Wilford Warfstache (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cottoncandypink) wrote2019-07-23 11:26 pm
cottoncandypink) wrote2019-07-23 11:26 pm
Ron Otterman has lost his fucking mind
The crew walked out at noon, and by one o’clock, Wilford was in the conference room listening to someone act like his entire life was over because he’d refused to raise wages. Wilford was done. He was barely listening, even as the insults began to fly his way. Nichola fielded every last one of them, baffling the men on the screen as she took the union’s side on the matter.
“We did try to warn you,” she said. “Multiple times. This has been coming for a long time, but you looked the other way. This could have been prevented before the idea even formed.”
Then, something exploded outside. Without even thinking, Wilford got up. Explosions were more interesting than this crap.
“Does he ever stay for these?” one of the men on the TV asked.
Wilford left the room just in time to hear Nichola say no. She wasn’t exactly lying, and it shouldn’t have been new information.
Several people were already crowded at the front door, craning to look out toward the street. Joining them, Wilford could just make out a large plume of black smoke down the road. His curiosity fully getting the better of him, Wilford stepped through the crowd and walked outside. As he neared the sidewalk, he could see a big, black WEZL van crashed into a fire hydrant about twenty feet away from a burning car, while a man ran in circles and jumped up and down with a jerry can.
“Madness! The entire city!” he shouted. “You can’t escape it! We all need to form a new society before this one crumbles!”
Wilford recognised that voice. It was impossible not to. He walked up to a small crowd that had formed closer by in the middle of the intersection, where two old men on a scooter watched. The older man in front shouted at Ron Otterman to make sense, while his friend behind him casually and lazily lined up a shot with his pistol.
“What is going on?” Wilford asked.
“Ron Otterman has lost his fucking mind,” the man with the gun said. “Think I should shoot it?”
His older friend turned back to see what was happening. “No, you fucking idiot! We’re too close!” He immediately started to back up his scooter away from the taco truck that had been left abandoned in the intersection, pools of gasoline spreading out from under it.
Otterman raged and threw the empty jerry can, replacing it with his lighter. Some of the vehicular crowd began to speed off, but Otterman didn’t light the gasoline. Instead, he looked up in his rantings.
“You know all about it, Warfstache! I know you do! You wouldn’t be here right now if you didn’t!”
He threw his lighter into the gasoline on the street and ran, disappearing behind the exploding taco truck. The old men followed Otterman, taking a wide arc around the explosion, but he was already gone. As the smoke settled into another tall column, Wilford could see the van had disappeared as well. Wherever Otterman had gone, he was sure to crop back up again shortly. The freelancers on the internet would be following him in no time.
This location wasn’t an accident. WEZL wasn’t based in Vinewood. Otterman had come out here to make a point, and Wilford had a good idea about what. Otterman followed Wilford’s school of journalism, reporting on the more sinister topics while making them outlandish and stupid enough for people to watch and spread like fringe fake news. He wasn’t a stupid man. He knew something, and he wanted Wilford to know about it. The ball was in his court now, but he had to be careful. Alliances were still being drawn, and Otterman could have been on anyone’s side.
For now, Wilford put it on the back burner and returned to the studio. The crowd at the front door had already broken up and got back to work, leaving Wilford with little excuse to continue to linger. He returned to the meeting, sitting back down as if nothing had happened.
“What was that?” Nichola asked.
“Ron Otterman has lost his fucking mind,” Wilford said, going right on along with the narrative that had already been painted.
Nichola looked surprised for a moment, and then took advantage of the TV men’s wrong-footedness at the situation and barreled ahead with her demands for the future.
“Otterman?” one of the TV men said, cutting her off and ignoring her completely.
WEZL was a CBN syndicate. Sure enough, a phone somewhere on the other side of the TV screen rang, and the conference was cut short. Wilford picked up the remote to turn off the TV, and nodded for Nichola to follow him out of the building. She did, both of them getting into Wilford’s car. He had no particular destination in mind, pulling out into traffic and giving Otterman’s disaster a wide berth.
“He knows something,” Wilford said. “I don’t know what, but something.”
Nichola nodded, turning in her seat to look at the burning taco truck as it fell into the distance. “You sure it’s not just Ron being… Ron?” she asked.
Wilford thought about it for a few seconds. “No, he knows something,” he decided. His phone rang as he drove, and he spared a second to glance at his watch to see who it was. Unsurprisingly, it was Mark for the eighth time that day. “Fuck you,” he said as he cancelled the call by tapping his watch.
“The… ex again?” Nichola guessed.
Wilford answered by rolling his eyes. “I still owe him a couple of black eyes,” he said. Fighting other people’s battles wasn’t normally something he went out of his way to do, but this one felt necessary. But this was not the time. He sighed and shook his head. “So, the network’s clearly pissed. How’s your stuff going?”
“I was hoping to have a little more time,” Nichola said. “We have the space, but it’s not ready for anything. I didn’t want to launch to coincide with the strike, but I thought it would have been better if we could launch just before. If we also took a hit, it would deflect attention from us.”
Wilford nodded. He’d tried to stay as ignorant of the strike as possible, just to cover his own ass, but now it was all out in the open. “When are you looking at?” he asked.
“Mid-August, I think,” Nichola said. “What about you? Any progress?”
