STEFAN
Few days after
After he finished filming yesterday for his new film, this early morning Stefan needed to go to the gym near this apartment building. He keeps doing that to keep his body fit for his next casting call, but before he crashes the gym, he prepares his own breakfast and his everyday protein shake. His morning routine is always the same since he lives alone without his mother. As he opens his fridge, he begins to make his everyday salad and poach eggs. In the meantime, he finished making his breakfast and he brought that to his tv room beside the balcony. He put his breakfast on the coffee table in front of the tv. After that he looked for the tv remote then turned on the television to watch the series he hadn't finished last week, "let's see how Robert's character is doing after that freaking plot twist" then he ate his breakfast while watching the series. He is so focus on the series while drinking his protein shake, when he look at his best friend act there, he just mesmerizes how the storyline of that series can be so good even he can predict what's next, when he finished his protein shake, when he was finishing his protein shake, he heard his cell phone ringing and saw who was calling him, it turned out that Chris was the one who called him, he immediately picked up.
"Yes Chris, when will you pick me up?" says Stefan while he gets up and cleans his breakfast plate.
"After you go to the gym, I bet you are still laying your stomach on your bed" says Chris. Stefan just rolls his eyes and then says
"I just finished my breakfast and about to go to the gym center, I'll bring my clothes for the casting call, so I'll call you later" he hung up the call and he went to his bathroom and got ready to the gym. After a while, he get ready to go with his bag on his shoulder for a change of clothes after working out at the gym, "looks like I've brought all the things I need" while looking at inside his bag, he almost forgot to bring his mineral water bottle and immediately took his mineral water bottle and filled the bottle with mineral water, "almost forget the most important part, okay let's go to my earth torture things" says Stefan with deep sighs.
When he locks his door, his neighbor also comes out from her apartment, both of them just stay silent and go straight to the elevator. Stefan pushes the elevator button and he hears his neighbor say "thank you", as they are waiting for the elevator to go up, Stefan breaks the silence and turns his head to her "Ah, I didn't introduce myself yet, pardon me. I'm Stefan by the way, your new neighbor" he offered his hand to get acquainted with his neighbors and the girl received an introduction from her new neighbor by shaking his hand and the girl break her silence, she smile and says "I'm Irene, nice to meet you sir" Stefan chuckles bit then says "just call me Stefan, no need to be formal" as they talk, the elevator open "after you, Irene" then Irene got into the elevator after that followed by Stefan.
Inside the elevator, Irene took her glance to Stefan and said "are you gonna go to the gym near this building?" Stefan nodding "yes, yesterday I saw gym center near this building" Irene smile at his answer "I go to that gym too, but that's when I need to go to gym, if not, then I'm not going and just relaxing in my couch with my tea or coffee" Stefan just glance to her with little smirk that she can't see as she speaks and then the elevator door open, both of them go out and walk to the main door of the building. "Well, looks like we are going in opposite directions, nice to meet you neighbor." says Irene then she walks away from him while Stefan just looking at her not saying anything and just walks to the gym.
Stefan had just finished his workout session at the gym, then he rushed to shower and change clothes for the casting call because Chris had called him that he had picked him up in front of the gym. He saw Chris's car then walked over to the car and knocked on the driver's glass making Chris wake up from his little nap then he unlocked the car and Stefan opened the passenger door to put his bag then he closed it again, after that he opened the front passenger door and sat there which made Chris surprised but Stefan just said "this is your car, not mine so I sit here and we'll be late, we should go now."
After an hour and a half journey to the casting venue, they arrived at the casting venue and it turned out that there were lots of actors casting just for today. Even though he is a senior actor because he has been working since he was 10 years old, he is still an actor who is polite because his mother always says that. "Now, just wait until your name gets called, I have to go to the casting director's assistant to inform you okay, sit there and relax" said Chris while he walked to the casting room. Stefan sits there with a lot of young actors and some new face actors that he can't recognize. He takes a deep breath, Stefan is still nervous to get a casting call like this, all of his trauma in the past just making him feel nervous also starts controlling his own breath, then he takes a deep breath and exhales, now he feels more calm. He heard someone call his name and when he looked to his left, his best friend, Robert, was there too.
"Oh, our casanova is here, what role did they offer to you?" ask Robert,
"I have no idea, Rob. They said I should just come to this audition, just that."
As he answered Robert's question, the casting director assistant called Stefan name and Robert tapped Stefan on the shoulder "good luck man, I hope for the best'' and Stefan answered it "thanks Rob, and don't go home first, let's eat lunch together" then Stefan went to the audition room. Chris meets with Robert and Robert's manager there, all of them waiting for Stefan to finish his audition. About an hour passed, Stefan came out of the audition room while looking for his manager, several actors recognized Stefan and several actors greeted Stefan, but because Stefan was an awkward person he only nodded his head to greet several actors who greeted him. Stefan meets with his manager, Robert and Robert's manager, Alex in front of the building.
"How's your audition man? I can't tell by your flat face there" says Robert with chuckles and he put his arm around Stefan and patted Stefan's shoulder.
"It was alright, I did what the casting director told me to do for the role", says Stefan then Alex asks Stefan about lunch "so where shall we have lunch? Any recommendations here? Chris or Stefan?" while thinking, Chris suddenly tapped Alex on the shoulder and said
"how about we eat at a restaurant near Stefan's new apartment, maybe an hour from here, but the food is very good, like home food" then Alex answer that
"great idea there, you lead the way Chris" Alex and Robert go to their car, Chris got into his car while starting his car engine and Stefan open the door and get inside Chris's car then Chris drove off followed by Robert's car behind them.
