Love Overcast // (ManxMan)

=Chapter 12=

A/N: Hey look! It's Brason! He's supposed to be much more reserved than what he is shown to be in the photo, but I like his smile in that, so why not? Also, I highly recommend NOT searching his name (Charles Laurent Marchand) on Tumblr. It's very dangerous and very... not PG.

[Leonardo]

"Are you sure you want the rest of the year off? We can grab you a ton of deals over the summer if you want." I wave my hand, picking up the pen and signing my overly complicated signature at the bottom of the page, then a couple more pages to ensure that the agreement is sealed. "Leo, think about this carefully, if you want to pull back, we can do it easily."

I nod, "I will see, but I've been going over a decade without a proper break now. I think a good 9 months will be good for my health, don't you think?" My manager sighs, nodding a little. I know I bring in a lot of money for this corporate business, but I'm older than half the people working for me and if I need a break, I will take it. At least that's what I tell myself, I have no real authoritative aura around me. My mom used to say that I'm the hippie kind of guy, too smooth, too easy to take stuff from. I've been going against her mantra for a long time, hopefully she isn't going to roll out of her grave and attack me in my sleep for being a bad son.

What would my mother say if she found out that I made myself a fool for marrying left and right. Love really does blind me sometimes, but fame blinds my past lovers more. And that fine line of being in and out of the spotlight is really lost after spending enough time with the person, they either drag you out of the limelight or push you in and make you take them with you. So far I've been unlucky and the latter has been happening to me exclusively.

It sucks so much, but I am excited for this coming hiatus. I need it for advancement of being an artist among other personal aspirations that I haven't been able to fulfil yet. I really want to do a gallery showing again, it will be the focal point of my break, I have enough paintings for a small scale one, but I want to do a medium to large scale. And most importantly, one with a definite theme because right now, my paintings are all just random rationales that I throw together for the convenience of my mood at the time. Nothing special to base it upon. Not to mention my ever expanding schedule, if I didn't cut it off now, I would be drowned in more than just sea water over this summer for my photoshoots.

I shake everyone's hand, no one really cares that much, except my assistant in training, Brason is a young 18 year old guy with little to no self esteem but he is so damn good at his job. Plus, I am planning on mentoring him as an aspiring artist, because the guy really knows what he is doing. It's a shame that he is heartbroken and a mess after some sort of history in the past year or two. I've only hired him in early February.

Brason Hutcherson is about 5"8', a very sweet person that pays attention to details more than anyone I know. He is quiet and he rarely speaks, though he does give off the vibe that he used to be a little more exuberant than he is now. My assistant before him, Nicola, is injured from a hiking trip, the idiot thought she could scale a mountain on a pair of heels. God forbid her from taking those off because she would lose her infinitesimal height advantage. We are about the same height, pushing 5"11' and I've known her for years upon years.

I only hired Brason because Nicola is his aunt and she spoke highly of him as an incredibly organised and reliable person. Brason is on his gap year, trying to get some money to pay for his tuition. I've already put aside enough money for him to go ahead with the fine arts course he wants to do in a local university, I'm mostly passionate about mentoring him so I "hired him" as my assistant. But at this rate, I might have to keep him, because he's doing a better job that Nicola was. She always flashes the 'best friend' card on me and makes me grab her coffee instead of the other way around.