six.

Mason was letting me off and I couldn’t help but narrow my eyes in suspicion. I felt like he had something up his sleeve but I didn’t say anything. Instead, I put the car on reverse and backed out of the parking space. Noah was quiet for the first ten minutes and I knew she was letting me have my time with my thoughts.

Until she couldn’t take it anymore. “You know I respect your privacy and shit, but how the hell do you know Mason James?”

I gritted my teeth in annoyance. “I don’t.”

Noah scoffed. “Don’t give me that bullshit, Zo. I witnessed everything.”

I slowed down the car as soon as the light turned yellow and stopped when it changed to red. I tapped my fingers against the steering wheel. “What’s there to explain, Noah? You already know about it after getting me drunk that one time.”

Noah let out a sound that sounded like a gasping fish and I gave her a long side-eye. She looked like a seal clapping her hands in amusement. “The one guy that you managed to ‘flirt’ with on a level as far as you can go turns out to be the Mason James?”

I could feel my self-esteem deflating like a popped balloon. I already felt remorseful after the realization that I made out with a stranger struck me. It became worse when I found out that the guy was Mason James and I only did after a teaser of the series he was in popped up on YouTube when I was watching vlogs.

It was one thing to feel remorseful about making out with a man that I did not know, it was something else entirely to find out that he was a rising celebrity. But that’s probably just me because any other girl would be thrilled to know that someone as appealing as Mason kissed them. It was just that I couldn’t stop feeling insecure.

I had the audacity to feel really good about myself with how I ended that interaction with. I felt like I had the upper hand but after finding out who he was, what I did would’ve faded in the background compared to how other girls would’ve treated him. Plus, I couldn’t help but think that he was bored that time and thought I was easy enough to toy with.

God, the whole thing was embarrassing!

“Don’t remind me of my humiliation,” I muttered under my breath and stepped on the gas as soon as the light turned green. Noah was chortling in amusement beside me as we finally reached our apartment and even as we went up, she still found the whole thing hilarious.

I slammed the door behind me once we got back in our apartment. “You must think that this whole thing is utterly hilarious, don’t you?”

Snickering, Noah smirked at me. “I’m sorry, Zo. It’s just that, the chances of bumping into celebrities is California is a likely thing for anyone. But there’s always been a 10% chance of you making out with a random dude and a 0.1% chance for that guy to turn out to be a celebrity. Any girl would be thrilled and milk out on the experience but you are absolutely mortified.”

I sank into our sofa and grabbed a throw pillow, covering my face with it. “Does this make me weird?”

I expected Noah to say yes but she sat beside me and took the throw pillow from me. She had this soft look in her eyes and even if I could see the amusement glinting in them, there was something sincere about how she looked at me. “No. But it does say a lot about your inexperience with men.”

I groaned and chucked a pillow at her direction. “Maybe this is the universe’s idea of telling me that I should take back my resignation letter and continue on with my job. As much as I hate proving my family right, I can’t really go against the universe’s wishes.”

“Or maybe that’s just you shying away in embarrassment because your landlord is a guy you once made out with.”

I pursed my lips and stood up, deciding to completely ignore Noah. I opened my laptop on my table and decided to check on how my story was doing. I felt like it was the kind of positivity I needed after immersing myself in such a situation. I hated feeling like I was a deer shocked by the headlights of a car. I hated not being able to see things coming.

Noah didn’t bug me about the whole thing. She knew that when I start ignoring her, I desperately want the topic to be dropped and never to be brought up to the table. She lingered in the living room for a moment before grabbing a drink from the kitchen and hiding in her room. I sighed, leaning against the back of my computer chair and staring at the comments flooding the recent chapter I posted.

The positive comments were the sole highlight reel of my life. They made me feel good enough as a writer even when I knew that wasn’t entirely true. For me, being a good writer meant establishing an actual career in the craft. With that said, having an entire manuscript published and reviewed by countless of readers around the world.

And pocketing more than just royalties out of it but actual figures that could sustain a person.

I was re-reading the comments when my phone pinged beside me. I received an email and I quickly picked up my phone to check. A week ago, someone had contacted me via email stating that they were interested with my work. They were planning to create a short film on YouTube and they came across one of the short stories I posted years ago on Tumblr when it was still a thing.

I think they were scrounging up platforms after platforms, aware that if you look hard enough, you’d find a gem somewhere. According to them, that gem happened to be an old work of mine so they contacted me. It was a good thing that I never changed my email since I was 17- mostly because I sucked at remembering passwords and username- so I received their message.

They asked me if I was interested and asked me to edit the story a bit since it was written by the seventeen-year-old version of me and clearly needed major editing. Since I didn’t really have anything better to do, I sent them the edited file three days ago and forgot all about it right after. 

As I read their message, I felt as if my heart was going to explode. They were asking to meet me to discuss the story and meet with the actor that they’ve requested to play the role. It would be a fifteen-minute short film that would be up on YouTube. Fifteen minutes was long enough to open even the tiniest hole for more opportunities to come my way.

I honestly thought this whole thing was a scam. When I received the email last week, I didn’t really think that much of it. I knew that I wouldn’t lose anything if I went through with it because I wasn’t presenting my personal information or putting money on the table. I had already come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t progressing as much as I wanted as a writer hence why I wanted to start the café.

It was a last minute attempt to pursue a career in writing, the kind I’ve always dreamed of. I didn’t really care if they responded because I already set my mind on other things. But now they did and I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel.

I re-read their message and zeroed in on the date, location, and time of the meeting they wanted to hold. If I was available tonight, then we could have the meeting right away. If not, we had to schedule it at the time the actor would be available again. With my heart racing, my thumbs typed gently tapped through the screen as I typed out a reply.

Maybe opportunities did come in the least expected time.