Even being alone with Vanni was a huge no-no.
“I’ll keep it in mind,” she lied, just to get out of the conversation.
When she returned to the banquet hall on the ground floor, she saw Rosa Cruz and Harper Clark standing together, talking close. They spotted her instantly as she stepped out of the elevator. They laughed, like a couple of girls from a high school locker room. Lacy rolled her eyes and made her way to the cars waiting outside.
She was done with all of it. She just wanted to go back to the mansion, crawl into bed and get what little sleep she could before her journey as a semifinalist officially began.
Chapter Eleven
Lacy waited for that shoe to drop for the next two weeks. The competition rolled on like it always had. They had new challenges to face each week, with new songs to sing. Aside from integrating the genders and changing elimination night from Wednesday to Tuesday, the only thing that changed was that the judges got even harder in their critiques. It was serious now. They wanted to find the next superstar, and each contestant was tasked with showing them they had what it took.
Chloe Chan, a shy teenager who had been born in Vietnam and adopted by a childless couple, was the first semifinalist to be sent home. Seth, the hipster songwriter, followed the week after that. February also claimed Amos Tucker, the season’s fabulous gay man who was the fiercest of all of them.
By March, people were more emotionally invested in the journey than they had realized. It hurt to lose people week after week. They were combatants in the same war. No one understood their journey like other contestants. As mismatched as they were, they were a family. And just like any family, there were squabbles and flare-ups and misunderstandings, most of which surrounded the mysterious Lacy¸ a person no one knew any better by March 1 than they had the first day they moved into the house.
What they didn’t know they simply made up. It turned every week into a painfully slow crawl across hot coals. Worse, the people who made life the hardest for Lacy were coated with titanium. They didn’t get voted home. They didn’t even get close. Richie and Penelope didn’t bother hiding their hatred of Lacy. They made their comments, which most just ignored to keep the peace. As the Top Twelve loomed, a six-figure stint during the summer tour was on the line. Everyone wanted to be a part of it.
It was on that eighth week of competition that the shit finally hit the fan. Thanks to PING’s endless obsession with all things Vanni, they were the ones to break the news about a possible problem on the Fierce set, surrounding the most mysterious contestant, Lacy Abernathy. They pointed out, gleefully, that no one knew much about the gold-plated alternative goddess, even though every other contestant had shared their most intimate moments and struggles. Everyone wanted to know what she was hiding.
She met with Graham and Shannon as they tried to ward off the scandal. They asked her again to reconsider sharing her story. Again she told them no deal. She had even given up seeing Cody every week just to keep their secret safe. Graham, however, was adamant. “Look, I don’t want to play hardball with you, Lacy. I’m trying to help you. Honest to God.”
“But?”
“But if it comes down to your personal preferences or the show, I’m going to do what’s best for Fierce. That contract you signed gives me control to make that executive decision.”
“So you’re saying you’re going to do it regardless of how I feel about it, is that it?”
He took a deep breath. “No. If anything I’ll ask you to leave.”
Her heart stopped. “What?”
He leaned across the desk. “I don’t want to. But I have to do what’s best for the show.”
Tears burned her eyes. “Believe it or not, that’s what I’m trying to do, too.”
“How so?”
She took a deep breath. If he was going to ask her to leave anyway, she really had nothing to lose. She had to tell him the truth. “I can’t go public about Cody because his father is currently my competition on the show.”
Both Shannon and Graham leaned back in their chairs as they let out a breath. “Who?” he finally asked.
“Tony Paul,” she answered softly.
“And when were you planning to tell us about this, Lacy?”
“I didn’t want to tell anyone. He doesn’t want to tell anyone. We ended up here together by accident. We’re just trying to get through each week, focused on the show, giving it our all so we can earn the title legitimately. If I come clean about Cody now, PING will dig as deep as they can and it’ll just shift the focus from a singing competition to some baby mama farce that won’t benefit anybody.”
Graham looked at Shannon. “She has a point.”
“So what do we do about the whole Vanni thing?”
His mouth thinned into a line. “Same thing we’ve always done.”
“They can’t prove anything,” Lacy assured them. “Vanni has never been anything but a perfect gentleman.”
“But you’ve spent time with him aside from the show, right?”
She gulped. “He’s helped me see my son a couple of times. But that was all it was, I swear.”
“And we can’t use any of that to prove that we’re still operating above board. You see where the problem is?”
She nodded as her eyes fell to her lap. “If you want me to withdraw from the competition, I’ll understand.” She had saved quite a bit of money so far. It was still a week away from the Top Twelve, which determined the tour lineup. To go out now would be a huge defeat for her. She had hoped to make it at least to the tour.
“I don’t want you to go anywhere. This is more than the show to me, Lacy. This is an album. This is a tour. This is cultivating a career. I want this show to give me performers who will still be topping charts in ten years, once any hint of any scandal has passed. I can handle PING. I can handle misbehaving superstars. What I can’t handle is being lied to. You should have come to us immediately, Lacy.”
Shannon nodded. “When Jordi and Jace faced their sex scandal, they hid it from us for months, trying to fix it themselves. It only made things worse.”
