Sipping his coffee, Adam went into routine autopilot when his phone chimed. A message. The sender was Trevor Homam, and it had a picture of Adam sitting on the beach drinking an ice-cold drink, next to a visibly uncomfortable young man in the merciless sun.
Adam’s body testified to a not-too-distant past as an active gym member, and his skin had what one of his lady friends called a permanent tan. The other guy, though, was very thin, with glasses and skin so white that it inspired only compassion for what he had surely suffered in the days to come when that photo was taken, and below it, there was a text that said:
You promised there would be no evidence, and now I find out this photo exists.
Adam laughed so hard he almost spit out the coffee.
The same young man in the photo entered his office, although now his appearance was so neat—dressed in a suit and tie and smelling of perfume—that he contrasted with the painful image of the beach. In his face, however, the aggravations of sunstroke still showed.
“My good friend Trevor,” Adam called him. “It’s just that I thought there should be some evidence of the only visit to a beach you’ve made in the last fifteen years.”
“You know that because of this, now I’m the laughingstock of my own company’s board, right?” Trevor scolded him in a friendly way.
“Chill. Now, with the freighter stranded on the other side of the world, I guess we’ll have to move up the meeting. I’m gonna take the opportunity to talk to those dinosaurs and tell them you have a right to have a life outside of this building.”
Trevor adjusted his glasses with a smile.
“That won’t be necessary if you let me show them this,” he said and discovered what he was hiding under his suit. A holo-magazine, a plastic card that, with a slight touch, projected holographic images that were displayed as if it were a printed magazine. “It’s the latest issue of Loud, and you want to know who this month’s cover boy is?”
Running his hand over the card, Trevor activated it, revealing the magazine cover. Adam burst out laughing.
There he was, in all his glory—the glory of a few years ago—sitting on the beam of a building under construction, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts, showing his almost complete nudity to the rest of the city. The magazine’s title announced, ‘The Best Models of the Decade,’ and below, a sentence that said, ‘It’s time to look at Adam White’s trajectory, today a successful businessman. We reveal his past in the night world of parties and catwalks… with never-before-seen pictures!’
“Oh, damn!” Adam took the holo-magazine. His cheeks were burning hot.
“I Imagine that, with this, there will be a new horde of young ladies coming your way.”
Adam flipped through the holographic pages, glancing at the article about him and the so many photographs that illustrated it—And boy! Did that issue of Loud have photos of him! Entire pages with collages portraying countless moments from his past career.
“I knew that Lisandro Carinae was planning to relaunch his underwear brand,” Adam said, “and he wanted—”
“—You to model for him again?”
Adam shook his head with a smile.
“No way!” He patted his stomach. “This baby needs months in the gym before hitting the catwalk. No, Lisandro wanted to release some special editions of Loud. You know, something for the nostalgic ones. All of us who had worked as his models would relive our moment of glory, according to him. I thought this month would be Miguel’s time to shine, though, not mine. They must have changed their minds.”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
And skimming the article, his eyes came across a curious phrase:
At only thirty years old, Adam White has reached the top of Proxima City, and this editor believes it is because the former model has distanced himself from the bad star which he was born under.
Aha! Apparently, Trevor hadn’t been the only one who had gotten a copy of Loud.
“Hey,” he showed his friend the phrase. “What do you think about this?”
“…Distanced himself from the bad star which he was born under,” Trevor read. “Well, it’s clear. I mean, the phrase sounds somewhat esoteric, but it’s true, right?”
“What do you mean?”
Trevor shrugged. “Well…” he said, “there is an important path between the Adam who grew up in an orphanage, to the Adam I met at the University, who paid for his studies by modeling underwear for one of the most powerful firms on the continent, and the Adam of now who is my purchasing manager.”
“So, speaking of cheap phrases from the heart of a fortune cookie,” Adam said; “this morning someone hinted that I did that to cover my emotional potholes and suggested that I should take new directions and let go of the past.”
“Something like that must have come from one of your one-night stands, I guess.”
“Of course,” Adam nodded. “Yet another who may have thought that I, being an orphan, would be the personification of affective need—A bomb of disappointments for the girl at table four. Ready!”
“I think you’re reading too much into it,” Trevor said. “I think she was just mad at you because she knew she couldn’t get more time out of you than a couple of nights a month, and she wanted to let you know.”
“Which of the two? Grace or Tiffany?”
“—They were two?”
“Oh, forget it! Even if there were twenty of them, a couple of hours is the only thing I’m willing to offer. I love having my space.”
Trevor tried to disapprove of him and stay serious, but an embarrassed smile betrayed him.
“I remember when you said that to Brenda…” he said.
“She wanted to move in with me!” Adam justified himself. “What did you expect me to do?”
“You told her with the moving truck in front of the building.”
“Because she didn’t listen to the previous ninety-nine times that I told her. Take it or leave it, girls.”
“Okay, maybe that ‘let go of the past’ thing wasn’t so wrong,” Trevor said then, slowly, as if he knew he was getting into a swampy territory.
Indeed, Adam covered the plastic card with his hands, turning off the sequence of holograms, and waited for his friend to delve into the subject.
“Well…” Trevor gulped, “You know how you get when it comes to your space.”
“Aha.” Adam guessed where the conversation was heading and got defensive. “Very protective of my privacy, yes. If I wanted someone twenty-four-seven on top of me, I’d ask those sons of bitches from the Markabian Empire for asylum on their freaking island, wouldn’t you say? Unfortunately, I like to take a shit with the bathroom door open.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know. That, because I spent all my childhood sharing my room with a lot of kids without parents, now that I have my own space, I don’t wanna let it go.”
“There you have it.”
Adam snorted.
“So, what? Now suddenly you’re a shrink?” he said. “What is this coordinated attack? Magazine articles-stealing poetesses, resentful philosophers, and now couch-loving CEOs. Why don’t you call Rita now so she can try her luck defining me?”
With a smile, Trevor held up a hand, calling a truce, but Adam glanced at him, knowing that peace would be short-lived.
“Look, I have a proposition for you,” Adam said. “I promised two lady friends that tonight I would introduce them to Lisandro. We’ll go to his club. If you come with us, I promise to reconsider the whole ‘past’ thing. What do you say?”
Trevor chuckled. “You won’t do it.”
“You bet I won’t,” Adam admitted. “But it would be good for you to get out for a bit. Because, speaking of the past, you haven’t made much headway in the fun department since you took control of the company; and when was that?”
“Let’s see… My father passed away three years ago, so…”
“A long time! Come with me tonight and enjoy what remains of your youth and the money your father left you.”
Trevor was unconvinced about the plan.
“The last time I joined you on one of your adventures, I ended up with sunstroke,” he pointed out.
“It’ll be during the night. There will be no sun.”
“All right,” Trevor agreed. “I’ll tell Jim that—”
“No. No chauffeurs tonight,” Adam refused. “I’ll pick you up in my car, and we’ll be two boys with two girls on a night out. Like when we were students and ran away from your chauffeurs, your butlers, and your parents, remember?”
“Do I?! How can I not remember the countless times I had to put up with my father’s long face because of you!?”
“Bah! You were already of legal age, and it was time to rise up. Now that you are a responsible gentleman, you can no longer do it.”
“Look here. These sunburn marks are my way of thanking you,” Trevor said and laughed.