All the Celebrity Victims of Recent Phone Hacking Rocking Hollywood.
Bristol Perri Disables Social Media After Nude Photos Leak in Phone Hacking.
Reagan Moore’s Text Messages Confirm Relationships with Jessie Byrd, Blair Bennett.
There was a whole list. At least thirty celebrities involved in the hacking. The worst part about it was that my texts with Reagan were nowhere near as damaging as Bristol Perri’s nudes. But in the mix of leaked photos was a video of Reagan and me making out in Greenville, in what I thought was an abandoned hallway, which meant whoever took that video of us decided that right after the hacking would be a great time to leak it.
Because Reagan never took sexy selfies of herself, her worst photo was of her in a red-and-white striped bikini on a beach with Jessie Byrd, who was in an all-black bikini, both of them sitting on beach towels with Reagan’s head on Jessie’s shoulder. I was too traumatized to look at what else was leaked. Plus, since I was sucked into the club of victims, there was no way I was going to intrude on their private stuff. Miles avoided all the articles, but without opening one, he came across that Reagan picture. He claimed that the photo of Reagan and Jessie would have seemed platonic if it weren’t for screenshots of her text messages complaining to Bristol Perri about their breakup. The conversation when she came back to LA after touring Europe and said she wanted to see my face? That was out there. The conversation we had in New York City when she told me to come to her room, and she said she wished I was coming? That was out there. Asking her to be my date for Thanksgiving? That was out there too. The texts she sent me while she was in Asia about how she missed my face and body and my tattoos and my mouth? Yup, the most incriminating text conversation out there for everyone to read. I pulled it up on my phone to make sure it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was.
Reagan: Ugh, God, I really miss your face.
Reagan: Like, what was I thinking bringing on another band for the Europe/Asia leg? If I knew how magical your mouth was back when we planned this, I’d totally just bring you.
Me: Oh, wow, this was an amazing text to wake up to.
Me: Ditch your tour and get in my bed. ASAP.
Reagan: I really need you right now. I’m deprived. I miss your face and your body and your tattoos. God, the things I’d do to see your tattoos.
Me: What sort of things would you do?!
Reagan: Riskier things than sneaking into a pool after hours.
Me: Why are we not together right now? Damn it!
Reagan: Can we make a deal that, once we see each other again in Greenville, we lock ourselves in my green room or bus and just devour each other?
Me: I’m not sure how I’m supposed to make it for another few weeks now.
Reagan: Just think of me when you do yourself, okay?
Me: You don’t need to ask me twice.
So, it was even worse than I originally remembered. I couldn’t believe that conversation was out there. A conversation about us fucking each other and masturbating. I could have just run myself through a wall.
The only way I could handle everything on the internet was the vodka I bought from the liquor store closest to our Oklahoma City hotel. As Miles filled me in on everything, I drank to the point that I almost forgot about it, and when I got to that point, Reagan finally made it to our room. The second she came in, I threw my arms out, and she sobbed into my chest. I’d never seen her cry before, and I didn’t realize how lucky I was that I hadn’t until her sobs sliced through me. I could feel her pain when she cried. I tried so hard not to let my own emotions burst out, but she needed a rock.
I brushed strands of hair out of her face, tucking them behind her ears as she sobbed into my shoulder. She was so upset that she didn’t seem to notice that I reeked of alcohol and was really drunk. And if she did, then it didn’t matter to her as much as her whole private life up on the internet. There were moments when she stopped and we lay there in silence, and then she started crying again. The fabric of my sweatshirt collected her tears, and I hugged her tighter, occasionally kissing her damp cheek and rubbing her back even after my arm needed a rest, but it didn’t deserve a rest until she stopped crying.
“We’ll get through this,” I said and kissed her forehead as another round of tears ensued. “You won’t be alone.”
“This is…this is…” She stuttered through gasps of air in between cries. “This is why—”
I grabbed her hand. “I know. I know.” And then I pulled her back into me, and her quivering resumed.
“I’m so p…private,” she finished. “This is exactly why. It’s all out there. It’s all…that’s…that’s my whole life out there. Those texts I sent in Asia!” Her cries became harder. And when the conversation played in my head, the tears started in my eyes too.
