The Dirty Truth, page 15
I learned long ago that acting like you had it all was a one-way ticket to having it all. I’d been out of college a few years, working dead-end jobs and barely making rent, when I’d stumbled upon an article about YouTubers making millions of dollars creating videos about mundane, everyday things. They were mostly ten- or fifteen-minute day-in-the-life sorts of things, but I quickly realized the ones with the fancy houses in the background and the killer wheels and the slick haircuts were racking up all the views. Not only that, but the most successful vloggers were spilling content over to other social media platforms, growing their fandoms and doubling down on affiliate commissions, promotional contracts, and overall notoriety.
While I didn’t have a dime to my name, I had connections.
A best friend with a vintage Porsche.
A cousin in beauty school needing to practice men’s cuts.
A local photographer trying to build his high-fashion portfolio.
A buddy with a rich uncle who let me rent out his luxuriously appointed guesthouse for dirt cheap as long as I kept an eye on his place when he was gone on business.
For two solid years, I Great Gatsby’d my way to a multimillion-user following, and in the proverbial blink of an eye, I found myself making cameos and appearances, being interviewed on morning talk shows and for various men’s magazines.
Just like that, a certified nobody named West Maxwell became an international household name. But all the money, sex appeal, media coverage, and influence in the world could never fill the void Will left when he died.
The satisfaction of my milestones was always short lived. Little bursts of wonderful would always sizzle out. I’ve found that’s been a running theme in my life so far—nothing ever lasts.
Honestly, I’m not sure how long Made Man will be around. If it were up to me, it’d be forever. I’m doing everything in my power to push it to the top, working around the clock to secure the hottest talent for our covers, pushing my writers to churn out the most relevant content, and listening to my readers’ invaluable feedback. Our third year in business, we blew our competitors out of the water fivefold in sales, and ten years in, we’re number one in our niche. But print media is dying a slow, painful death. Sooner or later, I imagine we’ll be strictly online, and I’m prepping a team who will take us wholly into the digital stratosphere over the coming years.
But I’ve never been good at letting go of the past—or accepting defeat.
“You should get to bed,” I tell Scarlett when she yawns.
“Yeah.” Her eyes grow heavy lidded.
“When are you seeing Elle again?” I ask before I forget.
She begins to respond—until her cell phone rings and her eyes widen.
“What? Who is it?” I ask.
Lifting her phone, she swallows. “It’s Mom.”
I grip the arms of my chair and bite my tongue. In the four months I’ve had custody of Scarlett, Lexi has reached out maybe twice. And the only reason she contacted me the second time was to ask if I’d cover her past-due electric bill, as her power was about to be shut off and it was the middle of winter.
“Hey, Mama,” Scarlett says, picking up on the fourth ring as our eyes lock from across the room. “Been trying to call you, but your phone was shut off . . .”
I don’t have to hear the other half of the conversation to know Lexi’s feeding her daughter a buffet of bullshit excuses, but I withhold a reaction for Scarlett’s sake.
Scarlett’s silence tells me her mother’s asking questions, and she looks to me, eyes growing glassy.
“Oh, you know, it’s . . .” Scarlett’s voice breaks when she tries to speak. “Hang on, Mama. Uncle West, I’m going to my room.”
“Good night, Scarlett.” I watch her disappear into the hallway, swallowed up by the darkness, and then I listen for her door to close.
The thought of Lexi filling her daughter’s head with false hope and empty promises washes my thoughts in tension before drowning them completely. And I know from experience, given that my mother was the same way. She wasn’t addicted to the hard stuff by any means, but she was all talk and no action. I lost track of how many times she’d sworn to me she was coming to my baseball game—her eyes all light and her smile stretching wide—only to pull a no-show. She did the same to my brother too. He was more forgiving, always giving her a million chances.
He and Scarlett are cut from the same cloth in that way.