“I need to follow up with Ramon, but he’s never around, and between her and the kid and I don’t even have time to take a piss, much less wait around for him to show back up.” He didn’t want to complain, but he hadn’t had a moment’s peace since Celine and Mark had their explosive breakup.
“Maybe Ron losing his mind will get the press looking elsewhere,” Nichola said. Wilford hoped she was right, and suspected she was. Otterman had made an absolute spectacle, even if it was obvious bait, but the idiot had mentioned Wilford by name and opened up the chance for it to backfire.
Wilford’s phone rang again, and again he cancelled the call. Mark did not deserve his attention, and he wasn’t going to get it and live to tell about it.
“We’ll see,” he said.
After about an hour of driving around and discussing their plan in private, Wilford swung back by the studio to drop Nichola off at her car. With Vinewood closed for business indefinitely, he had no reason at all to stay there. He had other business to attend to from home, where nobody who mattered could overhear.
After chasing a couple of suspicious cars away from his gate, Wilford debated replacing it with a more obstructive option as he pulled into the garage. Inside, he found Michael and Celine downstairs playing with the enormous dollhouse, but he spared only the briefest greetings before heading upstairs. He walked into his office and closed the door behind him, hoping to convey that his business was private, and not to be disturbed. He didn’t think he had Otterman’s number, but he picked up his phone book and started looking through it anyway as he sat down. A few moments later, he surprised himself to find a number for Ron Otterman near the back, under W.
With WEZL being the CBN local syndicate, they’d crossed paths a dozen times or more since Wilford had moved to the west coast. He didn’t remember ever swapping numbers, but there was a lot he didn’t remember. Showing up to events high on three different things tended to have that effect.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed the number, surprised again when he got an answer from a live human being.
“Who is this? How did you get this number?” Otterman barked on the other end.
“You mind telling me why you felt the need to blow up my sidewalk today?” Wilford asked in turn.
“Warfstache. Good. I knew you were smart. And I know you’re up to something. I want to know what it is.” Wilford could hear the rumble of a diesel engine in the background. Otterman was probably still cruising around in his van somewhere.
“Nope,” Wilford said. “What makes you think I’m the kind of idiot to tell the press anything?” He leaned back in his seat, watching the dogs run around outside through the glass doors.
“Most people are. Never hurts to try,” Otterman said, a moment before he leaned on his horn. “I heard you adopted a kid. What the hell possessed you to do a thing like that?”
“Not for the press to know. You could ask me what I had for breakfast and get the same answer.” Wilford knew Otterman’s tactics worked, because he used them himself sometimes. He’d have probably tried the same thing if the situation was reversed.
“Damn, Warfstache. You’re doing something shady with the unions. You’re fucking another man’s wife. You’ve adopted a kid for some nefarious reason. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re a dangerous man.”
“Good thing you know better.” Otterman was, of course, right. But as long as he didn’t know what he was right about, Wilford was safe.
“So, what’d you have for breakfast?” Otterman asked.
Wilford shook his head. “Call me back when you lose your job,” he said, and hung up. He took a moment to just enjoy the silence of a room all to himself. With Vinewood ground to a halt, he no longer had an excuse to leave the house when he needed to. He already hated it. He got a few glorious minutes of solitude before it was all interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Yeah,” he called.
A moment later, Celine opened the door and stepped inside. As she neared the desk, Wilford sat up in his seat and swiveled the chair to face her. He hadn’t exactly intended to invite her into his lap, but she took it as an invitation all the same. He liked it, and he was annoyed that he liked it, and he was annoyed that he was annoyed. He wanted two things at once, and both were mutually exclusive.
“The news said they went ahead with the strike,” Celine said. She ran her fingers through his hair in a hopeless attempt to get it to do anything but stick in every direction at once.
“That they did,” Wilford said. He let his hand fall onto her thigh and linger there. “If the writers were anything to go off, I am unemployed for the next few months.”
Celine frowned. “I’ve invited Damien over tonight,” she said, taking the conversation down a new path. “He’s been wanting to talk for a while, and I can’t deal with him alone right now.”
This whole mess had put him into too many awkward situations at once. “All right,” Wilford said. There was no point in fighting it. A conversation with Damien had been in the cards for a while, and needed to happen. Wilford would have just rather it not happed the same day as everything else. “Do you know what time?” he asked.
“I think around seven,” Celine said. She continued to try to fix his hair. “And I’ve told him that we’ve been trapped inside, so he’s bringing dinner.”
Good. One less thing to worry about. Wilford decided to put an end to her fiddling, and wrapped his arms around her waist to pull her closer. This, he liked. It wasn’t even scary anymore. He just liked it.
“When was the last time you managed to get out?” he asked.
“I’ve snuck out to see a few clients here and there,” Celine said. “I went with Andy a few days ago to take Mikey to the zoo.”
“You two spoil that kid,” Wilford said. It was starting to become a problem, and one they’d have to address soon.
“Well, he’s napping right now,” Celine said. She kissed him and slid off his lap, holding onto his hand. Wilford did not miss the hint and got up to follow her to the bedroom. She hadn’t been so blatant in weeks, and he was curious to see what she had planned. It probably wouldn’t be anything he could handle, but he was curious all the same.
She walked into the bedroom and fell back onto the bed in a lazy sprawl, leaving plenty of room for Wilford to join her. He chose not to sprawl, but went down on his side, leaning on one elbow so he could look at Celine. She was clearly up to something, and he had a pretty good idea of what. But they’d done this dance before. He knew the steps, but he still could not bring himself to act. He could see Celine turning something over in her mind, but she held onto her secrets.
