Page 67 of Stuck Behind Her

“The good kind or the bad?” he asks, furrowing his brows.

“Well, it’s not the bad kind,” I assure him, leaning my head to the side. He chuckles, and the sound rings in my ears. His laugh is soft, calm. Comforting. Since when was it like this? Suddenly, I feel a drop of cold water hit my arm. I study the tiny droplet and more follow. I want to be surprised, but I’m not at the least. It looked like it was going to rain.

“We better start going,” I point out, looking at Elias, who has his head raised to the sky. He lowers it.

“And you? You said you walked here,” he reminds me. Oh yeah. I did say that. Not that it’s a lie, I did decide to give the bus a break and start using my feet.

The rain starts getting heavier, slowly starting to soak my hair. The cold droplets sink into the fabric, onto my skin. So much for not wearing a jacket. “Don’t worry about me, it’s just a bit of water,” I tell him, which causes him to blink at me. He grabs my arm and drags me toward one of the stores, under a window awning. He drops my arm once we’re protected from the rain.

“You’re already soaked, and you haven’t even started walking. You’re going to get sick,” He warns me, and I notice he’s almost just as soaked as me. Except he has a thick shirt to keep him warm.

“Jokes on you, I don’t get sick,” I answer back, and he crosses his arms. My phone then vibrates in my small bag, which is strapped across my upper body. I take it out and look at the message. The reminder says I have a meeting in half an hour. Shit. How could I forget? “Okay, now I really need to go. But thank you for the drinks and everything,” I blurt out, running into the rain.

I hear his footsteps follow when he calls “Violet.” He grabs my arm again, spinning me around and pulling me close to him. Close enough to feel his warm breath on my skin. “You’re goingto get soaked.” The rain splashes on the floor around us, sinking into our hair and clothes. My dress drips with water, it’s blue color darkening with every spot of rain.

I freeze, my eyes fixated on his face. The wet strands of his hair fall onto his face, slightly covering his eyes. The tips of the strands allow small drops of rain fall down his face and onto the ground. With being so close, I see the similarity between the color of his hair and his eyes. His hair is a lighter brown, though. Almost an almond brown.

The beating in my chest grows faster and more vivid, and my face heats up regardless of the ice-cold rain rushing down it. I realize his right hand still gripping mine, and I look down at it. Two silver rings are placed on his pointer and middle fingers. Both are silver, one thicker than the other, with engraving I can’t identify. The cold metal of the rings touches my skin, and I stare at them. He notices the direction of my gaze, following it until he realizes his hold. He lets go immediately, and takes a step back, the rain still pouring over us. What’s wrong with me? What’s going on?

“I’ll be fine. I’ll call someone to come get me,” I utter in a weak tone, almost breathy. I pin my arms around my stomach.

“Come on. I’ll take you; you don’t have to bother anyone,” he says. A cold shudder hits my body. He’s right, I’m going to freeze here. “Please don’t make me run after you again.” His eyes glimmer with the rain, attracting my gaze. My heart might stop soon because of how hard it’s beating right now.

“Okay. Only so you leave me alone,” I reply.He leads me back under the awning, and we walk back to his car.

“I think I have a blanket in the car, you can use that to dry up,” He mentions, but my mind is swirling with other thoughts. What was that? It just came out of nowhere. It also makes no sense why the hell I felt so hot, when it’s so cold and I’m drenched in rain. It was all so weird, different. Unusual even.

It’s probably nothing. The heat could’ve been my delusion, just like everything else. Even the sudden details I noticed, which could’ve just been me distracting myself from the rain. Or maybe I was just never close enough to notice them before. That’s probably it. None of that meant anything significant. Nothing relevant. Just another weird feeling; I always get those.

I run into the building and barely get through the doors of the elevator before they close. I told Elias to drop me outside a house right beside the building, since it had luckily stopped raining, and ran to the building. Five minutes before I’m late. Please don’t stop on a million levels and just take me up on time. I take off the wig, unclipping it. It’s still soaked, as are my clothes. But the heat of the car helped a bit.

The elevator stops at the right floor, thankfully, and I rush out. I stop at a garbage can and squeeze the wig, draining the excess water from it. I then walk until I get to the storage room, which is luckily open, and grab a plastic bag from one of the shelves. I put the wig inside, then take out my contacts and place them in their container, then back into my regular bag.

I continue to the office, which has its door open already. I look down at my phone. Two minutes. I sprint to the door and fling the door open, revealing Oliver’s standing figure. I sigh.

“Please just let me in without a lecture,” I plead. He moves aside, and I speed walk inside. I open a small cupboard and grab one of my hoodies, which I keep here, just in case I need them. I slip it on, placing the plastic bag in the corner on one of shelf racks.

I then drop onto my chair, leaning back in relief. I spin the chair once, then fix it so that I’m facing the table. I push closerto lean on it, where Oliver is sitting down. “Want to explain why you look like you just got out of a lake?” He asks immediately.

“I was in the rain. I didn’t have time to go back home and change,” I explain, laying my head on my arms.

“Looks like you also didn’t have time to rest. I need you on task,” he admonishes. I close my eyes for one second before sitting up straight and looking at him. His face is too serious.

“You look like you’re in a bad mood, did I do something wrong again?” I ask, practically surrendering already. I have been very careful since the last incident, especially when fans are around. I cannot think of anything that I’ve done, and I really hope I haven’t forgotten anything.

“Nothing, don’t worry. It’s about what I told you last time,” he states. Last time. We talked about the extra list last time. I did everything I needed to, and I’m adding things gradually. Even with my limited time, I got it done.

“I’m working on everything, like you told me.”

“Well, that’s the thing. What you’re doing isn’t to standard. It’s getting harder to get where people want you,” he says.Ouch. I know he didn’t mean that in a hurtful way, but it still hurts.

“What’s wrong this time?” I ask him. He crosses his arms on the desk, pushing his chair closer.

“The fanbase is developing at a rapid speed. They’re demanding more. They want more, Val, more than what you’re giving them. They want more concerts, more songs, more everything. You need to give them that,” he explains. Why do they want so much? There are a million artists out there; if they take a bit of each singer’s content, they’ll have enough. And I know this whole wanting more thing well enough; it’s happened before.

“Oliver, you know the fans. They ask for too much. Soon enough they’ll ask for one concert a day. Not everyone has the money for that, first of all. Second, if each singer had oneconcert each day, concerts would contain less people, if not no people. If they get bored of new songs, then they’ll get bored of the number of concerts being held. A concert is supposed to be special, happening every now and then, and they’re taking away the whole point of that!” I rant. I know how fans act; they will keep asking for more until they don’t like more.

“I know, but that’s not for us to decide. If the media wants this, it’s the only thing that will work. When they get bored, that’ll be their problem to fix.” he says. I shake my head. We both know that isn’t true.

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