No matter what Lexi says or does, Scarlett’s going to love her . . . hell, even idolize her. It’s just the way it is. As a child, Scarlett doesn’t have the capacity to know the difference between her mother’s love and her mother’s blatant carelessness. It doesn’t help that it’s easy to like Lexi, despite her flaws. She’s a good-time girl. Always smiling. Forever the life of the party. When she talks to you, she makes you feel like she’s known you a million years.
Despite her numerous fuckups and gross parental negligence, I often have to remind myself Lexi was nothing more than a kid raising a kid. She didn’t have the resources or emotional capacity to give Scarlett everything she needed. I hoped, with time, she would grow into it. But some people are just sort of . . . stuck.
I suspect Lexi will forever be stuck at seventeen in mind and spirit.
In the early years, when Scarlett was a toddler and I was beginning to rake in money from my social media channels, I’d send Lexi cash now and then. And as my income stream billowed with every passing month, I’d send more. Eventually I purchased a small house for the two of them and a reliable and economical car for Lexi, and set up an automatic monthly stipend so she didn’t have to work.
Erroneously, I believed that if I gave Will’s girls everything they needed, they’d be set. Lexi wouldn’t have to work or worry about money, and Scarlett would have a full-time mom dedicated to her every need.
But everything backfired as soon as Scarlett hit kindergarten. Once she was in school full time, Lexi saw an opportunity to reclaim her youth and wash her hands of responsibility, if only for a few hours a day.
A hometown acquaintance of mine kept tabs on them at my request, filling me in on Lexi’s latest activities and comings and goings. At the time, I was still building my empire, putting in eighty-hour weeks and in no condition to so much as think about raising a child. So I continued to write checks and wire money and keep an eye on things from afar. But nothing was improving. If anything, Lexi’s day drinking and partying were growing worse by the minute. By the time Scarlett hit second grade, I’d hired a full-time nanny to help Lexi—a stand-in for myself. A responsible adult to take her to school on time, make her three meals a day, and ensure she had clean laundry and some semblance of a “normal” childhood at all times.
But no one ever stayed more than a few months at a time. I suspect Lexi found Scarlett bonding more with the nanny of the month than with her, and her jealousy was triggered. One by one, she ran them off.
In trying to make things better for my niece, I’m certain I made them worse.
While there’s no rewriting the past, I can only hope I’m making up for it now.
In my younger days, I was convinced money could do anything you told it to do. But as the years ticked by, I learned the hard way that it only magnifies us. If we’re good people at heart, it makes us better. But if we are selfish, lazy, and unmotivated, it only enriches those qualities tenfold.
Rising from my chair, I switch off the lamp and close the door to my study before making my way to the elevator.
“I want to see you again, Mama. I miss you so much,” I hear Scarlett say from the end of the hall.
My chest tightens as I press the call button and step inside the elevator car.
I may have sole physical and legal custody of Scarlett and intend to see her into adulthood and beyond, but depriving her of her relationship with her mother would be cruel. She’d never understand and she’d never forgive me, and I don’t know that there’s anything to be gained from withholding that from her as long as their exchanges don’t put Scarlett in any kind of danger.
I step off on my floor and head to my suite, stopping at the door to gather my thoughts. Scarlett’s been begging to go back to Nebraska since the second she stepped off the plane at JFK months back.
While I have no desire to make my presence known in Whitebridge ever again in this lifetime, now that Elle’s in the picture, I might be willing to arrange for a quick weekend getaway. Scarlett would need to be fully supervised, of course. And she’d need to continue to walk a straight line through the end of the school year.
But I’ll consider it.
I wash up for bed before shooting Elle a text, proposing this idea.
ELLE: I’m more than willing to take her. Poor thing is so homesick, West. It’d be a game-changer for sure. Would really lift her spirits.
ME: How was she tonight?
ELLE: Again, not her babysitter . . .
ME: Well aware. I’m asking if you think she’s doing better. She seemed to be in a good mood tonight when she came home.
ELLE: We had fun. And for the record, she didn’t complain about you once tonight which is a first. I think you’re making progress . . .
