Lincoln Loud pinched the bridge of his nose and drew a deep, shaky breath. She's going to kill me, he thought, she's really going to kill me.

A tall, lanky man in black slacks and a white Oxford with his tie undone and his sleeves rolled up like a politician contriving to look working class, Lincoln sat at a large oaken desk that gleamed in the dry California sunshine streaming through the blinds. The office, sumptuous and tranquil with its creme walls and thick, forest green carpeting, stood empty and sedate, the air too warm and the deafening hush wrapping uncomfortably around him like a wet blanket. He massaged his temples and returned his attention to the tabloid before him. LOLA STRIKES AGAIN, screamed the headline in bold, damning text. Below was a still from a video of Lola attacking a photographer in Beverly Hills. All you could see of her was the back of her head and her dainty fist cocked like a duelist's sword.

This was the second time Lola had hit someone this summer. The first was in June when she decked Ms. Anaheim backstage at the All-California Beauty Pageant. When Lincoln and Lori sat her down and demanded an explanation, she crossed her arms sullenly over her chest and shrugged. Eh, I didn't like the way she looked at me.

Lincoln could have strangled her.

Instead, he patiently explained to her that the Living Loud Talent Agency, founded on and nurtured by his and Lori's blood, sweat, and tears, couldn't handle a loose canon beauty queen running around dropping people. They were too new, too small, to withstand constant scandal. Back during the heyday of Larry Dinger and crash television, the common wisdom held 'controversy creates cash'. It may have even been true back in 1995. But today, controversy cost cash, cash that LLTA didn't have. Their roots just weren't deep enough yet, one little firestorm was all it would take to burn it to the ground, and then what? Leni would be fine, but there'd be no more Late Night This Evening appearances for Luan, no more festival tours or gold records for Luna, no more WMLS franchises bidding for Lynn, and Lincoln and Lori...Jesus, they'd be out of work and so deep in debt they'd pop up in a Chinese family's living room. Didn't Lola understand this? Luan, Lynn, Luna and certainly Leni could find other agencies, but he and Lori would be screwed.

He told her this, and she sighed. Okay, she said, I'm sorry.

Yeah, he'd heard that before. Lola, nineteen and pretty with blue eyes, a gap in her front teeth, and a little beauty mark above her lip, had been a thorn in Lincoln's side since LLTA started representing her two years ago. She partied, she got in trouble, she wrote inflammatory tweets then deleted them hours later after the damage had been done. There hadn't been anything major yet, thank God, but sometimes, it was almost like she was doing it intentionally. Testing him. Seeing how far her slack extended.

He accepted her apology and hoped against hope that she'd straighten up, then, last week, she went out for drinks with an heiress friend of hers, and as they left, a paparazzi jumped out of the crowd like Jack Ruby and shoved a camera in her face.

Bad move.

On some level, Lincoln couldn't blame her for lashing out. The gossip press were jackals who'd do anything for a picture. They followed you, stalked you, camped outside your home, and sometimes even trespassed, and there was nothing you could do about it because the moment you become big in America, you lose all rights to privacy. You go from being a citizen to little more than public property. Lincoln loathed the paparazzi and every time one got their lights punched out, he thought it well earned.

But not when it was one of his clients doing it. That's where lawsuits and bad publicity come from, and in this day and age, those more than anything could kill a promising career dead.

Too bad Lola was bad publicity personified. Lincoln loved his little sister dearly, but she had an inflated ego, a chip on her shoulder, and less than half a brain in her head. That shouldn't be taken to mean she wasn't intelligent, she was, but she was also young, callow, and lacked the common sense that comes with maturity. He and Lori both tried to be patient with her, but it was hard sometimes, and on days like today, when the entire entertainment industry was buzzing with her latest faux pas, he wanted to shake her until she got it through her thick, blonde head.

