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smiled at Cody and said, “What are they?”
     
Cody shrugged his shoulders. “Just diet pills.”
     
Harriet was reading the contract. She looked up and raised one eyebrow. From
     
what she could see, it looked as if high-strung Cody had already taken too many of those
     
pills that morning.
     
“But you’re not fat,” Rush said. “Why on Earth would you need diet pills?”
     
Lance handed Cody a glass of water. Cody popped two pills into his mouth,
     
swallowed them, and said, “I have to be extra thin for the photo shoot I’m doing next
     
week. The photos of me have to be absolutely perfect. I want everything I do from now
     
on to be perfect.” He smiled and shook the bottle of pills in front of his face. “And these
     
babies give me all the energy I need for the strenuous rehearsals I’ve been doing.”
     
Harriet watched Rush give Lance a look. Rush was about to say something to
     
Cody, but then Esther, the office manager, crossed into the office to where Rush was
     
sitting. She leaned forward and said, “There’s a call for you, Rush. It’s your aunt in Connecticut.” There was a weird smile on Esther’s face and her palms were pressed
     
together as if she were praying.
     
Rush smiled and said, “Tell her I’ll call her back as soon as this meeting is over.
     
It’s won’t take long. We’re only signing contracts.”
     
Harriet knew Esther wasn’t a calm, quiet woman. She’d always thought Esther
     
was a bitch. She was loud and pushy and obnoxious. As far as Harriet was concerned, she
     
was one of those employees who had too much freedom and too much to say. But this
     
time Esther leaned forward and frowned. And in a soft, gentle voice, she said, “I think
     
you’d better take this one, Rush. It sounds urgent.”
     
Rush tilted his head and stared at Esther for a moment, then stood up from the
     
chair and followed her out to the reception area.
     
Harriet lit a cigarette, watching Lance Sharp run to the rescue. These gay men
     
were always so dramatic. The slightest disruption twisted their dicks and sent them in to a
     
tailspin. Harriet simply would have excused herself from the office and dealt with the
     
matter quietly. But Lance furrowed his eyebrows and crossed to the doorway, rubbing his
     
jaw and squeezing his chin. Bart’s office was large. Even with the door open, no one
     
could hear what was being said in the reception area. But when Rush shouted, “No,”
     
Lance dropped the contracts on the floor and jogged into the reception area to see what
     
had happened.
     
Harriet shrugged her shoulders and took another drag from her cigarette. Harriet
     
had a flight to catch and she wasn’t there to waste time on Rush Goodwin’s personal
     
problems. She lifted a contract, pointed to Bart Hasslet with a cigarette, and cleared her throat. She said, “I don’t know about this one clause, Bart. I think I’d like to have it
     
removed from the contract. I’m not sure if it’s in Joey’s best interest.”
     
Chapter Seven
     
By the time the paramedics had arrived, Rush’s mother had already been gone for
     
fifteen minutes. Rush’s mother and his aunt had been sitting in the breakfast room,
     
reading the morning paper like they normally did, when his mother clutched her chest
     
and fell forward on the kitchen table. His aunt had called 911 immediately, but the
     
doctors said she’d suffered such a massive heart attack, nothing could have saved her.
     
Rush dropped everything and went to New England. He took a taxi from the train
     
station, because his aunt didn’t drive. Bart Hasslet gave him two weeks off to take care of
     
his mother’s funeral and settle things with his aunt.
     
Two days after his mother died there was a small funeral with graveside services.
     
Rush and his aunt were the only family members. He came from a small family. Except
     
for a distant cousin in Florida who could not attend the funeral,