𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐪𝐮𝐞 | machine gun kelly

65

A/N:

hi you guys, i hope you're all doing so good! lace up for a new chapter<3

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BLACK BEATLES BY RAE SREMMURD PLAYED softly in the air around us, beats pounding gently in the atmosphere of the office space as I glanced at Valerie seated right next to me, her head nodding slightly with every beat, her feet tapping the floor in sync with every nod of her head.

It had been only ten minutes since we had arrived at Olivia Shaman Brown's office in LA. It had been a fifteen minute drive from Encino.

She had met us when we had arrived, her expression showing her bewilderment and nothing else as she had led us inside and seated us in this room, around this wide smooth wood circular table on office chairs, while she fetched some paperwork.

A sleek TV screen was hung high in the corner of the office room, muted as it displayed pop culture news in flashes, headlines streaming in the bottom of the frame while the camera spanned over to multiple guys and girls sitting in casual office space together, discussing heated storylines back and forth. The TV was muted, but I didn't need sound to be able to tell that the on screen presence was that of TMZ.

They had always had a casual style of relaying news, and yet everything they put out had always been exclusive and groundbreaking.

True to their reputation, headlines bearing my name, Zac Posen's name, Trippie Redd's name and Playboi Carti's name darted past in slow yet quick succession. It made me slightly paranoid, knowing that there existed a connection in all the names-the truth to the leaked story-that only I knew and they didn't, still, it was unnerving that they were talking about everything all at once, in a classic, haphazard and blatant TMZ manner. The deaths of two rappers, and a rebirth of the model who happened to be one of the dead rappers' ex-girlfriend and had toured with him as his fashion designer in 2019, all coming to light relatively in the same 24 hours-gosh, that honestly was one hell of a conversation to have.

Valerie's eyes were fixed on the screen as the camera man zoomed in and out of faces of the TMZ crew, struggling to catch every man and woman who spoke, getting the conversation from every angle.

"That girl is a real crowd pleaser
Small world, all her friends know me
Young bull livin' like an old geezer
Release the cash, watch it fall slowly
Frat girls still tryna get even
Haters mad for whatever reason
Smoke in the air, binge drinkin'
They lose it when the DJ drops the needle."

I tore my eyes away from the screen as the song played in my periphery. It was poetic really, to have my manager play her cousins' song for the ambience while we waited. She had always been an advocate for the brothers'-Slim Jxmmi's and Swae Lee's-songs, and I remembered her mentioning them to me a couple of times back when we were working together. It was her familial fondness for them, and nothing else.

I wasn't familiar with them myself, but I could count on one hand how many times Zac Posen had used the duo's songs for his runways.

A minute later, she walked in through the door, a blue file tucked underneath her arm as she forced a smile on her face, orange lip gloss shining against her bronze skin tone and groomed afro, as she approached the table. A bit hesitantly, she pulled a chair opposite to me and sat down, placing the file on top of the table.

"These are all of your affairs, everything you were in the middle of-deals, contracts and other things that were on the agenda."

She stumbled a little over her words, but regained herself back again as she met my eyes with her black ones.