Fireworks 3 and 4

Chapter Fifty-Three

    Once that bomb was dropped, Justin felt justified in going into a set of commercials. He stood up from his chair and raised a hand to his forehead. "I didn't know you were going to drop his name."

    "There's nothing wrong with me namedropping him," Mia said. "We aren't involved in a closed trial or anything. I spoke on an event that happened to me."

    "No, yeah, I know," Justin said. His head felt like it was going to explode and they hadn't even covered the other entertainment news they were supposed to speak on. Some of the topics would need to be pushed back to the next day. "You didn't do or say anything wrong. This is all just...a bit unexpected."

    "You don't have any projects coming up with Real Ish, do you?" Mia asked. "Maybe I should've asked that first."

    Justin frowned in confusion. "What? No. No, and I'm not siding with the creep. I'm just trying to process all of this, that's all."

    "Imagine how Mia feels, then," Demi pointed out.

    He turned and gave Mia an apologetic look. "I'm sorry. I'm being a dick and I don't mean to be. I should be asking you how you are, having gone through this shit."

    "You're second-hand traumatized," Mia said, her voice sounding tiny. "It happens."

    He moved around the desk and sat next to her. "You probably have a lot of people you can talk to, people who aren't media personalities. But if you need someone to talk to, I'm here."

    "Me, too," Demi chimed in.

    Mia smiled weakly at both of them. "Thank you."

    "Did you want me to walk you to the elevators?" Justin offered.

    Her lips formed into a smirk. "Oh, I'm not done talking. There's something else I need to get off my chest."

    His eyes widened. "Oh."

    "Yeah," she said, looking down at her hands.

    He glanced at Demi, who felt comfortable enough to shrug at him since she was out of Mia's immediate line of sight. When they returned from the commercial break, he reintroduced Mia, gave an overview of the incident she'd divulged, making sure to have her confirm his paraphrasing of the story. "You mentioned that there was something else you had to say in this interview."

    "Yes," she said. "And it pertains to Drake."

    Everyone in the room dropped what they were doing. Phones were silenced, typing stopped, phone calls were abruptly ended, and everyone within close proximity leaned just the slightest bit closer to Mia. 

    Beads of sweat lined Justin's brow. He didn't think he could take anymore excitement or drama. He was nearly at his maximum capacity for the amount of drama he could handle, but this was what everyone wanted to hear about. What she had said and what she was about to say would most likely cause two separate clips of his show to go viral. Days like this meant money in the bank. "We're all ears, here, including our listeners."

    "You asked about Drake when I first came in," Mia started. "Everyone does. Everyone wants to know about us, everyone's on the edge of their seats waiting to know whether or not I will take him back. Those of you who are guessing that I will take him back have already started to judge me for doing so. That's the thing about social media...we see everything. Even if we don't want to, some numb nuts friend of ours is forwarding us the shit. So, we see it. We see the memes, the roasting, the mentions, the salacious lies and fake reports. Sometimes we respond, sometimes we don't. Just because we don't, doesn't mean we aren't seeing it." She paused and turned her head. "When you first asked about him, I told you that the situation was to be determined. It is. I haven't made up my mind yet. But I do know where I'm leaning. Since you guys were kind enough to let me in here so I could share my experience and warning with you, I'll give you a little tea."