He sighed and sat back, the swivel chair creaking under his weight. The time was closing in on 5'o'clock and the light was weakening like the flames of a dying fire. It was the middle of August and temperatures in Los Angeles had been in the high eighties and low nineties for nearly a month. Lncoln liked warm weather, but it was different here than it was in Michigan, dryer, the sun rays sharper and less friendly, it seemed to him. He'd been in L.A. for a few years but he had never quite adjusted to the Southwest heat. He glanced at his watch, then turned in his seat to face the window. Beyond, fashionable shops and sidewalk cafes lined Santa Monica Boulevard, and over their low roofs, the Hollywood sign looked out from its craggy mountain top like an indifferent god o'er its people.

Lori should be getting back soon. He wondered how the meeting was going, his stomach churning slightly with anxiety.

Beginning in 2025, all respectable beauty pageants in North America fell under the vast umbrella of the National Pageant Association. The NPA laid out strict guidelines for how its member promotions were to operate and how their talent was to behave. Lola's little backstage brawl landed her in hot water with the board of directors, and today was her trial, where they would decide her punishment. She was facing permanent suspension and a fine of 50,000 dollars. Lori, as Lola's de facto manager, went with her to advocate for a lighter ruling. If Lincoln was being honest with himself, Lola didn't deserve one, but since a perma-ban and a 50k fine would hurt her career permanently, he hoped she got it.

Lori and Lola left for the hearing just after one, and it was scheduled for three. Why was it taking so long? He turned away from the window and drummed his fingers absent-mindedly on his thigh. Maybe he should call and check up on them.

He considered that a moment then rejected it. Come what may, Lori would handle it like she always did. Nothing could faze her, she was cool and collected under pressure and kept her balance like a cat. Lincoln had really come to admire that about her over the last three years.

When Lori had first had the idea to open a talent agency and manage their sisters and a few of their sisters' friends, Lincoln worried she was being impulsive. It had all seemed so spur of the moment, like something she'd only done once she realized her undeniably gifted siblings kept running into brick walls in their careers because they were doing everything themselves and no one was really looking out for them. He knew where her eagerness to give it a shot came from; the blonde was spinning her wheels at a go-nowhere company just a few years out of college with a shiny new MBA burning a hole in her pocket, great natural business instincts and a desire to prove herself to the world. Regardless, while her shrewd mind and unwavering determination might both be highly valuable assets, she had precious little actual experience. The LA entertainment industry, like New York publishing, was notorious for being largely about knowing the right people, hearing the right things at the right time, and being seasoned enough to recognize which way the wind was blowing before everyone else did. Lori was going to try and break in using nothing but her own guts, her own mind, and the scant few relevant connections she'd made during her university days. It was a tall order, and Lincoln was stunned when she quit her job and moved out to LA.

In the end, however, despite all his doubts, she'd actually managed to lay down a solid foundation for their sisters in town and got them the opportunities they needed to make it big, and their agency along with them. After that, he'd decided never to underestimate his eldest sibling ever again.

Thus, it was much to his surprise when, a couple of years in, she'd offered him a job as her second-in-command. No, perhaps that was too euphemistic. It would be more precise to say that after months of gently hinting that there was a place for him at her company, Lori finally dropped all pretense and began to pressure him, guilt him and twist his arm into agreeing to come. She helpfully provided a laundry list of reasons why it was a good idea for him to just happen to do exactly what she wanted. To mention just a few: though Lori had people working under her, there was no one else she could be sure would truly have their siblings' interests as close at heart as he did. He wasn't doing anything back home anyway. His knack for strategizing and problem solving was just what Living Loud needed. On and on it went.

Though he was at first resistant to the idea of dropping everything and moving to California, she continued hassling him over the course of weeks, until finally she wore him down like a producer she was trying to sell on new talent and he'd agreed to join her. In the end it was her telling him his sisters needed him that had done it, especially when he read between the lines and the tone of her voice and realized how desperate and overworked Lori was, realized that though she hadn't admitted it, she was included within that group. He'd never been able to refuse when his sisters begged for his help as kids, and as an adult it was no different. To his wonderment, while he'd started off with the idea he'd just do what little he could to get some pressure off of her, Lincoln was deeply shocked when he realized he really did have a talent for talent relations. Living Loud worked almost entirely with women; he figured his 'gift' probably came from his lifetime of having to figure out how to convince a gaggle of needy, emotional girls to do what he wanted, his on-the-job training starting when he was three years old. When he mentioned his theory to Lori, she just laughed and told him she always knew he'd be a natural.

