King of Her Desire

47

I don't yell much. On account of being yelled at so much as a kid—not by Gracie, but by the guys Gracie brough home.

But man, that day, I stood up, shivering, steaming mad—first, I just said, "Get. OUT," kind of through my teeth.

And when Matt just sat there like he wasn't even fazed, I just kept saying, "Get out! Get out! GET OUT," louder and louder until they could hear me back in Tucson probably.

First one to bust in to see what was going on was Sochi. And then Gerri and even Wanda and Aaron came. Elliott struggled herself up the steps, too, finally. Really frowning.

And Matt just turned to all of them and said, "Give 'im a minute. Give us a—"

"NO," I said. "I told you—"

"If you really care about those children out there you will calm down, sit down, and let us talk some sense into you," Matt said. 'way too calmly.

It kind of scared me back down into my chair. And Sochi came and stood behind me like a mama lion watching to make sure her mate didn't kill one of her cubs. They do that, male lions. It's a dominance thing. To show who's boss.

And I felt like Matt was capable of it. Like he'd smile while he was doing it...

And then Aaron said, "Hear him out, okay?"

And I just stared at him until he raised up his palms toward me and said, "There's...a reason."

Elliott just sat down real slow next to Gerri on this couch and said, "Oh, we're all going to sit here and listen. Hit your mark, Matt."

Sochi didn't sit, though. She kept her hands on my shoulders and her eyes on Matt.

And Matt looked at her and said, "I need to talk to you, too. But okay, I've got offers from three huge companies wanting this kid to represent their brands. I'm talking about him being the face of, you got that? And these are big brands, not entry level. Calvin, we've already got for the one shot—they like to be free to use all kindsa guys. But we've got these others—and some truly amazing guest walks. New York, Paris, Milan—Japan, for Chrissake! Designers just want him to do that last walk that makes people gasp, you know?"

Aaron put on this "announcer" voice trying to be funny and said, "But wait, there's more!"

And I was waiting. Because that wasn't the part that had gotten me so riled up. He'd started with that stuff to calm the women down.

But Matt smiled and said, "I should hire you to do that."

And Aaron said, "Yeah, well, weddings, bar mitzvahs, I'm not picky. We'll talk."

"Well, right now it's all about this guy," Matt said. "Netflix you know about. But there's Disney and Paramount circling, trying to see if they can swoop in for the steal. They're seeing this...Gen Z John Boy, okay? One of the best writers in the business has already done the whole pitch and synopsis and all: homeless kid, head of the family since he could walk—yes, it's everything you said you didn't want to sell, but it is everything a movie should have. And Netflix is throwing in a series, okay? To sweeten the deal."

"It's all over town, doofus," Aaron said. "Get over yourself! You sit down with the writer, you tell 'im some stories—I know you have stories. The life you've led—"