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Seattle is crawling with wannabes and Nathan frankly hates it.
He has spent the majority of his career taking pictures of microcelebrities and self proclaimed ‘It girls’. There were ordinary people intrigued in photos here and there, but he mostly took and edited photos of conventionally beautiful women.
Nathan didn’t spend approximately five years at an prestigious art school, taking various photography classes and improving his craft only to take photoshoots of dogs. It felt like he was truly at the lowest of lows. Here he was sat at his own desk editing photos for a rich client who needed them as soon as possible. He lets out a yawn, covering it with a hand while the other was still on his mouse. Nathan attempts to stay focused, but is interrupted when his boss Mark Jefferson ushers into the office area.
“Nathan you’re still here?” Mark questioned, raising an eyebrow.
Despite everything that has happened, Nathan is astonished he is able to work with someone as gifted as Mark Jefferson. The man had been involved in the world of photography for three decades. His work is recognized by multiple famous magazines. It was suffice to say that Mark was an icon in his own right and was a respectable figure in the art world. Plus he was rather humble as well which easily became a gateway into how Nathan was able to sustain a career.
“Nathan?” Mark repeated.
“Yeah, I’m trying to finish something for a client.” Nathan says. An annoying client who can’t get off his dick, he silently huffs to himself. He tries to bite back the sarcasm, knowing that Mark can get sour with him. It’s a habit.
“I see, well it’s almost midnight. Do you want to wrap it up and head back home?”
“It’s fine, I should be done with this soon.”
“You came in today earlier than you usually do, I insist you go home. You can finish it in the morning.”
“Fine.” Nathan huffs and clenches his eyes shut for a second. He reluctantly saves the photo for later and quickly shuts off the computer. He stands from the chair he’s been sitting on for hours and instantly his legs wobble. Nathan can hear Victoria’s voice at the back at his head, yelling at him to improve his calves. He adjusts the black coat he’s been wearing all day, it was cold in Seattle after all. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“Have a good night Nathan.”
“You too.” Nathan says silently. He quickens his pace out of the studio and was greeted with cold air. He usually didn’t bring too many things on the way, since his commute was a pain in the ass. His red Lexus stood out in the street among all of the black and grey vehicles. As he walks toward it, he quickly fishes out his phone only to find a missed call from Victoria. He listens to the voicemail she left him.
‘Nate oh my fucking god, I know you like that little podcast of yours, but those leeches are spreading misinformation about me! You know I will plot against those hoes and your ass is going to join me. If you didn’t listen to it, then listen and get back to me.“
What the fuck was that, he thought to himself as he entered his car. First he turns the engine on and tunes his attention to driving back to his penthouse. For now it seems like a good idea to focus on the road, yet he thought about Victoria and ‘that podcast’ anyway.
Victoria should in fact know the podcast has a name. It was called ‘Into the Details with Stella Wagner and Ren G’. It practically talked about everything, well almost everything. A lot of the subject matter was related to both celebrity and microcelebrity gossip, which was Stella’s forte. It wasn’t exactly rocket science for Nathan to clue in that it was Stella who talked about Victoria.
The other person Ren, however was more forgettable than Stella. Surprisingly, Nathan found himself always tuning in what he had to say. He talked about movies specifically horror movies, and Nathan would be impressed by Ren’s knowledge of it. The major downside of this guy, was that somehow his voice sounded squirrely. His tone was all over the place and Nathan just wanted Ren to talk like a normal person.
For about an hour his thoughts float around in his head when he finally reaches his destination.
Most people have houses or an apartment, but Nathan is not like most people. He has a penthouse that is as sky high as it could be. It stood up on top of a white grand building. He liked it for the most part. The only thing he truly hated were the tall windows that blatantly showed the inside of his living quarters. He ended up having to get them covered with the biggest curtains he could find.
It takes approximately 20 floors in the elevator before Nathan is able to step foot into what finally felt like home. He fumbles with his keys for a few moments, then enters his dark abode. After he immediately locks the door behind. He’d get a chain if he could, he’s not sure if it would make his paranoia better though.
