Chapter 3

Shannon's P.O.V.I woke up with music blaring from the living room. God, What time is it? I glanced at my phone to see the time and fucking hell, I'm fucking late. I jumped out of my bed and scurried to the bathroom on full speed. Well, I still have 45 minutes left but with LA traffic on this day, I don't even know if I'm going to make it on time. Shit! Gabriel's going to kill me if that happens. I can't keep the celebrities waiting for me. What the fuck!

I got dressed and ready for about 10 minutes and I thought I was done, until I glanced at myself on the mirror, where I see my hair all over the place. I groan as I can feel my patience pouring out of me while I pulled my hair into a ponytail and put on a cap. That should do it.

I let out a breath and grabbed my phone, my keys and my camera bag before rushing out of the room where I find Zoe and Liz, her girlfriend, making out on the couch with music so loud its fucking ringing in my ears. So, I walked over to our stereo and turned it off and that made them pull apart.

"Shan-"

"I'm sorry to cut your make out session the music is just ringing. I'm sorry. I'm going to leave now because I'm fucking late." I say in a rush as I made my way towards the door.

"Becareful! Drive safe please" I hear Zoe say as I put on my converse.

"I will. I promise. Thanks for waking me up!" I smiled before rushing out of the house and into my car.

Sirens

There it goes again. I shake my head trying to fade the sound in my ear going straight to my head. I can't deal with that right now. As soon as my car started running, I immediately stepped on it and went on the road. I still have about 25 minutes left. I hope I really make it on time.

So okay, recap on today's shoot. So Gabriel said that I'll be shooting the cast of Black Widow for their posters. So that means I'll be shooting with Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, O-T Fagbenle, Ray Winstone and Rachel Weisz. I swallowed of how overwhelming that cast is. Huge celebrity profiles for today. Its not like I haven't work with celebrities for a while. I've been doing this for like 5 months now so I should be used to meeting high profile celebrities since I'm in charge of all photoshoots for advertising material for movies or tv shows.

Kevin said its my probation era and it would last for a whole year which is very very fine with me. Working with MCU is already a dream for me really. Even though I really can't remember how I got the job. I just got a call November last year from Alyssa that I already have schedule for work at the headquarters that will start by mid December. At first, I thought it was just a one time thing but I got confused when I had a meeting with the Kevin Feige.

Okay, you're probably confused as I am right now but something happened in December 2019. My mom and dad told me that I got into a car accident but they didn't tell me the details of it or what led to it and all I knew was, when I woke up in that hospital bed, besides the fact that my whole body is in pain, is that I can't remember anything. About what happened, about my life before the accident. The last thing I remember was I just broke up with Cari two months ago.

It was hard adjusting on that period of my life most especially when Covid happened but my family helped me through it. They've been very supportive with my recovery and I'm really glad we're all together during quarantine. That really helped me in my recovery. My memories didn't come back though and I always have this feeling of being incomplete. Like there is something missing and they're not telling me about it. Maybe they have a reason for doing that, I don't know. So I insisted on going back here in LA to discover it myself and maybe if I see the city where I used to be before the accident then maybe everything will slowly come back to me.

What's interesting though, is there were no pictures taken from the missing period of my life. Nothing, not a single one. Not even on my social media accounts nothing. Everything has been erased from that period and I badly wanted to know why. But nobody wants to talk about it which makes me want to talk about it.

My mom occasionally visits me at the house. Maybe thrice a week or so, just checking up on me. But as of the moment I can tell you with pure sincerity in my heart that I'm fine. I'm good, not seeing anyone at the moment and just focusing on my career and that makes me feel better.

Speaking of career, I finally arrive at the headquarters with 10 minutes to spare and even though, 10 minutes is just a short period of time for me to relax so I grabbed my things and got out of the car making sure to lock it before I leave. I practically run to the main entrance waving at security as I pass them by.

"Hi Ruth!" I say as soon as I saw Ruth fixing her things at the reception area. Ruth is our receptionist along with Dale who I'm guessing is on the afternoon shift today.

"Hi Shan" She smiles as I run pass her at the same time the elevator opens up so I was forced to ignore that and got in to the elevator before it closes. Fortunately, I'm the only one here and I held my breath as I watch the numbers go up thinking that if I stared at it, it would go faster and that's just one of the stupidest idea that I fucking have.

