Fireworks 1 and 2

Chapter Fifty-Six

    The Vanessa story wasn't the only story to break that day. Later in the day, the Trevor Riley story also broke. News of it became known while Drake and Mia were in the studio, working on a song. Drake's iPhone rang. He ignored it, trying to keep his focus on the verse he was working on. The phone wouldn't stop ringing, however, so he was forced to answer it.

    "I told you that you shouldn't have gone with her to the police station," Chubbs scolded into Drake's ear while Drake scrolled through the story on his phone.

    Drake set the glossy black device on the table, cradling the iPhone between his ear and his shoulder. "So they have pictures of me walking Mia into the police station. So what?"

    "So, Trevor obviously has anger issues," Chubbs said. "Mia's bruise is proof of that. There's no telling what he's going to try to do now that he knows you were involved."

    Drake shrugged. He didn't care anymore. He glanced over at Mia, who sat beside him with her legs tucked underneath her rear end, scribbling notes into her notebook. The bruise was still visible on her cheekboke. Whenever he saw the bruise, he got angry. "He had to be reported," he told Chubbs. "If I hadn't gone with her, she probably wouldn't have gone through with it. And she shouldn't have to be alone while going through all of that."

    "I understand why you did it," Chubbs said. "But what are we going to do to control the situation?"

    Drake exhaled. "I don't know. Has Oliver seen it?"

    "I told him first."

    Drake nodded. "Good. I'll talk to him about it."

    "One thing after another," Chubbs muttered.

    "That's how it goes, we know this," Drake said, leaning forward and pinching the bridge of his nose. "My first instinct is to let it ride out. No comments, no official statements. Let it die down on its own. But we'll see what Oliver suggests. I'm not trying to think about Vanessa or Trevor today."

    "Got it," Chubbs said, and disconnected the call.

    Drake pulled the phone away from his ear and set it down on the table.

    "That didn't sound good," Mia commented. "They have pictures of you walking me into the police station?"

    "Yeah," he replied. "But it's nothing. It'll blow over. I saw you writing over there. What do you have?"

                                                                             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Gossip media ran wild with both stories. Weeks later, they were still theorizing in follow-up articles. Drake was pleasantly surprised at how gracefully Mia handled everything. She seemed not to care about the stories at all. She supported him, comforted him, took his mind off of the fact that his name was in the news - which he hated. He hated when focus was taken off of the music, the art that he worked so hard on, and placed on trivial matters such as who he was dating, or who he'd slept with, or some random, minor act that he'd been caught doing that made him interesting for all of five minutes.

    Granted, he knew that there was so much media interest in him because of how open his lyrics were. He didn't mind airing his dirty laundry, admitting who he'd slept with. Shouting them out in a song. He didn't know any other way to write, except to be honest. You'd think that since he was giving those tidbits in his lyrics, the gossip rags would be satisfied with that - but no. His lyrics only seemed to fuel further interest in his personal life.

    What made matters worse is Trevor and Vanessa continued running their mouths to the press. Trevor made a show of defending his name. Trevor's team released a public statement to the press advising that any claims of physical brutality were false. His team was shaping him up to portray the victim in the whole matter, a target for gold-diggers. Vanessa also worked hard to keep the spotlight on herself. The minute her story showed any signs of losing steam, she'd visit another online gossip site and tell her story all over again, making sure to add just a few more details than her previous interview.