Chapter 1
Tobias Eaton. Nobody knew his name, though everyone knew his boss's name. He was just the lowly assistant. Nobody cared about him, even though he did some of the most important jobs in the office. He wasn't the kind of assistant that ran errands and got coffee for the important people. He did the important people's jobs. He did almost all of the work, while his boss got paid the big bucks.
He knew those were the consequences he'd have to pay in order to climb up the ladder. In order to be important. In order to matter. In order to accomplish his dream. In order to make change.
Every time he got called into his boss's office, there'd always be a small sliver of hope that maybe—just maybe—that there'd be a change his position. He couldn't help but imagine the title of "Tobias Eaton, CEO and Producer of Sweets Productions."
He laughed at the thought as he sat in his little desk outside of his bosses office.
Music was what Tobias loved. The only thing he ever cared about was just that. Music was how he lived. How he survived and thrived. How he became the person he was then. Of course, when he was about eleven, he wanted to become a DJ. At fifteen he wanted to be in a band. At seventeen he wanted to quit. At nineteen he wanted to major in it at college. At twenty-three he became an assistant at Sweets Productions.
At twenty-four he hated his job.
But every day, he still got up, got eight coffees, picked up documents, and hated his life even more, over and over again. Same shit, different day.
As he sat at his desk, he worked intently on his Pac-Man game, waiting, waiting to be called by his boss to do some more ridiculous busy-work. Although he did the most important things, the past week his boss had been treating him like absolute dog shit.
"Eaton!" the boss yelled. "Office!"
He closed his eyes momentarily, and then got up.
Tobias stood one-on-one, man-on-man, with his boss.
"Yes, sir?" he asked.
"Tobias, I have a job for you. An important one. A chance."
Hope rose in Tobias's chest.
"I'm listening."
Tris stepped outside and into the fresh air of downtown London. The air was brisk and the wind at a minimum. She met her friends sitting at the top of the doorstep and some on the lower stairs. They all looked like normal people, but, little did the public know, that they were the total opposite.
Shauna: the unstoppable artist.
Marlene: the unstable chef.
Christina and Will: the unforgettable photographers.
Tris" the unstoppable, unstable, unforgettable, unaccepted, unappreciated, and unhinged singer.
She was all of those things.
Unstoppable, most certainly. Even through all of the things people told her about her career choice, she never stopped.
Unstable, most definitely. Bipolar? Not quite. Unstable is the perfect word to describe her. If someone messed with her… Let's say bad things could happen. No guarantees.
Unforgettable, absolutely. She had one of those faces, one of those voices, and one of those personalities that one just couldn't forget about. No matter how hard they try, it's next to impossible to accomplish it.
Unaccepted, no question. Society has never been kind to her. Frequently she found herself wondering what she could've done to've deserved that kind of life.
Unappreciated, no doubt. Her voice was like no other. It was impossible to imitate a smooth, goddess-like voice like hers.
Unhinged, yes, indeed. She broke from the hinges—the status quo—when she was… well, she'd always been away from the hinges. She'd always been that girl reading on the playground while everyone was out playing. She'd always been that girl that attracted the wrong kind of attention.
A hot reader? Now that was something rare. Even in college when she'd be reading in the courtyard, listening to music, she would get all of the wrong kinds of attention. From jocks to nerds to creepers. Then there were normal guys that just didn't seem give her the jitters. To give her the right kind of feelings in her head. The ones that sent shivers across her skin. The ones that gave her goosebumps when she talked to him. Goosebumps and shivers were definite indicators for Tris.
The thing Tris always wondered was why she couldn't love. She wrote all these lovey-dovey songs that would make any man fall head over heels and attract any guy, and yet, somehow, she couldn't manage to love anyone.
She had a plethora of these lovely, lovely songs. She hadn't shown them to a single soul. She barely even knew what they meant, and she wrote them.
A man—a fine, yes, very fine man indeed—was staring in her direction at the moment, and that alone gave her goosebumps and shivers. She wasn't even talking to this man and he already gave her those feelings.
She nudged her friends one at a time, indicating for them to look at the man.
From here she could notice his deep, ocean blue eyes. They stood out against his tan skin and dark brown hair. He was tall, she noted, and quite handsome. She noticed that every time she looked at him, he'd be gazing off into the distance.
She and her friends lived across the street from a nice, moderately sized park where children would go to play and adults would go to let loose and clear their minds.
Tris frequented that park to do those things. She would take a walk around the park; maybe run a few laps, all the while listening to music.
Though her mind digressed, her eyesight still took focus to the man with the ocean blue eyes.
Her friends nudge her and push her to go over there and ask why he stared, so she stood, and then she stalked up to the man with the ocean blue eyes.
"I'm just your assistant," Tobias told his boss. "I don't do these kind of jobs."
"I'm giving you an opportunity."
"I'm just your assistant."
"I'm giving you an opportunity."
A pause.
"Okay," Tobias finally said. "I'll do it. And if I don't do this quite right…?"
"We'll see."
He nodded, and then left the office, returning to his desk.
Though it was a short and brief conversation, it was worth more than any long and boring conversation for Tobias. The objective: find an artist. Any artist. Any artist with a real voice. A real, genuine person with a real, genuine voice. He could find him or her on YouTube, Vimeo, hell, even Instagram.