As soon as the elevator stops I moved my foot slightly behind the other getting ready to sprint out of the elevator. When the door opens I run.

"Shannon" My feet automatically stops upon the familiar voice making my chucks screech against the shiny polished floor almost falling over to my face. I turn my head to the voice and saw Gabriel with his brows raised at me. Oh shit!

"Gabriel, Hi! I was just-"

"A minute to spare." He says looking at his watch before glancing back up to me. I released a nervous smile not quite sure if I'm in trouble or what. I can't seem to read his facial expression right now. Its just blank and intimidating, it makes me want to be sucked into the ground.

"Come with me. The studio is this way" I glanced to the direction where I was suppose to run to earlier and figured it was the wrong hallway making me curse myself under my breath.

"Yea, that's what I thought, come on." I let out a sigh and followed him behind. Well, that's just fucking embarrassing. I let out a breath trying to steady my heartbeat because all of that got it pumping so fast and I'm sweating. Note to self, set an alarm.

We arrived at the studio and fortunately the cast isn't here yet and its only me, Dani, who is my assistant for the day and Gabriel.

"Hey, Dani" I smiled as I start to settle my thing on the corner of the room.

"Hi Shan, a bit late today?"

"Yea, sorry. I forgot to set my alarm" I whispered to her just so Gabriel won't hear my excuse making her giggle and shakes her head. I winked at her and starts setting up while Gabriel is busy on the computer.

"Shan" I tilt my head to the side from the reflectors so I can see Gabriel who gestured me to come to him maybe to discuss and give me some instructions on what to do which he usually does every time he's the one in charge of supervising the photoshoot.

"Yea?" He starts giving me instructions. Its the usual directions but he said Scarlett has two costume change so I'm going to shoot her first then for the next look, it will be shot last so there wouldn't be any rush on Scarlett's part with all the hair and everything.

"Okay, so I'm going to check on them be ready in about 20 minutes." I step aside as he stands up and give him a smile and a thumbs up causing him to roll his eyes on me.

"We'll be ready in 15."

"You better." He says before turning around .I watch him walk away until he disappears from the room.

"He loves me." I say earning a giggle from Dani. I joined her giggling as well waggling my eyebrows before returning to what I was doing earlier and that is adjusting the reflectors. Silence surrounds us again until but then a snigger breaks that so I turn to Dani and saw her smiling to herself. What is she smiling this time again?

"What's up with you?" I ask as I finish setting up the lights and the reflectors and now all I need is to set up my camera and we're done.

"Oh nothing. I'm just imagining your face when the cast arrives again." I rolled my eyes at her shaking my head. Dani is having fun watching my reaction on the cast's reaction when they see me, if that makes sense in anyway, but its really weird how can these celebrities greet us like they knew me my whole life and I've experienced that with Anthony and Sebastian. I just went with it though, I don't want to offend them in some way if they've mistaken me for someone.

"Really, what is up with that?" She shrugs as if she doesn't have a clue what I'm talking about but I can tell there's something she's not telling me either and really I'm getting annoyed at people not telling me things. I continue to set my camera up taking a few shots to see how they look and they're looking great so that's done.

After a while, I walk towards the computer to set everything up when I heard voices in the hallways and that just means we're about to start. I called Dani up so she could work on the computer while I work with the camera later on.

"Shannon?" I turn to the sound of my name and saw the Scarlett Johansson looking at me with wide eyes and a huge smile on her face, Gabriel standing behind her. Before I could even react she rushes to me and throw herself to me literally jumping on me almost knocking me over so my arms automatically wrapped around her waist to balanced it out. I was completely lost. Everything was happening too fast my mind can't keep up. What the hell is Scarlett Johansson doing in my arms. As much as I should be enjoying this, I'm more confused and lost than I'm impressed by her right now.

"Oh God, I've missed you! where did you fucking go!" She says and I stood frozen in my spot trying to figure out what was happening. She pulls away getting to her feet before looking at me properly with a huge smile on her face.

"Uh-" I open my mouth to say something but my voice isn't working with me right now so I glanced at Dani who is looking at me with a smirk on her face and for some reason all I wanted was to pull her aside and force her to tell me what the fuck is going on but I can't do that right now can I?

"Shan?" I turn to Scarlett again who already has a frown on her face. Say something Shan, just say something. Act like you fucking know her.

