Chapter 4 Strategic Connections
Strategic Connections
“He’s an absolute cunt.” Anna punctuates the statement by downing the rest of her whiskey.
“Hear, hear!” Emerson says from across the table, raising her champagne glass in the air. “I love how you Brits use that word so freely. I wish we did that here. It just has a nice ring to it, you know? Cunt. Cunt. Cuuuunt.”
“Jesus Christ,” Taylor mutters into her cabernet. “I’m not drunk enough to deal with you.”
Frankly, Sage isn’t drunk enough to deal with any of it, but she’s under strict orders to not be massively hungover for her signing tomorrow.
The level of alcohol she’d need to numb the frustration bubbling inside of her certainly registers on the “massively hungover” scale, so she’s shit out of luck.
The four of them are sitting around a rectangular table at some hip cocktail bar in SoHo Anna booked ahead of time, To either cheers to our success or drown our sorrows, she’d joked.
Sage can’t help but feel that even putting that second option out there might have been bad luck. Something about tempting the law of attraction or whatever. Margot could explain it if she was here.
It’s possible the alcohol is making Sage mopey.
“Listen,” Anna starts pointedly, as if she can see the slippery slope of self-pity Sage is about to slide down. “This is how this process goes. Besides, you wouldn’t want to work with a team that’s not all in on your project.”
“They were all in until they suddenly decided I wasn’t worth it,” Sage remarks bitterly.
She rolls the stem of her champagne flute between her pointer finger and thumb.
She hadn’t wanted Anna’s pre-ordered bottle to go to waste, but she could really use some of the whiskey that Anna has just signaled for another round of.
“They weren’t. They clearly think you’re talented but not talented enough to take a chance on,” Anna huffs.
Sage tries not to wince.
Anna doesn’t mean it to be harsh, but all Sage can hear is the undertone of not good enough dancing through her words. She thinks of the text from her mom waiting for a response and immediately takes a large gulp of her champagne.
“They were never in one hundred percent,” Anna continues, her cheeks flushed either from whiskey or frustration. Maybe both. “I’m just sorry they strung you along like this. It’s a shite way to do business.”
“I’m sorry,” Sage finds herself saying. “You flew all the way out here for no reason.”
Anna rolls her eyes. “Yes, because seeing you at Comic Con is such a bother,” she retorts flatly. “Do shut up, Sage.”
Sage snorts in a very undignified way, and for a moment—just one—she doesn’t want the floor to swallow her whole.
She anchors into the present, reminds herself she’s here with some of her favorite people, and as much as tonight has sucked, she finds solace in the way their presence wraps around her like a warm blanket.
Emerson sighs and rests her chin in her palm, elbow stacked on the table. “And who knows? Maybe you’ll meet someone at Theo’s VIP party tomorrow and they’ll fall in love with you and want to learn more about Nights.”
Sage has experienced a lot of firsts in the last year.
Her first book deal, her first TV appearance.
But this … this might be the most jarring of them all.
Because Sage can’t say she’s ever experienced a moment where the city that never sleeps has gone silent.
Yet somehow, Emerson’s revelation seems to suck the sound out of the air entirely.
No one at her table moves, their gazes all fixed on Sage as if she were the one who just dropped a bomb.
It’s Taylor who finally shatters the silence.
“I’m sorry. What did she just say?”
Sage downs her champagne, hangover be damned. “Um. Theo Sharpe invited us to some VIP party thing tomorrow night. But we’re not going.” The last part, directed at Emerson, comes with a pointed punch to her words.
Taylor’s gaze darts between them like they’re a particularly perplexing math equation before she settles on Sage. “You just … forgot to mention Hollywood’s newest breakout star invited you to a party?”
Sage coughs. “I was a little distracted by”—she waves a hand through the air—“everything. It sort of slipped my mind?”
It’s only a half lie. Theo had reminded her of it just yesterday, but she was far more focused on the meeting with someone from an actual film studio than some swanky soirée that may or may not have studio executives in attendance.
And maybe there’s something to be said about her pride.
Anna looks at her dead-on, eyes narrowed behind her glasses. “Sometimes, I want to murder you.”
Emerson, who is wickedly smart but also sometimes the stupidest person Sage knows, decides to all but sign Sage’s death sentence. “You have his number. You can confirm the invite, right, S?”
And that, it seems, is officially Taylor’s breaking point. She slams down her wineglass so hard it’s a miracle it doesn’t shatter. “I cannot fucking believe you.”