I continued to rub her hands and kiss her tearstained cheeks. I felt so hopeless trying to console her because there was nothing to say or do that would take it all back. Whoever hacked into her phone did it effortlessly. Seeing Reagan come apart, crying hysterically, made me so angry. She didn’t deserve it at all.
No one did.
I ordered room service, drew her a bubble bath, let her eat during her bath, then cuddled her to sleep. We didn’t talk much. I don’t even know what we could have said except crying and complaining how this really sucked. She spoke to Bristol Perri on the phone for a little bit after her bath, and I think she got some comfort talking to a good friend, someone who was going through the same stuff as she was. I hated how she went out of her way to protect her private life, made sure she didn’t do anything stupid that the media would blow up the internet with, and no matter how hard she tried, it still bit her in the ass.
It was as if Reagan had nowhere to hide. And I felt it too.
* * *
I only had about thirty seconds left until I had to meet the rest of the tour to head over to the venue. So, I snorted the very last line I could squeeze out of the eight ball I got before the start of the tour, and then I was pissed when there was nothing left in the bag at the time I really needed it the most. I felt so hopeless that the only thing that I knew would guarantee me just a little break was this powdery concoction.
The line would just be a little encouragement for the evening and would be over by the time we arrived and sound checked. But when I met Miles in the elevator and stepped inside the lobby, I realized that leaving the hotel to get to the bus was a chore in itself. Despite the fact that Reagan used a pseudonym to book hotels, her most fanatical fans still found out the hotel we were staying at and waited for us in the lobby. There was a group of probably twenty, and once they saw Miles and me, their eyes went wide, and their phones snapped out of their pockets and purses, and what started as a brisk walk turned into a sprint as we beelined for the buses. One girl got a nice tug on the back of my shirt, all in the midst of yelling and begging. I almost tripped, but security finally reached us by the time we got to the garage.
And they acted like that just for the openers.
Or Reagan Moore’s girlfriend. It was probably that.
As my heart rate calmed down, we got to the venue, and things weren’t much different. A group of a hundred something fans and press waited for us to arrive, and I felt like a fish in an aquarium as the fans darted for the bus and pounded on the windows.
“This is fucking crazy,” Corbin said as he pulled out his phone. I assumed he was going to notify Finn. He and Reagan were still a few minutes behind us.
“I guess this is what happens when you date the biggest celebrity in the world, right?” Miles said and nudged my arm.
I sank in my seat. Well, there went the rest of that super-short buzz with nothing else to replenish it with. So, I took two extra pregame shots because it was better than nothing.
I decided to use this lively and aggressive Oklahoma City crowd to my advantage. I moved around the stage a little more than other shows, added some extra improved guitar licks to the songs, and jumped on the ledge to entice the audience to push closer to the stage so we could be in one massive heap of crazy. They reached out their hands, I shook some of them and collected some scratches as if a cat clawed me.
They were definitely ready for Reagan Moore that night.
Reagan said that we weren’t going to perform our single until the talk about us on the internet died down a little, and I was okay with that. Whatever she needed to gain her security back after that awful breach.
Miles and I drank our way to Wichita while she stayed behind to do her meet and greets—more like I drank my way to Wichita, and Miles tapped out after two beers. Gulp after gulp, I felt the whiskey as it slowly burned its way down my throat, and the discomfort of its potency brought me instant satisfaction. It made my pulse twitch faster, feigning complacency for what was actual discontentment.
A breath from it all.
“Remember in high school when I found that mockup of a yearbook page Brad Politch made with my text messages to him all over?” Miles said as we chilled in his hotel room. I was waiting for Reagan to arrive. Despite what was going on and how rowdy everyone seemed to be, Reagan still insisted to continue the meet and greets after the show. Meanwhile, I lay in Miles’s hotel bed, becoming one with the duvet and feeling my head become weightless. “I’m having major flashbacks of that.”
I opened my sixth beer, finishing the whole pack I bought before we left for Wichita. “Haven’t thought about that scumbag in a while,” I said and pulled a large gulp from the bottle.
“I have. He made my life hell. You know how many panic attacks I had when I saw that mockup?”