I begin to type a response, something along the lines of how this wouldn’t be possible without her help—but I delete it all. I’ve never been a sentimental sap. No need to start now.
ME: I’ll book the flights tomorrow. Good night, Elle.
ELLE: Good night, Superman.
I darken my screen and hit the pillow with a ridiculous grin commandeering my lips. And then I roll to my side, facing the empty half of my bed. Squinting, I imagine her beside me. The warmth of her body, the cashmere feel of her skin beneath my palms, the heat of her mouth against mine, her sugar-sweet scent dragging into my lungs.
Reaching for my phone, I spend the next several hours googling the ever-loving fuck out of Elle Napier.
While I’ve been content to maintain the “perfect” version of her I conjured up in my head the first day I laid eyes on her, I’m finding it difficult to stop thinking about her lately. Perhaps if I found something less than savory about her, a flaw or black mark of some kind, a reason to keep her from running laps in my mind . . . I could snap some sense into myself.
Ninety minutes later, I emerge from a wholesome rabbit hole of Napier family social media photos. Like a damn stalker, I flicked through every public photo Elle, her mother, and her sisters posted with eagle-eyed scrutiny, zooming in and out in search of anything and everything that could possibly signify that Elle isn’t all she seems.
But she’s all carefree smiles and good times.
And the Napiers are just a regular, tight-knit family from some small town in Louisiana.
They love boating. Fourth of July celebrations. Family trips to the mountains. Reunions and anniversaries. Christmastime, weddings, and babies.
From what I can gather, Elle Napier is the kind you keep. The prettiest girl in the room, though she never acts like it. Witty and brave. An uncomplicated breath of fresh air. A yes-woman in the best of ways.
Will would’ve loved her.
And maybe I could, too, if I were capable of that sort of thing.
In the moments before I finally succumb to the day’s exhaustion, I paint a mental picture of the life Elle deserves. A blue-blooded, pedigreed man to sweep her off her feet and place a permanent light in her ocean eyes. The kind of man she can take home to her parents and who would fit into those mile-wide family portraits they hang above their mantel each year. A guy who can roll around in the grass with her nieces and nephews and play a mean game of boccie ball with her brothers-in-law before drinking an ice-cold IPA with her father on the porch.
I’m not that guy.
I never will be.
But if I were, I’d make her mine in a heartbeat.
And I’d never let her go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ELLE
It’s a forty-minute drive from the Omaha airport to Whitebridge. Scarlett sits beside me in the back seat of our Uber, all but leaning out the window like an excited Labrador, pointing at every landmark and narrating every mile of the journey.
As soon as my cell gets a good connection, I fire off a quick thank-you email to Connie with Winlock Media. Our interview went well this morning—at least, I think it did. It all happened so fast, and this day has been a blur ever since.
“There’s a garden at that park with a maze,” she says when we pass the WELCOME TO WHITEBRIDGE sign. “And a place on the corner that has the best ice cream. Crazy flavors like cinnamon chocolate raspberry and Twinkie sprinkle. My mom used to take me there when I was little.”
Speaking of Scarlett’s mom, Scarlett’s been firing off texts to her since the second we stepped off the plane. As far as I know, however, she’s received no responses. West told me to leave my expectations at the door when it comes to Lexi. That she has a tendency to make promises she can’t keep. But I’m keeping an open mind and giving her the benefit of the doubt. She hasn’t seen her daughter in almost half a year—I can’t imagine she’d flake out on her like this.
“I told my mom we’re almost there, but she hasn’t sent anything.” Scarlett checks her phone again, her lips pressed into a flat line. “Maybe she’s stuck at work?”
West made arrangements for us to stay at the Whitebridge Best Western tonight and tomorrow, but our first stop is supposed to be Lexi’s house.
“There it is.” Scarlett opens the passenger door before we come to a complete stop, dashing up the jagged concrete walkway toward the sinking front stoop.
