One Real Thing

Nick Addison stared at his computer screen and sighed. An email from Rich stood out, bolded and unread, in the list of incoming messages. Rich' s messages were invariably filled with links to gossip sites reporting on their old friend Hollister Welles' s latest exploits. Did Nick really want to know what was in this one?

Yes. In the seven years since Nick finished graduate school, and they' d gone their separate ways--Nick establishing himself in journalism and Holly finishing his undergrad and ending up in public relations--Nick had followed Holly' s adventures through tabloids and the occasional holiday cards they sent to each other. He' d watched Holly barhop through life the same way he' d party-crawled his way through college, flitting between cities and lovers and jobs. Just like in college, Nick couldn' t look away.

to: addisonn@nygazette.com

from: rmcrae@importmarket.com

Welles never could stay away from the cameras. I don' t have to wonder what' s happening to him. I just wait for the tabloids to tell me. Check it out. Some things never change. I know you take the news too seriously to read this crap, so I do it for you.

http://www.outoutout.com/entertainment/wrong-pressley

http://www.gossipfly.com/entertainment/sierra-lays-down-law

http://www.stargazer.com/gossip/sierra-single-again

Rich

PS: Anne says to say hello to Caroline. Something about that Junior League thing with the charity ball. I wasn' t listening. She' ll know what I mean.

Nick clicked the first link and scrolled past several grainy photos of two men making out. One of the men was tall, with short, frosty blond hair. The other might have been any blond surfer type with unruly curls, but Nick knew it was Holly. A familiar surge of heat rushed through him. Nick always told himself it was simply annoyance, but he only ever felt it when Holly was involved. According to the article, the tall one was Simon Pressley. The last Nick had heard Holly was dating some reality TV star named Sierra Pressley.

Oh. Simon was her brother. God, what had Holly done now?

Nick clicked the next link and saw a blonde in stiletto heels and a skimpy cocktail dress--Sierra Pressley, the caption said--screaming at Holly and threatening him with a bottle. Skimming farther down, Nick found a flash-burned shot of a couple of leggy young women in similarly skimpy dresses who were helping Holly out of the gutter. A quick glance at the surrounding text revealed that Sierra' s bodyguard had thrown Holly out of the party and into the street.

A third photo showed Holly at some other club, sprawled in a corner booth, surrounded by women. In the foreground long bare legs stretched up from a pair of impressively tall stiletto heels planted on the table in front of Holly, then soared up and out of the shot. Stripper. In the corner a brunette in a bright red bikini bent over to serve drinks from a tray.

That was just like Holly. Get dumped, get kicked to the curb and go right on partying. Why stop? It wasn' t like anything actually fazed him, not that Nick had ever seen.

And then it got worse. The last link led to photos of Holly' s Bimmer bathed in flames outside an expensive-looking set of condos. Nick gritted his teeth. The plastic casing on his mouse creaked under the strain of his grip. That woman had no right to punish Holly that way, no right to punish him at all if she couldn' t manage to keep him under control. She obviously didn' t deserve him.