It was a lot. Brad Politch was the son of Rodger Politch, a big director in the film industry who made many summer blockbusters. That meant he came from tons of money. There was a rumor our freshman year that his bed was stuffed with hundred-dollar bills. Of course, no one believed it, but it became a thing we said whenever we spoke about Brad. He was the first guy Miles ever hooked up with. They made out all the time in the film editing room after school, along with a few hookups here and there. This lasted a whole year, but no one knew about it because those two weren’t out. Brad kept insisting he wasn’t gay after Miles said that he came out to his family and wanted to date him. Brad got offended by this, got bored in his yearbook class, made a mockup of a yearbook page that had screenshots of all of Miles’s texts saying how he came out as bi to his family, telling him he wanted to date Brad, saying he couldn’t stop thinking about him, and a few other detailed descriptions of what he wanted to do to him. Brad slipped that mockup in Miles’s locker and threatened that if he told anyone about them, he’d print it in the yearbook. For two weeks, Miles kept having panic attacks at school, and I had to pretend to go to the bathroom during my classes to comfort him.
So, one day, I dragged that little asshole out back, slammed him against the brick building, and threatened to break his precious fancy camera his daddy gave him for Christmas if he ever outed Miles. I think that scared him because the page wasn’t printed, and anytime Brad saw me in the hallway, his stare flitted in the other direction.
“Too many to count,” I answered. “I still get mad when I think about that asshole.”
“I get that Reagan’s situation is on a way different scale than mine, but the feelings are probably similar, you know? It sucks. More than sucks. I totally feel for her right now. Just wish I could help, that’s all.”
“Who has nothing better to do than hack people’s phones? What do they even get out of it?”
Miles shrugged. “I don’t have an answer for you. Brad Politch might know that.”
I surveyed my beer that was already halfway done. “I need more. Wanna run out with me?”
Miles laughed. “Blair, you just had a whole six-pack.”
“And I have screenshots of a detailed sext conversation all over the internet right now. What’s your point?”
“You had six beers in two and a half hours. Plus some whiskey.”
“Yeah? And now I need more. There has to be a place somewhere I can grab some.” I pulled out my phone to check. “Ah, there’s a store two blocks away. Okay, so you want anything?”
“No. I still have the rest of my beers in the fridge.”
“Well, drink them. Catch up.”
“But you’re already wasted. You have your drunk eyes.”
“Yeah? I wanna keep it going.”
He rolled his eyes and grunted as he got out of bed, grabbing a beer for himself and handing me another one. “Cheers.”
By the time Reagan sent me a text that she’d arrived at the hotel, I was eight beers and five shots in and wobbled my way over to her suite. In my defense, I was just following the movements of the earth. That’s when I really regretted everything I drank. The sick taste of alcohol hung in my throat, and I could feel all the liquid slushing around in my stomach. A rush of heat consumed my body and gave me this urge to strip off all my clothes to sweat it out. By the time I pounded on the door, I was gagging, and surveying the hallway to find a spot to puke my guts out if Reagan didn’t open this door faster. Once it opened, I bolted straight to the bathroom and threw up in the toilet.
“God, Blair!” she said as she walked into the bathroom. I clung to the toilet as if it were a life preserver. I started salivating, and another rush of sweat stuck to my skin. “How much have you had?”
I threw up again and then about three more times. Reagan stayed with me and held my hair back the whole time.
The rest of the night was fuzzy.
* * *
No Duet with Midnight Konfusion after Video of Hookup Leaked to Internet.
Reagan Moore Keeps Quiet on the Racy Blair Bennett Texts.
Fans Think Jessie Byrd’s New Song “She Knows You’re on My Mind” is About Benmoore Romance.
Miles, Corbin, and I listened to that new Jessie Byrd song on our way to St. Louis multiple times to make sure that it was really about me. I only needed to listen to the first verse and bridge of the sensuous, upbeat song to know it was indeed about me.
Did Miles and Corbin need to listen to it five more times? She referenced my sleeve and the lyrics to “Patience, Love,” the song I collaborated with Reagan on. I’m pretty sure Jessie Byrd was now out to get me with those threatening lyrics. Knowing what I knew from Reagan, she liked a challenge and a chase, and she seemed so confident that she could win Reagan back. I had no idea why. They’d dated for seven months? Cool. Reagan and I had been flirting nonstop for ten months. Get over yourself, Jessie Byrd.
