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Fuck it.Call him before you chicken out again.
Fine.
I rolled my eyes at the internal voice who liked to goad me into doing stupid shit and did it anyway. Before I knew it, the dialing tone was starting up. I held the phone to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Reed.” There was a note of surprise in my voice – I hadn’t expected him to pick up, if I was being honest with myself.
He sounded older, but no less abrupt. “Who is this?”
Ouch, and there it was – he’d deleted my number, a long time ago, likely. I cleared my throat, stalling while I decided what to do.May as well follow through with it.“This is Sylvester.”
An audible intake of breath on the other end of the line, like a hiss. Then: “Why are you calling me?”
“I dunno. Feeling nostalgic, I guess. Wanted to find out what you were up to.” Except I’d been internet stalking him, so I already knew.
He was sounding rapidly more spiteful. “Have you lost it? You were feeling nostalgic – for what exactly? The shitshow that was our band? No – the shitshow that wasyouin our band?”
I grew sheepish. “Err, no, not that part. The good parts, y’know, where we played music to our adoring fans and so on.”
“I don’t know what you’re after, but I’m out. Find a better excuse next time you need something from me.”
He hung up.
I stared at my phone. I was affronted – primarily, that he thought I, Sylvester Brock, would need anything from him. He’d treated me like some kind of... out-of-control teenager, crawling back to my parents for money. I suppose the last time he’d really known me, Ihadbeen an out-of-control teenager. And then an out-of-control man in his early twenties who definitely still acted like a teenager.
Making the phone call was a mistake. Dragging Luna back into my life, too, was a mistake, except it was one I had little choice in. I shouldn’t let my one unavoidable mistake lead to many other much more avoidable mistakes in which I humiliated myself in front of all of my former friends for an attempt at honoring the feelings of nostalgia and loss which kept arriving.
No, I must keep my eyes on the prize. Apollo’s head on a platter.
Luna
Today was my first meeting for Sylvester’s memoir. I was having second thoughts, but I’d signed the contract now.
Annoyingly, I was having high school flashbacks trying to figure out what to wear to the meeting. At school, I’d never tried to impress anyone until Sylvester. And even then, only when he’d showed he had a genuine interest in me, and a genuine interest in music.
But now... so much time had passed, and he was a different man. Wealthy, handsome, with cheekbones that could skin a snake... Inheriting a vast amount of money hadn’t removed his edge, that dangerous charisma that made every moment with him intoxicating. It had only amplified it to dangerous levels, so that even though he was by all accounts my enemy, and I should want nothing to do with him, I still had a childish, insecure yearning to impress him.
As I was holding up different t-shirts on hangers against myself in the mirror, while rolling my eyes at my reflection, my phone lit up with a call:Apollo Brock.
I couldn’t really decline client calls unless I was in a meeting with another client. Apollo, of all my clients, was the most demanding of my time. He had a tendency to call me up all hours with ‘thoughts’ for the book. Sometimes I did get the feeling that I was his therapist and main confidante. He was paying me enough that I was kind of okay with it.
I threw the hangers onto my bed and picked up the call. I didn’t even get to sayhellobefore he launched into it.
“I’m having ideas for my second memoirs. Can you make your way to my office, please?” His voice was as expectant and demanding as ever.
Rich people thought they were the center of the universe – and maybe they were. Wealth could buy a lot of things. Right now, however, a different rich guy was at the center of my universe, and I couldn’t drop everything for Apollo, as much as he might want me to.
It was best to take a ‘blunt but polite’ approach in dealing with the richest of the five Brock brothers. “Sorry, Apollo. I have a meeting with another client now.”
“Ah. I see.” He was silent for a moment. I could practically hear him flexing his fingers together in thought over the phone. “How much more would you charge for exclusive usage of your talents?”
I laughed. “I’m flattered. Unfortunately, I have a commitment to other jobs at the moment. If you want to talk about exclusivity further down the line, we can make an arrangement for when my other jobs have wrapped up.”
“Ah, no bother. Such a professional.” His drawl was slightly ominous in tone, but we had a good working relationship – light teasing of each other was acceptable.
“Why not voice record your thoughts and send them over to me? Then we can discuss them at a later time.”
