Page 31 of It Happened on a Sunday
“Thatisthe question,” Bianca answers as she settles herself on the bed next to me.
“What the fuck was hethinking?” This time I shout it as anxiety bubbles up inside of me, rampaging through my bloodstream in a chain reaction that makes my heart beat double time and my lungs shudder for air.
“When did this happen?” When no one answers immediately, I ask again, louder this time. “How long ago did this happen?”
“A little over ninety minutes,” Bryan tells me grimly.
“Ninety minutes.” The words vibrate under my skin like a string plucked too hard—tight, trembling, about to snap.
I turn to Bianca. “You got here fast.”
Her mouth twists in a little grin. “I took a helicopter.”
“I’ll bet you did.”
I take a shaky breath and try to shove the panic down, reminding myself that this is different than five years ago.I take another breath and blow it out slowly before finally turning back to the others.Fuuuck, I hate media coverage.
“Why L.A.?” It’s one of a million questions running through my mind, but it’s the easiest one for me to handle right now.
“Apparently the Twisters are playing there next weekend. And since it’s the next stop on your tour…” Bianca’s voice trails off. “He did his homework. I’ll give him that much.” I lift a brow.
“So, it’s going viral?”
It’s a ridiculous question—of course it’s viral—but their reactions will tell me a lot.
“Like a plague,” Bryan answers.
“Like STIs on spring break,” Olivia says at the same time. Wow. Two truly terrible choices. I’m back to panicking again. “So what do we do?” I ask, swiping through my phone in an effort to see how bad the damage is. #sloaney is trending on TikTok and Twitter. Hell, with my luck, it’s probably even made its way to Facebook by now.
Bianca snatches it from me before I can dive any deeper. “We’ll look at that in a minute,” she tells me firmly. “Olivia has a whole presentation worked up.”
“In ninety minutes?”
“A hundred minutes now,” Olivia says from her spot at the desk on the other side of the room. She’s got three laptops open in front of her. “It just keeps getting bigger.”
Of course it does. In this town, drama doesn’t just grow—it metastasizes.
Jesus. The room starts to spin. “Sloane, you okay?”
No, I’m not. Not even close. But I force myself to drag a long, slow breath into my constricted lungs. Then another. And another.
I fell apart once, nearly let the media destroy me.
When Pauline found me and helped me dig myself out, I promised myself I’d never let it happen again. I’m determined to keep that promise.
“So what do we do?” I ask. “Where do we start?”
They exchange a look before Bryan says a little too carefully, “I think that depends on you.”
“I thought that’s what I paid you for,” I deadpan.
Bryan sits down next to Bianca and looks like he wants to pat my shoulder in a verythere therekind of way.
I narrow my eyes at him, but—per usual—he just narrows his right back. Though he does pull his hand away as he continues. “We’ve already started formulating several plans. But which one we pull the trigger on depends on what you want to do about Sly.”
“You mean besides murder him?” All I wanted was to get through this tour without kicking up dust or a major news cycle. Thanks to Mateo Sylvester, I’ve done both.
“There are too many eyes on you right now for murder to be an option,” Bianca answers in a voice that tells me she’s already contemplated and discarded the suggestion.
