Fireworks 1 and 2

Jungle: Chapter Fifty-Nine

    Drake stood up from his chair and Mia immediately stood up with him. "I don't have time for this," he muttered.

    "Where are you going?" Angie asked him.

    "This was low," he said flatly. "So I'm leaving. I'm disappointed in you, Angie."

    Angie blinked. "This isn't an ambush."

    "The photo? Showing me a photo of my girl being kissed by another man? Why would you ask about that at all?" he asked, frowning. "You know me. You know airing dirty laundry isn't me. And taking his phone call? What is that?"

    Instead of answering him, Angie turned towards the microphone. "We're going to go to another short commercial break, everyone. This is Angie Martinez with Hot97, and we'll be right back." She raised a hand into the air, and the dark-haired man behind the glass window hurried to play the outro music for the station. She removed the headphones and smoothed down her hair. Then, she rose from her chair and walked around the table so that she was standing in front of the furious entertainer. "Zach called our station saying that he heard you'd be in today. I wanted this to come from him, but he said that he wanted to issue you a public apology for what happened with Mia. I don't think that he knew Mia would be here, but he said that he had an apology he wanted to give to her over the air, too."

    "I don't need his apology," Drake said, his voice carrying a hard edge. "Neither does Mia. What he did was wrong and you should have run this past me instead of springing it up on me in the middle of an interview. That was fucked up."

    "I would never do you dirty," Angie told him. "He sounded sincere, so I wanted to give him the platform to apologize. Maybe the two of you can just...squash this."

    Drake slanted a look over his shoulder at Mia, and some of his anger evaporated. He ran a hand across his brow. "I don't like this."

    "He's just on the phone," Mia told him, grabbing onto his hand. "Let's just...finish out the interview."

    "I'm sorry that I didn't clear it with you first," Angie apologized.

    You're not sorry. You knew exactly what you were doing. He sighed and lowered himself back down onto the bench. Mia followed his lead and did the same.

    "Are we cool?" Angie asked him. "Are we good?"

    He sent a narrow glance her way, before turning his head and saying to Mia, "If anything is even remotely off, we're leaving. For now, I guess we can hear what he has to say."

    Mia kissed his shoulder, then leaned her head on it.

    "I didn't know Zach had gotten under your skin like that," Angie said, backing away from him. "You and Mia seem so...indestructible. I wouldn't have allowed his call to be put through if I thought it would make you this angry."

    He didn't buy it. If what she was saying were true, she would have cleared it with him first, and wouldn't have hinted at it earlier, calling it a "surprise." Anger was still bubbling within him, and he wasn't even sure why. After all, he and Mia had gotten past all of the Zach drama. She was here with him, still loved him. They were receiving nothing but praise for their performance on the tour. His family and friends were healthy and happy. Life was good, and he reminded himself that that was what he should focus on. Adjusting the headphones over his head, he gestured to Angie. "If we're going to do this, let's do this."

    "You don't have anything to worry about, baby," Mia told him. "He'll have his chance to talk and then we'll never have to think about this guy again."

    He nodded as Angie brought the radio show back from commercial.

    "Welcome back to Hot97. We have Drake and Mia in with us today," Angie reminded her radio audience. "Before we went to commercial break, I announced that we had Zach LaVine on the line. Zach called in when he heard that Drake would be interviewing with us, and he had some words. You didn't seem all too pleased to hear that, Drake."