by Raziel Reid
As Joel sits at the poker table, he pulls out his phone and texts Sean.
Tomorrow night?
He adds, I want to be there.
Even if Sean doesn’t think he can handle it. Even if Sean thinks he’ll be haunted by it for the rest of his life, Joel doesn’t care. He wants to see how ugly this world is so he can stop feeling so disappointed all the time. He wants to be one of those jaded Hollywood types who can’t be phased by anything anymore. Nothing can hurt him.
There’s a knock on the door of the suite. The actor is expecting a buddy, one last player for the game.
“Sorry I’m late, gents.”
Luis Leon walks into the room, a Cuban burning between his teeth. He takes a seat across from Joel at the table.
imseanjohnson
1.5m followers
imseanjohnson I’m In My Space Suit Doing A Dance of Happiness.
parinaz11x Ok we got it the first time
priyavidhyamatel Post it again I dare you
13ren3 You posted this for the 3th time lmao
Fortune starts pulling on the drawstring of Sean’s Yeezy Calabasas sweatpants as soon as Sean steps through the door. Fortune is house-sitting for a friend in the Bird Streets of the Hollywood Hills.
Sean pulls Fortune’s hands away.
“What’s the matter?” Fortune asks. “Isn’t this what you came over for?”
It is. Or at least that’s what Sean thought he wanted. A little release to relieve him of the pressure. There’s a dogfight tomorrow night at his house.
Now that he’s here, Sean knows sex isn’t distraction enough.
“I just thought we could hang out a bit.” He breaks eye contact with Fortune and steals a quick look back up at him.
“You want foreplay?” Fortune asks. “When did the DL get so intimate?”
Sean plays with his drawstring. “Netflix?” he asks. Fortune can’t stop smiling. “What?” Sean shifts his weight on his feet. “What’s so funny about that?”
“Well, come on, then.”
They sit on the couch and Fortune picks this show called Elite. While he’s filling Sean in on the premise of the show—working-class kids versus rich kids at a private school in Spain, which turns deadly—Sean is only half listening. He peers at Fortune through the corner of his eye, wondering what it would be like to take his hand. He bets it’s smoother than Valeria’s, which are dried up from all her tears. She’s never cried in front of him; she doesn’t really show much emotion around him ever. But Sean knows what’s going on beneath the surface, just like he’s pretty sure that she knows what’s going on beneath his surface.
Fortune catches him looking and Sean’s eyes land back on the screen.
“Are you in the mood now?” Fortune touches Sean’s leg.
Sean takes a breath and reaches for Fortune’s hand. “It doesn’t always have to be about hooking up, does it?”
The way Fortune is looking down at their hands makes Sean self-conscious. Sean pulls away. “I just thought we were friends,” he says.
A ping comes into Sean’s phone. It’s a message from Joel.
Sean closes his eyes and hears the barking in his head. He doesn’t notice Fortune reading Sean’s phone over his shoulder.
“What’s happening tomorrow?” Fortune asks.
“Nothing.” Sean holds his phone away. But Fortune will not be denied. Isn’t that what Sean likes about him? His topknot and makeup and stilettos and faux furs and his crazy nails, each painted differently. His middle finger is painted like money, the pyramid and all-seeing eye at the tip. His nails are so long that Fortune wears diamond rings around them and not his fingers. Sean has always wanted to ask Fortune to tickle his back.
Fortune grabs Sean’s phone with his extravagant hand. “Tell me, or you’re not getting this back!”
“Oh yeah?” Sean tackles Fortune, pinning him to the couch. He knows this is what Fortune wants. It doesn’t take long for Sean to get his phone back. He stares down into Fortune’s eyes.
Maybe this is why he came here.
“If I tell, promise you’ll keep it a secret?”
realvalerialeon
3.3m followers
cielspabh Kidchella! This is the cutest! HBD Sophia!
therecessionista What an adorable theme! Loooooove the dreamcatcher cake!
tammyleejackson Oh my goodness!! Time is flying by so quickly! Cherish every single moment! Time goes by sooooo fast!!! @realvalerialeon @sophialeon1919
thetipinator Happy Birthday
moniquekingkearney My sweet Sophia, hope you had a wonderful birthday!