The intercom on the desk buzzed, and his eldest sister's voice filtered through the speaker. "Hey, it's me. Grab a blank check and meet me in the hall."

She was as crisp and professional as always, but Lincoln detected a weary undertone in her voice that told him she wasn't planning on coming back to work today. He glanced at his watch. Past five. Eh, it was quitting time anyway.

He pressed the button and leaned closer to the speaker. "Alright, I'll be right out."

Taking a blank check from the center drawer, Lincoln got to his feet, rolled down his sleeves, and shrugged into a maroon sports coat. He considered bringing his laptop but decided against it. He worked at home sometimes, but not today. He was going to have a drink, relax, and hide from the world until morning. If anyone needed anything, they could call him. And if they didn't have his number, they could wait.

On his way into the outer office, he snapped the light off and armed the security system. His office and Lori's both had one in addition to the suite housing Living Loud. That was Lincoln's idea. Hollywood is a cutthroat place and he wouldn't put it past someone to try and break in looking for dirt. If the paparazzi could jump over a garden fence to snap pictures of a starlet sunbathing in the nude, they were capable of anything.

The secretary's desk facing the glass door leading into the hall stood abandoned save for an Elvis bobblehead which nodded at Lincoln on its own accord, as if to congratulate him on surviving another day in the shark tank. Leather arm chairs and a glass coffee table boasting an array of magazines comprised the waiting area. A potted plant waved to him from a corner, and cold air showered him from one of the overhead vents, sending a quick shiver down his spine.

In the hall, he locked the door, input the security code (Lori's birthday backwards, with an extra 5 thrown in for variety). Nearby, with a presence so muted he hardly even noticed her, the girl herself leaned heavily against the wall, her head thrown tiredly back and her arms crossed over her thin chest. She wore a midnight black power suit over a white blouse and flat shoes (heels hurt her feet, she'd wear them to galas but not anything else). Her short blonde hair rustled around her ears when she turned to look at him, and her pearl earrings swayed back and forth like pendulums. The young woman's watery brown eyes were shot through with fat, red cracks and her chest rose and fell as though she had jogged up the steps, then down and back up again just for the hell of it.

She didn't ask for the check because she didn't have to; by that point they had become a well-oiled machine and worked together as smoothly as two practiced ballet dancers. In business as in life you must be able to trust the people closest to you, and Lincoln had earned his sister's full and unconditional trust through listening, paying attention, thinking on his feet, and never, ever forgetting anything.

He slipped the check out of his coat and handed it to her. "What's the damage?" he asked.

"Well," Lori sighed, "she's banned from competing for a year and we get to pay twenty-thousand dollars." A bitter inflection crept into her voice and her nostrils flared. She was angry, perhaps even furious, but she would make no outward display of it. At home, in her richly-appointed apartment, his sister might bury her face in her pillow and scream, or sulk around the kitchen and mutter an imaginary argument with Lola while she waited for her Lean Cuisine to cook, but she wouldn't let Lincoln see the extent of her pique. Emotions, she said, had no place in business, and the moment he agreed to join the management of Living Loud, he became her business partner, a role that, within these four walls, superseded his position as brother. That's just how she was, the agency came before anything else. She had to set a tone for her young company: if the boss herself couldn't be counted on to maintain her professionalism when things got tough, how could she expect her employees to?

"That's not as bad as it could have been," Lincoln consoled her. They were walking side-by-side to the elevator. Ahead, a lanky middle-eastern man in jeans and a T-shirt wore a backpack vacuum and waved a long, metal wand tipped with a nozzle over the carpet in a wide, sweeping arc. The machine's high, sickly whir told Lincoln that it wasn't long for this world.

Lori stabbed the button with her thumb and crossed her arms. "No, but it's bad enough," she said. "She can't compete, which puts us out a fortune."

"She can't compete in North America," Lincoln corrected, "there's still the international circuit."