When she put a hand on the back of his neck to get him to kiss her, he did. This much, he had learned to do without completely freezing up. But it couldn’t last. He sat back up again, long enough to unhook his rubber bands and toss them vaguely toward the night stand.
Much better.
This time Celine sat up to meet him, and he thought he was good to go until she was on top of him, straddling his hips.
He didn’t panic. He’d been getting better at that too. But it was like he’d suddenly forgotten what he was supposed to do. And she was going to stop what she was doing if he didn’t figure it out. Then her hands were on the sides of his neck and she was kissing him again and that was good. He wasn’t really sure where to put his own hands, but they awkwardly landed on Celine’s hips. Then she was moving on top of him, and any grip on reality he’d managed to regain disappeared again. He didn’t know and couldn’t see what she was doing, and didn’t even notice that one of her hands had disappeared from his neck until he felt her messing with his belt. He froze again, and she stopped again. He didn’t want her to stop but he didn’t know what he did want either. He tried moving one hand down from her hip to her thigh, trying to regain some semblance of control. It didn’t last long. Everything happened so quickly after that, and he could barely keep up. And then a line was crossed that couldn’t be uncrossed, and at once he wanted to flee, and couldn’t understand why he ever wanted to. The way she moved on top of him, and he couldn’t tell if she was trying to be quiet for his sake, or to not wake the kid, and he was pretty sure he’d forgotten how to breathe.
Everything was over entirely too fast, and Wilford was starting to fully comprehend what exactly had just happened as she was still taking her time. Then she stilled and gave him a shaky smile, and kissed him again before he could decide if he should flee or not.
Part of him thought he should, but he didn’t want to. He wrapped his arms tightly around her waist and just stayed there for as long as he could. It wasn’t long enough. Everything felt too hot and too close, and it was only a few moments before he needed to do something.
He shook his head and Celine moved off of him, sliding over to sit on the bed beside him.
“Will?” she said carefully.
He took a moment to just breathe. He wanted to say something. Felt he should say something, but had no idea what to say.
“Why don’t you go take a shower,” Celine suggested. “And I’ll clean up for Damien.”
Wilford nodded. A shower sounded like an excellent idea.
Wilford should not have had to get the security company to chase away trespassers before letting a guest onto his property, and yet here he was, doing exactly that. Damien seemed hesitant to make his way up to the house, even after being given the all clear, but he made it up eventually.
He’d even made good on his promise to bring dinner. Or at least he brought things that could be turned into dinner. And then he pulled the beer out of one of the bags and offered to help, and any lingering tension that was still hanging over the visit vanished. At first, Damien didn’t seem to be there to talk about anything at all. Instead, Wilford and Damien hung out by the pool, drinking beer and cooking burgers on the grill. Whether Celine wanted to give them time to talk, or didn’t want to deal with Damien, she spent most of her time playing with Michael inside, and then playing with Michael in the pool.
“She seems happier,” Damien said abruptly.
Wilford glanced up from his beer, realising Damien was watching the other two splash around at the shallow end of the pool.
“Between you and me, I think we’re all going a little stir-crazy,” Wilford said.
“I bet. She hasn’t spent a full day at home in years,” Damien said. He turned back to look at Wilford, suddenly serious. “How long has this been going on?”
Wilford thought about it. He wasn’t sure at first how he should answer, or if he even should, but there really was no point in lying about any of it. It was all out in the open for everyone to see. All the relevant parties knew about it, even if they couldn’t accept it. Which meant he had to think about the correct answer.
“Not long. Some time around the end of February I think,” he said. Maybe not long, but a hell of a lot longer than Wilford was used to.
He didn’t like the look on Damien’s face. It was something deep in thought, and surprised all at once. “While she was seeing the other guy?” he asked.
“Other guy?” Wilford asked. How had Celine possibly had the time?
Damien hesitated for a moment. “Someone else had started paying her bills in April,” he said, keeping his voice low so only Wilford could hear.
This was a surprise to him, until he put the details together. “Oh, no. No, no. Only an idiot would do something like that under his own name. Not for him to know, by the way. Let him think whatever he wants. I don’t care. If it comes out in court, it comes out in court. But I’d like to avoid it getting out at all.” He knew he could trust Damien on this, because this scandal had a good way of getting back to him.
“You?” Damien asked. He nodded, slowly taking it in. “I’ll be honest, I’m glad to hear it. I thought…” He shook his head, obviously not wanting to voice what he thought.
“You thought your sister was testing out her options?” Wilford asked plainly. Damien actually looked ashamed. “Would you blame her if she was? I don’t know how much I believe that was the first time she got smacked around like that. I’d sure as hell be looking for money and security if it were me.”
Damien looked even more ashamed. “She wouldn’t have… I’d have known.”
“Would you?” Wilford asked. His watch started to vibrate, and it only took a glance to look at it and decide to decline the call.
Damien didn’t have an answer. Instead he picked up the spatula and opened the grill, suddenly busying himself with preparing dinner. Wilford stepped back and let him.
“All right,” Damien said after a moment, arranging the buns on the top rack to toast. “I obviously didn’t know my sister’s husband as well as I thought I did. I might as well get to know her boyfriend a little better. Call my office, and we’ll arrange to go out for lunch.” He looked back over at Celine and Michael, now joining forces to splash the dogs.
