Holy shit that’s an iPhone.
A shiny, brand new iPhone that was in a lot better condition than his.
After a glance around, expecting someone to claim it, people continued past him without another thought. Well, the one consensus may’ve been “move it, punk,” but nothing more than that. New York continued to buzz with the sounds of the city on the cold morning. He bent down to pick up the phone and dusted it off before pressing the home button.
The picture on the wallpaper was of some guy in the most hideous Christmas sweater he’d ever seen. He was kind of short with bushy, curly hair, and was doing this douchey pose while pointing to his bicep.
Elijah decided to ignore the voice in the back of his head telling him to sell it and get his baby niece something nice for Christmas. This would easily go for $500 at one of the countless cell phone spots in the city, and maybe even more on Amazon. But, the holiday season was here and it honestly had to suck to lose a new cell phone right now.
Elijah chewed on his bottom lip as he considered the options. He would decide what to do when he got to the mailroom.
∞
“That guy is hot. Do you think it’s his phone?”
Elijah scratched at the koi fish tattoo on his arm. “If this guy has a picture of himself posing like a fuckboy as his phone’s background, then he deserved to lose it. He deserved to lose it for that sweater alone.”
Elijah’s best friend laughed as she hopped onto the desk in the mailroom. Fallon was interning for one of the law firm’s partners, and he wasn’t sure how she hadn’t been terminated yet. Most of her time was spent doing nothing in the mail room with him, or reading gossip websites at her desk. Occasionally, her boss would remember she existed, and would ask her to look something up for a case, but research was usually the extent of her four hour shifts. She was nothing like the cool kids on How to Get Away with Murder.
Fallon flipped her red hair from one side to the other as she looked at the phone. “Hm. Eventually they’ll call, I think. No one can just up and lose a seven-hundred-dollar phone and not call it.”
Elijah nodded. “Well, I found it an hour ago and haven’t heard anything yet. Soon, I guess.”
She turned up the radio. That annoying song by one of those Millennium Records artists was playing. Elijah didn’t understand how people willingly listened to that crap.
“So how was your date last night?” Fallon asked.
Elijah rolled his eyes, tossing an empty sandwich wrapper towards the garbage bin. The “date” was hardly a date. It was more of an “I’ll come over after 9” type of situation, which made him wonder if Craig or Greg or whatever his name was happened to be with a boyfriend beforehand. They had pizza and fucked, a typical Sunday night for Elijah. But the bad thing was that when he woke up, Craig-Greg was still there. This broke Rule #2. Elijah didn’t like that at all.
“He was a bit clingy,” he answered. “He stayed the night, which wasn’t supposed to happen, especially since I told him the rules before we walked into my place, and then he got up at like 5 AM to make himself breakfast – using my groceries.”
Fallon laughed. “I love it.”
“I hate it.” He ignored the tons of mail that needed to be sorted and instead picked up a blank sheet of paper, balling it up and tossing it into the recycle bin across the room. It hit the rim and fell onto the floor. “How was your Sunday evening? I didn’t get a text back…”
“Well, I fell asleep watching a Sex and the City marathon at around…eight-ish? You know how it is. I get a little wine in me and the party is over.”
Elijah listened as he walked over to pick up the paper. “Eight, Fallon? You went to sleep at eight?”
“This mailroom is a judgment-free zone.” She was stern as she said it. “Anyway, Ladies drink free tonight at Club Six, so I’m going over there with Denise and Selena. If I’m lucky, I’ll have to take tomorrow off if you know what I mean.” Fallon wiggled her eyebrows in a very suggestive way, but it looked cornier than anything.
Elijah shook his head and successfully tossed the paper in this time. “Pretty sure hooking up with a random won’t help you get over Michael.”
“You’re one to talk with all the randoms you sleep with, Eli.”
“Which is exactly why I’d know…” Elijah stood up and walked over to a stack of envelopes in a box. “And besides, you’re a lot better than I am. You know that.”
