Eminent Hearts

Eminent Hearts [1]

CHAPTER 1

First off, the walking in heels—though I don’t like doing it—is something that you learn to deal with. 

The flash from dozens of different cameras becomes something like a wrinkle on your shirt. It’s there, but you can’t really do much to hide that fact, so you eventually ignore it.

Now that noise that comes from behind the cameras? That’s something that I still need to overlook.

“Chris! Over here!”

“Chris! How do you think you did in your latest movie, Hollow’s Dream?!”

“Ms. Meade, Ms. Meade! Do you have anything to say about the rumor of you being pregnant?!”

“Is it true that you’re leaving the country to hide from an ex-boyfriend? Chris! What do you think—“

“CHRIS, CHRIS, CHRIS! HAVE YOU HEARD THE RUMOR ABOUT YOU BEING OVERWEIGHT? CHRRRIIIIIIIIS!”

When I’m being beaten with nonsense questions and desperate TMZ reporters, what I normally do is walk right by them, but today was not a good day. They deserved something extra special.  So instead I just stopped, grinned, and then flip them all off.

Sure this may not be the best kind of reputation to give myself—the girl who lacks Red manners and large boobs--, but I’m not here to be liked by everyone else.  I’m here because I have to be, and I’m going to be damn sure that they know how I feel about it.

I felt a firm grasp on my forearm, and looked over my shoulder to see that it was Cameron, thoroughly pissed at me for pulling a stunt.  I grinned, “You never said to be on my best behavior.”

“I didn’t think you’d be acting like you’re five again.” She gritted through her teeth, restraining her anger but failing miserably. Knowing her, she can’t hide emotion worth squat.

“Aw, now what kind of five year old knows how to flip a few lenses off, sis? That’s just disturbing.” I sarcastically teased, ticking off Cam even more so.  Her grip on my arm got tighter; like, painfully tight. That was my queue to jerk my arm away and run away to safe my skin before there was some potential bloodshed.

I didn’t care for the mini photoshoot that was happening in at the center of the Red, so I went directly over to what I really care about.  The people who are like my second family: my fans.

Their noise is something I don’t ever want to overlook.

As soon as I walked over to their section, I hear practically the whole congregation scream my name in unison.  I couldn’t help, but greet them with a smile. Immediately, I found myself already with a pen in hand, signing away at every picture or piece of paper that was in front of me. 

“And your name is?” I asked politely to the young 11 year old girl who was standing up front with her mom.

“Ashley.” She replied shyly.

I grinned as I signed her poster: “To my dear friend, Ashley”. 

“Chris, Chris! Would you take a picture with me please?”

“Sure!”

“Ms. Meade! Could you sign this shirt for my son? He just loves your work!”

“No problem. What’s his name?”

It didn’t seem like long, but a couple minutes later Cam makes her way over to me. Apparently, while I had been preoccupied, the whole place had gotten quite busy, making it hard for her to catch up to me.  I was thankful since it seemed that pushing and shoving through glammed up celebrities had cooled her head.  Cam seemed much more composed and patient by the time she had her hand on my shoulder and whispered, “We need to go. Finish up soon all right?”

“Okay, okay.” I muttered, concentrating on autographing this guy’s arm.

As soon as I finished, the guy looked up and glanced behind me. He then looked puzzled and murmered, “Is that the new guy?”

Raising an eyebrow, I turned around to see what people were starting to now “ooh” and “ahh” about.  About 50 yards way from me was a tall, 20-ish looking old man in a black tuxe posing for the cameras. His looks were devilishly handsome, and his figure was well-built. But something was off…I felt like I’ve seen that smirk…and that outrageously curly dark brown hair. Who is he?

“Hey,” I whispered, looking at the dude who pointed him out in the first place, “Who is that guy?”

Surprised that I was talking to him, he responded astounded, “Oh, um..That’s Aaron something. I don’t know his last name...”

“IT’S QUINN! AARON QUINN!” A voiced from the crowd shouted.  Their outburst was greeted with a bunch of hushes and one “Gawd, can you be any louder?”.

I continued. “What do you guys know about him?”

This got them all stirred up as they discussed their many different answers with themselves until finally a girl spoke up, “No one really knows for sure where he’s from, but he did live in England for a time and moved back over here supposedly to pursue acting.”

“Yeah, he’s been in 2 Oscar-nominated movies already.”

“Not to mention he signed for that new vampire show on Fox..uh..Raining Blood, I think it’s called?”

“Plus, there are rumors that he’s gotten over 50 offers of product endorsements and business offers.”

 “Yeah, apparently he’s quite a charmer.”

“Hmm.” Was all that I could respond as I was trying to process what they were all saying.  Obviously this guy was good which meant he probably did some sort of schooling in England before coming here. Maybe he started acting young? But 50 endorsements/business deals? A show? Two possible award-winning movies? I would have heard about this guy let alone seen him before tonight. Then again, I stay out of rumor-mills as much as possible so it’s a fairly plausible for this information to pass me by.  Yet, then again…

I looked back behind me to see that he had gotten a little farther down the line, but still was in eye sight.  This time, though, I wasn’t concentrating on him; I was looking at the amount of lenses  pointing at him. The number was insane. True, there was a handful for each celebrity on the Red, but his handful was about the size of small army. Incredible. This guy really must be legit.

Suddenly, I felt the hairs on my arm stand up.  I glanced back at Mr. Newbie and noticed that he was staring right at me. No, not staring. Frowning. What the..? Is he trying to intimidate me? I then looked straight into his eyes and scowled right back. If he thinks that one creep stare is going to make me tremble in fear, he has another thing coming…

But his reaction… it wasn’t what I expected. Instead of preferably running away like a scared little dog, he only squinted like there was a glare in his eye and stuck his tongue out at me.  It was so quick that I doubt any of the cameras caught it!

Trying to hid my shock, I turned back around to face the fans who all had seen what just transpired and were now looking over at him with jaws dropped and appalled eyes. 

“Did he just--?”

“Yeah, I think he did..”

“What the fuck?!”

“JACKASS!” A guy with a long beard shouted, waving his fist in the air.

I laughed at their reactions and thought the last comment deserved a hearty round of applause. I don’t think my heart could get any prouder.

See why I love these guys?

 

Vocabulary for the Clueless

Red—(n) is a word short for the “Red Carpet”.