Damien obviously wanted to talk a little more freely, without Celine overhearing directly. She’d been avoiding him, and probably for a good reason.
“All right,” Wilford agreed easily. “Not like I got anything else to do for the next few months.”
The tension between them eased a little. With nothing between them left to say, Wilford decided to get a plate ready for himself and Michael, and start the grueling task of getting the kid out of the water.
Ramon still hadn’t shown back up, and it was making Wilford antsy. He didn’t need to follow up, necessarily, but habit dictated that he should. Even if it was to make sure he hadn’t gone and got bitten by any bugs or caught a cold while he was in town.
His speedster friend wasn’t exactly ideal, but when Barry showed up in the bar, Wilford hoped to get him to at least confirm that Ramon was still breathing somewhere. Which he did, in a backwards sort of way. Right before he superhero sucker punched Wilford right in the face, undoing over a year pain and tedium. Celine, of course, went into hysterics again, but this time there was no arguing about going to the ER. Wilford went, when he knew damn well he could have reset and be done with it.
He sat through being poked and prodded and X-rayed. He insisted everything that could be done at the moment be done. Wilford knew his insurance would cover a considerable deal, so he went out of his way to request specialists, duplicate tests, second opinions, and anything else he could think of. Then, he collected the bill and all his follow-up information, slipped off to the first door he could find that would allow him into Milliways, and left his note for Barry. As soon as he walked back through the door to his side, he opened his journal and opened his save from that morning.
He was not going to allow himself to go through the humiliation of a year of stuffing rubber bands into his mouth for nothing. Especially when he was less than a month away from getting all the hardware out finally.
The second time around, he chose to stay the hell home. He knew time didn’t repeat in the bar, but he still didn’t want to risk an encore. For all he knew, the bastard was stalking around for round two.
Instead, he stayed home with Michael while Celine managed to escape out to Blaine County for the day. Wilford hated how much he enjoyed a quiet day at home, with the dogs snoring and drooling all over the couch, and the kid happily colouring away on the table. He seemed to like to make up his own pictures, so along with his book, he had a small stack of paper from the printer spread out over the coffee table as well, while Wilford flipped through the news and cat napped.
When his phone rang, it startled him. He hadn’t remembered getting any calls the first time around. Then again, he’d spent most of his day without signal the first time around. He took his time fishing his phone from his pocket, and answered at once when he saw Tiffany’s name on his screen.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” he asked. They hadn’t spoken since he handed her a cheque in a hotel lobby. She was getting on with her life, and he was quietly paying for it, and nothing ever needed to be said.
“I fucked up. I’m so sorry.” She sounded like she was about to cry.
Wilford sat up, not exactly sure he understood what was being said. “What is that supposed to mean?” he asked.
“I’m so sorry,” Tiffany repeated. “He was asking questions, and he had a badge.”
“Slow down and start over,” Wilford said. Something serious had happened. And he already knew it wasn’t good. “Who had a badge?”
He could hear Tiffany put the phone down, and make a noise that definitely sounded like she was crying, followed by several muffled voices in the background. When the phone was picked up again, it wasn’t Tiffany.
“Is this Wilfred? You’re the grandfather?” a strange woman on the other end asked.
Wilford shook his head. God, he hated that name even more than he hated his own. “Sure,” he said. “Do you know what’s going on?”
The woman sighed. “A man came by today. He told us that Tiffany’s daughter had escaped from prison, and he needed information. He had a badge. It looked real.”
Wilford already didn’t like where this was going. “What was said?” he asked.
“Tiffany told him about the little boy. She told him where he was, and that he was safe. He wanted specifics. We thought so they could, I don’t know. Investigate. She told him everything she knew. She even had a business card.”
The business card led to the studio. But it still had his name on it.
“About a half hour later, someone else came by, asking the same exact questions. We got confused, because, we’d just answered them. This guy said the other one wasn’t a cop, but they don’t know who he was.”
The only thing Tiffany didn’t know was the kid’s new name, but that hardly mattered when everything else had been handed over on a silver platter. Wilford took a long moment to just process everything, while Tiffany continued to cry and apologise in the background.
“When was this?” he asked.
“About an hour ago,” the woman said. “We were still trying to figure out if we needed to call you or not when the real cop showed up. The first one said not to. We thought that was weird, but maybe it was normal?”
“No. It’s not,” Wilford said. “Christ.” He tried to figure out what in the hell he was supposed to do now. “Call me immediately as soon as you hear anything else.”
“Absolutely,” the woman said. “I’m sorry. We both are.”
Wilford almost hung up, but thought better of it. “Leave the city. Tell the real cop you talked to. Don’t tell anyone else,” he said.
“Seriously?”
“Do it. Now.”
“Yeah. All right.”
Wilford hung up, and had to restrain himself from throwing the phone. It would not have been a productive activity.
“Michael. Come here,” he said, forcing himself to stay calm.
Michael looked up, and after a moment, got to his feet to head over. Wilford pulled him into his lap, automatically taking the crayon that was offered to him.
“Hey, you want to go do some running around with me?” he asked.
Michael thought about this proposal, and finally nodded. “Where?” he asked.
“I don’t know where, pal. We’ll figure that out.” Wilford said. “Go get your shoes.”