Nothing is going to ruin today.
When Patrick sends Valeria a text asking if she can meet him at the Montage, she ignores it. Valeria has to resist replying no; she’ll never see him again. She decided as soon as she landed the part on Almost Everything that she’s done with Patrick. This role is her one shot to remind the industry that she’s still alive, to show them that just because she’s growing up doesn’t mean she has to be phased out. This is the start of Valeria’s career as an adult actress. A serious actress.
The kids are having a great time. Especially Sophia. She’s running around the backyard with her friends, shrieking with laughter. Valeria hired party planners bDASHd to help with the Coachella theme. Valeria came up with the idea because Sophia always loves watching Valeria get ready to go to the festival and asks if she can go with her. Sophia is in such a rush to grow up. Valeria wants to make sure she enjoys her childhood, that she actually has a childhood. Seeing her playing with her friends and being so carefree is exactly what Valeria wanted for her today. It’s everything Valeria never had.
Valeria watched some YouTube video Sean showed her saying that until the age of seven, you’re not really conscious, you’re theta, which is a state of hypnosis and imagination. Your entire identity and how you see yourself is being built. The first seven years of your life is a period of programming. It’s why rich kids stay rich and poor kids, no matter how talented, so rarely ever deprogram. When they try, the world asks them: Who do you think you are?
Sophia’s programming has been different from Valeria’s. Valeria is still stuck in her theta mind, still performing the same choreography and trying to make people love her.
When Sophia blows out the candles on her three-tier cake, which has a dream catcher made out of icing and a teepee on the top, Valeria knows what she’s wishing for. Valeria saw some comments from her followers that say her dad has been spotted back in L.A. If he is in town, he hasn’t let his family know. He hasn’t even called Sophia.
Gloria is the only one who doesn’t seem to be having fun. She disappears during cake time. Valeria takes two plates and goes looking for her. Valeria knows she’s jealous. Her mother resents her for knowing how to take care of Sophia and Leo better than she does.
Since the day she was born, Sophia has been a threat to Valeria. Her mother always warned her that there was someone younger, prettier, and more talented right behind her. When Valeria reached the first grade, she saw the younger kids in kindergarten as her mortal enemies. She’s always struggled to make friends.
Valeria refuses to let her mother’s threats or the fear of looming competition affect her relationship with her little sister. It infuriates Gloria, their bond. Valeria’s ability to love more than just herself.
She finds Gloria alone in her bedroom, sitting in a chair by the window and watching the kids playing outside.
“There you are,” Valeria says. “Is everything okay?”
“Oh, Valeria,” Gloria says in one breath.
Valeria stops in the middle of the room, the two plates balancing on her palms.
“What?” Valeria asks. “Is it Dad?”
“I didn’t want to tell you this during the party. You worked so hard on it. I wanted you to be happy…”
“Mom, what is it?”
“I’m sorry, Valeria. The producers of Almost Everything called. They’re giving the part to someo
ne else.”
Valeria doesn’t hear the plates break when she drops them. They told her they loved her. She was being sent the final script. There was a date for rehearsal, a filming schedule. Now there’s just icing and shattered porcelain everywhere.
fortunefitzroy
149k followers
adhikari.rahul Doggy filter pls!!
Fortune has never understood the appeal of Joel Strom, why everyone’s in love with him. Personally, he thinks Joel is too common a choice. He always thought it was kind of basic of Hailey to be so into him. But then Hailey has always seen herself as a Disney princess. She made her boyfriend in junior high get a tattoo of her name in Disney font on his arm! And Joel’s the kind of guy who would, like, pull a sword out of a stone and chop down a fortress of prickly rose vines to reach the girl of his dreams. Too bad for Hailey that girl is Lily.