“Honestly, this scandal will hurt Tony Paul way more than it will hurt you.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want it to.” It was true. She had seen a different side of Tony Paul in the last few weeks. He was actually trying to improve, working hard to be the best instead of just taking it for granted that he was. She had been mad for a long, long time. But stolen kisses with Jonah whenever they could sneak a few private moments together put things in perspective for her.
She didn’t want Tony Paul. His leaving her was the best thing he could have ever done. It gave her not just one, but two loves of a lifetime, in Cody and in Jonah.
They couldn’t do much about either now, but who knew what the tour would bring? Once the show had ended, she and Jonah could explore the possibilities. That was, of course, unless the whole story about Cody broke. That would fuck up everything, starting with sharing her son with his father for the first time.
As long as the news remained hidden, he was nothing more than a sperm donor. Things were as complicated as she dared to make them.
However, she did decide to speak privately with Tony Paul once she got back to the house. Graham was right. If this news broke, it would hurt him most of all. She didn’t want to pull the rug out from under him after he had worked so hard and come so far.
She found him outside, meditating. He usually did that right before he took off for the studio. Like many performers, he had certain superstitions. If he had a great performance, he usually repeated whatever behavior preceded it. Way back when they were seeing each other that involved her driving him to the brink of sexual frustration.
Whether he was sincere in the meditation or not, it was a welcome relief that he had found new pre-performance traditions to keep.
“Hi, Tony,” she said softly as she joined him. He peered up at her through one eye. Aside from his mother, she was the only one who had called him Tony.
It felt just as good to hear it now as it had years before.
“What’s up?” he asked as he opened both eyes and ambled to his feet.
“We need to talk.”
He studied her face. “That sounds serious.”
“It is,” she said flatly. “Is there someplace we can go that’s private?”
“My room should be empty,” he said. Off her look, he clarified, “Just talking. I promise.”
She nodded and followed him up to the bedroom at the other end of the hall, one he shared now with Richie and Sylvester, both of whom were at the studio that day. He closed the door behind her. “Have a seat,” he said as he gestured to a chair.
Uneasy, she perched on the edge. She didn’t know how to ease into that difficult conversation. She decided it was just like a bandage. She’d just rip the sucker off. “The producers want me to go public about Cody.”
He sat on the bed. “I’m surprised you haven’t, quite frankly. You could win this whole thing with that backstory.”
“I don’t want to win that way, Tony. I want to win because I’m the best, not because people feel sorry for me.”
“I understand that,” he nodded.
“Plus it would hurt you.”
He studied her thoughtfully. “I would think that would be an added bonus.”
“Maybe at first,” she confessed.
“And not now?” he asked softly.
She sighed. “I don’t know. It’s completely fucked up. Everything got so complicated.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I know.”
She took a deep breath. “But some disgruntled former contestants have made serious accusations regarding me and Vanni. If I don’t come forward about Cody, Graham might ask me to leave the competition.”
“That really sucks,” he said, though he wasn’t surprised that these rumors had finally made it to PING. He had spoken to Harper several times in the last few weeks, and she hadn’t been able to let go of that grudge. She felt that was the only reason Lacy was in the competition, that she was involved a little backseat audition in Vanni’s car. “So why are you telling me this, Lacy? Are you asking my permission to torpedo my career?”
She shook her head. “No. I wouldn’t do that to you. I’ll leave first.”
“But why?” It made no logical sense. He had really hurt her. Why wasn’t she chomping at the bit to take him down?
She didn’t know how to explain it. She wasn’t even sure when the change of heart occurred. She just knew she couldn’t live with herself if she wrecked his career. That wasn’t who she was. She was hurt and mad and often hated the sight of him since her journey with Fierce began, but she wasn’t mean. And she wasn’t about to let anyone change her, especially Tony Paul Hollis. “I guess it has to do with looking my son in the eye.”
He nodded. He had been thinking about that a lot himself. “You know, it doesn’t have to be an either/or situation, Lacy.”
“What do you mean?”
“Yeah, I got scared and fucked up. But what if the both of us being here right now is my chance to make it up to you and to Cody?”
She shook her head as she rose from the chair. “I’m not ready to talk about that,” she said as she faced the window.
“I wasn’t either, but things change. Maybe it’s beyond both of us right now.”
She turned to face him. “Are you trying to take my son away from me?”
“You’re the one that came to me, remember? I haven’t even asked about him.”
“I figured you didn’t want to know.”
He sat on the chair she vacated. “At first I didn’t. If I didn’t know the details, it wasn’t real.”
The look on his face said it all. “And now?”
His eyes met hers. “Now I can’t stop thinking about him. And I can’t stop thinking about you.”
She turned away. That was the last thing she wanted. “Tony.”
He was on his feet in a flash. He stopped mere inches away. “I was so scared before and I can’t even remember why.” He turned her to face him. She couldn’t even look him in the eye. She’d been down this road before. She knew it was a dead end. But the genie was out of the bottle. He touched her hair with his hands. “God, you’re beautiful.”
