Page 105 of Making the Save

“Who is everyone?” I asked. “And why are they gagging?”

Tyler rolled his eyes. “Oh please, don’t tell me you’re one of thoseI don’t look at my own social mediapeople.”

“Okay. I won’t,” I looked at Syd. “What’s he talking about?”

“The pictures!” Tyler shouted. “They’re everywhere.”

He pulled out his phone and handed it to me. On it was a picture of me and Syd in that home goods store where we’d bought all the blankets and shit. I was looking down at her and laughing at something she said.

We looked…

“Just keep scrolling,” Tyler said and slid his thumb across the screen so another picture appeared. We were leaving a restaurant in Telluride. We’d gone for a late lunch and I had my arm draped over her shoulder, she was looking up at me like I’d hung the moon.

I remembered thinking how loose I’d felt. Like I’d won the Stanley Cup instead of losing it. Like my ankle didn’t ache every goddamn minute of every goddamn day. Like my shoulders were greased. Like I wasn’t worried about next year and if I could keep up with the young guns. If I could still perform like I used to.

There was no future but the woman under my arm.

“Oh my gosh, you two actually look like you’re in love,” Tyler said, pulling the phone away to look at the picture himself. “So astute to know cameras would show up a few days aftersomeone spotted you in a furniture store, of all places! Brilliant. Why didn’t I think of that? It screams cozy domestic. Everyone’s calling you the new It Couple, as they should because you’re adorbs. Now that we’ve righted the public-image ship, let’s talk about where we go from here, because one Mr. Jonathon Bernard is doubling down on the whole victim game. You know he's dating Ellie Wheeler now.”

“Is he?” Syd asked with a shrug. “I guess that figures.”

Did Syd know about the cameras? I wondered. Had she been acting for them? It wasn’t possible she could have misled me like that. Was it?

As soon as I had the thought, I tossed it. It was never anything she turned on and off. Those cameras had been around one percent of the time we’d been together. And she looked at me like that a hundred percent of the time we were together.

She used to anyway.

Tyler turned to fill me in on the background. “Ellie’s an indie artist who routinely calls Syd’s songs cookie cutter. As if, am I right?”

“Let me get this straight, this guy, who you were in a fake relationship with, is talking trash about you while dating another singer, who also talks trash about you?” I asked. “Who the fuck are these people?”

“John is a very petty guy who blames me for a lot of stuff,” Syd explained. “He didn’t like how things ended, but if he didn’t want to be called out for cheating, he shouldn’t have agreed to our relationship in the first place. I didn’t ask him to do it.”

“Who did?”

“Uh, why does that matter?” Tyler asked.

“Because I want to know the asshole who kept setting Syd up with a bunch of assholes,” I snapped, turning to face Tyler.

Tyler raised his hand slowly and close to his body, as if trying to hide it. “Johnny was on the rise, while Syd failed to earn a Grammy nom with her last two albums. She needed exposure.”

“And what about that Sam asshole who let her get arrested in that club in Paris?”

“Not arrested!” Tyler and Syd both shouted. I growled at both of them.

What I wanted to say was that when I left, the next guy better not be some fake asshole. When I left, the next guy better not be…the fucking next guy.

My vision went red when I thought about the next fucking guy.

Syd walked over and patted me on the shoulder. “Stop being mad on my behalf. I can handle my own mad.”

“Please, we all know Sydney doesn’t get mad,” Tyler said. “So cool it, Mr. Hockey Player.”

“No, that’s not true,” Syd said. “I do get mad. I get mad all the time, I just think it’s really rude to take out all that anger on someone else. And I don’t think people’s feelings should be used as publicity stunts. And I don’t like constantly being told what to do!”

Tyler looked positively aghast that she was raising her voice at him. “What are you saying?”

“Tyler,” she said with a large swallow. “You are so fired.”