Famous

Chapter 2

Sebastian

I love Mondays at the club, one of the two days a week we're closed. I usually take care of a week's worth of paperwork, inventory and cleaning in one day so I can take Tuesday completely off. My friends tell me I'm weird because I'm the only person in the world who looks forward to Mondays, but whatever. That's just one of many ways they think I'm weird.

I'm okay with that, because thanks to those same friends, I have the world's most unbelievable life, and I'm thankful to them for making me part of the Quantum family.

As I cut in and out of rush-hour LA traffic, dodging slow-moving vehicles and people who'd rather text than drive, I think—as I do almost every day—about how my life should've ended up versus where I am today. I was heading for trouble with gangs when my best friend from childhood, Hayden Roth, intervened and offered me a job with his fledgling production company.

At first, I turned him down. Then he ratted me out to my mother, Graciela, who also helped to raise Hayden while she worked as his father's housekeeper. Once she got ahold of me, I had no choice but to take Hayden's job offer or risk my mother's hot Mexican temper. My madre is a doll, but you don't ever want to piss her off. Hayden and I learned that lesson early on.

I took the fucking job, in which Hayden basically made me his bitch on the West Virginia location of his first film. Going from the mean streets of LA to the rolling hills of West Virginia was a shock to my system, to say the least, and I hated the job with a passion, almost as much as I hated him for tattling on me.

I grunt out a laugh as I think about how young and stupid I was. Of course I couldn't have known then that Hayden would grow up to be one of the hottest and most celebrated directors of our time. Back then, he was just the son of washed-up stars trying to make his mark on an unforgiving business, and he'd made up his mind to bring me along with him, kicking and screaming.

Thank God for Hayden. Without him, I'd probably be dead or in prison. I was heading nowhere fast when he intervened, and as much as I resented him for it at the time, now I have nothing but the kind of gratitude that comes with age and maturity.

I have that same thought just about every day as I drive from my condo outside Malibu to the Quantum office building that houses the exclusive club I manage on behalf of the partners. Though I'm not in any way as successful as they are, they never treat me like anything other than a full-fledged member of their family, and for that, I count myself as one of the luckiest guys who's ever lived.

There's nothing I wouldn't do for any of them—or their partners. Watching them fall in love, one right after the other, has been incredible. First Flynn met Natalie, then Hayden finally admitted he'd been in love with Addison for years—duh, we all knew that—and then Jasper and Ellie decided to make a baby together. Aileen and her kids moved to LA to live closer to Kristian, and now they're one big happy family. The one that surprised me the most, though, was Quantum's chief legal counsel, Emmett, falling for Marlowe's sassy, mouthy assistant, Leah. Got to admit, I didn't see that one coming, but the two of them are as happy as two pigs in shit, and all they do is laugh.

The only one of us besides me who's still single is Marlowe, and she's face-first into something with the prissy Frenchman. Can't stand that guy. None of us can. He's fucking pretentious and has a stick jammed so far up his ass that I'm surprised you can't see it when he opens his mouth. He's no fun to be around, that's for sure, and I suspect he's got a dark side, not that I have proof of that. Just a sixth sense I have from my years of running the streets, which is something I've kept to myself. I can't go around accusing the guy of something without proof, but I keep my eye on him.

Flynn and Hayden can barely stand to be in the same room with him, but they try to pretend otherwise for Marlowe's sake. For all his formidable acting skills, Flynn sucks at hiding his disdain for the Frenchman.