But Fortune is determined to change that. He will be made a permanent cast member on Platinum Triangle. It’s his destiny to rule from his TV. Fortune knew that he just had to wait for the right opportunity to fall in his lap…
Fortune’s Uber pulls up to the driveway of the Johnsons’ house in Holmby Hills. The driveway is lined with parked cars. Sean is waiting for him out front and looks over at Fortune nervously as he steps out.
“Phones are checked at the door,” Sean tells Fortune as he approaches.
“Got it.”
Sean doesn’t move. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”
Fortune isn’t totally heartless. His fur is faux, thanks! He finds it much more satisfying hurting people than animals. But when Sean told him that Joel was going to be there, Fortune knew he had to show.
“I’m morbidly curious,” Fortune says. “And I got you.” Fortune gives Sean his sincerest smile.
Sean is obviously gutted about the fights and needs all the moral support he can get. He gives Fortune a look of appreciation as they head into the house.
* * *
—
Down in the basement, the atmosphere is tense. There are a couple dozen people, mostly men, around the ring. Fortune sees the two pit bulls pacing in their cages, barking and growling. He watches as Christoph injects one of the dogs with a needle.
“Look, it’s Greta,” Fortune jokes. Sean doesn’t crack a smile. Fortune’s making bad jokes because he’s nervous. Even he has to admit this is fucked up.
“Performance enhancement mixed with painkillers,” Sean says under his breath. Sean looks away from the dogs.
Sean gets called over by his dad, leaving Fortune standing alone in the crowd. He tries to blend in. He dressed down for the event, all in black, with a hat covering his silver hair. The spectators are as hyped as the dogs. The testosterone and adrenaline are palpable. Fortune would be horny if he weren’t so anxious. This is possibly the craziest thing he has ever witnessed, and Brandon once showed him a snuff film from his dad’s vault.
Fortune looks through the crowd until he spots Joel, arms crossed over his Brooklyn Projects hoodie and his hat pulled low. But there’s no mistaking him. Fortune’s counting on it.
The crowd cheers when the doors to the cages are lifted. It’s like the dogs slide into the basement from outside of this world. From one of the circles of hell. They bare their fangs and clash. Within seconds, blood is splattered across the cement floor. The fired-up crowd is louder than the whimpering of the dogs. Fortune winces, but he doesn’t look away.
The dogs are moving so fast it’s like Fortune is watching a time-lapse video. They’re savage AF. Fortune isn’t sure what he was expecting. Some kind of buildup? But the dogs go straight in for the kill. It’s like the climax of episode 19 is happening in the first few minutes of episode 1.
It’s the yelping that really gets you. The terror. Then there’s the breaking of skin, fur shedding in bloody pools, fangs trembling in slobbery, red canine mouths.
Fortune feels a bead of sweat running through his foundation.
One of the dogs is down and the crowd collectively holds its breath. But then the dog struggles to a stand. Fortune wants to cry. It seems enlivened by the cheers of the crowd. The dog is Fortune.
“End it, Beelzebub. End it!”
Across the basement Fortune sees Christoph jumping up and down, screaming at his dog. Beelzebub is a thirsty follower. He just wants to be acknowledged. He just wants to make you proud. He bares his fangs as his eye hangs out of its socket.
Christoph is shaking Sean’s shoulders with excitement. Sean isn’t even looking at the dogs. He’s staring at a bloodless spot on the floor.
There’s a second phone strapped to a shirt garter around Fortune’s thigh. He reaches through the hole he made in the pocket of his black jeans and pulls it out. With most of the phone concealed by his sleeve, Fortune surreptitiously records Joel watching the dogs.
Everyone around Fortune is too consumed by the last round of the fight to notice anything. Both the dogs look like monsters. Beelzebub’s comeback has the crowd, especially Christoph, going wild. Beelzebub looks directly at Christoph with his one good eye before he uses a last burst of energy to rip the other dog’s throat out.
Christoph picks up the dead dog by its practically severed head. The roar of the crowd is deafening.
Fortune sees Joel push through the cheering bodies and bolt upstairs. Fortune’s right behind him.
