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My lawyer had called around noon to tell me to check my email, and then proceeded to walk me through a new contract from April's network, requiring direct participation in filming. The new contract stipulated that I be on camera no less than ten minutes in the edited and final footage, which meant participating in the entire tour of the house.
"Fuck them," I told my lawyer, my voice sounding low and foreign to me. It was a voice I hadn't used in a while, one that had grown from disappointment in the previous year when everyone I’d trusted had turned out to be in it for something other than me. Hell, my lawyer was probably among those I could include, but I paid him, so at least he was upfront about it.
But April…
The only thing I could understand was that she had spent the time to get close to me, so that she could push this revised contract at me, figuring I’d been softened up enough not to argue.
Cormac and the girls came over for dinner—mostly because I forgot they were coming—and found me in front of the fire with a bottle of Half Cat bourbon on my lap. I’d given up on a glass several hours before.
"This again?" Cormac said, finding me there. The little girls had scampered over to greet me and had promptly turned tail and fled, heading for merrier parts of the house. Even they could see I was in no state for company. "What's going on?"
"Nothing."
"Where's April?"
"Who cares?"
Cormac sat down heavily, a sigh whooshing from his lips as he did so. "Better hand me that bottle." I did, and he drank greedily, grimacing as he finished and set the bottle aside.
I glanced at it, but my head was already pounding and I wasn't sure I could walk. I’d find out soon enough though, I’d have to piss eventually.
"Tell me what happened."
It was my turn to sigh. "Standard shit," I said, running a hand over my jaw. "She was using me. For the stupid show."
"The Christmas show," Cormac said, as if he needed to state the obvious to get his brain centered on this conversation.
"Yeah."
"Explain."
I glared at him, but regretted it immediately. Cormac's face was drawn and gaunt—had he lost weight? He looked worse than I felt, and I knew he had his own burdens to carry. The high-pitched shrieks and laughter from the back of the house reminded me that my brother’s problems might be slightly more significant than my own. "It's nothing. Just feeling sorry for myself, man." I tried to get up, but my ankle, and Cormac's hand on my wrist, stopped me.
"Don't walk away from me." His voice was steel, and I met my brother's eyes, surprised at the anger simmering there. "You'd finished with this, and I'd finally gotten to close the lid on this particular box of shit. I didn't have to worry about my little brother any more and could go on just worrying about everything else. And now, here we are again, right back where we started. So you're going to tell me what the hell wrecked the best thing to happen to you in a long time."
I narrowed my eyes at him.
"April," Cormac clarified.
I knew what he'd meant, I just wasn't ready to agree that she'd been something good. From where I sat, she was maybe the worst thing that had ever happened to me. "I trusted her, man."
"Right."
"And the whole time, she was just trying to get close so she could advance her own career. Her network pushed over this new contract today—one day before the cameras are supposed to come in here and film all the Christmas shit I spent a fortune to put up."
Cormac’s face softened slightly. "What was the new contract about?"
"They want me on camera." I stared into the fire, thinking about putting myself in front of the media again, imagining the ridiculous articles with my name in them, the way they'd spin my reclusive move to the middle of nowhere, call this show a desperate grab for the glory and fame I’d lost. Or worse, make me out to be the piteous has been they’d painted me as after Becky had done her tell-all interview, calling me a pathetic shell of myself. "They want me to give a tour of my home for the show."
"I see. And what did April say about it?"
"Nothing."
Cormac raised a brow at me and I turned away. "She didn't tell me they were going to send the new contract at all. I guess she just figured I'd sign it and everything would be fine."
"Did she know about it?" Cormac asked.
I thought back to the message she'd left. The one I’d deleted without hearing. But her texts had made it clear she knew about the contract. "Yeah, she knew."