A loud alarm sounded in the mailroom, making Fallon jump off the table. It was a shrill noise reminiscent of a smoke detector going off. She relaxed once she noticed the source of the sound beside her thigh.
“The mystery phone is going off! There’s a text.”
Elijah lifted an eyebrow as he approached. “Make it stop doing that before someone finds you down here.”
She pressed the home button and the noise stopped. “It has a number to call.”
Elijah accepted the phone from his friend and read the message.
New Message:
This phone has been lost. If found, give a call to Grayson at 212-555-0516.
“Grayson,” Elijah read aloud. He decided he would do the right thing. If he didn’t, someone would probably trace it, and he didn’t want any problems. Besides, karma was a bitch. “Let me give him a call, then.”
“Shit,” Fallon groaned. Her cell was going off now. “My boss is calling. Keep me posted!” She was out of the room in no time.
Elijah looked down at the number as he picked up the office phone.
∞
Grayson passed his empty mug from one hand to the other as he waited for the coffee to finish brewing.
After arriving at his office that morning, Grayson searched for his cell phone for the umpteenth time. It was all to no avail.
His father didn’t even bother to lecture him for being late. Grayson didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. It usually meant he’d hold onto it for when things were going too well and use it against him. He ended up taking Grayson right into a meeting with one of the label’s many non-talented artists as they negotiated another album. Grayson only sat there and watched his father and their lawyers work everything out ‘for experience,’ Harvey would tell him.
He didn’t get to call the phone company to report his iPhone as lost until half an hour later. After he explained that his GPS services were turned off, they walked him through how to send a page to the phone to see if someone had found it. That was the stage Grayson was at now. He combed his fingers through his dirty blond hair as he said a silent prayer that it had been found. He also prayed that it wasn’t a money hungry asshole who’d found it. At least he didn’t have any nude photos on it, so a hacker wouldn’t have anything too juicy to hold over his head.
God. What if Oscar had texted him something ridiculous and whoever found it was reading it. That would suck. Sometimes when Grayson came out of the subway, tons of texts from Oscar would pop up. The series of “WHERE DOES THE DETERGENT GO IN THE WASHER AGAIN?” were always his favorite, but there were also a couple, “YOU BETTER HAD NOT HID MY PORN STASH, GRAYSON PAUL!”
But the worst that could happen would be Grayson having to buy a new phone. It didn’t matter that he could easily afford one, what mattered here was that he was 24 and shouldn’t be that irresponsible. Grayson had just gotten the phone five weeks ago, and prior to this, he’d lost two others and destroyed the screen of a Blackberry he once owned. It was time to be more responsible.
This was the universe’s way of punishing him for wasting his father’s company time. Next time, he wouldn’t hit snooze.
The coffee finally finished brewing. He looked out of the glass doors of his pointless office to see the idiots that worked for his dad in their expensive suits, laughing it up over whatever people with their salaries talked about. Grayson poured himself a cup of coffee and sighed. Eight more hours of this, and he could go home and be a nobody in a fancy tie there.
The sound of his office phone ringing annoyed the shit out of him. Thi
s was how Grayson was pre-coffee. Everything annoyed him. But then he remembered he was expecting a call – well, hoping for a call. He put the coffee pot back in its place and dashed over to his desk, reaching for the phone and picking it up on the third ring.
“Millennium Records! This is Grayson speaking.”
“Uh… this is Millennium Records as in the Millennium Records?”
Grayson looked down at the number on the caller ID. It read Dawson, E.
“Yes. That Millennium Records. How may I help you?”
The person hesitated for a while, but eventually he cleared his throat and resumed. “Well, I found a phone this morning on the corner of 50th and Lex and I got a message to call this number –”
“Yes! Yes.” Grayson sighed in relief. “Thank you so much for calling. I can’t believe I dropped it in the first place.”