Even Tony shouted his opinions from the steering wheel and agreed it was about me and referenced all the lines that made him think that. Meanwhile, during the whole hour of debate and analysis over this stupid song, I relieved myself with beer after beer until Corbin cut me off and told me to sleep because I’d had too much. So, I slipped into my bunk, deleted the remaining three Jessie Byrd songs I still had on my Spotify—the ones I really couldn’t let go from my purge after the Nashville show—and then passed out.
* * *
Since the internet—and now Jessie Byrd—wouldn’t shut up, I thought back on that conversation we had after the Grammys, the one where Reagan said her exes never did any romantic gestures. Since I felt bad for throwing up in her toilet and all the crap she had to go through over the last few days, I thought that both of us could use a nice night, so while she met up with Finn to write her public statement, I had our whole hotel room to myself.
And I used it wisely.
If we couldn’t go down to the restaurant at the Four Seasons in St. Louis, I’d pull every string to get the restaurant up to us. And all I had to do was say it was for the presidential suite, and bam, they offered everything. A whole three-course dinner of arugula salad, rib eye, and three different sides: French fries, charred broccolini, and polenta, with chocolate cake for dessert. Oh, and we couldn’t forget the two bottles of Napa Valley cabernet that the head chef had personally gifted us. The kitchen staff brought up a white tablecloth and some candles, which I didn’t even ask for but was beyond grateful for anyway.
And here I just thought my request was going to be a strip steak and French fries.
I tipped them well. I mean, I had to since I hardly worked for this simple request that turned into a five-star restaurant in our own hotel room. As I waited for Reagan to return, I threw on a special outfit that I’d hidden underneath the Egyptian cotton robe—yes, this place had an Egyptian cotton robe. No wonder Grandma insisted on raising me modestly, because touring with Reagan Moore was anything but modest, and these perks were addictive.
Since it took Reagan longer than I expected to write her statement, I broke into one of the bottles because I knew that Reagan would only have a glass or two, and it was practically taunting me. Plus, she wouldn’t have known the chef gave us two.
One bottle later, I felt a nice wine drunk. The door creaked open, and the light from the hallway cut through the darkness lit by two flickering flames from the long candles on the table. Reagan’s mouth dropped, and for the first time since the Grammys, her eyes softened, and a smile touched her lips. Seeing her smile made my insides flutter.
“Holy crap,” Reagan said as she took in the sight of the food in the candlelight. “What…what is this?”
“Dinner for you. Now come sit.”
“What? Blair? This is…is that a rib eye?”
I nodded. “Yup. And three sides, a bottle of wine, a salad; oh, and there’s chocolate cake in the fridge.”
Her eyes lit up. “Chocolate cake? Did you make it?”
“No, but I’m sure this is way better.”
“I don’t know. That caramel apple pie at Thanksgiving still shows up in my dreams.”
“Sit down. Let me pour you some wine. Time to unwind.”
I pulled the seat out for her, and she slipped into the chair. I poured us both a nice, liberal glass and then held my glass up for a toast. She followed.
“Remember when you said you were bummed about not going to prom because of the romance?” She blinked a few times before nodding. “Well, I can’t give you a prom, and I can’t take you out to a nice restaurant because you’re a musical genius, and that’s your own damn fault, but I can give you the fancy meal way better than you’d ever get at a high school prom and something to hopefully cheer you up. I know how hard this week has been on you, and I know that my walking in drunk last night was the last thing you needed, and I’m really sorry about that. You have every right to be angry, sad, depressed, confused—all the emotions you’ve been feeling. But you also deserve to be happy and to be treated like a fucking queen because you’re an amazing person, and you’ve made my life so much happier, you’ve made everyone on this tour happier, and you definitely made all your fans happier for just being you.”
Reagan reached across the table to grab my hand and held it tightly. “Blair…that’s really sweet. Thank you. I really needed to hear that.” Her voice quivered faintly, and she pulled my hand up to kiss it. “This really means a lot to me. This is, like, the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. You’re amazing.”
“You deserve it. I know it’s a tough time right now, but we’ll get through it. You’re not going to have to do this alone. I’m here for you, and you have a whole army of people who are here for you. We’re not going anywhere. This is all going to pass soon.”
