Page 13 of She's the Star

“You got fired.” He scoffs. “Fired, Nolan. Fired.”

It doesn’t sting any less when he keeps repeating it. “I know.”

“You didn’t deserve to be fired. I could have helped you,” he says, a little gentler than before.

“I didn’t know it would come down to my job.” Not entirely true. I’d hoped it wouldn’t, but in retrospect, I should have known better.

“Yes, you did. You stomped on that bastard’s ego. Of course, he was going to retaliate. I didn’t raise you to be naïve.”

Technically speaking, he didn’t raise me. My mother, my aunt, and, later, my stepfather had the dubious pleasure of guiding me into adulthood. Although, while my father wasn’t always around, he’s always been part of my life, and I’ve never doubted that he cares.

“I wasn’t being naïve.”

He scoffs again. “You let them fire you.”

“I couldn’t keep working there. Not after everyone heard intimate details of my sex life.”

I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s absolutely true. Unfortunately, I’m aware he doesn’t feel the same way. “You can’t let that sort of thing bother you.”

He’s completely serious. There are three—that I know of—sex tapes of him out in the world. We’ve never discussed them, because I have zero interest in talking to my father about his sex life, but more than a few of my friends and acquaintances have mentioned that they’ve seen more of him than they ought to have. He doesn’t flaunt the videos, but he’s made no effort to get them taken down, so I have to assume he doesn’t mind that they exist.

It’s just one of the many ways in which my father and I differ. I try to be discreet, and I value my privacy.

He lives his life in the open, has no problem with full-frontal nudity, and doesn’t care if strangers see his ass.

“I can let it bother me,” I tell him.

He sighs, and I imagine him running his hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “I know, but I wish you wouldn’t. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I’m not ashamed.” But I’m not proud, either.

“Nolan.” He sighs again. “How are you really doing?”

“I’m fine.”

“Ha. Liar. I can just picture you standing in front of the board—acting all cool and collected while secretly dying inside,” he says.

I hate that he knows me so well.

“I was sitting.” It’s the most absurd comment I’ve ever made.

He huffs out a laugh. “Not the point. You can’t blame yourself. You did nothing wrong.”

“She’s married.”

“But you aren’t,” he counters.

I know he’s correct. It doesn’t change the fact that I feel dirty. And used.

“There’s nothing wrong with consensual sex between two willing people. Especially when both are pretending they’re single.” His voice gets louder and more impassioned, like he’s monologuing on-screen. “However, there is something wrong when one of those people lies and then gets the other person fired. We should sue this woman and her husband.”

“We can’t sue anyone. I took the settlement and signed the paperwork already.”

“You what?” He shouts into the phone so loudly that I almost drop it. “Have I taught you nothing? If you didn’t want my help, you could have called one of your brothers, or your sister.”

My father has eighteen children. Thirteen boys and five girls. I’m closest to Nicky—who’s six months younger than me, and my cousin on top of being my half-brother.

It’s less messed up than it sounds. My mother introduced my father to her sister after she found out she was pregnant with me and after they’d agreed they were better off as friends. Her sister—my aunt—went out with him a couple of times and conceived Nicholas. My mother and aunt then moved in together and raised us as brothers.

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