His phone rings again. Nathan takes it out of his pocket once more and he realizes it’s Victoria.
“Hey Vic” He greets in a more mellow way. Nathan idles toward his island table near his kitchen area to drop both his keys and wallet.
“Hey, did you listen to it yet?” She asks first thing.
“Jesus no I didn’t.” Nathan hisses. “I just got home, give me an hour or two.” He slides off his black coat easily and folds it neatly over a blue loveseat.
“Sorry.” Victoria apologizes. “I’m worried about this blowing up in my face, that’s all. Anyways how are you?”
“Everything is peachy keen over here.” He sighs. “I don’t have much shit going on. You?”
“Today has been a shitstorm, it could have been better. Now I have this podcast on my ass and their little army is leaving petty comments on my social medias.”
“Shit, maybe it’s not that bad.” Nathan attempts to console.
“Well I wish it wasn’t.” She grumbles.
“Vic just chill, whatever is going on will blow over soon.” He says. Funny how he tells her that, typically she’d be the one to tell him to take a chill pill. “I’ll talk to you later beautiful, kay?” Nathan ends the call after that.
He goes over to his bedroom and first thing collapses on top of his bed. Nathan thinks about Victoria and what kind of bullshit she has to deal with on the daily. Both of them are often in deep shit, but fuck right now Victoria was the one with a lot on her plate. She was Victoria Chase and it wasn’t exactly easy to run The Chase Space. For as long as Nathan could remember it was everything Victoria could possibly want to continue her family legacy.
In any case she’s doing a lot better in the honor department than he’ll ever in his entire life. He’s still treading thin ice with his father, even though he’s more independent unlike before. His mother was still the silent observer she’d been for years. The only good person who was worthwhile in his family was Kristina. She was currently in Brazil working for the Peace Corps. It might be a lot of work, but Nathan is betting that Brazil is far more bearable in comparison to Seattle.
He scoots over on top of his bed and hastily undoes the buttons on his shirt. Nathan swiftly takes it off before resuming to doing the same to his trousers.
He might as well start listening to that new podcast episode Vic was rambling about. It was easy to access on his phone since he had the Spotify app. Nathan thumbed over the newest one available and let the ads play out first until it begins. Briefly Stella in her professional voice advertises for some beauty product that Nathan doesn’t care for.
‘Hello and welcome back to the Into the Details Podcast where we go into the details!“ Stella begins.
‘Over basically everything.“ Ren continues. ”I am so excited because so much has happened in the past week and there is so much to go over.“
“It’s been a crazy week. Just to start things strong, we are officially going on tour. I have been thinking about this moment for so long, now that we’re finally doing it – it’s truly unbelievable.”
“Right? I feel like we’ve been working nonstop and have been so much putting so much effort into making this happen. I truly believe our viewers and listeners are really the reason why we can do this now. That’s what I think though.”
“I know – wait are you crying? Aw are you getting emotional?” Stella teases.
“What?? I am not crying, I am just so happy we’re at the peak of our careers in a sense now! Even though we skipped out on a lot of events to do shit that was necessary, you know?.”
“God don’t remind me, I missed out on going to a music festival that I always wanted to go to. I forgot the name, but it was in Portland. I will say that I’m still a little pissed off that the one party I went to was so bad.”
“Wait was it the one that was literally last Saturday?”
“Yes that one! It was so bad that I was mad with myself honestly. I dressed super nice, got my hair and nails done only to spend almost three hours by the bar area and talking to some people I really did not want to spend time with.”
“I – did someone invite you to this or????’
“It was one of my partner’s clients who’s like a microcelebrity invited me. She found out about the podcast and was like oh my god I love your podcast, please come to my party. And – I had a hard time turning it down because she was so sweet to Court and I.”
“Did you take any pictures at least?”
“I took one and I remember only you and Brooke liking it.” Stella laughs. “Wait actually speaking of pictures, you have something really important to share with everybody.”
