Broken Record

Chapter 12: Stevie

It was getting late at the office. Like 2:30 AM late. Stevie rubbed her eyes as she pulled off her oversized headphones and let out a yawn. She was too tired to keep mixing but not tired enough to do the adult thing and take her ass home to sleep. Stevie had never been good at maintaining a regular, healthy schedule. Every day was a new normal and being a music producer didn't exactly require that she worked 9 to 5. As long as the streams kept rolling in, she could work at whatever odd hours she pleased. Well, aside from that one time she'd been fifteen minutes late on her first day. Mr. Benton West hadn't liked that one bit.

Stevie poked her head outside of the recording studio and headed toward the lounge-style breakroom. She made herself an espresso, a recent shift from her former energy drink habit, and started to wander the halls. She mainly mixed in Aero's studios and sometimes they had brainstorming sessions in one of the conference rooms, but other than a few meetings, like that god-awful one with Jelena Kingston and her momager, Stevie mainly kept to herself. She headed out to the front reception area, remembering that Aero had once told her about a fancy kitchen behind the front desk where they usually had the best food kept. Apparently people from PR companies would bring stuff to the studio in the form of a bribe. Stevie hadn't eaten in hours and hadn't even turned on the stove in her company-provided studio apartment. Cooking was never going to happen. Her stomach rumbled and she hoped that there was something good in the fridge to tide her over.

She stopped for a moment when she noticed Mary's computer screen was bright, almost glowing in the dimly lit space. She glanced around for a moment, thinking that perhaps Mary was still here. The girl really seemed to have something against Stevie, but then again maybe she was just cold toward everyone. They'd hardly spent a total of ten minutes together.

"Mary?" Stevie called out tentatively, walking over to her desk. A spinning wheel on the monitor read, Installation Update: Completing.

Stevie nodded to herself as she sipped her espresso. Mary clearly had left her computer to update overnight and was not still here at the office like a psycho past 2:00 AM. Stevie was about to turn into the kitchen when she heard a metallic ping from the computer. When she glanced back, Mary's desktop was open as if she hadn't had a chance to shut everything down before the software update installation began. Stevie grabbed the mouse and squinted her eyes, knowing she should probably stop peeking, but curious nonetheless.

One tab had Benton's calendar open. And holy shit that thing was packed. How did the guy even have time to eat? Or take a bio break? The thing was loaded with overlapping little rectangles of time, packed fully to the gills from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM with a few scattered late night and early morning meetings in other time zones. Stevie sat down in Mary's chair, careful not to click anything that would cause an action and scanned the calendar, marveling at the realization that these corporate bigwigs really did work hard after all. Still, they sold their souls to the devil...the thought reminding her of Benton's nickname and his almost pleased reaction to her telling him about it. I mean, who would react like that? Almost like he wanted to be thought of as the devil. Stevie scanned over each day in the week, noticing that yesterday evening Benton had a private appointment on the calendar after work. It was the only 'private' box she noticed all week. Must've been a doctor's appointment or a teeth cleaning...but did they even stay open that late? Stevie scrolled to next week and the week after, each one having a single 'private' evening meeting, usually on Thursday's but sometimes not. She started to think that maybe it could be a weekly gym session, but she noticed he had several early, early as fuck to be more precise, gym sessions blocked off in the morning. No wonder he looked so solid beneath his fancy dress clothes...

Stevie was about to give up on the snooping when she noticed another open tab on Mary's browser. It was a Google Doc with no collaborators titled, "Benton Private" and underneath were a series of bulleted notes that seemed to be Mary's own attempt at figuring out where Benton was going during these private sessions and why. Stevie felt something tingly prick up her spine. She couldn't deny that she also had the same sense of curiosity as Mary. Was it a woman, like he had weekly dates? Or maybe he had a kid? But there was something even more alarming about Mary's apparent interest in figuring out what it was.

Firstly, if Mary was Benton's chief scheduler, what was so private about this thing that he couldn't even tell her? And secondly, why was it making such an impact on Mary that Benton had this private weekly meeting? Did Mary think Benton was up to something suspicious...or was she? Stevie blinked her eyes at the bright screen, memorizing a few of the bullets.

Always has his driver take him to West Hollywood

If meeting is moved up earlier in the week, he's usually agitated beforehand

Always more calm the morning after an evening meeting

Stevie closed the tab, feeling just as stalker-level as Mary. Something with Benton sure as hell didn't add up, even before this finding. He was too calm, too in control, too stoic, but there was that incinerating fire in his eyes that she felt so intensely in some moments and not at all in others. It was a mind-fucking whiplash. But as Stevie backed away from the computer, she felt even more nervous about Mary. About her level of fascination with Benton, granted it was hard not to have some level of curiosity about the guy, and the fact that she appeared to be tracking him. Stevie wondered if she should warn Benton...tell him what she'd found? But no, that wouldn't work. It would only implicate her in the snooping and she couldn't even imagine having that personal of a conversation with the man who enjoyed being called the devil.

Stevie wandered over to the fridge, pulling out a very Los Angeles over-the-top cupcake, cutting it up into fours with a plastic knife from the kitchen drawer. She popped a piece in her mouth, the icing tasting like fresh strawberries.

Maybe if Stevie could just figure it out herself, figure out what Benton was up to in his weekly private meetings, then she'd know if Mary's stalking could turn out to be something dangerous. Stevie took another bite of cupcake, knowing she was trying to wrangle enough logic in the creative, wild mind of hers to abate the fact that like Mary, she also simply wanted to fucking know...where was Benton going and why?