The elevator dinged and slid open. "Those are a pain in the ass," Lori complained.

It was true. In 2027, most nations in Europe and Asia had come together in a far-reaching economic partnership, a sort of combination EU and G20. It billed itself as the League of International Cooperation and its current headquarters (it rotated every four years) was in Brussels, with the head of each member state sitting on its decision-making bureau. There were just a few holdouts who refused to join among the first world nations, the most prominent of which was the United States. Since America was not a member, American citizens did not enjoy the same freedom of movement as most other so-called 'global citizens'. Some time after that, in an attempt to bring at least the US into the fold, the LIC passed sweeping laws making entering, doing business with, and travelling within member states harder for citizens from non-member states. All of this meant that in order for Lola to compete almost anywhere in the world with a pageant scene to speak of, Living Loud would have to jump through hoops, pray to every God above the sun, and fill out so many forms they'd need an army of monkeys banging on typewriters around the clock just to get them done by Christmas.

Still, while tedious and frustrating, it was better than having Lola sit home for twelve months. He said so, and Lori drew a deep breath. "You're right."

They were in the elevator now. It hummed smoothly down the shaft and reached the lobby with a slight jolt. The doors opened and Lincoln followed Lori out. "Get started on the paperwork first thing tomorrow," she said, but he was already plugging a reminder into his phone.

She didn't tell him which circuit to apply to, she trusted him to pick the best on his own. The first one to come to mind was the Otaku circuit in Japan, but Lincoln was leery of Japan. Last year, when Luna's second album was stalled at 45 on the top 50, a festival organizer in Osaka emailed him asking if she could headline day one of the Kyoni Jamboree. In America, Luna was a middling rock singer barely treading water, but in Japan, she was a virtual superstar. You know those jokes about being "Big in Japan"? Luna was living them. But on the third day of her trip, she'd gone into the bathroom, opened the shower curtain and found a young girl dressed like her hiding in her tub.

Yeah. Fandom over there was intense, and Lincoln was afraid of exposing Lola to that. Luna had dealt with it with her characteristic good humor, but Lola was a lot more high strung than she was. He just didn't think it was a good idea.

On the other hand, Living Loud had a good working relationship with the organizers of the Milan circuit, which hosted pageants across northern Italy, southern Switzerland, and eastern France. In fact, the promoter, a pudgy little Italian man named Giovanni Merlo, was the father of Lori's best friend from college and invested nearly a hundred thousand dollars to help Living Loud get off the ground way back when. If it weren't for him, Lori was fond of saying, they'd all still be "derping around Royal Woods."

The Milan circuit was really the better option. Giovanni was in tight with the right people and could pull enough strings to make getting Lola in easier than it would be otherwise.

Outside, the ever present heat enfolded Lincoln like dragon breath and sweat instantly sprang to his forehead. People in bright summery clothes paraded up and down the sidewalks bordering Santa Monica, the women in big, bug-eye sunglasses and the men with buns in their hair. Flashy cars that cost more than most people make in a year passed by in the street like self-satisfied creatures of vanity, and overhead a helicopter soared high above the city on its way south, toward the beating heart of Los Angeles.

They stopped at the curb and Lori whipped out her phone. She swiped her thumb across the screen, waited, tapped it, then looked up, the dying light of the summer sun highlighting the crease in her brow from furrowing it too much. She was barely thirty, but the stress and rigors of running Living Loud were taking their toll: she hid the permanent dark circles under her eyes with mascara, chewed Tums like candy, and her hands shook just a little. For Lori, Living Loud was her baby; she was never off the clock, never not thinking about work, never fully at rest. She hadn't had a vacation in years and refused to take one "until things settle down." Only things were never quite settled enough for her liking, and he suspected they probably never would be.

Her workaholism (at least that's what Lincoln thought of it as) wasn't good for her health, but every time he brought up the prospect of her taking a week or two and going to Hawaii or Cancun, she shot him down. "I can't," she'd say.

"Of course you can," he declared, "I got this."

She looked him dead in the eyes. "Drop it, Lincoln."

Well then.

There was his ego bruised.

