Page 88 of Well, Actually
I let out a long breath through my nose, wanting to argue, wanting to point out every idealistic flaw in his plan. But maybe… maybe he’s right? Maybe I could figure out a way to do that. I’d be pinching every penny and would have to dip into the meager savings I have, but at least it’s an immediate plan that doesn’t make me want to scream myself into oblivion.
I try to scrounge up the courage to admit I’m considering it, when my buzzer cuts through our golden bubble.
I jolt up, chest tight as my brain trips over itself with who that might be. What kind of heathen shows up unannounced at someone’s doorstep… besides Rylie. And… um… me, on occasion.
“Want me to get it?” Rylie asks, voice still groggy with sleep as I’m already scrambling out of bed.
“Hello?” I ask hesitantly, finger on my intercom.
“It’s me. Why is your phone turned off?” Aida’s voice sends a flood of relief through me, and my weight collapses into the unlock button as I let her in. A few moments later, she’s traipsing through my door.
“Oh, hey,” she says casually, shucking off her coat. “What’s up? Anything new?”
I can’t even muster up a good-natured scowl, folding into her outstretched arms as fresh tears start to pour.
“Tell me everything,” Aida coos, dragging her hand up and down my back. “Then I have a few things to tell you.”
She guides me to the couch, and I fill her in on my firing, the subsequent discovery of the video of me and Rylie. It’s all so fresh, so raw, that each word is salt in the gaping wound. For the first time in a long time, I find myself curled up in a ball, my head on Aida’s lap, pouring out my heart as she willingly and lovingly comforts me.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, pushing a tear-dampened strand of hair from my cheek. “That’s awful. You don’t deserve this.”
I cry harder.
“What did you have to tell me?” I finally manage, when my breath is ragged and my tears are all but dried up behind my swollen eyes. With gentle hands, Aida guides me to sitting, repositioning us so we’re facing each other cross-legged on the sofa. At the same moment, we become aware of Rylie standing in my bedroom doorway wearing one of my baggy T-shirts and a pair of my pajama bottoms that show off quite a bit of ankle.
“Hey,” Aida says, leaning over to pat the seat of the open chair. “You’ll probably want to hear this too.”
Rylie situates himself, pulling the chair closer so his hand rests on the back of my neck, massaging until I marginally relax.
Aida clears her throat as she decides where to start. “Things seemed weird, at least timing-wise, with all of this,” she says, eyes narrowed as she looks up at me. “I guess you could callit a hunch, but I felt something was off with how everything unfolded with Landry being so calm at the fundraiser and then the video being leaked.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Rylie nod, and Aida keeps going.
“I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right, so I had one of the tech guys at Soundbites do some digging on his off time—”
“A tech bro did you a favor?” I ask, mouth twisting with incredulity. A laugh catches in Rylie’s throat.
Aida frowns. “Of course not. I promised him a three-month subscription to Instacart if he helped me. Regardless, I had Brett look into the original video posted on social media and then some of the outlets that first reported on it. He went into all kinds of details that made my eyes glaze over but the important piece is, he traced the IP address of whoever originally leaked the video back to Soundbites.”
I stare at her blankly. I am a woman in STEM only in the sexy, tenacious, emotionally malicious sense.
Aida waves my confusion away. “Essentially someone at Soundbites posted the original video and sent it around to media outlets to make sure it was seen.”
“Wait, I’m sorry… Are you implying William took the video and leaked it?” Rylie asks, dropping his hand from my neck, disgust and rage etching lines on his face I’ve never seen before.
“Or Landry,” Aida says. “Who else at Soundbites would, you know?”
“Um, I don’t have a full list but it also wasn’t like I was some cherished member of the team there,” I remind her.
Aida rolls her eyes. “Okay. Sure. Fair. But look at the timestamp, dude. It was posted at five fifteen in the morning. Do you know how few people are at Soundbites at that time?”
As someone who drags their feet well past a nine o’clock arrival, I can’t tell if this is rhetorical.
“Not many, bitch,” Aida says, tiptoeing toward frustration that I can’t keep up. “So I had my boy Randy from security—”
“Who thefuckis Randy from security?” I ask, getting annoyed that not a single part of this story is explanatory to me.
Aida’s resulting frown could reduce most to tears. “Big Randy? You know Big Randy. He works the graveyard shift.”
