I go downstairs to try to talk to him in the restaurant, and the girl at the hostess stand frowns at me.
“Oh,” she says, her face falling. “Chase doesn’t work here anymore. I’m going to miss him.”
I furrow my brow at her. “That can’t be right. Are there two different people named Chase who work here?”
She shakes her head. “No. Chase Cameron.”
“What the hell happened?”
She just shrugs. “Um…”
“Please, tell me what happened.”
“We’re not allowed?—”
I pull out my wallet, retrieving a hundred dollars, and then two hundred, and then three, putting them all onto the hostess stand in front of her.
“Please.”
She looks a little bit guilty. She gathers the money andhands it back to me. “It’s okay, Mr. Stone. You don’t have to do that.”
“I need to find him. I promise it’s important, and I promise I will not get you fired for divulging to me.”
She gives me a sympathetic look. “He… and I’m not supposed to say this, but… he was let go earlier. Nobody’s told me why, though.”
“Fuck. I’m sorry. Thank you so much,” I tell her before turning quick and heading back out into the lobby, rushing toward the hall that leads to the back alley.
I call my driver quickly, telling him to come back around as quickly as he can.
Luckily it’s not too far of a drive to Chase’s apartment. But I stand there, ringing the buzzer and trying to call him for ten minutes straight, and nothing happens. And when I hear nothing from him, that’s when I start to panic.
I frown as I finally head back to the car, and I spot a man across the street with a telephoto lens taking pictures of me.
“Lovely,” I tell my driver as I get in the back seat. “There will be pictures of me online looking very upset on the street in probably, oh, a few hours.”
“Where do you need to go next?”
I give him the address for Chase’s art studio. I’m probably now being followed by at least one paparazzi car, but it falls away from my mind entirely, because I’m too focused on Chase right now.
When we get to his studio, I hop out and walk to the unmarked door. I navigate to my texts where Chase had told me the door code before, and I punch it in.
An error occurs.
I try it again, and again, and I realize the studio must have either changed the code or the one I had was a temporary guest one that expired.
“Fuck,” I exhale, turning to my left and seeing a couple of cameras pointed at me down the street.
A nice young couple walks up and asks me for a selfie, and all I want to do is run away.
Instead, I try to paint a smile on my face, nodding and posing for the picture as my heart races in my chest.
As I look over and see another group heading toward me, the door to the studio suddenly shoves open behind me.
A man with pink hair and long, dangly earrings steps out of the studio carrying drawings under his arm. He gives me a kind smile as I grab the door, sliding inside before it shuts.
Thank you, whoever the hell you are, random artist.
You are a godsend.