He let Michael slide down onto the floor, and unlocked his phone again, bringing up the number for the local security company. While Wilford helped Michael put on his shoes, he tried to iterate the importance of clearing the street of lurkers, permanently. With that taken care of, he took Michael down to the car so they could go visit the police station.
“We did try to warn you,” she said. “Multiple times. This has been coming for a long time, but you looked the other way. This could have been prevented before the idea even formed.”
Then, something exploded outside. Without even thinking, Wilford got up. Explosions were more interesting than this crap.
“Does he ever stay for these?” one of the men on the TV asked.
Wilford left the room just in time to hear Nichola say no. She wasn’t exactly lying, and it shouldn’t have been new information.
Several people were already crowded at the front door, craning to look out toward the street. Joining them, Wilford could just make out a large plume of black smoke down the road. His curiosity fully getting the better of him, Wilford stepped through the crowd and walked outside. As he neared the sidewalk, he could see a big, black WEZL van crashed into a fire hydrant about twenty feet away from a burning car, while a man ran in circles and jumped up and down with a jerry can.
“Madness! The entire city!” he shouted. “You can’t escape it! We all need to form a new society before this one crumbles!”
Wilford recognised that voice. It was impossible not to. He walked up to a small crowd that had formed closer by in the middle of the intersection, where two old men on a scooter watched. The older man in front shouted at Ron Otterman to make sense, while his friend behind him casually and lazily lined up a shot with his pistol.
“What is going on?” Wilford asked.
“Ron Otterman has lost his fucking mind,” the man with the gun said. “Think I should shoot it?”
His older friend turned back to see what was happening. “No, you fucking idiot! We’re too close!” He immediately started to back up his scooter away from the taco truck that had been left abandoned in the intersection, pools of gasoline spreading out from under it.
Otterman raged and threw the empty jerry can, replacing it with his lighter. Some of the vehicular crowd began to speed off, but Otterman didn’t light the gasoline. Instead, he looked up in his rantings.
“You know all about it, Warfstache! I know you do! You wouldn’t be here right now if you didn’t!”
He threw his lighter into the gasoline on the street and ran, disappearing behind the exploding taco truck. The old men followed Otterman, taking a wide arc around the explosion, but he was already gone. As the smoke settled into another tall column, Wilford could see the van had disappeared as well. Wherever Otterman had gone, he was sure to crop back up again shortly. The freelancers on the internet would be following him in no time.
This location wasn’t an accident. WEZL wasn’t based in Vinewood. Otterman had come out here to make a point, and Wilford had a good idea about what. Otterman followed Wilford’s school of journalism, reporting on the more sinister topics while making them outlandish and stupid enough for people to watch and spread like fringe fake news. He wasn’t a stupid man. He knew something, and he wanted Wilford to know about it. The ball was in his court now, but he had to be careful. Alliances were still being drawn, and Otterman could have been on anyone’s side.
For now, Wilford put it on the back burner and returned to the studio. The crowd at the front door had already broken up and got back to work, leaving Wilford with little excuse to continue to linger. He returned to the meeting, sitting back down as if nothing had happened.
“What was that?” Nichola asked.
“Ron Otterman has lost his fucking mind,” Wilford said, going right on along with the narrative that had already been painted.
Nichola looked surprised for a moment, and then took advantage of the TV men’s wrong-footedness at the situation and barreled ahead with her demands for the future.
“Otterman?” one of the TV men said, cutting her off and ignoring her completely.
WEZL was a CBN syndicate. Sure enough, a phone somewhere on the other side of the TV screen rang, and the conference was cut short. Wilford picked up the remote to turn off the TV, and nodded for Nichola to follow him out of the building. She did, both of them getting into Wilford’s car. He had no particular destination in mind, pulling out into traffic and giving Otterman’s disaster a wide berth.
“He knows something,” Wilford said. “I don’t know what, but something.”
Nichola nodded, turning in her seat to look at the burning taco truck as it fell into the distance. “You sure it’s not just Ron being… Ron?” she asked.
Wilford thought about it for a few seconds. “No, he knows something,” he decided. His phone rang as he drove, and he spared a second to glance at his watch to see who it was. Unsurprisingly, it was Mark for the eighth time that day. “Fuck you,” he said as he cancelled the call by tapping his watch.
“The… ex again?” Nichola guessed.
Wilford answered by rolling his eyes. “I still owe him a couple of black eyes,” he said. Fighting other people’s battles wasn’t normally something he went out of his way to do, but this one felt necessary. But this was not the time. He sighed and shook his head. “So, the network’s clearly pissed. How’s your stuff going?”
“I was hoping to have a little more time,” Nichola said. “We have the space, but it’s not ready for anything. I didn’t want to launch to coincide with the strike, but I thought it would have been better if we could launch just before. If we also took a hit, it would deflect attention from us.”
Wilford nodded. He’d tried to stay as ignorant of the strike as possible, just to cover his own ass, but now it was all out in the open. “When are you looking at?” he asked.
“Mid-August, I think,” Nichola said. “What about you? Any progress?”
“I need to follow up with Ramon, but he’s never around, and between her and the kid and I don’t even have time to take a piss, much less wait around for him to show back up.” He didn’t want to complain, but he hadn’t had a moment’s peace since Celine and Mark had their explosive breakup.