“You make this all a little easier,” she said, kissing my hand one last time before switching her wine glass for her knife and fork. “I’m so drained from writing that statement with Finn that I don’t even want to think about it right now. I just want to enjoy this amazing meal with my super sweet girlfriend. Now, eat your vegetables.”
“Can I have a pass?”
“Why?”
“Well, there’s another dessert besides chocolate cake, you know. I’m thinking about bringing it out if you allow me to pass on the arugula.”
I untied the robe and let it fall to my side. Reagan’s eyes widened when she found me in the black lacy teddy I bought back when I dated Alanna but had never used. The lace narrowed down my stomach and to my center, showing off my sides with only a strap wrapped around my waist to hold it all in place. When we were in LA for the Grammys, I figured I might bring it just in case I found the right moment.
Well, the moment was found.
Reagan lowered her utensils without even slicing into her steak. “Holy shit,” she muttered.
“So, can I skip that salad?”
Her eyes didn’t flinch, but her mouth drooped lower the longer she took in my lingerie. “Um, yeah, wow. You can skip anything you want. Can we pause dinner so I can feel you in that?”
If it weren’t for the fact that my stomach had been growling for the past two hours, you better believe Reagan asking to feel me up in my lingerie would prompt me to scoop her up, throw her onto that bed, and have my way with her…or rather, let her have her way with me.
But as much as I really wanted that to happen, I also really wanted those French fries and wine…and maybe to tease her for a bit. Karma for all the teasing she did to me.
“How about we fuel up, and then you can do whatever you want to me?” I said.
“Okay, can you eat your meal like that? Ditch the robe altogether?”
“Sure, if you do the same.”
Her grin became crooked as she slipped out of her seat and headed to her suitcase. She peeled off all her clothing, dropped it to the floor, and stood naked as she searched for something. I lowered my utensils.
Seeing her naked was nothing new to me, but she was so beautiful that every time I saw her naked, I lost my train of thought. Nothing else existed except for her and those sexy legs and flat stomach. Oh, and the back muscles. God, how could I forget about those?
She slipped into a red lace bra with matching underwear, both I’d seen at least once before but took on a whole new meaning now that she used it as a ploy to torture and seduce me throughout this whole dinner.
“So, shall we eat?” she asked after she joined me.
I took a large gulp of my wine. “Yes, let’s do all the eating.”
So, we ate. We downed the whole bottle of wine. She enjoyed me in the teddy while I enjoyed her in her laced bra and underwear. But that only lasted for a few minutes because they did a really good job of disappearing right when we needed them to. Afterward, we blasted eighties music because she said she always did that to make herself feel better. With both of us wine drunk, we listened to all of her favorites. “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” by Starship. I sang the guy’s part into the empty bottle of wine. She sang the woman’s part into her fist. We jumped on her bed listening to and belting out “The Best” by Tina Turner, and then we slow danced with each other to “Heaven” by Bryan Adams where I got lost in that familiar sparkle of her eyes and her beautiful smile that I missed desperately.
A romantic dinner in, blissful sex, spending an hour listening to her favorite decade of music, and cuddling each other to sleep was the remedy Reagan needed. She smiled the whole night. She laughed. She seemed genuinely happy. It was like I finally got her back, and just for that night, nothing else existed. No hacking. No intruders. No rumors. It was as if we drifted back to all those stolen moments early on in the tour when the world just felt right. When we felt right.
Just us.
* * *
Something awful happened right before our Louisville show.
Miles and I discovered that the llama only had enough weed for one more joint.
“Fuck,” I said, taking another hit. Great. Awesome. Everything was disappearing. “We’re out.”
“Seriously?” Miles jolted off the couch and investigated the llama as if to make sure I wasn’t telling him an awful joke. “Damn it. You smoke like a chimney, dude.”
“It’s a stressful time.” He gave me a sharp frown, and I raised my hand. “Okay, fine. I’ll go find some. I’m sure someone here has stuff.”
All I had to do was casually walk around the premises, looking for people smoking out back, and if they vaped, I was one step closer to finding some weed. Miles occasionally smoked a cigarette if he was in the right mindset with a couple of drinks in his system. I wasn’t a fan of tobacco. Tried it multiple times, hated the taste and how it lurked on my clothes and made me smell like a stale, filthy, old casino. But these were the sacrifices we had to make. I guess I’d smell like stale, filthy, old casino if that meant I could feel like an inflatable floating on a pool.
