Chapter Text
“What are you fucking crazy?”, he shouts after her as she’s walking away. “You have to sit there and listen to that shit?”.
“No, thank you”, she begins, but despite how grateful she is to him for defending her, she just can’t have him cause a scene like that out in the open. “But you just cannot engage”, she therefore goes on to say.
“But doesn’t that get to you though?”, he asks as he can’t get himself to understand how she can possibly be so calm about this. If a guy on the street ever spoke to him like that, he’d beat him up. “I mean, seriously… some asshole like that can say whatever the fuck he wants, and you just have to sit there and take it?”, he says, regretting not having put a fist to his face when he had the chance, before Alex had dragged him away.
Alex sighs as she realizes that Paul Marks, being not only a man, but also one of (if not the most) powerful man in America right now, will never fully be able to understand that this is what women, famous or not, have to deal with all the time.
“It gets to me all the time”, she admits. “But that guy- He’s not mad at me. He’s mad at Mitch, for not being who he said he was. And I’m the one still here, so yeah… strangers take a lot of shit out on me”, she carries on. “Whatever they can’t say to their girlfriends or their wives… I’m the punching bag”.
Noticing the growing concern on Paul’s face, she goes ahead and gives him a slight shove, “It’s okay, it’s part of the job”.
Paul studies her face in an attempt to determine whether she really is okay or not, but the reality is that he doesn’t know her all that well to be analyzing her, even despite the fact that he watched as she went through covid with a camera in her face on UBA plus.
“Come on, let’s get out of here. Let’s go”, she says, leaving him with no other choice but to just take her word for it. “Alright, Levy”, he agrees and throws an arm over her shoulder as they head towards the exit.
“So, what’d you think of this?”, Paul goes on to ask, toying with the prize he had won her on one of the machines earlier as to change the subject.
Alex laughs as she looks down on the purple plush toy in her arms, completely forgetting she had it. “I think it will be perfect to give to Benny”, she says, half joking, half not. It had certainly been very sweet of Paul to win it for her – however, she can’t help but feel just a little petty over the fact that he beat her in almost every game they had played.
“You’re gonna give it away to your dog?”, he says, sounding almost offended.
“Yeah, I-”, she begins before circling back. “Wait? How’d you know I have a dog?”
“I read you book, remember”, he chuckles. “That, and you do bring him up on TMS quite a lot, you know”.
“Yeah. I do know”, she lets out a chuckle as well.
“Well, I guess I’ll have to stop by and see Benny some time then”, he carries on. “Make sure he’s treating my buddy over here good”.
Alex comes to a halt. “Did you just use my dog as an excuse to see me again?”, she asks, turning to face him.
Paul puts his hands down his pockets, shrugging his shoulders. “I think I did, yeah”, he admits.
“I thought that ship had sailed?”, she questions him.
“Well-”, he clears his throat before speaking again. “I don’t own just regular ships, I own spaceships – and they have a tendency to circle back”, he muses. “You might have managed to change my mind, Levy”.
Alex purses her lips. “Are you referring to the merge, now-”, she carries on asking. “Or us getting to know each other better?”.
Paul smirks at her, and she can’t decide whether she hates it when he does that, or if she finds it incredibly charming. “You’re relentless, you know that?”, he says.
“What can I say?”, she shrugs her shoulders, matching his half smile with her own.
“Alright-”, he begins, taking a step closer before going on. “Give me one more reason, besides the ones you listed earlier, for why I should want to work with UBA?”.
“Well, for one… you’ll be seeing a lot more of me”, she quips, giving his chest a playful pat. “I’m just kidding”.
And Paul laughs at this, but not for the reason she might think. “Are you?”, he asks, his tone more serious as he moves an inch closer.
“Uhm”, she swallows, the close proximity making her nervous.
“What if I told you that’s all the reason I need?”, he half whispers in her ear, setting the skin there on fire. “I-”, she tries, but can’t seem to get the words out of her mouth as it’s gone dry.
“You okay there?”, Paul asks, as if he isn’t to blame for the shivers running down her back. “I’m fine, I just-”, she takes a step back to clear her throat.
“We need to get to the Hamptons”, she announces in surprise.
“What?”, is all Paul is able to say as he watches her pull out her phone and begin to scroll through her contact list. “I need to tell Cory you’re back in”, she offers, making him remember a certain invitation he received, but declined, a couple of weeks ago.
“He’s throwing this party tonight… at a place he just bought”, Alex goes on. “It’s a fucking fortress, so I have no idea how he’s able to afford it right now, but-”, she trails off. “Anyway, since you pulled out- it seems he’s turned the whole thing into a fucking scavenger hunt or whatever- to see which one of his employees will find him the most sponsors-”.
Alex had exchanged a few texts with Bradley throughout the evening, in which her past co-host had shared that their executive seemed to be struggling, to say the least, trying to get the funds to help him cover a potential loan.
Apparently, her recent partner had been paraded around by Cory all night, as he ordered both her and everyone else on the UBA team to be on their best behavior… or as Bradley had put it: “to kiss a bunch of rich men’s asses”.
However, with Paul on board, there was no point in a big loan anymore. And there was certainly no need for Bradley to be kissing anyone but Laura Peterson’s ass.
“And even if he does find them, they’re not even going to replace your offer, but instead give him the funds to take up a big fucking loan in the company’s name”, she picks up where she left of. “It’s so fucking stupid”.
“Then why do you even bother going to this thing?”, Paul wonders. “Why don’t just call to tell him I’m back in?”.
“Because…”, she sighs. “I was supposed to be there tonight anyway, but instead I took off to go see you and to take you to Coney fucking Island”, she huffs, waving her hands at the gigantic entry sign. “But-”, she pauses for dramatic effect. “It paid off… just like I knew it would”.
“You’re reengaging with UBA… and for that Cory gets to keep his network - all the employees get to keep their jobs”, she takes a breath. “And I’m the one who saved their ass”, she exhales. “Well- by bringing you back to save us”.
Paul nods, about to respond, when the news anchor suddenly starts shouting at her phone in anger. “Why is there no fucking signal?!”, she yells, shaking it around in her hand. “It’s an amusement park, not the Big fucking Sur”.
“Hey, hey, hey”, he grabs onto her arm, holding her still. “Calm down, I’ll get you to the Hamptons”.
“I just need to call my driver”, she ignores him, using her free hand to type out a bunch of messages that won’t send.
Alex did use her car to drive them out here, but she wasn’t going to let her Porsche stay unattended in the parking lot of a fucking amusement park, so she got her driver to pick up it a few hours earlier.
Now it’s several hours later though, and she really needs it back.
Paul sighs as he has no choice but to rip the phone out of her grip, lifting it above his head as to keep it out of reach. “You plan on arriving to this party after all the guests have gone home- and the whole thing is over?”, he says, still holding onto her phone. “It’ll take you at least two hours to get from here to the Hamptons by car. You won’t get there till midnight”.
“What else am I gonna do?”, she huffs. “It’s not like I’ve got one of your rockets on command”.
“Well-”, he gets an idea. “It might not be the Hyperion, but- I might have something else that works”.