He wanted Tobias's insight as a young adult to see what "kids these days" were into. Tobias told him that everyone has lost faith in true voices; that there are no longer any true, real, and non-autotoned voices. So the boss said he wanted something fresh; something different. He wanted to do a completely real album.
YouTube was the first place that came to Tobias's mind to check.
He sat down at his desk, and the first thing he pulled up was the read play button, indicating it was YouTube.
Trending Now:
PrioriT (2,314,865 subscribers)
SarahClose1 (383,270 subscribers)
JennaMarbles (15,522,253 subscribers)
PrioriT. Clever. Tris Prior was the name, indicating that she was a priority. Yes, a clever little duck she was.
Tobias clicked on her first video. A cover of "Poison" by Rita Ora. He scrambled for earbuds, and when he plugged them in, the first thing that hit him was her thick english accent.
"Hey guys, so, today I'm going to be singing a wonderful, wonderful song by a wonderful, wonderful artist named Rita Ora. This song is called Poison, and well,"—she looks down—"it basically explains my life," she says with a chuckle. She looks up and swipes the hair from her face. "Hope you enjoy."
When she smiles, she looks beautiful, Tobias thought. She looked about 23, and quite the beauty.
The beginning started off with the piano she was playing, and when her voice struck his ears, he was speechless. This was the first person he heard sing, and he knew—he knew—that this was the girl. She was the one. This girl—she deserved a record label.
Not only did she infatuate Tobias, but she sang like a lovely mythical siren. Those two things were very hard to accomplish under his standards.
Tobias knocked on his boss's door, and without waiting, he stepped in.
"Another question, Mr. Eaton?" his boss asked.
"Yes," he said, about breathless just from the one song. "I'm going to need to be on the next flight to wherever this girl lives."
"Tobias, must you be so naïve? You listen to one artist and you think she's the one. Listen to more, and then we'll talk."
"Sir, you need to listen to her. She deserves at least that."
He sighed, putting down his pen. "Very well. Play me the song."
Tobias ran to his desk and grabbed his laptop, then lugged it into his bosses office quickly as possible. He could only hope his boss would say yes to the trip. Part of the reason he even wanted to go was to see if this girl was even real. She couldn't be though, he thought. Nobody was that perfect.
Without a word, he pressed the play button on his laptop.
It started out with the introduction.
"What is this girls username?"
"PrioriT."
"Priority?" his boss asked.
Tobias paused the video because Tris began to sing. "Her name is Tris Prior. She put Prior then I, adding a capital T. Therefore indicating that she is a priority. Witty."
Then he unpaused the video.
Throughout the song, his boss was expressionless. He showed no emotion as to what he thought of the song. He could've loved it with every fiber of his being, or he could've loathed it with every ounce of himself.
When the song ended, Tobias closed his laptop with a hopeful expression.
"Watch more videos. Find out where she lives. Find out everything about this girl. I want her in my studio."
A grin spread across Tobias's cheeks; almost to the point where it hurt. He was beyond happy. This would be one of the best jobs in the world if he actually ended up getting to know this girl. Virtually and in real life.
"I'm on it, sir."
Tris approached the man with great wariness.
Not because she was afraid of frightening him, but because she was afraid of frightening herself. Nobody bothered saying anything when she got up and left her doorstep; they all knew she was going to confront the man.
They made an unusually large amount of eye contact while she crossed the crosswalk.
When she reached him, his eyes only stood out more than they did before. At ocean blue, it was hard not to notice them.
"May I ask what you could possibly want with me and my friends, sir?" was the first thing she said. "Because our lives are rather boring. And they all have boyfriends," Tris lied, "so you might as well scurry along."
The man with ocean blue eyes smirked. "Well do you?" he asked. "Have a boyfriend, that is."
Tris crossed her arms. "That is irrelevant to the current conversation."
Ocean Blue crossed his arms, mirroring her stance. "I believe it's very relevant."
She rolled her eyes. "You're just a dumb American. What do you know?"
He shrugged. "I know that I have good priorities. You seem to have none. Your number one priority is making music, correct? To some that's a low priority, but to you it's the highest, right?"
She flinched at that. "I presume you've seen my channel?"
Ocean Blue nodded. "It's quite enticing."
"Thank you?" she asked as a question. She didn't know how to respond to that exact type of question. She rarely got fans, and she was always very modest about how she would reply. Many of the fans she did get would be very upfront and tell her to never ever stop singing no matter what. Never. She got fan-mail about once or twice per week, and when she opened them, she got nothing but good things. Sure, she got some YouTube hate, but it was a rarity. She usually would comment back if there was a serious question, but she never bothered to argue with people that disliked her. She didn't care. She knew she was good, and that was all that mattered.
Ocean Blue chuckled. "Very modest, you are."
"So," she said, trying to change the topic, "are you some kind of stalker fan, or…?"
"Or," he said.
"What are your intentions?"
He took her hand from her side and grabbed a marker from his pocket. He held the cap in his mouth, which Tris admitted, was very alluring.
So she didn't pull back her hand or fight or act disgusted because he touched her. She simply let it happen. She knew he wouldn't let her go without a fight.
He threw her a wink as he walked away, putting the marker into his pocket.
She raised her palm so she could read what Ocean Blue had written.
Corbin's Coffee. 6 o'clock.