Another hesitation. “Yeah. It’s in good condition and all. The case on it is pretty durable, I guess. It was just there on the ground. I kinda stepped on it but everything is fine and I just brought it back to my work –”
Grayson cheered internally. “Thanks again. I can’t express how happy I am that you didn’t try and like sell it or keep it or anything like that.”
The guy on the other end laughed a bit before replying. “Of course not. Listen… Grayson, right?”
“Yes. And you are?”
“Elijah,” he answered.
Grayson started to straighten his tie as he held the phone to his ear. “Well, Elijah. I hope I’m not being an inconvenience, but my lunch break is at 1:00 and if we could meet up somewhere, that would be great.”
“I can take a 1 o’clock lunch,” Elijah said.
His voice was smooth, though there was loud music playing in the background. Grayson wasn’t exactly sure which song, but it made him wonder where Elijah worked that would let him play music so loudly.
Elijah spoke again. “Where do you want to meet up? I don’t even know if we work that close to one another…”
Grayson thought for a moment. It would have to be somewhere public just in case his phone was found by a psychopath. He usually spent his lunch breaks in the cafeteria at work because the food was free, and delicious, and it was freezing outside, but bringing this strange person to his place of work wouldn’t be the best idea.
“There’s a café on Park Avenue that’s really good. Symphony Café. I think it’s… Park and –”
“Fortieth,” Elijah said. “My boss talks about that place all the time.”
It was the café that Eleanor worked at. He could go visit her, order a cheese croissant, and get his phone back in one shot. Grayson turned and looked out the window from his 26th floor corner office, staring out at the city like he often had done.
“Anytime you can be there between 1 and 2 would be good for me. Um… just call this number again if you have any questions, or if something comes up I guess.”
“For sure,” was Elijah’s response.
Grayson was about to hang up when the guy spoke again.
“Out of curiosity, is that you in the background photo? Red and green Christmas sweater and the curly hair? Pointing at your flexed muscle?”
He laughed because he remembered his phone’s wallpaper photo, and Elijah probably had a “WTF is this?!” moment looking at it. “No. That’s my best friend. There’s a good story behind that picture, I promise. But I’m 6’2”, blond – my hair is combed back because I need it cut, and I’m wearing a grey pinstripe suit with a solid navy blue tie.”
“Oh. Okay. Well I’m a couple inches shorter, I have on a green hoodie and black denim jeans. Tall, dark hair. Black Timberland boots. Can’t really miss me, I guess.”
Grayson nodded. “So I’ll see you this afternoon. Thanks again.”
The man replied, “No problem at all. See you soon.”
He hung up the phone and did a small jump in celebration. This day wasn’t as shitty as it had the potential to be! It would be difficult not playing games on his phone while pretending to do something in this huge office his father gave him just because he was Harvey Paul’s son – seriously, he could handle his workload with just a desk, but whatever.
He’d pass the time somehow.
For now, there was a cup of coffee with his name on it. He literally skipped over to his coffee pot and made it light and sweet like he preferred, and prayed that his father wouldn’t lock him into another meeting he’d gain nothing from.
Knock-knock.
Apparently he hadn’t prayed hard enough.
Grayson took a sip from his I ♡ Millennium Records mug and borderline moaned at the taste. His father was watching through the glass walls as he approached, and Grayson wished he’d closed the blinds when he walked into his office.
“Did you get those copies I asked for?”
Grayson stared at his father. “Hello to you, too.”
“I didn’t see them on my desk,” Harvey continued. “And why aren’t you answering your phone?”
“Simmons said I could give the copies to him.” Grayson took another sip before formulating a lie. He could hear his father’s response now if he told the truth.
“You think you can run this company but you can’t even keep track of your cell phone?”
He cleared his throat and thought of something else.
“I didn’t charge it last night. It’s charging now.”