“Of course I didn’t – I would never forget something like that.” Ren talked. “So one stop we’re making for the tour is Seattle! Go Seattle!”
“I love Seattle.”
“Same. Uh anyways I was online doing what I usually do, looking around and stuff.”
“Stalking, you were stalking people online.” Stella stifles back a laugh.
“What! Excuse you, I was lurking! I am a lurker, that’s what I do! Like I was saying I was looking around for things we can do while we’re in Seattle and there’s a lot of hotspots there we can check out. I'm mostly interested in their movie theaters, but I found this really cool indie photographer online that I think we should check out.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah, you can look her up actually. Her name is Max Caulfield and she owns like this cute studio in Seattle. I think it’s called Blue Morpho Studios. I hope it’s okay to say all of this, because this is information you can find on the internet by the way. Putting that out there so I don’t catch a case.”
“Wait give me a sec, I’m looking her up right now.”
“You go ahead and do that, I’ll just keep on yapping.” Ren chortles. “But her portfolio and her style is so unique. It’s something I’ve never seen before. Like I was scrolling on her Insta and website for hours. Her photography definitely has that nostalgic value.”
“Judging by her photos, you’re not wrong. These are pretty nice, there’s like a lot of skill and methods used for sure.”
“I was thinking the exact same thing. Like I said before it’s different than the kind of photographers that are around lately.” Ren rambled. “Also we’ve been thinking about guests to bring on and people to interview. I think it would be cool to get Max on here and interview her.”
“Shit that’s a good idea. Hope nobody steals that from us, we are claiming that!”
“Absolutely!”
“Also shout out to Max Caulfield and check out Blue Morpho Studios in Seattle!” Stella sang. “Give her lots of love if you’re looking for authenticity in your life!”
Right there, Nathan pauses the podcast to huff and puff. He should of known that the podcast was going to mention Caulfield’s little studio that was only five blocks away from his. He was wondering how the hell Victoria ties into all of this, since the episode was nearly two hours long. That was how long an average episode was.
Nathan can’t even express how long he’s been listening to the podcast. He found it when he was in a dark place and those two somehow get him to grin and laugh at corny jokes. He’d like to pass out soon, so he decides to listen a little longer and then call it for a night. He resumes to the podcast.
‘Yeah shout out to Max! Wooooooo! Sadly, I’m not done talking about Seattle. As much as I love the place, it’s also like Gossip City over there. Stella probably knows that already though.“
“Yes oh my god, Seattle is absolutely full of drama. While you were talking about Max and I was looking at her Insta, I thought about an person who’s quite infamous in the photography scene to an extent.” Stella explains. “She’s in a bit of a crisis right now.”
“Are you and I thinking of the same exact person?”
“It’s likely, her name is Victoria Chase. I’m talking about Victoria Chase people.”
“Ohhhhh her! Wait what’s up with her?”
“Wait – actually first I’ll give a really quick recap and then explain the shit with her. So everyone for the most part knows that her family – the Chase family is a big deal in Washington. They own The Chase Space and it’s located in Seattle. It’s pretty much an very well known and respected art gallery.”
“It’s highly regarded by the art world, if I remember?”
“Yeah. There are a lot of pieces in there by photographers who were able to get their work out there. It’s basically one of the places you go to, if you’re ever interested in a real opportunity and you want to show someone that you really have what it takes as an artist.”
“Gotcha, so what’s up with Victoria then?”
“The thing with Victoria is that a lot of people have really bad things to say about her.” Stella said. “On Twitter and forums, people have been talking about having not the best experiences with her. I mean that she has real mean girl behavior and she peaked at high school. Never changed as a person and so on.”
“Shit.”
“Honestly it’s basic shit really. There is a lot of talk about how she isn’t bigoted, but she’s rude to people for no reason at all. And naturally because she’s rich and comes from a old money family, that she lacks class consciousness.”
“For a second there, I thought you were going to say actual vile shit.”