It wasn't that he necessarily relished the thought of assuming responsibility for day-to-day operations, even for so brief a period, but he would, and, more importantly, he could. Lori trusted him in his capacity as her top lieutenant, but he got the sense that she didn't trust him to handle things while she was away. A large part of him wanted to prove her wrong...but a part of him balked at the pressure of taking over, too. He loved what he did and was 100 percent committed to Living Loud, but he wasn't sure he could do what Lori did. His big sister was blessed with many gifts and qualities that he lacked. She was sociable and outgoing, he was somewhat introverted. She was immovably stubborn, he had been known to yield. Nevertheless, their opposing personalities and attributes made them the perfect team, and if one of them were to leave, he wasn't sure Living Loud would last long.

At least he liked to imagine it wouldn't, because if Lori could replace him, he wasn't doing his best.

"You wanna grab something to eat?" Lori asked as she shoved her phone into her purse.

"Sure," Lincoln said.

Most afternoons, he and Lori had dinner together, sometimes out but mostly in the office, eating as they worked on financials or contracts. Lincoln had a thick stack of take-out menus in his desk drawer, representing all the pizzerias, Chinese woks, and Mexican margarita houses in a ten mile radius. Lori's favorite was a hole in the wall that served soul food so authentic that every bite transported you to the Mississippi Delta. She loved the macaroni and cheese as more than a friend, and she could eat their famous homemade buttermilk biscuits until she puked. He personally preferred the Vietnamese place on Larkdale. He was friendly with the owner, an old man named Nguyễn, and was one of the few white guys in the city to know about its secret menu, which included half-gestated chick fetus in egg, roasted tarantula, and silkworms served in a little bamboo bowl. Though he considered himself pretty adventurous, he hadn't tried any of those dishes and, God, he never would.

Five minutes later, their Uber pulled up and they climbed into the back. The driver, a stocky man with curly black hair and glasses, glanced into the rearview mirror. "Where to?" he asked.

"Tenay's," Lori said.

Tenay's was a sidewalk cafe on the corner of Santa Monica and North Vista Street in West Hollywood. It was billed as a "gastropub" and even though Lincoln had been there a hundred times, he still had no idea what that meant.

The driver put the car in drive and pulled away from the curb, falling in behind a red DMZed tour bus. Lincoln's eyes narrowed, and Lori made a sound of disgust in the back of her throat. At any given time, there were thousands of tourists traipsing through Hollywood and Beverly Hills hoping to catch a glimpse of someone famous, and paparazzo jackals like DMZed were all too happy to oblige. Lincoln could understand wanting to see the sights, but those buses would literally stop traffic so everyone onboard could snap pictures and holler out the windows at whoever the driver on board had locked on to. Lincoln wasn't famous himself, but he knew enough people that were to have a vivid understanding of what it was like to get constantly blindsided by firing flashbulbs. Imagine living under a glass dome, completely naked, and everyone in the world is standing on the other side, staring at you 24/7.

That's fame.

It wasn't for him.

Afternoon traffic clogged Santa Monica and for most of the way, the driver played a game of stop and go that threatened to give Lincoln low-speed whiplash. With eleven-some million people bottled up inside of 4,058 square miles, Los Angeles County was the single most populous county in the United States, a sad fact to which its congested roads and freeways bore abject witness. Sometimes, the 405 was backed up for miles, and at night, when he stood on the balcony of his ninth floor apartment, the distant interstate was a frozen sea of lights.

Lincoln loved California's natural beauty - the rugged hills, arid steppes, and miles of coastline - but if he was perfectly honest, the place was a wreck. The economy was in slump, the housing market was down, everything was overpriced and overtaxed, the infrastructure was crumbling, the chancellor of public education cared more about maintaining arbitrary student quotas than fixing the actual school system, and there were vast, spreading homeless encampments on the fringes of the city that grew by the day. Years of waste, mismanagement, and ill-conceived government initiatives had left the state in dire straits. How, Lincoln always wondered, could a place that was home to so many millionaires and billionaires be such a poorly-run mess? He didn't know, but he'd already made up his mind that he would never raise a family here.