Outside the house, Joel is leaning against a car parked in the driveway. He pukes.
“It reminded me of Platinum Triangle,” Fortune says.
Joel quickly stands up and spins around to face Fortune, surprised to see him as he wipes his mouth with the sleeve of his hoodie.
“Tearing each other apart is all we’ve ever known.”
greta.strom
733k followers
jaymillaur Dang chick you still got that fire
alexkazemi proud of u
1in_tang
gamalu15 BAEE
juniors_1st_time_ Hello beautiful
_everodriguezzz Que diosaaa
michaelmykole Everybody loves a comeback…. .
Greta wakes up and for a second doesn’t know where she is, but there’s a familiarity in that. Through the open window she can hear seagulls and waves crashing. Malibu.
There’s a knock on the door. One of the Cliffside Malibu staff tells her she has a visitor waiting for her outside.
She dreamed of her dad last night. It was more a memory than a dream. When she was little, she used to sit in his lap and drag her hand across the stubble on his chin, over and over again, in the same way she would touch the velvety ears of her teddy bear as she fell asleep. It comforted her.
It was seeing herself through Jessica’s eyes that made Greta realize she needed to enter rehab. She hadn’t really been seeing herself, but Jessica stood her in front of the mirror in the bathroom attached to Joel’s hospital room and made her look at her reflection. She was so skinny, and there were dark circles under her eyes. There were still some scratch marks on her arms and legs from running through the forest. Her hair was greasy. And most of all, she just looked so goddamn sad.
Greta gets out of bed and slips on a pair of yoga pants and a cropped hoodie, then pulls her hair into a ponytail and splashes water on her face.
Jessica is waiting for Greta on a bench outside, looking out at the view of the Pacific. She’s wearing a floral dress and a floppy sun hat, and she takes off her sunglasses as Greta approaches. She’s misty-eyed. Jessica stands up and Greta lets herself be hugged.
“I was scared that you’d wake up in the middle of the night and run,” Jessica says into Greta’s ear. “I know they have an open-door policy here. I don’t want to lose you ever again.”
Greta pulls away from her dad’s arms. “I didn’t want to lose you,” she says. “Sometimes we don’t have a choice.”
“You’re right.” Jessica sighs. “Sometimes we don’t.”
They stare into each other’s eyes, communicating a million things without saying a word. Greta thought it would b
e so weird looking at her dad after all the plastic surgery and changes. She thought seeing her dad in a dress would scar her the way it did Joel when he caught Jessica in Greta’s closet freshman year. Greta’s clothes were going missing and she’d thought it was Hailey raiding her closet. When Joel told her what he’d walked in on, he’d seemed so disturbed by it, but Greta had just laughed it off. So Dad liked to play dress-up. She thought vaguely it might be some weird sex thing. Whatever. There were tons of weird things. Greta didn’t think it was that serious. She didn’t think it was going to lead to her losing her dad and hero.
Greta lifts her hand and touches Jessica’s chin. Jessica lets her. She doesn’t even blink. It isn’t the same. Jessica’s chin has been lasered, pulled, stuffed. It’s so smooth, Greta’s fingers slide right off.
“I hope you aren’t thinking of coming to the premiere tomorrow night,” Jessica says. “I think it’s too much pressure too soon…”
“Don’t worry, Dad. The show is the last thing on my mind.”
Jessica nods with relief. She rubs Greta’s cheek affectionately. And there it is. The familiarity Greta was hoping for. When her dad touches her, it feels the same as it always has.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Jessica says.
Greta smiles. “I’m glad you are, too.”
lillianrhode
79k followers
lillianrhode I’m more than just pictures.
The morning of her hearing, Lily wakes up early, does some laps in the pool, and makes herself a full breakfast before anyone wakes up or Ana comes in for the day (eggs, bacon, toast—she doesn’t so much as look at a stick of celery).
After breakfast, Lily tries to keep herself calm as she showers and gets ready for court in the white Catherine Malandrino dress Whitney picked out for her.