I found four guys working the venue, huddled in a circle right outside a backdoor entrance, smoking cigarettes and sharing laughs. I asked them if I could bum one off them, and they happily gave me one and lit it for me, exchanging compliments about our music.
“My girlfriend introduced me to you guys a couple of months ago,” the guy who gave me the cigarette said. “I love that song ‘Wilted.’ So freakin’ good. I listened to it nonstop for a week straight.”
“The song with Reagan Moore is badass too,” the guy who lit my cigarette said. “Not even gonna lie. It’s been in my head all night. You guys gonna sing that tonight?”
“Negative,” I said and took a disgusting inhale of the tobacco smoke. “Too much attention right now with that phone hacking stuff.”
“That’s pretty fucked up,” the third guy said.
“Tell me about it.”
“Man, I was really hoping you guys would sing it,” the second guy said.
“I wish we could sing the song for you too. People suck, though.”
We chatted for twenty more minutes, when I finally had the courage to ask them if they happened to have any weed. They all turned to the fourth guy, who told me he had some, plus anything else I wanted.
“Well, what do you have?” I asked, feeling like a kid on Christmas Day.
“Almost everything.”
It wasn’t false advertising. He had everything I needed to replenish my book bag. Weed, Xanax, Ritalin, coke, Molly. My eyes rounded at his supply. All the possibilities to take the edge off and tune out the constant noise and hacking following us around. I bought all five, keeping the fourth guy in business for a few extra weeks. I had to make sure that I had enough stuff to get me to the end of the tour because who knew when I would meet someone as well stocked as this guy?
Since Miles was very against anything that could get him addicted, and I wasn’t about to listen to his lecture, I planned to hide the coke from him. Ignorance was bliss, I guessed. But hey, he was much happier when I brought back the weed and even happier to know I also scored some Molly that we’d use at a much later date, preferably if and when we went out to a club.
After smoking the new incredibly strong weed I swear was medicinal grade from Denver, we downed our preshow shots, and then I played around with my newly strung Hummingbird, courtesy of Ethan. I loved the sound of acoustic guitars with fresh strings on them. It was as if they got a haircut and looked so clean and fresh. It was exactly what the guitar sounded like: bold, bright, lively. My nervous plucking was even more enhanced by the killer weed. I felt as if I was sinking into the couch that was really a cloud, and my Hummingbird sounded the best it had ever been, and that thing was forty years old.
We heard a knock on our door. Since both of us seemed glued to the couch, we tossed a pleading stare to the other to open it. I grunted and acquiesced, deciding to be nice for once. When I opened the door, I found a tall security guard looking straight at me, and a rush of paranoia from the strong weed washed through me as I panicked that this was how I was going to be arrested.
“Just the lady I’m looking for,” he said and glanced over his shoulder at a man behind him who struggled to make eye contact with me. “I have someone who would like to meet you.”
Something about the guy was off. It was as if he was going through an internal battle to look me in the eye. He had to been in his mid to late forties. Dark brown hair with a couple of noticeable gray hairs popping out. Light brown eyes. He wore a VIP lanyard over his black leather coat, which was something I wasn’t used to on tour. Most of the VIPs were kids and teens with their parents or women in their twenties, a very small portion in their thirties. Not grown men who flew solo without a child or a girlfriend.
I offered a friendly smile and a wave, despite still being skeptical. “Hey,” I said.
The security guard took a step back and allowed the man to come forward, keeping a cautious eye on him. “Hi. Blair, right?”
Okay, this definitely got weirder the more he lingered. What kind of person dropped a thousand dollars for a Reagan Moore VIP ticket and asked my name for clarification? “Yeah?”
“I, um…” He let out a nervous laugh, and something about his smile seemed familiar. Strangely familiar. The warmth inside me wasn’t from the SoCo or the strong weed. It was now laced with actual fear. “I don’t know how to introduce myself, so I’m just gonna come out and say it, all right?”
I looked at the security guard, begging him with my eyes that he’d act if this man flinched toward me. We seemed to have an understanding by the way he nodded at me.
“Okay…” I waited.
“My name is Jason Hines. I, um, I’m your dad.”