That Was Then, This Is Now

Part 11

This is turning me being a good person and driving faith home into a never-ending nightmare. I seriously wish I had just walked past, not looked her in the eyes, and gone home. But I didn't and now here we are sitting across from each other at my dining room table with 4 of my PR team set up in the living room and my manager Jack, and now we've got Faiths manager and 3 of her PR people working with mine. Apparently, this is a big deal.
"okay so we've tipped TMZ that Faith and Mr McGraw are meeting at a restaurant tonight." Says one of faiths people.
"okay good, so Faith you and your team can get out without detection." Says jack.
"surely this is an overreaction, like why do we care?" I ask out of frustration I can see faith feeling it too. Her shoulders are tense, she keeps furrowing her brow and rubbing her temples.
"Sorry Mr McGraw," says one of the PR people from behind his laptop. At this point I'm unsure of whether or not he's from my camp or hers but I don't care, I just want them gone and this to be over. "but you've both lost followers over last 24 hours, more than what would be expected. We need to mitigate losses."
"while I agree with the McGraw camp," says a girl maybe my age with glasses, she's kind of cute too. "they're trending which never happens between albums, especially not like this. And while they are losing old followers, slightly faster than normal, they're gaining new ones from all TMZ twitter and Instagram exposure that they've had." She explains. I don't care. I want them to leave. I want my apartment back. I want this drama over.
"okay but what are we going to do then?" asks Jack standing next to Gary between them all.
"okay we need to run the diagnostics first." Says Gary and then within a few seconds they're all doing stuff and it's just me and faith watching from the table. She gets up suddenly and makes her way to the kitchen. She moves around so comfortably and like it's second nature. I mean everything is still in the place she put them so I guess it must be. She turns to the fridge and pulls out two cans of cola, turns around and gets a lemon out too. She hasn't said anything since she got here except sigh a couple of times here and there but that's it. Her words from last night still ringing in ears. I always miss you Tim. She takes two slices out of the lemon and puts one in each glass, then pours cola over them. She puts the knife and lemon away and then brings the glasses to the table, putting one in front of me.
"Oh sorry, I didn't even ask if you wanted some. Force of habit." She says. She sounds exhausted. The PR people and our managers have been going on for a couple of hours now and it's impossible to know what they're discussing.
"No, it's fine thanks." I say smiling at her. She looks away. God. It was so good last night. Working on music and everything. It felt like we could just pick up right where we left off and now she's gone cold on me. I don't blame her. I just wish she would talk to me, so that we can at least be friends. Suddenly the whole room goes quiet, which is weird because they haven't stopped talking at all.
"Okay Faith, Tim. We've got an idea." Says Gary looking at us. "And you don't have to do it if you don't want to. You're allowed to say no." He looks directly in Faiths eyes as he says that part, like it was made for her to hear. He wants to protect her. Wants to let her know she can say no to me.
"But we think that for you both this is a good move." Says Jack. "So what we're proposing is that you two record that song that you wrote. We go into publicity over drive. You do functions, you get coffee. Whatever."
"And then while it's all happening we maintain that y'all are just friends. And then that way there's the whole 'surely they're together' and we generate interest which is nothing but good for you both." Finishes Gary.
It's not a bad idea. I mean these new country stars get younger and younger and if you're not a legend it's pretty hard to generate buzz between albums. And I would really to be in the papers for something that doesn't involve me and some girl at a club.
"I'm on board." I say to them all. "As long as Faith as."
"I don't know." She says. "We won't have to do to much publicity right?" Of course she's worried about having to spend time with me.
"You won't have to do anything that you don't want to do." Gary says reassuring her. He seems on board with plan which I know will comfort Faith. She respects him like a dad.
"Okay, yep I'll do it." She says and all the PR people let out a little cheer.
"Good. Okay, so Jaime you book the recording studio and get us Byron Gallimore." Byron. Thank god. If there's anyone who will make this the least painful it's him. He gets me, he gets Faith. It will be fine.
"Yep. That's good. You're in the studio tomorrow."
"Okay, Steven, get the dance hall guys in the studio tonight. We need the music. Then Sarah book these two a table at the bluebird for tonight." Says Gary. Wow. Dinner. I don't even think Faith and I can hold a chit chat level conversation at this point let alone something to last a whole meal.
"Yep. I'm telling TMZ that they'll be across town and I'll tip off the Nashville Times where they'll really be." Replied the young girl with glasses.
"Good thinking. Okay so Gary and I will work on your schedules for the next couple of months." Says Jack.
"Okay, Thank y'all." Says Faith standing up and looking at everyone. "I really appreciate all that you have done today, I know this was by no means easy but we are so thankful." She says looking at me as she said we. We. We used to be a we. But now we're not. Except we're going to be pretending to be a we while adamantly persisting that we're not. Awesome.
"Yeah thanks. All of you." I say. My life is about to get interesting.