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The reality show had ended hours ago and there was never anything remotely interesting on at this time of night, but I knew that turning the TV off would only fill the apartment with a terrible silence that I couldn’t face. So I was flipping through channels, trying to find something that wasn’t a congressional hearing or an infomercial for a food processor that sliced, diced, and also organized your socks or some shit.
And then the Douchebros’ ad came on.
“Oh, baby, oh—” Creaking springs and lustful moans gave way to the sight of a barely clad, barely legal blonde sucking eagerly at the neck of a Knox bourbon bottle, held directly at the crotch line of a smirking male model.
I wasn’t sure what I was more disgusted with: the objectification, or how insultingly unsubtle it was.
“Yeah, swallow it,” the man urged. “You know you like the taste.”
She murmured happy agreement, but then there came a whimper of pure need from the floor beside the bed, where multiple near-nude supermodels lay entwined. “When’s my turn?”
The man looked straight into the camera and winked.
KNOX BOURBON, said the letters slapped up over his face as the audio cut to a poorly sampled hip hop track. EVEN GOOD GIRLS SWALLOW IT.
I let the remote fall out of my hands, horrified. Distantly, I heard the sound as it hit the floor.
This was how Chuck wanted the company represented to the world?
Hunter had to be tearing out his hair right now.
Hunter—
I grabbed for my cell phone and punched in his number. I had to hear his voice, had to know he was okay, had to let him know that this wasn’t me, I had never wanted this—
“This is Hunter Knox.”
“Hunter, I—” I began.
“Leave a message after the beep, and don’t forget your number if it’s blocked.”
Frustrated tears filled my eyes. Damn. Voicemail again, and I’d let it fool me. I’d heard it over and over these past few weeks until I had every cadence of every syllable memorized, and I still let it fool me because I was so desperate for his forgiveness.
“I—Hunter, I, I just saw the ad, and—” When I’d picked up the phone, I’d been so certain I’d know what to say, that the words would just come. But now that the moment was there, they were all so out of reach. Just like Hunter. “I’m so sorry.”
That was all I had left. That was all I could say.
“God, Hunter, I am so, so sorry.”
THREE
I looked away from my computer screen and rubbed my bloodshot eyes, massaged my forehead and tense, aching jaw. I sighed.
Damn, damn, and double damn.
Hunter still hadn’t called me back, but the burst of energy I’d gotten from my revulsion at the ad had still managed to propel me across my apartment to do some research. And that research was not encouraging.
The new campaign was bombing harder than a fighter plane over enemy territory. Sales of Knox bourbon were way down, share prices were plummeting even faster, and Twitter feeds were blowing up with hashtags denouncing every person involved in its production as sexist scum. I stalked the social media profiles of the Douchebros and pretty soon had to look away; they were still virulently defending the product, not even realizing that they were fanning the flames of the online outrage with their outdated misogynistic rhetoric. It had a desperate note to it, though; even they realized that something was wrong. Somewhere way back in those reptilian brains, they had to know that they had fucked up, and fucked up bad.
There was even talk of a boycott.
I clicked on one of the links in the tweets, which took me to an online Forbes article. The outlook was grim, according to that reporter: she claimed that with the share price tumbling, it might be the end of the line for the heritage company. Bigger drinks companies were circling like vultures over a dying rhinoceros, and no executives could be reached for comment.
I thought about the pride in Hunter’s face as he talked about family heritage, about the meaning in the careful, artistic production of each bottle of bourbon, about carrying on tradition.
What the hell was I doing here in this depressing apartment, this ode to inertia and giving up?
I had to snap out of it.
There was no way I was letting Knox Liquors go down like this. Hunter was probably going crazy right this minute trying to hold off a takeover, and he couldn’t accomplish it alone. He needed my help.
And I needed to make things right.
I shot off a quick e-mail to work cashing in every single vacation day I had, and grabbed my keys. I was going to save Hunter.
Whether he wanted me to or not.