Versatile Superstar: Rise In Hollywood

“You know it could be a trap, right?”

Wade asked as he looked at Aiden who was sitting on the seat beside him. They were in a car right now and Tom who was driving it had perked up his ear to listen to their conversation. 

“Yeah, I know. It has all the scents of one.”

“Then?”

“Then, why am I going to meet her?”

“Yes.”

Wade raised an eyebrow and Aiden looked outside the window. It was raining for some reason. The clouds were greyed out and wind was blowing, making it a great day to relax. 

But to Aiden, it just looked a bit sad. 

He didn’t know why. Maybe because he was going to meet Katie today. 

“Well, I just need answers.” He said, turning back to look at Wade. “It was hard for me personally when this came out, just because me and Katie used to be close. I have a lot of unresolved feelings.”

It was then that Tom asked from the driver’s seat. 

“But what about the trap? We need to be careful of that.”

“For that, I doubt there will be a trap in the first place. Franco Li is too busy, trying to handle the mess of the leaked recording. He won’t get anything out of trying to make me the villain anymore when it’s already so clear that he’s the main perpetrator. People are with me. Though, I will still be careful of what I say.”

Aiden replied, having already thought of a lot of things. 

After the recording had come out, the only thing Franco Li had tried was to get a fake internet trend going claiming that the recordings were false but the internet was a place with everyone in the world. 

And a few of those people are extremely talented, so there were already those that have checked it and claimed that it wasn’t any false recording and looked to be real. 

‘Anyway, Franco had taken a big hit this time but there’s still a chance he will try to get back…’

Aiden suddenly thought in his mind. 

Looking at Wade, he couldn’t help but ask. 

“Wade, what type of person Franco is?”

His sudden question surprised Wade but he answered in one breath. It was an extremely easy question for him. 

“Extremely cunning. He’s the type of a person the devil will be scared of. Someone who has done the worst things in Hollywood but no one knows because he’s so good at everything. Though, he messed up big time with you, and didn’t use his brain. Probably thought you are going to not do anything because you would be pushed in a corner.”

“I know right.” Aiden smiled. “So, is he a better agent than you?”

“What type of question is that?” Wade looked at him with apprehension. 

“Just reply.”

“He’s not…” Wade frowned, then put a finger on his chin and continued. “He’s someone who I consider as an equal but he got the easy way to the top. Moreover, he has no guilt for doing things. I might be a lot of things but I would rather not be on the black side of Hollywood.”

Aiden smiled hearing that. 

This was one of the things that they would often discuss. Everyone says that in Hollywood, no one was white. So, if they weren’t white, then where did they stand?

Complete Black? That wasn’t acceptable by both Wade and Aiden. So, they have decided that they stood in the middle of what was called a grey zone. 

“True. So, don’t you think someone like him needs to go down completely?” Aiden said. “If he somehow came out of it, then he’s surely going to come after me again.”

“That could happen.”

Wade blinked his eyes and thought about it for a while and Aiden smiled. 

“Yup, so we need to put him down and we need to do it now.”

“How are we going to do that?” Wade asked. 

“Everyone has a past. Someone like Franco has a dark past. Contact Katherine. I’m pretty sure she will be able to help us.”

“A deal?”

“If it’s possible.”

Aiden said and it was then that the car stopped. He had reached the place. Surprisingly, there were no reporters around. 

It looked like no one knew that Katie lived here or maybe, she didn’t live here anymore. He didn’t know but that didn’t matter at the moment. 

“Take care, Aiden. Don’t get into trouble.”

Wade said as Aiden got out of the car and opened up his umbrella. He nodded his head before walking towards the door. Looking around, he couldn’t see a lot of people outside. 

The rain had increased and it was better to stay inside. 

He climbed the stairs. Reaching the door of Katie’s apartment, he rang the bell and in an instant, the door opened like someone was waiting for him to come. 

There was Katie standing in front of him. 

She looked the same as the last time he had seen her in person. The same hair, the same face but there was no smile on her face. It was like she was a shell of her past self. 

Her eyes looked a bit numb like she had been crying a lot these days and staring at him, she had an indescribable expression on her face. 

They kept staring at each other like that for a while until Katie opened her mouth. 

“Please come in…”

She said in a very low voice. Aiden came in and saw that there was not a lot of furniture in the apartment. It looked like a lot had changed since the last time he had been here. 

“You want to try some spaghetti? I cooked it for you.”

Katie said as she pointed at the table in one of the corners. They used to eat that always when they would meet at her house to watch movies or act out a scene. 

It was just simple to make for them, hence the perfect dish in case they get hungry. 

Aiden just stood there for a while, wondering if he should eat or not but in the end, he nodded his head. 

‘Maybe, this is going to be our last spaghetti together.’

He thought in his mind. 

***

As Aiden was busy with Katie, his fans had been trying their best to make sure [Hex – Part 1] was his biggest hit till then. 

If one looked into it, Aiden’s fan following wasn’t normal. It wasn’t like other stars who only had a lot of Skygram or Sparrow followers. His fan following was actually on the ground level too. 

It was due to the fact that everyone had seen him take small steps from the ground up to the top. This can’t be said about any other actor in the industry. 

Even if it was hard to accept, Hollywood was still a bit closed for outsiders. Most top stars were those whose parents had been a part of the industry in some capacity. 

Or people who were already rich and had connections through it. 

It was getting rarer and rarer to find people one could relate to in the atmosphere of increasing nepotism debates. On top of it, Aiden had always been well behaved with everyone, making him look like a nice guy that everyone wanted to support. 

So, after the sexual assault controversy, people wanted to support him way more than before at least for his next movie. 

It was like they wanted to apologise to him in a way. 

Several men’s organisations bought bulk tickets for the first day of the movie followed up by Aiden’s fan club who were all excited for the movie from the start. 

The novels of the <Hex> series were also popular so there were a lot of people who were excited to see what the big screen adaptation of the series would look like. 

The marketing team of [Hex – Part 1] had been acting like zombies for a while now as after the controversy, their whole marketing campaign has failed drastically.

Even taking out Aiden from the marketing wasn’t enough to salvage it as people’s interest had died down significantly in the movie. 

But after everything was settled and Aiden came out as the victim, it completely exploded. 

The zombified marketing team employees felt like a god had revived them from death. Seeing the blockbuster advanced bookings they weren’t able to believe their eyes. 

“We have already earned 15 million dollars in advance bookings. And that’s just from North America.”

“It will go till 22 million as the rate is just increasing. I’m expecting it to earn 75-80 on the first day.”

“No, it can even go more than that. There’s no guarantee it will go down.”

“I can’t believe this is happening.”

“We might have the biggest blockbuster of the year in our hands right now.”