Not that he planned on starting a family any time soon. He hardly even had the time to date lately. In the natural course of life, however, he would most likely meet someone, fall in love, and father children. When he did, he would move his family somewhere that wasn't a raging dumpster fire.

Back home?

He'd put it in the maybe column. He was plenty nostalgic for Royal Woods, sure; the town he grew up in would always be close to his heart, no matter how far away he wandered or where he was eventually laid to eternity. He wasn't sure, however, that he wanted to live there again permanently. He was used to the big city now and though every big city had its flaws, he enjoyed having everything he could ever want within a few mile drive. In LA, there was commercial diversity of choice, of options, whereas in a small town like Royal Woods, one had to make do with a limited handful of retailers, restaurants and entertainment. Lincoln wasn't the sort who shopped until he dropped or ate out every day, but it was nice to know that if he wanted or needed something, anything at all, he could simply go out and get it.

Unfortunately, that consumerist freedom somehow always came with drugs, urban decay, gangs, and high taxes.

A half an hour after setting out, the driver parked in front of Tenay's, a low, stylish building with a red awning and an open patio. Inside, the lighting was low and ambient and the quiet chatter of a hundred voices combined the scrape and clink of utensils to form a soothing din that instantly made Lincoln drowsy. A perky hostess led him and Lori to a table off to one side and sat menus in front of them. She practicedly whipped an order pad and pen from the pocket of her waist apron and took their usual drink order: a daiquiri for Lori and a Long Island for Lincoln. He didn't drink much, but he loved Long Islands. Some people said it was a girly drink, but heck, it tasted good, took the edge off and didn't screw up his digestion when he had one on an empty stomach. That's all Lincoln asked.

When the waitress was gone, Lori sagged back against her chair and puffed out her lips. "How did Lola take the ruling?" Lincoln asked.

Lori rolled her eyes. "She literally stomped her foot and said 'You can't do this to me!'"

An image of Lola, face red and clenched, seething at the judges took shape in Lincoln's mind, and he laughed. "She should have thought about that -"

"Before," Lori finished. "I know. She was completely fine after we left, though. Laughing, texting...you know, buoyant."

Lincoln opened his mouth, hesitated, then said, "You think she was happy to be banned?"

They had never discussed Lola's seeming penchant for professional self-immolation in depth, though Lincoln had brought it up before. Lori agreed that sometimes it was as if she was trying to sabotage herself, but refused to accept it. "Lola came to me," she said once, "It's not like I'm making her do this."

It would make sense for her to act that way if she were being forced to compete and be in the spotlight, but she wasn't. Lori wasn't twisting her arm and then robbing her blind the way momagers of yore did to child stars, she was giving her sister the representation that she herself sought. And Lori had done a damn good job in that department. She got Lola the best opportunities available to a beauty queen in an age when beauty queens weren't exactly a hot property. Lori had scored her several small parts in movies and was even in the embryonic stages of negotiating a record deal with a semi-major label.

There was no reason for her to resent Lori, there was no reason for her to hate where she was in life.

There was no reason for her to sabotage herself.

She was young, dumb, and spoiled, that was all. Two years ago, she was a small town girl walking down the runway at pageants in shopping malls, now she was a well-known celebrity with 1.5 million instagam followers and a sizable bank account. Any kid in her position would go a little crazy, and anyone, anyone, who ascended to stardom as rapidly as she had was bound to grow a chip on their shoulder. He tried always to keep that in the front of his mind when dealing with her; she was just nineteen, practically still a kid.

"Maybe," Lori sighed. "She keeps saying she doesn't want time off but she's been out there for almost two years, so she's gotta be getting tired."

The waitress returned with their drinks and took their meal orders: a hamburger for Lori and steak strips and fries for Lincoln. Alone again, Lincoln broached the subject of getting Lola on the Milan circuit and Lori nodded her approval. "I was thinking that myself," she said, "if she can behave herself. The last thing I need is to have her embarrass Giovanni. I'd really like to keep our relationship in one piece."