Sage throws up her hands in a placating way. “He just wanted to reach out to talk damage control! Which, I will point out, he’s done none of!”
“Not much talking about damage control, that’s for sure,” Emerson mutters into her champagne.
Sage levels her with a glare. “Emerson?”
“Hmm?”
“Please shut up.”
“Yep. Got it.”
Sage sucks in a steadying breath, her gaze darting between Anna and Taylor as she tries to figure out which to appeal to.
There’s a hint of amusement in Anna’s raised brows, so Sage tries her luck there.
“He explained his team doesn’t usually release statements about this sort of thing but that he was working on it with his manager.
” She cuts a glance at Emerson, who gives her a look that clearly reads, Tell them the rest or so help me god.
“He might have also floated the idea that he owes me a drink at this party tomorrow for all of the … drama.”
There’s a long beat of silence that Sage absolutely must fill immediately. “But obviously I’m not going to go.”
“Like hell you aren’t.” Anna snorts. Sage looks desperately to Taylor, but her publicist is sitting back in her chair, arms crossed, a smug pinch to her full lips.
“You can’t be serious,” Sage protests. “I was just the subject of an online witch hunt, and now you want me to throw myself back into the lion’s den? Besides, I don’t need his pity invite. What I need is for his team to actually do something about this mess.”
Anna cocks her head. “You do realize how unlikely that is.” Sage slumps back in her chair. “Aren’t you always telling me that if we don’t ask, the answer is always no?”
Anna rolls her eyes. “You have quite the penchant for drama, did you know that?”
“I’m being serious,” she presses. It’s the wrong choice of words, because now Anna looks serious, her gaze settling into that steely glint that Sage loves when she uses it against publishers but hates being on the receiving end of.
“You already know that connections are everything in this industry. Besides, it won’t be like the airport. These events are intentional with their photos. I highly doubt anyone will take yours.” Anna blinks, then adds, “No offense.”
“Besides, if you are photographed, it would be easy enough to spin into you hanging out with a new friend,” Taylor chimes in. She has a faraway look on her face, as if she can see the social media opportunities unfolding before them. “Maybe he’d shout out the book? He has a ton of followers.”
“How many?” Anna asks before Sage can voice her refusal.
“Three million.”
“Christ. Shite movie or not, you can’t buy that many followers. A shout-out would be nice. What’s a post among friends, anyway?” “Right? It could ring inauthentic, though,” Taylor muses. “With Sage’s statement …”
Anna waves a dismissive hand. “She’s not a celebrity. No one cares what she has to say.”
Sage is fluent in Anna, so she knows what she’s trying to say is the statement would have held more weight if Theo had denied the rumors as well.
But she can’t help the prickle of irritation that’s rapidly building into pressure on the hinge of her jaw.
There’s something bearing down on her, some nebulous feeling she’s never been able to name, but she feels it lording over her now like some sort of suffocating shadow.
“True,” Taylor concedes, her eyes bright with excitement as she straightens in her seat. “And it could serve a dual purpose, I suppose. Get him to deny it without outright denying it—”
“Sorry to interrupt,” Sage cuts in, her voice sharp with more bitterness than she expected. “Do I get a say in this?”
“No,” Anna teases. Sage can’t bring herself to match her frivolity.
“I’m not playing around about this. I have principles. Asking Theo to do some random post, especially after the absolute shit show his fans caused this week … you didn’t read the comments.”
The thing about Anna is, she’s never fazed. Not even by Sage, who can be mercurial when she allows herself to ride the tempestuous waves of her emotions. So it should be no surprise that her agent remains the epitome of stoicism when she says, “You shouldn’t have, either.”
Sage feels her face flush, her skin going hot and itchy as she’s confronted with a truth she already knows.
She’s read them even though she shouldn’t have, and the ones that scream that she’s a fake, that she’s using someone for fame because she doesn’t have enough talent on her own …
They hit a bruise that’s so deep in her skin it might as well be a permanent part of her.
Slow down, Sage.
Try harder, Sage.
Want less, Sage.
Strive for more, Sage.
Any career would have thrown kerosene on the fire of her deepest insecurities, but becoming a writer?
That’s a path that fuels the wildfire quite frequently.
She tries to hide it behind confidence and enthusiasm and gratitude, because she knows how goddamn lucky she is, but it doesn’t change the fact that she feels like she was handed something that she could never in a million years replicate.