Equilibrium (Vexxieverse Series - Part 5)

Burn the Empire (L)

Louis
May

Louis held the phone away from his ear while his agent yelled at him through it. "Nice of you to finally pick up. Are you out of your mind, Louis!? You just threw your career away, you know that, right? And mine. I'm going to get a reputation for not being able to handle my..." Louis rolled his eyes and mocked the man on the other line. He put it on mute and set the phone on their kitchen counter.

Liam's eyes widened as he looked at the angry cell phone. "My agent wasn't happy, but damn. Maybe you should have called him back in San Francisco."

"He's a tool. Just worried about his own bank account," Louis shrugged and stole a pepperoni from one of the homemade pizzas Harry was working on. Louis tried to convince him it'd be faster to just order some, but Harry was excited to use his new pizza stones. There was also some lecture about how freshly grated, high grade mozzarella was better than anything they could order, but Louis kind of stopped paying attention some time after that.

"LOUIS. ARE YOU THERE?"

Louis unmuted and switched the phone to speaker while he was still chewing. "Vick, you going to work with me or against me on this? That's all I need to know."

"You are a child. You don't know what you're doing. We need to come up with a plan to fix this. We can say your account got hacked, and that it was photoshopped. Why was Liam kissing you in the first place, Louis?! I know you think it's cute, but this is how media attacks start. Have you even bothered to look at the news?" Victor barked through the phone without giving Louis a second to respond.

This time, Louis didn't worry about muting before he set the phone down. "Harry, can I have extra pepperoni on my part? Is this like fancy pepperoni or something? S'good. Oi! Liam! Get me a beer too while you're over there!"

"Louis, you aren't even listening to me!" Vick fumed. He was right.

With an evil little spark in his eye, Harry propped himself on his elbows and leaned over the phone. "Sure baby, whatever you want. And yeah, I got this pepperoni at that cute little deli by the theater we went to in San Francisco while you and Niall were at the bar across the street. I told you, quality ingredients matter, but you don't believe me." Harry smiled at the phone, enjoying using his brat powers for good instead of evil.

Louis grinned up at him. "You are such a good boy, you know that?"

"Thank you, Daddy," Harry said in his most seductive voice, then bit the inside of his cheek so he wouldn't laugh into the phone.

Vick suddenly got very quiet. Fucking finally. If that was all it took, Louis would have used that trick every time!

"Got your trap shut finally, then? Alright. First of all, I don't think a child can be married and 30 but sure Vick, keep telling yourself that. Second of all, it was a kiss on the cheek and you need to chill out. Men can do that platonically. It's not 1950 anymore. You need to move on with the rest of the world. Last, I think I'm done with you, mate. Technically, our contract states I can drop you if I haven't had an audition in six months. Which, I haven't been looking for one, but since you haven't provided me any opportunities, I'm free of your outdated bullshit. Anyway, it's not me, it's you. Best of luck, Vick."

Louis hung up and immediately blocked the number. That was a long time coming. Louis started out with the best agent early in his career, and Louis owed him everything. That agent was good at his job because he had years of experience and endless patience. But unlike Louis's current agent, he knew when it was time to retire. Victor had done nothing for Louis's career. Just took a cut and bitched when Louis acted up.

He'd already made arrangements with Stella to switch, anyway. The paperwork was in place, just needed his signature, and Harry and Louis would both be under her representation. She was thrilled since it was a big step in her career. She was also nervous, but she would never move forward if she kept playing it safe. Louis told her as much, and that's when she agreed to take him on.