While they chatted and sipped their drinks, an endless stream of people came and went from the restaurant. A few spoke to them as they passed. A famous director nodded to Lori, and a daytime TV actress who reached her (modest) peak a couple of presidencies ago stopped for a quick and vapid hi-and-bye that would have been only slightly more superficial if it included a cheek kiss.

In his three years living in L.A., Lincoln had met countless celebrities, some at Living Loud and others at lavish parties in the hills that he attended only to network. Social events, Lori had insisted, were just as important to the agency as office work. Even more important, sometimes. At parties, connections could be made that, with a little water and sunlight, might some day grow into invaluable relationships, and that's the stuff Hollywood runs on. It's less about how good you are and more about who you know. A talent agency's very job, Lori decreed, was to place its clients in the best possible position inside their chosen field, and to do that, you had to know not just the right people, but everyone. Lincoln, therefore, made it his mission to do just that, and had arrived at a startling conclusion.

He didn't like anyone in Hollywood.

He didn't like the vapid, arrogant actresses, the diva-from-hell pop stars, the lecherous producers and scumbag executives, the vanity, the ego, the backstabbing, the constant, non-stop rat race. The people he dealt with on a daily basis were not the types he'd hang out with on his own time, at best, and at worst, they were sneaky, underhanded snakes who'd sell their own mother for fame and fortune. The up-and-comers who started at Living Loud were usually decent if not outright pleasant, but eventually, even they were usually mangled into assholes by the entertainment industry's grinding gears despite he and his team's best efforts. Starlet see, starlet do.

The food arrived shortly, and he and Lori dug in. Lincoln wasn't a big steak guy but Tenay's made it perfect: moist, tender, and just chewy enough that it didn't fall apart in your mouth. The fries were crisp and seasoned perfectly, not too bland and not too spicy, and the side of homemade buffalo ketchup sent his taste buds on a delightful journey to nirvana.

Heh. He should work as an ad man next.

"I'm going to run this over first thing in the morning," Lori said, "Before you come in, can you stop by at Lola's? Just check on her?"

Lincoln nodded, distracted by his steak. "Yeah, I can do that."

"We already had a long talk before I dropped her off. I told her no tweeting, no bitching, and absolutely no clubbing. I want her to stay out of sight and out of mind until we can get her to Europe." Lori lapsed into a contemplative silence. "And once she's there, too."

"She'll need a handler," Lincoln remarked.

Lori nodded. "Yeah. A handler who can actually handle her."

"Chunk?" Lincoln asked.

Chunk, real name Chester Monk, had once been Luna's roadie. A big, burly Englishman with a bald head and biceps as big around as tree trunks, Lori hired him as a talent management agent, one of eight in the company. Working directly under Lincoln, he acted as a combination chauffeur, bodyguard, and "bloody babysitter" (his words, not Lincoln's). If a client needed a ride to an audition, Chunk provided it; if they needed security, he provided it; if they needed minding because they were borderline self-destructive, he provided it. He was one of the better TMAs they had; he did his job with the cool and unflappable efficiency of a disciplined manservant in a Victorian novel and was well-liked by all the talent he was assigned to. If anyone could keep Lola in line, it would be him.

"...Maybe," Lori said thoughtfully, then took a bite of her burger.

After paying their bill, the two made their way through the dinner crowd jamming the foyer and waiting to be seated. Night had fallen, and the clubs along the strip were gradually coming alive like vampires at dusk. Lori ordered another Uber and an hour later, it dropped Lincoln off at his apartment building, a high rise surrounded by palm trees, their fronds waving in the warm evening breeze. His sister leaned out of the car and called after him, "Don't forget to check on Lola."

"I won't," he promised. She wasn't really worried he'd forget, he knew; that was just her own Lori way of saying goodbye.

A vaulted lobby with tiled floors, brass lamps on beige walls, and oak paneling opened off the main door. The stairs were laid with an Art Deco patterned runner and intricate gold-leaf ironwork supported the polished oak handrail. Lincoln took the elevator to his floor, got off, and let himself into his apartment.

