Sebastian.
“I call the shots, man,” I bragged, swirling the shot glass in my hand with pride, and a rhythmic laughter erupted.
“It’s a movie yet to be announced to the public. How did you do it? I mean, how did you reach out to one of the directors?” Leonard asked eagerly, clinking his glass on the side stool beside him. Gliding across the leather couch, he minimized the distance between us, leaving a mild squeak in its wake.
I swept my eyes over the fulfilling view, precisely three pairs of eyes now peering at me like a mystical present. Nothing new. As usual, they’d all set up a meeting with me in my favorite spot – a VIP room in one of the high-end clubs in New York City. Caught wind of the juicy role I bagged in the upcoming movie and went all frantic about knowing how I managed to be a step ahead of them all. Every. Single. Time. Orla knowing how much the industry reverenced me would’ve been the perfect icing on the cake as that could very much deflate her pride.
Relaxing with arms splayed across the backrest and crossing my legs, a cocky smirk formed on my lips. “I already have my roots extending to the majority of top movie-producing companies that are included in the project, and also – ”
A loud clang barged into the moment, crashing in a ruffled-looking figure, suspending the air in silence. Now a disgruntled Kaia was glaring at me with physical fumes escaping her eyes. Her chest heaved erratically, its up-and-down movement well over the dim lighting supposed to swallow and conceal it from us sitting paces away. She looked like anything but the girl I just handed a million-dollar contract on a platter.
The other men in the room exchanged appalled glances with each other.
Heaving a loud sigh, she let the door bang shut, stomping on the silence.
“Uhhh…” Jonas, the guy sitting to my left called carefully. “Is everything okay?”
Not a word warmed up to leave her lips in response. She just trained her eyes on me, shooting signals that she wanted me to ask them out to give us privacy.
“Care to excuse us?” I threw into the air, never unlocking our gazes.
Clinks and gentle squeaks instantly emanated from every angle in the room as they all prepared to leave without further questions. Too bad the meeting met an abrupt end before I even got the chance to chatter away my feats for hours. It no longer felt like bragging anymore, it was now a routine – random chatters.
Our eye contact was disturbed by walking figures walking through to the exit. The last figure in a white dress shirt went through and the door clanged open and shut at second intervals a few moments later.
The last sound went off like a trigger, pumping fuel into her. She furiously marched toward the round center table littered with drinks, grabbed a bottle, and gulped down its halved content, before finally flinging it to the door. Soundproof and durable, only the bottle was left to bear the grunt, turning into shards.
Raising an eyebrow, I trained my eyes on the mess she just created.
“Quite an entry, Kaia,” I drawled and then took the last sip of my drink before sitting out on the couch.
She shrieked, sucking her teeth like she was releasing literal fumes riding their way up her nerves.
“Okay, can you tell me what the problem is?!” I snapped, my voice deep and commanding. She dared not make another sound that wasn’t telling me the reason she was seething.
“Orla!” she shrilled, ruffling her hair and plopping on the other end of my couch, the landing effect lasting only a millisecond. But the effect on me was gonna run into months as the mention of Orla was already beginning to color my senses red.
My impatience swelled like a balloon, waiting while she gulped down the drink left by Leon earlier on the stool by her leg. “What did she do?” I asked, at my wit’s end.
Smearing my eyes on her, the second her lips broke contact with the glass could not escape my notice. Not when I was seated there, impatiently waiting for an explanation.
“Kaia, what the – “ My patience had finally snapped but she saved the room from a lethal outburst when she undipped her phone from her bag and threw it to me. “What’s this?” Upturning the screen to me, a chat interface popped up when I punched the power button. I may have gone too hard, it left a stinging pain on my thumb.
One scroll later and the pressure around my temples was screaming blue mother from how fiercely my teeth were grinding into each other.
“She stole the role from me!” Kaia cried out, her voice muffled by the rage shrouding my senses.
• • •
“I was almost there … and … and… all of a sudden, my car won’t move! The doors won’t open! My phones all down… it was only … only – ”
“Can you just shut up, Kaia?!” I roared, punching the steering wheel with a hand fisted around my cell phone. The umpteenth attempt to reach Mr. Mackey just ended with a feminine voice about to announce that the receiver didn’t want to answer before I detached the phone from my ears infuriatedly. My head was already full, bloated as every fiber in my being was screaming in a red mist. Her whining only compounded my headache – simply taunting!
I could barely hold on to the wheel, every muscle in my body vibrating with rage. Going through her texts earlier, it was a conversation between her and the assistant director who’d related to her how Orla swept everyone off their feet with her outstanding skills. The so-called Mr. Mackey was unreachable even then.
‘Did Orla get the role?’
‘I lost the role to Orla?’
Orla?
The same Orla I knew?
Orla!
Three hard thuds against the steering wheel following the depth that thought plunged into my head, and the vehicle almost geared off-course. If Orla got the role, we were as good as damned!
“Aaargh!” I vented, letting only a microscopic value of the steam coating every organ in my body, out. Orla was turning into a plague. Just what strings did they pull this time? That not only earned them the role but also shoved ME into a corner.
Orla was indeed turning into a plague. One that could claim my life if I stayed down and did nothing. Unfortunately for her, I had zero intentions of taking this sitting.
Not while we still breathed in the same air.
Pinballing my eyes between the road ahead and my phone, I dialed his number for the hundredth time. Could’ve been literal except that I lost count.
“I swear, I’m going to kill him once I find him,” I gritted out, physically unable to break the bond between my teeth. I clenched my hands around the steering wheel, the accelerator below almost crashing beneath the pressure pumped into it from my feet.
I wished the car would magically fly. Off to Mackey’s.