“Maybe Ron losing his mind will get the press looking elsewhere,” Nichola said. Wilford hoped she was right, and suspected she was. Otterman had made an absolute spectacle, even if it was obvious bait, but the idiot had mentioned Wilford by name and opened up the chance for it to backfire.
Wilford’s phone rang again, and again he cancelled the call. Mark did not deserve his attention, and he wasn’t going to get it and live to tell about it.
“We’ll see,” he said.
After about an hour of driving around and discussing their plan in private, Wilford swung back by the studio to drop Nichola off at her car. With Vinewood closed for business indefinitely, he had no reason at all to stay there. He had other business to attend to from home, where nobody who mattered could overhear.
After chasing a couple of suspicious cars away from his gate, Wilford debated replacing it with a more obstructive option as he pulled into the garage. Inside, he found Michael and Celine downstairs playing with the enormous dollhouse, but he spared only the briefest greetings before heading upstairs. He walked into his office and closed the door behind him, hoping to convey that his business was private, and not to be disturbed. He didn’t think he had Otterman’s number, but he picked up his phone book and started looking through it anyway as he sat down. A few moments later, he surprised himself to find a number for Ron Otterman near the back, under W.
With WEZL being the CBN local syndicate, they’d crossed paths a dozen times or more since Wilford had moved to the west coast. He didn’t remember ever swapping numbers, but there was a lot he didn’t remember. Showing up to events high on three different things tended to have that effect.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed the number, surprised again when he got an answer from a live human being.
“Who is this? How did you get this number?” Otterman barked on the other end.
“You mind telling me why you felt the need to blow up my sidewalk today?” Wilford asked in turn.
“Warfstache. Good. I knew you were smart. And I know you’re up to something. I want to know what it is.” Wilford could hear the rumble of a diesel engine in the background. Otterman was probably still cruising around in his van somewhere.
“Nope,” Wilford said. “What makes you think I’m the kind of idiot to tell the press anything?” He leaned back in his seat, watching the dogs run around outside through the glass doors.
“Most people are. Never hurts to try,” Otterman said, a moment before he leaned on his horn. “I heard you adopted a kid. What the hell possessed you to do a thing like that?”
“Not for the press to know. You could ask me what I had for breakfast and get the same answer.” Wilford knew Otterman’s tactics worked, because he used them himself sometimes. He’d have probably tried the same thing if the situation was reversed.
“Damn, Warfstache. You’re doing something shady with the unions. You’re fucking another man’s wife. You’ve adopted a kid for some nefarious reason. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re a dangerous man.”
“Good thing you know better.” Otterman was, of course, right. But as long as he didn’t know what he was right about, Wilford was safe.
“So, what’d you have for breakfast?” Otterman asked.
Wilford shook his head. “Call me back when you lose your job,” he said, and hung up. He took a moment to just enjoy the silence of a room all to himself. With Vinewood ground to a halt, he no longer had an excuse to leave the house when he needed to. He already hated it. He got a few glorious minutes of solitude before it was all interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Yeah,” he called.
A moment later, Celine opened the door and stepped inside. As she neared the desk, Wilford sat up in his seat and swiveled the chair to face her. He hadn’t exactly intended to invite her into his lap, but she took it as an invitation all the same. He liked it, and he was annoyed that he liked it, and he was annoyed that he was annoyed. He wanted two things at once, and both were mutually exclusive.
“The news said they went ahead with the strike,” Celine said. She ran her fingers through his hair in a hopeless attempt to get it to do anything but stick in every direction at once.
“That they did,” Wilford said. He let his hand fall onto her thigh and linger there. “If the writers were anything to go off, I am unemployed for the next few months.”
Celine frowned. “I’ve invited Damien over tonight,” she said, taking the conversation down a new path. “He’s been wanting to talk for a while, and I can’t deal with him alone right now.”
This whole mess had put him into too many awkward situations at once. “All right,” Wilford said. There was no point in fighting it. A conversation with Damien had been in the cards for a while, and needed to happen. Wilford would have just rather it not happed the same day as everything else. “Do you know what time?” he asked.
“I think around seven,” Celine said. She continued to try to fix his hair. “And I’ve told him that we’ve been trapped inside, so he’s bringing dinner.”
Good. One less thing to worry about. Wilford decided to put an end to her fiddling, and wrapped his arms around her waist to pull her closer. This, he liked. It wasn’t even scary anymore. He just liked it.
“When was the last time you managed to get out?” he asked.
“I’ve snuck out to see a few clients here and there,” Celine said. “I went with Andy a few days ago to take Mikey to the zoo.”
“You two spoil that kid,” Wilford said. It was starting to become a problem, and one they’d have to address soon.
“Well, he’s napping right now,” Celine said. She kissed him and slid off his lap, holding onto his hand. Wilford did not miss the hint and got up to follow her to the bedroom. She hadn’t been so blatant in weeks, and he was curious to see what she had planned. It probably wouldn’t be anything he could handle, but he was curious all the same.
She walked into the bedroom and fell back onto the bed in a lazy sprawl, leaving plenty of room for Wilford to join her. He chose not to sprawl, but went down on his side, leaning on one elbow so he could look at Celine. She was clearly up to something, and he had a pretty good idea of what. But they’d done this dance before. He knew the steps, but he still could not bring himself to act. He could see Celine turning something over in her mind, but she held onto her secrets.