The young man locked the door behind him, snapped on the light, and went down the short connecting hall to the living room. A black leather sofa and a glass coffee table faced a wall-mounted plasma screen TV, and pieces of abstract art kept watch over potted plants like the after-effects of a clown's wild night on the town, all splats of vivid color and the occasional Rorschach maybe-image that only swam into focus if you tilted your head, crossed your eyes, and believed. A bookcase filled with best-sellers and classic favorites stood sentinel beside the archway. Lincoln liked books and planned to one day read every one of them, but he could never find the time. The only volume he had thus far made time for was a collection of his sister Lucy's poems. A slender paperback with a glossy cover depicting a poorly edited digital image of a graveyard at midnight, it was put out by a small publisher Lincoln had never heard of and sold, she had confided in him, ten copies "Eight to family and two to people without taste." Lucy was hard on herself to the point of self-flagellation, and Lincoln had to periodically remind her that she was only twenty-two. "Success doesn't happen overnight," he reminded her. She was currently at college in Portland studying for a Masters' in English and infrequently sold pieces on the side, and was beginning to rethink her life goals.

"I might just teach," she said once. Lincoln hated to see his little sister lose faith in herself, but it wasn't easy for a writer to make it big and given Lucy's chosen medium and preferred subject matter, her road was even harder. Poetry just didn't sell as well as commercial fiction and even fewer poets made a living from their writing than novelists. He believed in her talent and thought all she needed was to rethink her approach, but no matter how much he badgered her, she downright refused to go where the money was. 'I'm a poet, Lincoln. I can't write anything else...I won't write anything else.'

Lincoln sighed, resolving to ask Lori for advice on how to work on her later. Maybe it was the agent in him, but he refused to let any of his sisters give up on their dreams. Not when he was finally in a position where he could really help them.

In his room, the young man took off his coat and hung it from the back of the door, then sat on the edge of his bed and kicked out of his loafers. After unknotting his tie, he went into the bathroom, used the toilet, then took his laptop into the living room on socked feet. At last Lincoln sank onto the couch with a long, grateful sigh of relief. The alcohol had blunted his senses and now it was beginning to retreat, leaving him cold and groggy. He'd check his email and poke around his files for something to do, then take a shower and go to bed. He wanted to be in the office no later than seven tomorrow, and he had to check in on Lola which, realistically, would probably delay him.

He was just about to power up the computer when his phone rang. Setting the laptop aside, he leaned over, dug the phone out of his pocket, and glanced at the screen.

Leni.

"Hello?" He answered.

"Hi, Lincy," Leni chiruped.

"Hey," Lincoln greeted and switched the phone to his other hand, "What's up?"

Something crinkled on the line. It sounded like a bag. "Can you do me a huge favor, please?"

Ah. There went his quiet evening at home. Perhaps it was just as well. Truth be told, he hated just sitting there and absently scrolling through social media anyway. Maybe he'd been infected with some of Lori's attitude, but the young man often had a nagging sense of unease when he wasn't being productive. "Sure."

"Can you bring me some groceries tomorrow? I'm running out."

Leni lived alone on Palmetto Ave, sixteen blocks south of Lincoln and forty blocks north of Lori. She disliked leaving her apartment and usually had someone else, typically her little brother, do her shopping for her. "Yeah, I can do that," he said. "Do you need them before...like...five?"

She thought for a minute. "No, it can be after that."

"Okay, cool. Can you email me a list?"

"Yep," she said. "I'll do that now."

After she hung up, Lincoln let out a breath and glanced at his laptop. Just you and me, he thought.

He was suddenly aware of how deathly silent the apartment was; if he listened close enough, he could hear the blood rushing through his veins.

It was moments like this, alone at the end of a long day, that he wished he was married.

To something other than his work.

When the crashing hush became too much and the walls started to close in on him, he got up, went into the bathroom, and took a shower. Later, in bed, he lay on his side and scrolled through twitter on his phone. The Living Loud page picked up a dozen follows at random since he last checked that morning.

Huh. Maybe one of their new talents had plugged them.

Putting the phone down, he rolled onto his other side, clutched a pillow to his chest, and let the exhaustion he'd been resisting all day pull him into sleep.