“Is it hard to endorse a product you may not like?”
“Not if it pays well enough.” I smirked, but he was frowning, and I knew I’d messed up. “No, I didn’t mean it that way. It’s compromise I guess, and in the end, the money goes into my happy-with-life pot.”
“Happy with life? Are you not happy?” He was troubled by my statement but without delving into my back story, how did I explain my rationale?
“Of course,” I lied. “My happy-with-life pot is a banked figure that I’d promised myself I’d reach so that I can do anything I want, take on any challenge, and never have to worry about money again.”
“Oh right. So you have a date when you stop?”
What would he say if I told him that I was so close to the number that I could smell it? How would he react if I told him how much it really was? “A loose one,” I hedged.
“Good, good,” he said the words, although I could tell he was confused, only it wasn’t me that changed the subject. “So what did you do that got you in trouble with the show?”
“Oh that. I stupidly sent Erin a collection of selfies for her to post, and she chose the one that included the corner of Ivan’s challenge plus his hand. I don’t know why I didn’t see it, but I should’ve. She says she didn’t realize, but I have this feeling that she did. So from now on I’m posting my own selfies because she can moan about brand positioning and all that shit, but I’m selling Brand Justin, and it’s my face.”
He nodded as I spoke, but I knew I was losing my cool, and I didn’t want to go back to feeling pissed off again. I’d felt like a kid getting told off for something I hadn’t even done. But I had to take some of the blame for taking the damn photo in the first place.
His cell chimed, and he snarled at whatever came in then drastically hit buttons to send a message before turning the cell upside down. “My ex will not get the hint.”
Then his cell blared out a Britney Spears song, and he grimaced, but it wasn’t a real grimace, not cold like the reaction to the text but fonder. “Okay to take this?”
“Of course.”
He answered. “What now, asshole?” he asked whoever was phoning, although he was clearly teasing, so I guess it wasn’t the ex. “No, Joe. I don’t know where that is, and no you’re not going anywhere near the kitchen… no… for fu—okay, Joe! Jeez, okay, but I swear if I come back and there is one thing… okay… yeah, yeah, love you too, whatever, have fun.” He ended the call. “My older brother, Joe, he’s the sculptor—”
“Yeah, I remember, the one who used to make awesome snowmen.”
“Yep, well since he broke up with his last girlfriend, he’s bunking at my apartment, and he’s not allowed in the kitchen because I swear he’d burn water if I let him anywhere near a saucepan. Creating busts of naked men on my dining table and spreading plaster everywhere, yes. Cooking in my state of the art, pristine kitchen, no.”
I smiled along with his fake irritation at the brother he clearly loved, and all I could think was that despite the text from the ex, he had this wonderful family that balanced the anger and made him smile.
Lucky man.
Chapter Sixteen
You can always save the day with sprinkles
Brody
I nudged Justin’s foot again. “Do you keep in touch with any of your foster families? I don’t ever see you post about them, but then I guess you wouldn’t want to do that if you’re branding a certain way. I mean, I don’t know how it works.” I was just making conversation but wished I could pull the question back when he blanched and stared at his toes. “Sorry, you don’t have to answer that, I tend to ramble on about—”
“My foster families were a means to an end. We mutually disliked each other every time.”
Shit. I’d just taken a can of worms and yanked at that lid, hadn’t I?
Should I say I was sorry? Was that what a normal person would do with the guy they’d just shared orgasms with on the plush carpet of his suite? I was lucky. My parents were awesome, even if I did owe my dad a long-overdue conversation about how I was sorry. Not that I hadn’t apologized before, but one day I wanted everything to be back to normal with him.
“You don’t have to say anything,” he said as if he’d read my mind. “It is what it is. My last foster parents lived in a nothing special kind of house, three bedrooms that they’d subdivided into more space for kids. They weren’t bad people, don’t get me wrong, but I was fourteen, and they were religious to the point that they thanked God for everything. They thanked him for their house, and their lives, and for giving them the right to send me to my room hungry if I did anything that God wouldn’t like. That ranged from stealing a cookie to getting home late from school. The only thing they gave me was a love for baking, and I wish I didn’t have to say it, but I owe them in a way.” He stopped then and picked at a thread on his PJ bottoms.
“They taught you to bake?” That sounded okay, right? Any family who taught their kids the practicalities of life had to be good.
“No, I taught myself to bake. Every freaking week it was church bake sales for this, that, or the other. And when I made cakes and cookies, the congregation would say I was sent from God and truly blessed, but maybe for the rest of that day I wouldn’t get in trouble or sent to my room. Soon as I turned sixteen, I was out of there. Tracked down my mom who was living in this shit room in the middle of a heap of shit rooms. I slept on the sofa, and she spent most of the time in bed, on her own, drowning her sorrows with Jack and Jose, ruining her liver.”
“You don’t need to tell me all this—”
“I need to because I want more with you, and I want you to know what made me who I am, so you can understand—”
“You’re a good man—”
“You don’t know that.”
I tilted my chin in that stubborn way I had going for me. “Yes, I do.” I could feel something in him, a kindness that called to me. I’m losing my shit and getting poetic now.
“Whatever.” He waved his hand at me. “I just knew I wasn’t going to be stuck in that room. I had a phone, just this heap of shit that I found in the garbage one day. I saved up money washing dishes. I got it fixed. I sold it for profit. I kept looking for stuff to buy, fix, and sell, and I saved up more. I never took one cent of aid, and I scraped and fought my way out of that stupid crappy kitchen that had one burner and an oven that was only properly hot on one particular shelf.”
“See, a good man,” I began, but he shook his head.
“Listen to it all first.”
“I’m listening.”
His eyes took on a faraway expression, and he was still picking at the thread. “I began posting about my cakes, and I learned about tagging and following. I made cookies for a local bakery, said if they let me use their kitchen to make them, then I’d do it for free until they were happy enough to give me a cut. Then, when my mom died, I found out she owned that crappy room. Turned out she used to have a job in sales and everything. I don’t know what went wrong to make her give up, maybe she was cursed with her head like I am.”