Harvey merely stared at him. “We’re going to sit in on The Pretty Committee’s recording session. Let’s go.” His father had already started to walk off before Grayson could respond. “If you’re lucky, I’ll let you help run their social media promotion.”
Harvey Paul usually didn’t care about what Grayson had to say. He was one of those parents that wanted you to listen and do what the hell they told you to. That was especially the case when it came to his business. Harvey made it known that he expected his son to take over his legacy – he said it in interviews and he’d told Grayson that since he was a little boy. It just didn’t seem that way. All he was doing was following him around like a lap dog and handling administrative duties when informed to.
To be fair, it wasn’t like Harvey was anywhere near ready to retire. He was only in his late fifties and one of the most active executives in the country. His name was everywhere, and he was responsible for a lot of the talent playing on radio stations today. Grayson didn’t understand why that meant he couldn’t be given some real responsibility to match the use of a corner office, though.
He closed the door behind himself as he tried to catch up as quickly as he could without spilling the hot coffee. “I’ll pass on that, Dad.”
“You’ve been asking me for more challenging responsibilities for a long time now. Don’t say no when I give you what you asked of me.” They approached the elevator and Harvey pressed the down arrow.
“You’re right that I’ve been asking for better, but you know I could go and find my own talent to manage –”
“So the girls already recorded two songs that they want me to hear and they’ll be working on the songs that Jamison wrote today. Remember that song you wrote for Zach that we never used? Maybe we can give that to these girls.”
Grayson swallowed the coffee as he tried not to roll his eyes. “So, you’re finally going to give me something else to do, and that something else will be working with The Pretty Committee?”
Harvey turned to him. “Is that a problem? If you’d rather continue being my assistant, then feel free to.”
The Pretty Committee. Grayson had been waiting two years to get the opportunity to work with an artist. Preferably his artist. Now, his father was offering him the chance to work with The Pretty Committee.
“Really, Dad? I’d apply for Radio Disney if I wanted to cater to 9-year-old girls.”
His father laughed as the two of them walked onto the elevator. “I am aware you don’t want to cater to girls of any age, Grayson.”
He rolled his eyes.
“You’ve been complaini
ng to me that you want more responsibility within Millennium Records, correct?” asked Harvey. He straightened his tie and rubbed at the graying scruff on his cheeks. “Look at this as your trial era. I could hire someone with years more experience than you have, but I’m letting you learn on the job.”
His father pressed the button for the 10th floor where some of the recording studios were located.
“I don’t understand why you won’t give me the chance to prove myself to you –”
“What do you call this?” Harvey laughed. “This is me giving you the chance. Prove that you can handle making these girls superstars and maybe there will be a worthwhile promotion in your future –”
“I want you to trust me to do something I’m passionate about.” Grayson was not passionate about this girl band.
His father didn’t react to the words as the elevator doors opened. Grayson followed him down the corridor and over to Studio B. The door was closed, but he could see clear inside. The four girls – two 17 and two 18 – were listening to playback and dancing. The producer and their manager nodded their heads along.
“Here’s the thing,” Harvey began. “I’m still the boss here, and until we have our clients at the positions on the charts that I need them to be, we aren’t going to go out looking for any more talent. And until you show me that you’re committed to the talent I’ve already discovered, and that you’re willing to do what it takes as a professional to make sure our ends of the deals are always kept up, then I’m not going to ask you to go out and look for talent to bring in.”
Mr. Paul gave him a condescending pat on the shoulder before turning to go inside the studio. There was nothing that Grayson wanted more than to argue his point. How could he be expected to give himself 100% to something he didn’t give a crap about? These artists were all about singing nursery rhymes over a flashy beat. Grayson didn’t want his name tied to that. He wanted to be responsible for changing music in a way he could be proud of.
The Pretty Committee had one Internet Single which was a blatant teen-bop before his father signed them to Millennium Records. It was the exact type of music that he knew they would continue to make more of, and if his father wanted him to help with that…
Something Real Page 3
