Machine by Normandie Alleman
26
Bridger
“Man, you are all over the news. Well, the tabloid news.” Barvo sounded as exuberant as a Labrador puppy over the phone.
“What are you talking about?” I’d just brought my camping gear inside and dropped it on the living room floor when Barvo called. It sounded like I’d missed a lot being unplugged for a few days.
“Everybody is talking about Lucinda and Dynassy Barnes and how the vet they trotted up onstage turned out to be a porn kingpin. Have you been to the grocery store? You should go get some of those newspapers and hang on to them.”
“Why would I do that?” Fuck.
The night before I’d left, Dynassy texted me saying we needed to take “a break.” When she didn’t respond to any more of my texts, I assumed that was her way of breaking up with me. It was suck a kick in the gut that I needed to get away from everything that reminded me of her. When I looked around my place, everything I saw made me think of Dynassy. The blanket she liked to sleep with because she was always cold, hung over the back of the couch. A bottle of her nail polish sat on the bar. The bathroom counter held a collection of hair ties and she’d tucked a package of cotton balls under the sink. The calendar had a big red circle around the date when the new season of “The Barnes Bunch” would air, and my fridge was filled with the diet soda and fancy bottled water she liked, along with a tub of hummus.
I hated hummus.
Wallowing in my misery had been my plan, but then the freaking paparazzi figured out where I lived and started lying in wait for me to go anywhere. If I did, they harassed me, asking me dumbass questions like, “Did you ask Dynassy to be in your porn movies? Are you and Dynassy still together? Did you do porn when you were in the military?” That last one was my favorite.
I ignored them all, and decided I needed to get away from all of it for a few days—the TV, the reporters, the person at my job who was stealing from me. If there was one good idea Dynassy had in the middle of all of this, it was getting the hell away from all this noise.
So I packed my tent and went camping. Given my current state of mind, it had only been mildly enjoyable, but it had given me a chance to think. Communing with nature had not fixed my broken heart, but I had gone with the hope that while I was away, the media insanity would have calmed down.
When I returned last night, the bloodsuckers were gone. They must have realized over the weekend that I wasn’t home and cleared out. I took this as a sign the whole thing had blown over and that the tabloids had found a new topic to keep them busy. Apparently, I was wrong.
“Yeah, it’s phenomenal. Our web traffic has gone through the roof. Good thing I talked you into upgrading our servers last month, or we’d probably crash. In fact, we did crash, but I was able to get us back online quickly. Dude, do you know how much we are banking from ad revenue? I’ve got the tech guys on alert, and I’ve got some backup servers we can rent in case it gets really bad. Way to go, man. Brilliant move, hooking up with Dynassy Barnes. Besides the fact that she’s hot as sin—”
“Barvo.” He was hyper-excited, but I needed him to focus.
“Yeah?”
“What are they saying? And who’s saying it?”
“Well, apparently TMZ broke the news—Lucinda and Dynassy released a statement saying that you duped them, and that they were sorry to mislead the fans to believe that you were a good guy. Stuff like that.”
“Wait, what?” I was outraged. Dynassy and her mother were dissing me in public, and she hadn’t told me about it? That was low.
Barvo gave me a web address where I could find the story, and we hung up.
I checked my phone again. Nothing from Dynassy. There was a missed call from a number I didn’t recognize, but no messages. Probably a reporter. I sure as hell wasn’t going to call that number back.
“Pornographer Lied to Barnes”
Ugh. The more I read, the angrier became.
So Dynassy had sold me out, thrown me under the bus. Not only had she denied she ever had feelings for me, but she acted like I was some scumbag who was beneath her.
But something didn’t seem right here. Even if Dynassy was through with me, it didn’t sound like her to trash me like that in the press. She cared about me too much to do that, I knew it. Even if we couldn’t be together, I couldn’t believe she was behind those words. There had to be more to it than that.
Super pissed, I called her, but was instantly hit with the message, “I’m sorry, but the person you have reached has not set up their voicemail account. Goodbye.”
That was some bullshit if I’d ever heard it, but there was nothing I could do about it.
I texted her.
“WTF?”
I hoped that was enough to get the conversation started.
But she didn’t text back.
I texted again.
“Why did you say that?”
I knew she’d been in Milan recently, and I thought she was still there.
She might have thought that she could brush me off, throw me away like a gum wrapper under her shoe, but she was wrong. I’d fought for my country, fought my injury—hell, fought to get my dick working again. I sure as hell was going to fight for her, or at least for my dignity.
Clicking open another tab on my internet browser, I started searching for flights to Milan.
She wasn’t getting rid of me that easily.