After an hour's drive, they arrived at the restaurant that Chris usually ate when picking Stefan up from his apartment. The sound of the bell at the restaurant door rang as they entered the restaurant. They were greeted by the restaurant's waiter and the restaurant has a feel of a home restaurant like in France.
"Welcome, for how many people?" asked the waiter,
"for four people please, also can we sit not close to the window?" says Chris to the waiter.
"Okay sir, this way" the waiter showed the way to their seats while carrying a menu book. They sat in the middle of the room with a homely feel in France. The waiter also gave the menu book for the four of them and started taking notes on what they ordered. After that, Robert also opened the conversation about the big news circulating on the internet about his best friend. "Chris, how do you handle that crappy news about Stefan? We all know that is not true, even Alex thinks that Jessica is just faking it up." Stefan just stared at his cell phone while scrolling through some of the news on the internet about him.
"That has been resolved by the company, but you know for yourself how Stefan's attitude was towards Jessica in the past" then looked at Stefan who only looked down at his cell phone
"everything can be said to be in order only this is all back again with Stefan's decision to sue her or not, because the company already wants to take legal action, because this makes Stefan's good name worse because of her false statement."
Chris could only sigh because this was the first time Stefan's ex had done this. Alex and Robert looked at Stefan who only gave Stefan's signature smirk and he said "even if I sue everyone involved, Jessica will not stay silent to maintain her reputation that I built for her, just like a bean that forgets its skin. I just want him to withdraw all his statements and apologize personally to my company and myself, that's all Also I'm too lazy to deal with the paparazzi, some of them even followed us all the way here."
The quiet Stefan could also say that to someone who almost destroyed his reputation which he had built since he was a teenager. Stefan's manager could only laugh at Stefan's statement. Their food came and they ate the food while the managers talked about film offers for their artists. On the other hand, Stefan and Robert focused on eating their food without starting a conversation. Until the door at the restaurant rang signaling there was another customer coming in to the restaurant make Robert and Stefan look at the door because they sat opposite the door of the restaurant and then Stefan saw someone he knew enter the restaurant, she was Irene, his neighbor in the new apartment he is living in now. When Irene entered the restaurant, Stefan caught a glimpse of Irene talking maybe with her friends and Irene sitting behind them looking at the menu. Irene sat facing Stefan and Robert so that they both looked at each other and from that look, they seemed to be greeting with just their glances.
"Who's that, your new girl?" ask Robert to Stefan he looked at Robert then said "she's just my neighbor" only his short answer made Robert dissatisfied by his answer.
At Stefan's table, all of them were discussing some new film project but Stefan always glanced at Irene who was chatting and laughing with her friends. Robert, who glanced at Stefan because he was silent, turned out to be stealing glances at his neighbor. Robert's cheeky smile to his best friend "only neighbor huh?" then Stefan gives him his death stare, "okay, easy there handsome devil" on their entire conversation in that table, Stefan is the only one who can't focus to join the conversation because he was too busy stealing glances at his neighbor making Robert annoyed with that and he just hit his best friend shoulder making the entire table and also Irene's table looking at them because Robert hit it too hard. "Jesus Christ, Robert. what the fuck dude." he said that while holding his shoulder in pain, their managers just shaking their heads to see their artist acts like a child.
.
.
After their lunch, Robert stayed at Stefan's apartment for a day just because he was curious about his best friend's neighbor that made him not focus on their conversation at the restaurant earlier which usually makes Stefan very interested in work and big projects like that. Stefan gets to his dressing room to give his best friend some of his clothes and clean underwear that is always in his cupboard because he knows that his best friend sometimes wants to stay overnight without bringing his own clothes and underwear.
"Here's your pajamas and underwear, your room is over there, everything is still brand new I didn't use that."
Robert takes the clothes and the underwear "thanks man, now let's talk about the real thing." Stefan looked confused by his friend's statement "what do you mean the real thing?"
Then he sat down on his sofa trying to guess what it meant. "Oh, don't be silly Stefan, I mean your neighbor" as he sat beside his friend, Stefan just looked at him and said "she is a girl who lived beside my apartment, that's nothing else Rob."
Robert just smiling at him "you are looking at her at the restaurant like you looking at Jessica when you started dating her, couple months ago, same gaze but for different girl, I'm your friend since we are in middle school, I know exactly who you are Stefan, don't lie to yourself",
Stefan just give him smirk "she is just my neighbor, I have to be a good neighbor, that's it. Also, I don't remember how my eyes looked at Jessica, let's not talk about her now."
"Okay, if you don't want to talk about her, let's talk about your neighbor, she's kinda cute you know also she looks like a foreign" Stefan's look like want to kill Robert after he said that to him.
"I think she is not from LA and also picked another girl you want to impress but not her Rob" Robert just laughing at him
"are you already claiming her? Dude, you just broke up with Jessica couple days ago, let it slide, don't be so rush also it's already night time we should get something to eat, I'm hungry" Stefan just watching the TV not responding to Robert while Robert go to Stefan's kitchen to search some food that he can eat.
"Dude, you want some ramen? I can make it for you too" he starts to boil some water
"yeah, sure. If you want an egg, you can get it in the fridge" Robert gets the eggs and starts to cook the ramen and the eggs.
After it was already cooked, Robert put it in a bowl for two of them and brought it to the TV room while his friend was still watching his series. "You really like my series huh? here you go, the ramen with egg in it." Stefan took the bowl and started to eat his ramen. "don't tell Chris, I'm just sick of that salad, he thinks I'm a goat who eats salad every day" both of them eat the ramen peacefully while watching Robert's series. After that they clean all the mess, turn off all the lights and TV cause they are getting ready to sleep because it was almost midnight. "Goodnight Mr. Handsome devil, thanks for the ramen" Robert shouted a little when Stefan entered his room and locked the door with his head now filled with the girl next door's face.
-tbc.