"Hi" It came out as squeaky, not very confident right now. She doesn't respond and just stared at me looking into my eyes, like she was studying me or something and it was making me uncomfortable.

"You know Shannon?" Dani asks at least she has the confidence to talk to her.

"Yea" She whispers but not taking her eyes off me, her intense stare digging into my fucking soul and ripping it out trying to find something. Oh God this is awkward.

"Okay let's start! we don't want to waste time." I silently thank Gabriel for saying that as Scarlett walks ahead to the shooting area giving me some time to fucking breathe and take in everything. "Shannon, I might not be around for a while, I just have an emergency meeting so take charge. Make it look good." Gabriel says in a low tone as he approaches me. I let out a breath and gave him a thumbs up before he turns and walks away leaving me to suffer alone for the next few hours.

I let out a breath and think quickly. Shan you had done this before, you just have to go with it. But I started off as awkward already. God this is so hard. Why don't people give me a fucking heads up. I walk over to Dani by the computer and take my camera.

"Do you know something about this? Please tell me the truth."

"No, Shan, I'm being serious. I'm shocked as you are. Have you met her before, because that is not the reaction I was expecting, not that big of a reaction."

"I can't remember" I sigh. "Talk to you later" I say before walking to my spot and look at her. She offers a small smile this time and clearly she's still confuse on what had happened earlier and suddenly I felt my stomach doing somersaults feeling bad for earlier. So I start to talk.

"I'm sorry, I was stunned to see you. How have you been?" I smile and she smiles back but not quite reaching her eyes. Alright its official, I've made it too awkward this time. But I was surprised when she says,

"I'm good." She simply says. We start to take photos after that. I really got some good shots despite of the awkward tension rising in the room which is making me sweat more by the way so as soon as the session ends I took off my pull over leaving me in just my tank top before checking the pictures with Dani.

"Hey, Shannon" I look up from Dani's computer but before I even get to look at her face she already grabbed my arm and pulled me to the side and it was making my heart race again.

"Okay, Shan tell me what's happening?" She said in a hush tone trying to look into my eyes. She has the same look with Anthony when I met him and it was really confusing me and this has to stop. They keep on confusing me with someone else and I'm tired having a first encounter with them acting like they haven't seen me in years and me not having a clue on what the hell is going on.

"I'm really sorry, I don't know how to ask you this but, have we met before?" I asked in a soft and hush tone looking totally confused at the moment. I watch as her brows furrowed as she crosses her arms on her chest just staring at me. I can feel my nerves with her intense stare.

"Hey, Shannon! Florence is here." I look up and saw Florence Pugh walks in the room. When her eyes landed on mine a huge smile appear on her face and started rushing to us.

"Well, well, well if it isn't gorgeous face. Haven't seen you around, how have you been?"She says before giving me a tight hug as well. What the fuck is happening? This is so weird, she knows me too? Okay I really don't want to be rude but this is freaking me out.

"Hey, cat got your tongue?" Florence chuckles as she pulls away so I just smiled at her. I glanced at Scarlett who is still staring at me with a blank expression on her face.

"I'm really sorry to ask where did we meet again?" I say and her smile fades away raising her brows at me. Fuck! "I'm not trying to be rude or what. I'm sorry, I'm really having a hard time remembering things." Florence's smile returns to her face but Scarlett looks away this time shaking her head.

"We met years ago silly, at Kevin's dinner party after Comic Con. Anthony introduced you to everyone at the party." Party? What fucking party? I look at her blankly not following what she was saying. But she just smiles and dismisses the subject but their smiles couldn't seem to meet their eyes.

"Shan, we need to start with Florence we still have a lot lined up for us." Dani says and I found myself nodding my head and yet again, I silently thank her for that this is too awkward for me to take already. I can feel a headache coming on and we're not even halfway through.

"Uh- What she says." Florence nods and nudged at Scarlett earning a nod from her before she goes off to the shooting area leaving Scarlett and I alone again and I can feel the tension growing again.

"Uh I need to-"

"We're not finished, I'll take you out to dinner later after this. Do you understand?" There was something in the way she said it that made me subconsciously nod my head. Maybe because she said it like my life depends on it and she would definitely won't take no as an answer.

"Good, I'll see you later." She takes in a deep breath before walking away and I stood there dumbfounded just figuring out. What the fuck just happened?______________

A/N: Merry Christmas Everyone!! 🎄