“I had an impression she might secretly be some sicko and is hiding skeletons in her closet. That might not be the case in this situation, the main talk is just how she is most likely out of touch with the rest of society.”
“Aren’t all rich people out of touch with society? I ask as if this podcast isn’t the reason my paycheck has been the best in years.” Ren jokes. “When I think of rich people having skeletons in their closet, I definitely think of the Prescott family. I – truly believe they are up to some morbid shit in secret.”
“Oh them? Absolutely! It’s not a secret that Sean Prescott is a menace to society, people in Arcadia Bay know that.”
“I can’t help but think that we should tread more carefully when it comes to the Prescott family, because it’s so scary. They’re like omnipresent rich people who are inherently in the know. I have never seen y’know a person like Sean Prescott who easily catches wind of things and then does whatever it takes to remove all of it.”
“It’s real sinister shit.”
“Yeah. Like I said it’s scary. I will say – that it’s funny that the entirety of Arcadia Bay despises the shit out of that family. They earned that reputation, it’s what they deserve.”
“They do deserve it. You know what’s also kinda funny – I’m 100% positive that Victoria is BFFs with their son Nathan Prescott. If you check out her Insta page, there is at least one selfie of them together.”
“Oh crap, I didn’t know that – that makes a lot of sense. I always thought the guy was a total vampire or that he was dead.”
“Why the hell did you think he’s dead?” Stella cackles.
“Again I always thought he faded from existence. Like…umm Nathan Prescott was found dead in Miami from a coke overdose or something.” Ren giggles. “I should not say that, but I can’t help it. I don’t even know what he looks like, I just know he’s probably a tall average white man who likes drugs, alcohol, and women.”
“That’s the average white person in Hollywood, both men and women.”
“So what you’re saying is that Victoria and Nathan are two peas in a pod? They are both white rich people who probably like champagne and getting fucked up.”
“Are you saying you don’t like champagne?”
“Stella please, I like Caipirinhas. I am a person with very specific tastes.”
“Listen – he has the worst tolerance ever! I –”
Nathan cuts off the rest of the podcast and decides he had enough for the evening. Shit those two had huge mouths and did not stop at any moment. It didn’t in help the slightest that both his name and family name were mentioned. That Ren guy was right, Sean Prescott can be terrifying and get things taken down quickly.
That is if things were to somehow spiral out of control.
He attempts to control his thoughts. He tries to think of pleasant things, it was what his therapist recommended him to do. Well it was one of the things that was shared with him, because it wasn’t in fact working. Nathan had his hands in his hair. He could feel his heart in his throat and his blood was pumping. He instantly calls Victoria, since he has her on speed dial.
“Why didn’t you say anything about my name being mentioned?” He first questions with his brows furrowed. Not that Victoria can see him, but certainly she can tell how disappointed he is by the tone of his voice.
“I thought it wasn’t a bad idea to let you hear it for yourself.”
“Yeah that was a real bright idea you had.” Nathan snarked.
“Nate I’m sorry, but don’t you see know how much this sucks now? Think about it! What if they spill some deep shit about us and our lives?”
As much as Nathan wanted to agree with Victoria, at best the podcast mentioned milquetoast information. What he heard was pure vanilla, nothing too offensive, and sensitive, yet at the same time, the irritated side of him understood where Vic came from. She always went out of her way to check on him when all he wanted to do was die and become one with the earth and soil. She never gave up on him either. They were close like siblings that way.
Fuck it, Nathan decides he’ll give into Victoria’s whim. It was what the impulsive and angry side of him wanted. He was fine with it as long as it scratched that itch at his brain.
“Yeah I do, so do you got a plan for this bullshit or what?”
“I do actually.” Victoria said. “It’s simple, we are go to your little podcast’s show in due time. I say we scare them into never talking.”
“Sounds fine by me.” Nathan agrees. It looks like his routine would be shaken up a little. Nathan didn’t mind, he found himself strangely eager instead.