Dirty Laundry

I knew someone would make a smart-ass comment as soon as I walked in the office. Sloane snickered from behind her desk and Liam’s eyebrows shot halfway up his forehead. I didn’t need the two goons to tell me I looked god-awful; I already knew. I hadn’t slept a wink after leaving Harry’s sometime in the early morning and the severity of the situation I found myself in felt like an anchor on my chest.

Whether it was because he was feeling particularly brave or he wanted to get fired, Liam piped up first. “You look like—”

“Shit,” I finished for him. “Yeah, I get it.”

“I was going to say ‘like you got no sleep,’ but I guess that works too.”

I huffed. I didn’t need Liam Payne pointing out my every imperfection, and I definitely didn’t need him doing it before eleven-o’clock.

Genevieve and Louis were scheduled to meet with me around noon and I still had no idea what I was going to tell them. The truth was the most popular choice, but it was also the most difficult. Gen had come to terms with Harry’s shortcomings; Louis still held on to a sliver of hope.

I bit back the urge to ask Liam or Sloane for advice. Mia was the only one who’d know what to do but she hadn’t come in yet, and if she’d spent the night with Zayn I’d feel bad disrupting. Besides, she had problems of her own to worry about.

So I did the only thing that made sense: I locked myself in my office and binge-drank stale coffee — black, two sugars — until my mind began to make sense of the situation. Logic had never been my forte. Most of the time my mouth did all my thinking for me and my body was left to pull up the rear (and bail me out of trouble), but it didn’t feel right this time. Although he’d rather die than admit it, Louis was fragile. After everything Emma and Harry had put him through, I didn’t want to risk damaging him further.

My nerves were so shot by the time the clock struck noon that I’d gone to the bathroom six times, nearly had an anxiety attack, and everything in my office that I could get my hands on. My leg wouldn’t stop bouncing and Sloane, after appearing in my doorway to let me know the dynamic duo had arrived, warned me that I’d wear the soles off my heels if I didn’t cut it out. I vaguely remembered telling her she was more than welcome to stop by the Louboutin boutique on 76th and Madison and buy me a new pair if she was so worried.

Genevieve looked surprisingly refreshed for someone who I now knew was living in a luxury apartment separate from her fiancé. Louis, on the other hand, looked worse than I did. The bags under his eyes were darker and more prominent than mine, and even though I looked like I’d been hit by a bus, at least I’d remembered to brush my hair. Paul Mitchell wouldn’t even have been able to tame Louis’s.

They sat across from me expectantly and I froze. I considered offering them both a drink or having Sloane run down to the nearest coffee shop for something caffeinated. They didn’t seem much interested in drinks, though, so I didn’t do any of that. “That’s a great tie, Louis.” God, I was unbearable.

“Er, thanks.”

“And Genevieve, that’s a, uh…that top looks great on you.” My smile was reminiscent of a serial killer in a late ‘70s horror flick. “Mint is definitely your color.”

Genevieve didn’t waste any time. “We already know what Harry told you.”

My jaw went slack immediately. So much for a trial basis.

“He sat us both down this morning and told us what he’d told you,” she continued. “I had to listen to him ramble on for twenty minutes about how bad he wanted to sleep with you. I guess he expected praise for his otherworldly self-restraint, but I wasn’t—”

I couldn’t stand listening to her speak for another second. “You didn’t tell me you moved out,” was all I could muster.

Much like I’d done just a few moments earlier, Genevieve promptly shut up. Her jaw clenched and a look somewhere between shame and sadness settled in her eyes. Next to her, Louis crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the wall behind me. He hadn’t made direct eye contact with me since he’d arrived, and I wondered just how terribly his talk with Harry had gone that morning. Just a few days ago, he was ready to forgive his best friend of all his transgressions, and now he seemed hell-bent on murder.

“I told you our relationship was complicated,” Genevieve spoke quietly.

“Doesn’t seem too complicated to me,” I replied. “You’re both miserable. You don’t wear your engagement ring, you two don’t live together, and he’s sleeping with his best friend’s ex-girlfriend because he’s afraid of getting blackmailed.” I stared at the two of them with a bemused expression. “This is quite the motley crew.”

Louis finally returned my gaze. “Is this all a joke to you?” he snapped, uncrossing his arms to lean forward. “Do you enjoy seeing people hurt?”

Genevieve placed a hand over his. “Louis—”

“Don’t start with me, Gen,” he fired. “This was all your idea. I can’t believe I was daft enough to let you talk me into it.”

“I was just trying—”

“To help,” Louis finished. “Oy, I know, you’ve only said it a hundred times. But did you ever stop to think that I don’t need your bloody help? That I’m a grown man and I can make my own decisions?”

Genevieve was dumbfounded, but Louis just kept going. “You’ve no idea how much Haz loves you. Aye, he’s terrible at showing it, but I’ve never seen him as serious as when he came to me and asked if I’d go with him to pick out the ring you so badly hate to wear.” He ran an unsteady hand through his unkempt hair. “How can you say you want to help me when you can’t even help yourself?”

He tossed an envelope onto my desk. “That’s the balance of what she owes you. I’m not going to tell Haz who you are or what you do, but I’d suggest keeping away from him before I change my mind.”

