Alicia, who was looking shocked, as though she could see the impending danger of a car about to crash into her, but her muscles had given up the fight and instead of forcing her out of the way, had instead locked her to the ground. I couldn't blame her. After all, until just a moment ago, she must've believed that she'd finally achieved her dreams of being a star.
My blood was boiling, and I was in no mood for Mike to shout at me as well. What part did these people not understand that we were the goddamn moneymakers here – we were the talent, not them. Everyone else in this room, barring Alicia, was expendable – they were just office monkeys at the end of the day.
We had the voices that people wanted to listen to, not them. After all, you could hardly stick Fred fucking Peters up on stage and expect to sell any records.
"I didn't think they'd post it," I said, pissed off that yet again someone had taken advantage of my sense of honor. For exactly the same reasons that I was an unreformed, old school bad boy who liked to fuck, smoke, drink and fight, I had sometimes unrealistic expectations that people would live their lives with the same basic level of honor as me.
Very few lived up to it.
And then, suddenly, I had an idea. I knew how to fix this – I knew exactly how to appeal to a man with as little moral fiber as the music executive on the other end of the phone line. But Alicia wouldn't like it. Then again, I imagined she'd like the alternative – losing her only shot at a music career – even less.
"Fred," I began, dispensing with the formalities, "have you seen the video?" I needed to know whether what I suspected was in fact the case before I could attempt my plan.
"Do you think I'd be calling if I hadn't?" he replied acerbically, with a tone of voice that could freeze a lake in summer.
"Then you see how it starts?" I asked – hoping to all hell that I was right and that he hadn't. I was pretty sure that no one had picked up the start of the fight, only me knocking that punk out, and that was what I was relying on for my plan to work.
"No, I just saw you flooring some thug. Thank God it was some lowlife, because otherwise, Clay, we'd be suing you – you can be sure of that. Frankly, the only reason we aren’t doing that already is because we don't need the bad publicity. Atlantic has enough of that as it is right now…" He sighed, as though the stresses of his new job were beginning to mount up already.
That was what I was hoping for. I looked at Alicia and hoped that she would forgive me for what I was about to do. Hell, I hoped she'd go along with it at all, because if not, then the three of us were about to witness the end of my career.
"But you saw the first video, didn't you, Fred?" I didn't give him the chance to finish, just wanted his mind thinking about the number of views our duet had clocked up already – over a hundred million, and speeding up – and the money he was throwing away by putting a bullet in my career. "What you don't know is," I paused for a second and looked at Alicia, crossing my fingers behind my back, "that beautiful girl in the video – we're engaged."
I let my pronouncement fall like a hammer blow and watched as both Mike and Alicia's jaws dropped open in disbelief. Even Fred was stunned into silence for a second.
"You're what ?" he sputtered down the phone.
I knew that I couldn't give him too long to think about it, because there were too many holes in my story – not least the fact that Alicia had only just found out that I'd apparently proposed to her – to give him a chance to poke his finger through one of them. Hell, he could poke his entire head through one if he tried…
"We were keeping things off the radar because Alicia wanted to make her own way in the business," I said, training my gaze directly on Alicia's stunned eyes and begging her to understand, and to play along, "but I guess the cat's out of the bag now…"
Fred paused for breath, then
My blood was boiling, and I was in no mood for Mike to shout at me as well. What part did these people not understand that we were the goddamn moneymakers here – we were the talent, not them. Everyone else in this room, barring Alicia, was expendable – they were just office monkeys at the end of the day.
We had the voices that people wanted to listen to, not them. After all, you could hardly stick Fred fucking Peters up on stage and expect to sell any records.
"I didn't think they'd post it," I said, pissed off that yet again someone had taken advantage of my sense of honor. For exactly the same reasons that I was an unreformed, old school bad boy who liked to fuck, smoke, drink and fight, I had sometimes unrealistic expectations that people would live their lives with the same basic level of honor as me.
Very few lived up to it.
And then, suddenly, I had an idea. I knew how to fix this – I knew exactly how to appeal to a man with as little moral fiber as the music executive on the other end of the phone line. But Alicia wouldn't like it. Then again, I imagined she'd like the alternative – losing her only shot at a music career – even less.
"Fred," I began, dispensing with the formalities, "have you seen the video?" I needed to know whether what I suspected was in fact the case before I could attempt my plan.
"Do you think I'd be calling if I hadn't?" he replied acerbically, with a tone of voice that could freeze a lake in summer.
"Then you see how it starts?" I asked – hoping to all hell that I was right and that he hadn't. I was pretty sure that no one had picked up the start of the fight, only me knocking that punk out, and that was what I was relying on for my plan to work.
"No, I just saw you flooring some thug. Thank God it was some lowlife, because otherwise, Clay, we'd be suing you – you can be sure of that. Frankly, the only reason we aren’t doing that already is because we don't need the bad publicity. Atlantic has enough of that as it is right now…" He sighed, as though the stresses of his new job were beginning to mount up already.
That was what I was hoping for. I looked at Alicia and hoped that she would forgive me for what I was about to do. Hell, I hoped she'd go along with it at all, because if not, then the three of us were about to witness the end of my career.
"But you saw the first video, didn't you, Fred?" I didn't give him the chance to finish, just wanted his mind thinking about the number of views our duet had clocked up already – over a hundred million, and speeding up – and the money he was throwing away by putting a bullet in my career. "What you don't know is," I paused for a second and looked at Alicia, crossing my fingers behind my back, "that beautiful girl in the video – we're engaged."
I let my pronouncement fall like a hammer blow and watched as both Mike and Alicia's jaws dropped open in disbelief. Even Fred was stunned into silence for a second.
"You're what ?" he sputtered down the phone.
I knew that I couldn't give him too long to think about it, because there were too many holes in my story – not least the fact that Alicia had only just found out that I'd apparently proposed to her – to give him a chance to poke his finger through one of them. Hell, he could poke his entire head through one if he tried…
"We were keeping things off the radar because Alicia wanted to make her own way in the business," I said, training my gaze directly on Alicia's stunned eyes and begging her to understand, and to play along, "but I guess the cat's out of the bag now…"
Fred paused for breath, then
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