When she put a hand on the back of his neck to get him to kiss her, he did. This much, he had learned to do without completely freezing up. But it couldn’t last. He sat back up again, long enough to unhook his rubber bands and toss them vaguely toward the night stand.
Much better.
This time Celine sat up to meet him, and he thought he was good to go until she was on top of him, straddling his hips.
He didn’t panic. He’d been getting better at that too. But it was like he’d suddenly forgotten what he was supposed to do. And she was going to stop what she was doing if he didn’t figure it out. Then her hands were on the sides of his neck and she was kissing him again and that was good. He wasn’t really sure where to put his own hands, but they awkwardly landed on Celine’s hips. Then she was moving on top of him, and any grip on reality he’d managed to regain disappeared again. He didn’t know and couldn’t see what she was doing, and didn’t even notice that one of her hands had disappeared from his neck until he felt her messing with his belt. He froze again, and she stopped again. He didn’t want her to stop but he didn’t know what he did want either. He tried moving one hand down from her hip to her thigh, trying to regain some semblance of control. It didn’t last long. Everything happened so quickly after that, and he could barely keep up. And then a line was crossed that couldn’t be uncrossed, and at once he wanted to flee, and couldn’t understand why he ever wanted to. The way she moved on top of him, and he couldn’t tell if she was trying to be quiet for his sake, or to not wake the kid, and he was pretty sure he’d forgotten how to breathe.
Everything was over entirely too fast, and Wilford was starting to fully comprehend what exactly had just happened as she was still taking her time. Then she stilled and gave him a shaky smile, and kissed him again before he could decide if he should flee or not.
Part of him thought he should, but he didn’t want to. He wrapped his arms tightly around her waist and just stayed there for as long as he could. It wasn’t long enough. Everything felt too hot and too close, and it was only a few moments before he needed to do something.
He shook his head and Celine moved off of him, sliding over to sit on the bed beside him.
“Will?” she said carefully.
He took a moment to just breathe. He wanted to say something. Felt he should say something, but had no idea what to say.
“Why don’t you go take a shower,” Celine suggested. “And I’ll clean up for Damien.”
Wilford nodded. A shower sounded like an excellent idea.
Wilford should not have had to get the security company to chase away trespassers before letting a guest onto his property, and yet here he was, doing exactly that. Damien seemed hesitant to make his way up to the house, even after being given the all clear, but he made it up eventually.
He’d even made good on his promise to bring dinner. Or at least he brought things that could be turned into dinner. And then he pulled the beer out of one of the bags and offered to help, and any lingering tension that was still hanging over the visit vanished. At first, Damien didn’t seem to be there to talk about anything at all. Instead, Wilford and Damien hung out by the pool, drinking beer and cooking burgers on the grill. Whether Celine wanted to give them time to talk, or didn’t want to deal with Damien, she spent most of her time playing with Michael inside, and then playing with Michael in the pool.
“She seems happier,” Damien said abruptly.
Wilford glanced up from his beer, realising Damien was watching the other two splash around at the shallow end of the pool.
“Between you and me, I think we’re all going a little stir-crazy,” Wilford said.
“I bet. She hasn’t spent a full day at home in years,” Damien said. He turned back to look at Wilford, suddenly serious. “How long has this been going on?”
Wilford thought about it. He wasn’t sure at first how he should answer, or if he even should, but there really was no point in lying about any of it. It was all out in the open for everyone to see. All the relevant parties knew about it, even if they couldn’t accept it. Which meant he had to think about the correct answer.
“Not long. Some time around the end of February I think,” he said. Maybe not long, but a hell of a lot longer than Wilford was used to.
He didn’t like the look on Damien’s face. It was something deep in thought, and surprised all at once. “While she was seeing the other guy?” he asked.
“Other guy?” Wilford asked. How had Celine possibly had the time?
Damien hesitated for a moment. “Someone else had started paying her bills in April,” he said, keeping his voice low so only Wilford could hear.
This was a surprise to him, until he put the details together. “Oh, no. No, no. Only an idiot would do something like that under his own name. Not for him to know, by the way. Let him think whatever he wants. I don’t care. If it comes out in court, it comes out in court. But I’d like to avoid it getting out at all.” He knew he could trust Damien on this, because this scandal had a good way of getting back to him.
“You?” Damien asked. He nodded, slowly taking it in. “I’ll be honest, I’m glad to hear it. I thought…” He shook his head, obviously not wanting to voice what he thought.
“You thought your sister was testing out her options?” Wilford asked plainly. Damien actually looked ashamed. “Would you blame her if she was? I don’t know how much I believe that was the first time she got smacked around like that. I’d sure as hell be looking for money and security if it were me.”
Damien looked even more ashamed. “She wouldn’t have… I’d have known.”
“Would you?” Wilford asked. His watch started to vibrate, and it only took a glance to look at it and decide to decline the call.
Damien didn’t have an answer. Instead he picked up the spatula and opened the grill, suddenly busying himself with preparing dinner. Wilford stepped back and let him.
“All right,” Damien said after a moment, arranging the buns on the top rack to toast. “I obviously didn’t know my sister’s husband as well as I thought I did. I might as well get to know her boyfriend a little better. Call my office, and we’ll arrange to go out for lunch.” He looked back over at Celine and Michael, now joining forces to splash the dogs.
Damien obviously wanted to talk a little more freely, without Celine overhearing directly. She’d been avoiding him, and probably for a good reason.