“Tony, please.”
“Tell me you haven’t thought about us and how good it was.”
“So good you needed groupies to blow you in the parking lot,” she reminded.
“I was an idiot,” he said softly. “I had it all and I walked away. It was the dumbest mistake I ever made.” He stepped closer. “I want to be in your life, Lacy. And I want to be in Cody’s. I want to make it up to you for being such a prick. You deserved better.”
“So… what? Are you proposing? Are you offering to pay the child support you owe? Or are you just scrambling because of what I told you?”
“No, I’ve felt this way for weeks. I’ve just waited for the right time to talk to you about it. I figured when you were ready, it was time.” His eyes dropped to her mouth. “I don’t want you to leave the competition, Lacy. I want you to make the tour. I want to spend the summer with you, going city to city, sharing our new life with our son.”
She shuddered as he spoke. She wasn’t entirely sold on his using that possessive pronoun. He hadn’t earned it yet. Cody was hers and hers alone, and she liked it that way. She tried to turn away but he stopped her. He forced her to look up into his eyes. “Lacy,” he said as his mouth made the subtle descent towards hers. She wrenched away from him before he could steal that kiss.
“We’re not some picket-fence family, Tony. We’re strangers at best.”
“Then let’s fix that. We’re here. Let’s use the time to get to know each other. To see where things head. And then, when you’re ready, I can meet Cody.”
Her blood ran cold at the thought. “Tony,” she started, but he cut her off.
“Don’t say anything now. I don’t mind earning it. I know that’s part of the deal.” He walked over to his suitcase and opened it, withdrawing a tiny stuffed frog. Her breath caught as she stared at it. “This was mine when I was a kid. I had my brother send it to me. Mama doesn’t even know I have it.” He chuckled. “My mama hated frogs. The dogs would eat them and throw them up all over the linoleum floor, usually around dinnertime just like clockwork. But of course I thought they were the coolest thing ever, because, you know, frogs. They hop. They’re green. They’re slimy. It’s a little boy’s wonderland.”
She nodded. She was already schooled in such things, thanks to Cody’s obsessions with frogs.
She just never figured it was genetic.
He placed the old stuffed frog in her hand. “I want him to have it. It’s not much, I know. But it’s a start. At least I’ll feel like I’m with him, however remotely. It can hold my place as long as it takes.”
She shook her head as she stared down at the frog. He would love it, she knew. And what a perfect first gift from the man who helped give him life. “Okay,” she managed over the sizable lump in her throat.
Tony reached down, cupping her hand behind her neck and drawing her closer. He placed a kiss in her hair. It wasn’t sexual at all. It was earnest. It only confused her further. She had a lot of decisions to make, which impacted many lives, and didn’t have the luxury of time to make them. “I’ll keep you updated,” she promised as she moved out of his embrace.
He provided a text number for her. They had all been trained on how to effectively use social media to build their platforms, so every single contestant had a cell phone whether they used it or not. In her case, not. She paid about as much attention to her official account as she did her private one, which was to say – zilch.
She promised to keep him abreast of any changes before she edged her way out of the door. She had no idea that Jonah had just turned down the hallway in time to see her leave Tony Paul’s room.
He watched her as she dug her phone out of her pocket, sending a message as she inched down the hall. As much
as he wanted to, he didn’t hear his phone go off with a text alert. Instead he heard Tony Paul’s phone go off.
He had no idea that on the other side of that door, Tony Paul sat on the floor, his phone in hand, staring at a candid photo of his little boy, who happened to sit amidst a half-dozen stuffed frogs. He held his hand to his mouth and cried.
Chapter Twelve
Very few things shocked Gaynell Hollis or took her by surprise. She had learned a long time ago to will her own life into existence, controlling every aspect with the wave of her hand like a magical queen. In fact, she rather fancied herself a queen. She had started out humbly but married well, lifting her right out of poverty to sit atop the upper class in a throne of her very own making.
For some this might have been a stopping point, but not Gaynell. She had always been driven to do more, to reach higher… it simply wasn’t in her nature to stop. Her mind was always working, figuring out which strategy to employ next to reach whatever goal she had pinned at the top of her to-do list at the time.
She was rock solid and immovable. That was her nature, a formidable woman who knew how to make things happen. She was the envy of everyone she knew.
But every now and then she was faced with the stark reality that she was, in fact, a complete fraud. She had worried for years that people would see she didn’t belong in the upper echelon of Austin’s elite. Deep down, she was still that welfare baby who had started out scrubbing toilets for a living, who finally finagled her way into singing and playing piano at a fancy hotel. There she began to rub elbows with some of the richest boys Austin had to offer. She batted her eyelids and called them all sugar, until one of them finally opened the door to his fancy car and invited her in.
She married well if not happily. Her marriage to Ty Hollis was more of a business merger, like everything else in his life. He was just as calculating as she was, and the fact was he needed to marry pronto if he wanted to gain access to the trust set aside for him from his grandparents. He met Gaynell and was immediately enamored. He had her in his bed within a week, and in front of an altar within six months, which got his parents off his back to finally take a wife.
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