Chapter 3 We Can Still Be Friends
We Can Still Be Friends
For someone who crossed the Atlantic only to be met with a shit-storm upon her arrival, Sage’s agent looks incredibly composed.
Her chin-length black hair is perfectly straight and tucked behind her ears, and there’s not a dark circle to be found marring the beige skin beneath her eyes.
Then again, Sage has a running theory that Anna might be part goddess. There has to be some unique, superhero something in her veins. It’s the only thing that can describe how Anna is simultaneously one of Sage’s favorite people and the one she fears the most.
They’re sitting in the small café of the hotel, all white cushioned armchairs and black lacquered tables. Sage taps an anxious rhythm with the toe of one of her over-the-knee boots while Anna stirs sugar into her tea.
Anna’s only response to the detailed email Taylor had sent yesterday was a pointed Christ. Ok, and Sage had spiraled about that for the better part of the predawn hours this morning.
But right now, Anna looks calm, even as she arches a brow at Sage above the rim of her gold-framed eyeglasses. They highlight her eyes perfectly, her champagne eye shadow and winged eyeliner accentuating the deep brown of her irises.
“Look,” she finally says pointedly, “I wouldn’t have known who the bloke was either.”
That startles a laugh out of Sage, and her shoulders drop slightly as she leans back against her chair. She spins her cappuccino in her hand, her stomach not quite calm enough for caffeine—or anything, really. “But he’s English,” she teases.
Anna rolls her eyes. “You don’t claim every American.”
Sage pulls a face. She absolutely doesn’t. “Emerson says he’s the next ‘big thing,’” she intones with air quotes. “Apparently his movie, Legends, was the highest streamed of the summer.”
Anna’s lips pinch. “I thought it was shite, but …” She shrugs, as if to say to each their own, and Sage fixes her with a look.
“I thought you said you wouldn’t have recognized him either?”
“I wouldn’t. I turned the film off after fifteen minutes.
” Sage laughs again at that, more of the tension bleeding from her body.
Okay so, yes, Theo is a big deal, but having the reminder that he’s not the center of everyone’s universe is reassuring.
Maybe this will blow over faster than she thought.
She hopes so. She may or may not have spent the better part of last night angry-reading his Wikipedia page, which had been both illuminating when she’d seen the dedication of his fans, and guilt-inducing when she reached the part about his family.
Theo Sharpe (29) is the younger brother of Oliver Sharpe, a promising actor who died in a car crash along with their mother, Olivia, in 2016.
She’d immediately closed the tab. Some things simply shouldn’t be for public consumption. And yet she hadn’t been able to shake the discomfort of it, especially when, true to his word, Theo had texted her to “talk damage control.”
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Oct 11 8:32 PM
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I truly am sorry. I had no idea the paparazzi would be there. That’s never happened to me before.
Sure, sure.
I’m sure as Hollywood’s newest heartthrob you’re TOTALLY not used to getting photographed.
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Fans, yes. Paparazzi, no.
Heartthrob, eh?
I’m quoting the Instagram posts, obviously.
Okay, so maybe she’d also Googled him. Maybe she’d read some (less) intrusive articles—ones that painted a picture of a young and hungry actor who exploded onto the scene this summer. Except he hadn’t exploded onto the scene. Not really.
If the length of his filmography is anything to go on, Theo has been cutting his teeth on any and every role he could get his hands on for years. He just hadn’t been noticed yet.
Until now.
The Internet loved to wonder if that was because all eyes had been on Oliver.
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Oct 11 8:50 PM
Also, for what it’s worth, I hear they were waiting for Chris Evans.
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Damn, Chris was there?
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I would’ve waited with the paps.
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Been wanting to meet him.
Sage couldn’t tell if she wanted to laugh or cuss him out for his flippancy. So instead, she’d told him she was tired from almost dying of embarrassment, and that she had to go.
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Oct 11 8:55 PM
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Don’t die, I owe you an apology drink at Vibe this Friday.
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As for the rest—
We typically don’t respond to these things, but I’m trying to see if my manager will let me at least share your post.
Hang tight.
In between her excitement for her week at the Con and the utter hell that was yesterday evening when her social media turned into some sort of automatic insult machine, she’d completely forgotten about the party.
She hadn’t bothered to tell Theo that now he’d reminded her, she was going to avoid it like the plague.
One day of humiliation was quite enough, thank you very much.
