn't need to walk away and my gut was usually right on the money.

The nerves in my stomach tightened. I didn't want to say the wrong thing. I slowly typed:

I didn't know what
it
was, but I was hoping I didn't say too much to give things away.

“What are you doing?”

I jumped at the sound of J.'s voice. My first thought was to try and hide the IM, but I was too angry to hide anything and I wanted to know the truth.

“What is this?” I pointed to the laptop screen.

“What are you talking about?” He walked over to me.

I jabbed at the screen again. “This IM.”

J. Love leaned in to read it. His eyes grew wide. “You posed as me?”

I ignored his accusation and said, “What is he talking about?
Who
is he talking about?”

J. Love had the nerve to look at me crazy.

“I can't believe that you are all up in my stuff like that.”

“I wasn't in your stuff,” I said. “It popped up on the screen.”

“And you just had to answer pretending to be me?”

I wasn't about to let him turn this around on me. “Did you have something to do with Alvin getting that job in Seattle?”

He rolled his eyes but didn't reply.

“Answer me!”

Finally, he shrugged. “So what if I did?”

“Why would you do that?” I asked, dumbfounded.

He shrugged like it was no big deal. “Look, I was just trying to help a brother out.”

“Are you serious?” I screamed.

“First of all, you need to lower your voice,” he warned me. “Secondly, don't worry about why I do what I do.”

I was speechless. “So, you got him another job in another state to break us up.”

“Oh, you were already broken up. I just got him out the way altogether. I told you, I play to win.” He had the nerve to smile.

“I am not some stupid chess game!” I screamed.

“I told you, I always get what I want. By any means necessary.” He leaned in, closed his laptop, and picked it up.

“What does that mean?”

J. Love smirked like he had a secret he was proud of.

“What? You all big and bad to try and take pride in breaking us up, own up to what you did.”

He actually laughed. Then, he shocked me even more when he said, “It might be easier to tell you what I
didn't
do. Those balcony seats.” He raised one finger. “One call. That ditzy ex-girlfriend of his, well, she was all too willing to help me. Told her where to be, when to kiss, so the photographer could catch it. Oh, yeah, and I can't forget about the pics when we went out. She made sure he saw those on Instagram too. Should I go on?”

“I don't believe this.” I shook my head like I was in the middle of a bad dream.

“Believe it. Everything was all planned by your boy.” He pounded his chest.

I had no words, so I just said, “Why?”

“I told you. J. Love always gets what he wants. Plain and simple.”

I couldn't believe he was standing here telling me this. But now that I thought about it, that was the arrogance of J. Love. He was actually proud of what he'd done.

“So all of this was a power play?” I asked.

“Girl, we're supposed to be a power couple and you went and messed it all up.” He snarled like I had really messed up a master plan.

I was speechless. J. Love had carefully orchestrated all of this.

“But if I had known you were gonna quit your job and become some nagging slob, I wouldn't have bothered,” he threw in.

“Nagging slob? You got me messed up.” I might have been a little depressed lately and I might not have even been my usual fly self, but I was far from a nagging slob.

He turned up his nose in disgust. “Look at you. The Maya Morgan I met was fabulous. You have on baggy sweats and a tank top.”

“These are yoga pants, idiot!”

“Whatever. You are far from the hot star I need to be rolling with. So, quiet as it's kept, why don't you bounce? I've had my fun with you and now I'm through.”

I grabbed my purse before I caught a case. “My appearance might have changed,” I said, stepping in his face. “But one thing hasn't. I don't let anyone play me. And trust, you messed with the wrong one.”

“Girl, bye,” he said, putting his hand in my face. “I'm platinum, baby. I need a star on my arm.” He motioned up and down my body. “And you are definitely no longer a star.”

I paused near the front door. “Oh, don't get it twisted. Whether I'm working for
Rumor Central
or not, whether I'm rocking Versace or a onesie, I'm all that. And you, you fake, wannabe thug, are going to regret that you ever crossed me. You can bet your
platinum
status on that.”

I didn't give him time to respond as I walked out the door, slamming it as hard as I possibly could.