“All right,” Wilford agreed easily. “Not like I got anything else to do for the next few months.”
The tension between them eased a little. With nothing between them left to say, Wilford decided to get a plate ready for himself and Michael, and start the grueling task of getting the kid out of the water.
Ramon still hadn’t shown back up, and it was making Wilford antsy. He didn’t need to follow up, necessarily, but habit dictated that he should. Even if it was to make sure he hadn’t gone and got bitten by any bugs or caught a cold while he was in town.
His speedster friend wasn’t exactly ideal, but when Barry showed up in the bar, Wilford hoped to get him to at least confirm that Ramon was still breathing somewhere. Which he did, in a backwards sort of way. Right before he superhero sucker punched Wilford right in the face, undoing over a year pain and tedium. Celine, of course, went into hysterics again, but this time there was no arguing about going to the ER. Wilford went, when he knew damn well he could have reset and be done with it.
He sat through being poked and prodded and X-rayed. He insisted everything that could be done at the moment be done. Wilford knew his insurance would cover a considerable deal, so he went out of his way to request specialists, duplicate tests, second opinions, and anything else he could think of. Then, he collected the bill and all his follow-up information, slipped off to the first door he could find that would allow him into Milliways, and left his note for Barry. As soon as he walked back through the door to his side, he opened his journal and opened his save from that morning.
He was not going to allow himself to go through the humiliation of a year of stuffing rubber bands into his mouth for nothing. Especially when he was less than a month away from getting all the hardware out finally.
The second time around, he chose to stay the hell home. He knew time didn’t repeat in the bar, but he still didn’t want to risk an encore. For all he knew, the bastard was stalking around for round two.
Instead, he stayed home with Michael while Celine managed to escape out to Blaine County for the day. Wilford hated how much he enjoyed a quiet day at home, with the dogs snoring and drooling all over the couch, and the kid happily colouring away on the table. He seemed to like to make up his own pictures, so along with his book, he had a small stack of paper from the printer spread out over the coffee table as well, while Wilford flipped through the news and cat napped.
When his phone rang, it startled him. He hadn’t remembered getting any calls the first time around. Then again, he’d spent most of his day without signal the first time around. He took his time fishing his phone from his pocket, and answered at once when he saw Tiffany’s name on his screen.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” he asked. They hadn’t spoken since he handed her a cheque in a hotel lobby. She was getting on with her life, and he was quietly paying for it, and nothing ever needed to be said.
“I fucked up. I’m so sorry.” She sounded like she was about to cry.
Wilford sat up, not exactly sure he understood what was being said. “What is that supposed to mean?” he asked.
“I’m so sorry,” Tiffany repeated. “He was asking questions, and he had a badge.”
“Slow down and start over,” Wilford said. Something serious had happened. And he already knew it wasn’t good. “Who had a badge?”
He could hear Tiffany put the phone down, and make a noise that definitely sounded like she was crying, followed by several muffled voices in the background. When the phone was picked up again, it wasn’t Tiffany.
“Is this Wilfred? You’re the grandfather?” a strange woman on the other end asked.
Wilford shook his head. God, he hated that name even more than he hated his own. “Sure,” he said. “Do you know what’s going on?”
The woman sighed. “A man came by today. He told us that Tiffany’s daughter had escaped from prison, and he needed information. He had a badge. It looked real.”
Wilford already didn’t like where this was going. “What was said?” he asked.
“Tiffany told him about the little boy. She told him where he was, and that he was safe. He wanted specifics. We thought so they could, I don’t know. Investigate. She told him everything she knew. She even had a business card.”
The business card led to the studio. But it still had his name on it.
“About a half hour later, someone else came by, asking the same exact questions. We got confused, because, we’d just answered them. This guy said the other one wasn’t a cop, but they don’t know who he was.”
The only thing Tiffany didn’t know was the kid’s new name, but that hardly mattered when everything else had been handed over on a silver platter. Wilford took a long moment to just process everything, while Tiffany continued to cry and apologise in the background.
“When was this?” he asked.
“About an hour ago,” the woman said. “We were still trying to figure out if we needed to call you or not when the real cop showed up. The first one said not to. We thought that was weird, but maybe it was normal?”
“No. It’s not,” Wilford said. “Christ.” He tried to figure out what in the hell he was supposed to do now. “Call me immediately as soon as you hear anything else.”
“Absolutely,” the woman said. “I’m sorry. We both are.”
Wilford almost hung up, but thought better of it. “Leave the city. Tell the real cop you talked to. Don’t tell anyone else,” he said.
“Seriously?”
“Do it. Now.”
“Yeah. All right.”
Wilford hung up, and had to restrain himself from throwing the phone. It would not have been a productive activity.
“Michael. Come here,” he said, forcing himself to stay calm.
Michael looked up, and after a moment, got to his feet to head over. Wilford pulled him into his lap, automatically taking the crayon that was offered to him.
“Hey, you want to go do some running around with me?” he asked.
Michael thought about this proposal, and finally nodded. “Where?” he asked.
“I don’t know where, pal. We’ll figure that out.” Wilford said. “Go get your shoes.”
He let Michael slide down onto the floor, and unlocked his phone again, bringing up the number for the local security company. While Wilford helped Michael put on his shoes, he tried to iterate the importance of clearing the street of lurkers, permanently. With that taken care of, he took Michael down to the car so they could go visit the police station.