Outlaws // Taron Egerton

Twenty

IDRIS

     We are called for an emergency meeting by Taron's demon of a publicist. Taron and I are rushing down the halls, sharing a little laugh because we look like little kids having a race to the room where the next class is going to be held.

     Bizarre is an understatement to describe what happened last night. It was pure roller coaster. We had talked about reserving ourselves and refraining from any romantic activity off-cameras and behind the public eye until the end of the month, where the contract ends. It is explicitly stated there that we cannot be in a relationship with each other because it might ruin the original motive, and it would. It was a tough decision, but we are only weeks away. I'm pretty sure we could handle it. Plus, we couldn't raise any suspicion with my manager and the hateful publicist.

     I push the door open, and we are catching our breaths and having a little laugh, but our little fun is run over by Mia's killjoy seriousness. Our smiles line up and we put on an equally serious expression.

     "Take a seat."

     We do what she said and we sit across each other. Mia proceeds to her table and grabs a hold of heavy files, walks over her desk and onto the edge of the table we are sitting in, and hastily drop it like it's nothing but she wanted to make sure we see her do it. Both Taron and I are surprised by the loud thud its landing made. I look over the files and see Taron gripping on both the chair handles, leaning back, and looking startled.

     "Taron, your manager called, and I was told to prolong the stunt because they deemed it as ineffective. Any idea why?"

     Her judging eyes dart to Taron and he fixes himself and sits properly. He shakes his head in response.

     Then, she looks at me in more of a death glare now. Like the ineffectivity of the stunt was my fault when I just do everything she wishes. Basically, she kept disregarding my good ideas, accept the bad ones and then put up shit plans. But of course, blame it on me.

     Plus, I'm fairly confident that I have only contributed about five percent of those shite stunts. Most of it is hers.

     I shrug as a reply and she rolls her eyes and heaves a sigh. "You guys are not making much of an impact. We can't let that happen especially a movie with Taron on it is about to come up."

     A movie with Taron means he is going to gain publicity and newcomers in his fandom without putting up a public display of affection or a problematic girlfriend. I want to say that, but I don't want to add more fuel to the fire in hell.

     The reason this whole dating thing is not a big deal and have top gossip sites buzzing is because his fans clearly do not give a shit, and respect him for his decisions. Unlike other artists' fandoms wherein if they were given a chance to throw rocks at their favorite celebrity's girlfriend, they wouldn't hesitate. Especially if I was the girlfriend.

     "Why do you have to prolong the stunt if this is going downhill?" I ask, and I swear my voice wasn't calm, and it came out wrong. I ready myself for another bitter statement.

     "Because I have new plans and new dramas set up." She hands us folders from the top of the pile. I open the folder and it has a list of activities we could do to be able to have people's head turning at us. And I must admit, it is all bullshit.

     Reading through it is purely agonising and I can come up with better plans. Taron can come up with a better plan.

     Taron and his plans.

     Right. His drunk texts explicitly indicated that he had everything planned for me to clear my name and expose everyone behind my character. But why does he care so much?