“Thank you,” I say to the driver before grabbing our weekend bags and climbing out. I follow Scarlett, keeping back as she tries to barge her way through the locked door.
“That’s weird.” She turns to me after a few futile attempts. “Mom never locks the house.”
Stepping back, she flips the front doormat over—perhaps searching for a key—before skipping down the steps and peering into a front window. Her palms leave imprints against the murky glass.
“It’s dark in there,” she says, dusting cobwebs off her hands. “I’ll check the back door.”
The Uber driver backs out of the driveway and disappears down the street as Scarlett dashes around the side of the house. A minute later she returns, eyes sullen and shoulders deflated.
“Back door was locked too,” she says.
“Scarlett, is that you?” a woman in a mauve terry cloth robe calls from the front porch next door. Pinching a cigarette between her lips, she offers a quick wave.
“Hey, Dede. Have you seen Mama?” Scarlett asks.
“Not for a few weeks now,” she says, nodding toward the front yard. “Grass is getting long. Thought about asking my stepson to mow, but I wasn’t sure what was going on.”
Scarlett swipes her phone from her back pocket, dialing Lexi for the millionth time.
“It’s ringing . . .” Her eyes widen as she pinches her bottom lip between her thumb and forefinger. “And ringing . . . and ringing . . .”
“Maybe she’s working?” I give the benefit of the doubt to someone who likely doesn’t deserve it. “Just leave a message and let her know we’ll be at the Best Western. She can meet up with us there.”
Sucking in a breath, Scarlett leaves a message for her mother. And while her words paint a picture of excitement, her tone is laced with disappointment.
“I guess I should call us a ride?” I glance around the sparsely populated strip of street. The sign on the way into town said Whitebridge had a population of 1,400. I’m willing to bet Ubers aren’t a thing here.
Snatching her bag off the gravel driveway, Scarlett heads for the sidewalk. “We can walk. It’s only a few blocks from here.”
For the next ten minutes, we walk in silence, the wheels of our bags droning against the sidewalk.
“Maybe we can order in and watch a pay-per-view?” I offer when we get closer. “That could be fun, yeah? And you can invite a few of your friends over. I think there’s a pool at the hotel. It’s warm enough to swim if that’s something you guys are into.”
Scarlett stops, releasing the handle of her bag before retrieving her phone.
“Yeah,” she says, monotone. “It’s just . . . I don’t have anyone’s numbers anymore. Uncle West made me get rid of my old phone when I moved, and I never had them memorized because I didn’t need to . . .”
Honk . . . honk-honk-honk . . . honkkkkk . . .
A screeching horn, crunching tires, and a coughing muffler barge into our moment without warning. By the time I turn to see what all the commotion is, I’m met with a tiny bottle-blonde flying out the passenger side of a rusted El Camino.
“Mama!” Scarlett drops her things on the pavement and dashes toward someone I can only assume is her mother. Though from a distance, it would be easy to mistake Lexi for one of Scarlett’s friends. She’s not much bigger than her daughter, and with her cutoff shorts and skintight tube top, she’s dressed more like a high schooler on summer break than a grown adult woman meeting up with her daughter.
But I’m not here to judge.
“Mama, this is my friend, Elle,” Scarlett introduces us a moment later.
“Hi.” I wave. “So nice to meet you.”
Lexi waves back, grinning wide as she slides her hands into her back pockets. “Likewise. Scarlett told me all about you over the phone. You guys want a ride?”
She points to the open back of the El Camino, and I steal a peek at the man sitting in the driver’s seat in his wraparound sunglasses and no expression on his face.
“We can just walk.” I point in the direction of her house. “Just a couple of blocks.”
“No, no,” Lexi says. “I insist. Just hop on back. We’re going to Jared’s anyway.”
“Why was the house locked up, Mama?” Scarlett asks. “Dede said she hadn’t seen you in weeks.”
Lexi pushes a casual breath between her lips before laughing. “Dede needs to mind her own business, doesn’t she? I’ve been living with Jared. The house just feels so lonely without you there.”