“Look,” Anna says, drawing Sage out of her head. “Is a media frenzy fun? No. Is it shite timing? Maybe. Maybe not. But you said your piece, so now it’s time to focus on what’s ahead of us.”
Sage’s teeth dig into her bottom lip. “You don’t think this is going to affect the meetings?” She uses the plural, but Anna knows there’s one meeting that’s on Sage’s mind.
“Yes, because film studios hate when you fraternize with other people in film,” Anna retorts dryly.
“Ha. Ha.”
“If anything,” Anna continues as if Sage isn’t shooting daggers at her, “they’ll probably wonder what your problem is with him.”
Well, there’s a new worry Sage absolutely did not need.
“I don’t have a problem with him!” The quick denial makes her voice increase in volume, and she throws a furtive glance around the café before giving Anna a look.
“I don’t have a problem with him,” she tries again, calmly. “Why would you say that?”
“You issued that denial fairly quickly.” Anna takes a sip of her tea. It’s impossible to tell if she’s serious or if she’s taking pleasure in torturing Sage, as she’s often wont to do. Fifteen percent isn’t enough for Anna—she needs a hefty dose of Sage’s anxiety right alongside it.
“Are you joking?” Sage finally caves, hating how needy she sounds. “I can never tell.”
Anna just lifts a brow and smiles into her tea. “Shall we discuss today’s schedule?”
“Between you and Emerson, I’m going to die prematurely from stress.”
“Darling, if you die from stress, you’ll have no one to blame but your overactive imagination.”
“That imagination is paying us,” Sage retorts, pointing a spoon at Anna and ignoring the way foam drips onto the white tablecloth.
“Right.” Anna straightens, suddenly all business. “So let’s talk about getting us paid, shall we?”
It turns out Anna does suffer in the same way mere mortals do. She blames jet lag for why she needs time to herself at the hotel after their meeting with the head fiction buyer of Ballad Books, but Sage has an inkling that maybe Anna needs a break from the way Sage is buzzing.
She’s also fairly certain Anna isn’t actually going to her room but is instead ducking out to Sullivan Street Bakery to do some recon. The only thing meaner than Anna’s negotiation skills is her stirato.
Anna leaves her with a kiss to the cheek outside of the hotel, and Sage inhales a crisp lungful of NYC fall air that’s slightly rank and yet wonderful all the same. She should be writing—she should literally always be writing—but she’s too excited to stare at her laptop.
So she pivots on her heel and heads toward the Javits Center, where Emerson has been passing her time wandering exhibitor booths.
It’s a few blocks away, but between the walk and the cold, she can feel her shoulders loosening as she replays the meeting with Ballad in her mind.
Sage has always thrived under pressure, so when Greg said, “We’re going all out for book two,” in a way that sounded a lot like this shit better sell as well as book one, it had the achiever in her rearing its head.
They’d swapped marketing ideas, and for the first time in the weeks since she’s been stuck on her sequel, she felt like she could do this.
She’ll get home, she’ll get drafting, and it’ll all come together. Sage smiles and tilts her head back and takes in the towering skyscrapers.
In West Hollywood, she’s certainly just a number, but not like this.
There’s something about everyone else being so small right alongside her that feels comforting.
It’s one of the things she loves most about living in a city.
She can be anyone. Blend in anywhere. Get swallowed by a crowd and lose herself to the hum of the energy around her.
Her phone buzzes in the pocket of her leather jacket, cutting through her philosophical musing.
A text—from a number she didn’t save last night because she honestly didn’t think she’d need it. Surprise flits through her, sending her heart fluttering as she swipes open the message.
Who’s Remy?
She frowns in confusion, typing out a brief What? Suddenly she’s looking at a picture of a dedication page in a book.
Her book.
To Remy, who stood by me during my own darkest nights.
Sage stops in the middle of the sidewalk and is promptly cussed out by no less than three people. She squeaks out an apology and ducks into the front of a bodega.
Theo has a copy of Nights.
Distantly, Sage realizes this is kind of like how she thought about watching his movie on Netflix last night, but she’d refrained, and not just because she’d seen enough still shots of the sex scene circulating social media to know she wouldn’t be able to watch it without dying of secondhand embarrassment.
Or fixating on his gorgeous co-star. She didn’t even need to watch it to know it could be a new generation’s Pirates of the Caribbean. She may not be one for films, but she does have Elizabeth Swann to thank for her own bi awakening.
My dog.
She passed right after I finished the first draft.
That had to be so difficult, I’m sorry.
Do you have a picture?