Page 28 of Beneath the Fame

Damn.

“Let’s go ahead and get this over with, man. I’m sure her people have her covered for now,” Shaw reassured, clapping a hand on my shoulder. Really, as much as I might want to resist, I didn’t truly have a choice.

Our cue was happening right now.

I didn’t really have a choice.

I followed Shaw out to the set with a smile on my face, waving to the audience like I didn’t have a care in the world, when really, I lowkey wanted to throw up.

Thinking about Van at home, seeing what should’ve been yet another private moment unfolding for the world to see had me feeling more than a little unsettled.

And then the host actually brought the shit up.

At first, we got lulled into a false sense of security—all the questions were about the show itself, and the public reception so far. Then, it got into a bit of career talk—Shaw’s most recent big role, asking us what we had coming up, all that.

The first question that toed the line was about Ellie—but it was innocent enough, and they’d already gone public, so no big deal, not really. Shaw took it in stride, taking the opportunity to brag on his lady, soreally…it was fine.

Then the host looked at me.

I already knew what was up.

“So Alec—you’re commonly seen as the guy any parents would love for their daughter to bring home. Every public relationship you’ve had has been with a woman of a certain…type,” he started, pausing for the live audience to react.

And they did.

A few groans here and there, but mostly laughs and nods that immediately got under my skin, prompting to look him in his face and ask outright, “Whattypeis that?”

“Uh…wholesome?” he answered, as he scratched his head with one finger, sending a confused look out to the audience. “But the same can’t be said for your latest fling withVanity—a female rapper whose raunchy lyrics and uh…risquéoutfits are her biggest claim to fame. Look at this,” he said—still talking to the audience.

Heat rose to my face as the very same pictures Shaw had alerted me to came up on a big screen off to the side for the audience to see.

Lots of gasps and activity.

“What do you have to say about this, Alec?”

“Fuck you”was what I really had to say, but…I knew that wasn’t going to help anything.

“It’s unfortunate that private moments can’t seem to stay private,” was what I went with instead. “It’s shocking to me how comfortable everybody is with these sorts of violations.”

“That’s right.” The host nodded. “Vanity recently had a very compromising video hit the public purview—have you seen it?”

“I will smack the shit outta you,” I said, before I could catch myself, and of course, everybody had a reaction to that too, more shocks and gasps likeIwas the one out of line.

“So the ‘hood’ element of your role is already rubbing off on you, I see,” ol’ boy said, trying to joke his way out of the hot seat.

“It’s hard to pull myself back out of character sometimes,” I played along. “See, Jude would escort you somewhere away from the cameras and see if you still cared to disrespect Kami without a crowd. But since I’m me, and Vanessa is Vanessa, I’ll settle for making sure you understand, I’m not gonna forget a single thing that happens on this stage.”

“Come on, man, it’s not that?—”

“Oh, but it is,” I quickly clarified. “It is absolutely that serious, and absolutely that deep. I know you’ve got a show to maintain, you need your sound bites and viral moments, you want people tuned in, I getall that, my man, I promise you. But what you’renotabout to do, is downplay or disrespect Vanessa to my face.”

He blinked, hard, then smirked out at the audience, trying to cover the embarrassment so clearly written on his face. “Well, I guess he told me, huh?”

“That’s exactly what it sounded like to me,” Shaw said, without the slightest hint of humor.

Driving home the point.

The host was flustered, damn near red in the face as he fumbled for a way to somehow maintain the conversation. “So, since you seem so protective of her, we can assume the fling rumors are true, right?”

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