Snippet #2484627

.: CALVIN HAWKE :.

Calvin's cell vibrated, shaking him from his sleep with a muted buzz. It had somehow managed to become pinned under his back at some point during the night, and he was hungover enough that he thought it was his head ringing. Calvin rolled to one side, just enough to pull it out from under himself, and pressed it to his ear.

"Hello…?” he asked, groggily.

“Morning, beautiful. Have you looked outside today?” The voice on the other side belonged to his talent agent, Ross Summers, sounding as excited as a kid on Christmas eve. Calvin sat up, rubbing the last bit of sleep from his eyes. The previous night had been spent celebrating the red carpet premiere of his latest film, “Lockdown”. He got home at 5 a.m., and then the real party began. Oddly enough, all of it felt like it happened weeks ago. 

“I was actually sleeping. Believe it or not…” Calvin grabbed his remote and parted the wall of curtains. At the touch of a button, they began to scroll sideways revealing the beautiful Los Angeles skyline. He took a moment to stretch, taking it all in, and then collapsed back down on the edge of his bed, careful not to wake the girl on the other side. “What am I looking at, Ross?”

“Well it might just be me, but I think the Sun is shining a little brighter today. Don’t you?” Ross always spoke in theoreticals. Calvin could tell he was in one of his moods that only came with good news. “Have you read the reviews?”

“Screw reviews. You know I stay away from those things. I'm not in the habit of believing what some repressed basement rat has to say about me."

“Would you believe $73 million domestic?"

Calvin was glad he had already sat down. $73 million would have been an awesome opening day for any movie. The rest of the weekend would easily triple that, making his film one of the largest openings of all time. Unexpected and unbelievable.

“Holy shit.”

“Holy shit is right. This is huge. You’ve got a 98% on RottenTomatoes.com right now, bro. We are on track to topple The Avengers, The Dark Knight, all of ‘em. Not to mention Conan tomorrow night, and SNL at the end of the month…”

Calvin couldn’t help but smile. “I can’t believe it.”

“We’ll go out and celebrate tonight. How’s Koi? 8:30?” Calvin could hear him shuffling papers in the background.

“Sounds good. That should give me some time to get this alcohol out of my system.”

“Alright, beautiful. See ya then. And let me know how the meeting goes today, yeah?”

Calvin cursed to himself, silently. “Right… yeah, I will.” 

“You forgot didn’t you?” He had.

“No, no, no. 10 o’clock. I’ll be there.” He glanced over to the clock on his wall. It was already 9:13 a.m.

“Good. Give ‘em hell. And, hey… Calvin?”

“Yeah?”

“Welcome to the world, baby. I love you.”

“Love you too,” Calvin replied, shaking his head. He set the phone on his bedside table, and looked out the window. The sun was just beginning to break through the hanging smog over downtown Los Angeles. And now that he thought about it, Ross was right…

It did seem a little bit brighter.

The nameless girl next to him suddenly rolled over, clutching the sheets against her as she stretched. She was only nameless because he couldn’t remember it. It had been a long night.

“Was that your mom?” She asked through her yawn.

Calvin laughed. “Might as well be.”

She smiled, and kissed his elbow. “Come back to bed…”

“I can’t. I spaced a meeting. What do you think? Shower or Breakfast?"

The girl raised her eyebrows at him suggestively and he suddenly realized the stupidity of his question as the two of them raced to the bathroom.