Philautia || Amour Éternel Series BOOK ONE ||

Five - SHANNON

"Nice to meet you. Jonquille" she offered with a smile.

"Shannon," he replied.

"Alright, why don't you and Callie go have a look at the bathroom and we'll go out back to start ripping up the deck," Ben instructed, handing his a pry bar.

Shannon followed Callie through the house up to the second floor, through an empty bedroom, to a small bathroom. The room looked like time had stopped in the 1970's. The walls and floors were covered in the same ugly tan linoleum and the bath tub, toilet, and sink were all a dull avocado color. A dusty light hung over a distressed antique mirror and there was evidence of mold on the ceiling from decades of moisture trapped in the small space.

"Stay there, Callie," Shannon said, taking careful steps into the room.

The floor sagged slightly, a sure sign of it being structurally unsound. He used the pry bar to carefully lift up one of the linoleum floor tiles and he sighed. "Yep. This is all molded over. It all needs to come out." She made to come closer, but he stopped her. "Seriously, stay there. I don't think this floor could hold both of us."

"I'm not that fat," she scoffed, crossing her arms as he picked his way back into the bedroom.

"Of course not. You're not fat at all," he replied, sticking his tongue out. "I'm honestly surprised the floor is still holding up as it is. Your dad will have to go at it carefully and more than likely, he'll have to reinforce the joists from below. I don't think it would even hold up to guys in there ripping it apart."

"That's not good," she remarked.

"Nope. That room alone is probably a couple thousand dollars of work," Shannon said. "How did he even get this place?"

She shrugged. "I have no idea. He owns property in Coronado and Chula Vista, but I didn't know he was planning on expanding up here."

"Also, you know Keanu Reeves? I thought he was just one of your dad's clients?!" he asked incredulously.

"He is. Technically, what my dad told you wasn't wrong," she responded slowly. "They did meet at the Grand Prix here. Because I introduced them."

"How did you meet him then?"

"I was kind of his assistant for two years when I was in college," she admitted. "I went to school at UCLA and a professor of mine is a friend of Keanu's. She told me about how he needed an assistant at Archer and sent me over. He actually got me my first audition for Sanctum."

"That's oddly annoying," he chuckled.

"Why?"

"Because you just lucked into it - you didn't have to work for anything. You just got the connection right away," he explained. She arched an eyebrow at him. "Look, when Jared and I first started out in L.A., we had to literally work our asses off. He did photo shoots and took acting jobs he hated just to pay the bills and try to make connections. It took us five years, five years to get an in into a record contract. And you just snap your fingers and you've got an audition?"

She shifted on her feet and crossed her arms. "Are you implying that I didn't have to work for my role?"

Shannon shrugged. "You certainly didn't have to work as hard as other people do. You got lucky. And I guess that means something, right?" he said. "If you got that lucky, it means you're supposed to be doing this, right? Like some kind of divine intervention."

She smiled. "Never thought of it that way."

"We better go downstairs. Your dad's gonna flip when he hears about the damage," he told her, putting an arm around her shoulders and walking her down the stairs.