Insider (Exodus End #1)(70)
Author: Olivia Cunning

“I’m not insulted,” Toni said. Well, maybe she had been, but she wasn’t telling him how easily rattled she was. It was bad enough that Logan realized it. “I’m just trying to be professional for this interview.”

“Is the tape rolling?” Steve asked, eyeing her recording device on the coffee table.

“Yeah.”

“Oh. Well, start asking your questions, then. I promise to keep my dick in my pants for the duration of the interview.”

She couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. He didn’t really think she was giving out blow jobs during the interviews, did he? “Uh, thanks?”

Toni was determined to stick to her script this time. Even though her scribbled note about Steve’s second ex-wife kept drawing her attention as if it were flashing in neon lights. Despite her interest in tales that had no business in the band’s interactive biography, she started with the first question.

“If you could spend a day with any musician—living or dead—who would it be and why?”

“Zach Mercer.”

“Weren’t you with him yesterday?”

“Yep. And I’d be hanging out with him today too if I didn’t have to be here for this interview.”

He didn’t sound pissed or annoyed—just stating a fact—but Toni had to dig. She couldn’t help herself.

“Are you two really close?”

Steve tilted his head back on the sofa cushion so he could look up at Toni, who was seated at the top of his head. “You don’t believe that rumor, do you?”

“What rumor is that?” She honestly had no idea.

“That we like each other.”

Confused, she scrunched her brow. “If you’re friends, you obviously like each other, right?”

“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

Not a clue, but she decided he’d talk more if he thought she knew what he was alluding to. “I didn’t think you’d want anything about that rumor on record.” She glanced pointedly at her recorder.

“Actually, I would like to go on the record about that rumor. I don’t know if Zach is gay. I don’t really care if he is. He’s a cool guy. But I’m absolutely not gay. I’ve been married, for Christ’s sake.”

“Twice,” Toni said, knowing he was off guard and that it was the perfect time to get answers.

“Exactly. So just because I get a little touchy-feely when I get drunk doesn’t mean I like to have butt sex with my friends. Understand?”

“Perfectly.”

“Just because assholes like to take pictures of me hanging on Zach at an after-party and post said incriminating pictures all over the Internet with memes about drummers banging each other, doesn’t mean it’s true.”

“Right,” Toni agreed. She hadn’t seen the pictures or the memes he was referring to, but she was definitely going to look this up as soon as possible.

“And just because his hand was down my pants and I had a huge boner, that doesn’t mean I’m gay. Any guy would get hard under the expert tug of Zach Mercer’s hand.”

Toni’s eyes were about to pop out of her head.

Steve snorted and burst out laughing.

Toni’s face went slack when she figured out she was being had. Well, two could play at that game. “I’ll be sure to make it perfectly clear in your section of the biography that even though you like hand jobs from Zach Mercer, you draw the line at butt sex.”

She’d expected her threat to calm Steve down a bit, but he just laughed harder. “Good one, Toni. Now, when I tell Zach about this, you’ll back me up, right?”

“Back you up?”

“He’s the one who posted the photo. Several fans said it looked like his hand was on my dick and let’s just say my drunken expression looked rather enthusiastic. Then someone captioned it with Mercer takes Aimes in his own hand. Damn thing went viral, and I’ve been catching hell for it ever since. I’ve been trying to think of a way to get back at him. If he thinks you’re going to address it in an actual book, he’ll think twice about ruining my life.”

“So this incident ruined your life? How so?”

He rotated into a sitting position and placed his bare feet on the edge of the coffee table. “Do you always take things so literally?”

“Not always.” But usually.

“It didn’t ruin my life, but it does annoy me.”

“You don’t think it’s funny?”

“At first it was hilarious—it’s amazing how many different ways people come up with to caption a photo—but now it’s just annoying. Pretty much anything that goes viral online ends up being annoying, and when you’re the brunt of the joke and you can’t defend yourself—”

“Why can’t you defend yourself?”

“If you feed the internet trolls, they grow and reproduce. Best to let them starve. Eventually they find something else to obsess over.”

Toni nodded. “So are you mad at Zach for making the image public in the first place?”

“How was he supposed to know people would take it the wrong way?” Steve closed his eyes and laughed. “Okay, he totally knew people would take it the wrong way and have a good time with it. He just had no idea how far they’d take it.”

“So tell me about your ex-wife.” The interview had already derailed. No sense in trying to get it back on track now.

Steve’s head swiveled, and he scowled at her, but she sat poised with pen in hand, pretending she was supposed to ask about personal matters.

“Nothing new to tell there,” he said. “Everyone knows it was a messy divorce. Bianca almost bankrupted me in the settlement, and she loves telling the press what an impossible asshole I am.”

“I wasn’t referring to that ex-wife.” Everyone knew about his divorce from America’s sweetheart. The mess had been in the tabloids for months and was still good for an occasional stirring of shit. “Unless you want to tell your side of the story.”

Steve released a derisive laugh. “Like that ever matters. I was labeled the villain on day one. Poor little Bianca. Everything I ever say about our breakup gets twisted around to make me look even worse. I just keep my mouth shut these days. Lesson learned.”

Better writers than Toni had tried to give Steve’s side of the story and he was correct—even when he wasn’t portrayed as a complete asshole, he ended up looking like one.