The corners of my mouth twitched. “Are you threatening me?”

“I’m a lawyer. A fairly powerful one, I might add. I don’t need to make threats. When I say things, it’s typically understood that I very much intend on following through.”

Both Genevieve and myself watched him leave without another word. Her feelings had been smashed, only to be pieced back together and smashed again. I was perplexed. I’d been threatened by lawyers a million times before but they’d all taken one look at the contract that’d been signed and backed off, knowing they’d have no case. It’d be the same with Louis if he tried to pull something similar, but he wasn’t going to fight fair. He’d out me and the entire company before I had the chance to blink.

“What the fuck did you put me in the middle of?”

Genevieve burst into tears. “I’m so sorry,” she said, repeating it over and over until her voice was hoarse and she’d cried herself sick.

I got her some water and offered to let her lie down. She refused. Liam stopped by to see what all the commotion had been about and to ask if we were all right. I told him we were and asked if he’d be so kind as to order us lunch — something greasy and disgusting that’d have us both working overtime in the gym for the next two weeks. Genevieve got a chuckle out of that.

After consuming one and a half large pizzas, two orders of fries and a two-liter of soda, Gen apologized again. “I’ll talk to Louis once he calms down, make sure he won’t do anything to compromise your business.”

I shrugged, wiping the stray grease from my mouth with a napkin. “You both signed the contract. Everything’s legal.”

“I know, and I’m sure your nonchalance is genuine, but he…Harry really tore him apart this morning. He isn’t thinking rationally.”

“Scorned lovers seldom do.” I snorted. Good one, Shakespeare.

Genevieve took a deep breath, saying on the exhale, “I told Harry I was calling off the wedding.”

I stared at her, wondering if I’d heard her correctly. Assuming all the carbs and cholesterol had somehow fucked with my hearing, I asked her to repeat herself. “We aren’t together anymore,” she said, slower this time. I was grateful for that.

“Are you…you’re kidding, right?”

“We’re no good together, Elle. You know that.”

“Hey, whoa,” I said, putting my hands up in defense. “Don’t put this on me.”

Genevieve shook her head. “I’m not, believe me, but talking with you has made me realize that I deserve better. Harry will never be able to love me the way I want him to. It’s not fair to ask that of him when I already know he’s incapable.” She sighed, moving to thumb where her engagement ring used to sit on her ring finger.

“You’ve stayed with him this long,” I reasoned. “There’s got to be a huge part of you that loves him enough to look past everything he’s done. You’ve told me there is.”

She looked confused. “What are you talking about?”

I sighed. “Exactly how much of our conversation did Harry tell you about?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “He told us about him sleeping with Emma and that you’d been at the apartment. Why? Did you talk about more than that?”

“Louis is right when he says Harry loves you. More than anything, I think, because he told me he’d rather have you and be dirt poor than all the money in the world and still be the fuck-up he is.” I closed my eyes, trying to block out the tears that were silently running down Genevieve’s cheeks. “He doesn’t sleep around because he doesn’t love you, he does it because he’s lonely. He’s scared to death of losing you, Gen.”

“Why are you on his side all of a sudden?”

“Because,” was my brilliant answer, though it wasn’t much of one. “Someone said something to me the other day that really changed the way I think about things.”

She laughed. “And what was that? Must’ve been awfully philosophical for you to do this much of a one-eighty.”

My head tilted to the side. I wasn’t much in the mood to explain anything to Genevieve, including my philosophies, regardless of whose side I was on. “All I’m saying is you should think about it. What you choose to do is your prerogative, and if you want to keep playing up this whole girl power thing, that’s fine—”

“You think it’s an act?”

Shrugging, I replied, “I’ve met hundreds of women like you. They don’t just up and leave the second their man admits to cheating.”

“I didn’t hire you to help me,” she said.

“Yes you did. And if I hadn’t been at the bar that night, we’d be having an entirely different conversation; Louis Tomlinson wouldn’t be threatening me with legal action and I wouldn’t have just eaten my weight in thin-crust pizza.”

Gen scoffed. Staring out the large window of my office and staring into the underbelly of the city outside, she said, “And what about you, Elle?”

“What about me?”

“Does someone like you just switch their loyalties the second someone admits to cheating?”

I didn’t know what to say, so I kept quiet. All I could think about was what Liam had said to me, that everyone deserved to have someone love them. “Can I ask you something, Genevieve?” She nodded, turning her attention back to me. “Does Harry know what you did?”

“What I did?”

“That you hired me,” I clarified. “Twice.”

She shook her head. “I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“It’s relevant because you’re a liar,” I said, my eyebrows knitting together. “And so am I. He wouldn’t have admitted to anything if I hadn’t spoken to him the night before, and he confided in me as a friend. He wasn’t expecting me to turn around and repeat to you everything he told me.

“If you don’t tell him, I will.”

Gen stared at me for what felt like hours. “Well,” she said finally, “I guess that’ll be an awkward conversation for you.”

She gathered her things and left, leaving me very confused. I didn’t know what to do anymore; what the right course of action was. For the first time in my career, the guilt was eating at me.