Rise To Stardom - Chapter 40

Chapter 40: Small Achievements
Waking up to constant vibrations from his phone was not a thing that Kyle enjoyed one bit.

However, being an early morning person, his hands soon reached for the phone as he blinked his bleary eyes open.

Seeing the multiple missed calls from Oliver, his friends and a lot of unknown numbers which he presumed were from record labels that had been bugging him these past two days, the young man quickly sat upright, his slumber disappearing in an instant as a bit of wariness creeped in.

Almost instantly, another call came through from Oliver and Kyle swiftly picked it up.

“Morning Oliver. What’s up?” he anxiously asked.

“Kyle, just go check the [GrooveBox] chart where your songs were released” his agent calmly said from the other end of the phone without even answering his greeting.

“Okay…” the young man squinted his eyes slightly, his voice trailing off.

Finding the entire thing confusing, especially since they both already knew that his songs were going to perform quite well regardless, Kyle wondered where exactly his song must’ve been at on the charts for his agent to be behaving like so.

Navigating over to the ‘New & Hot 100′ chart, Kyle blinked his eyes a few times in utter disbelief while slowly covering his hand with his mouth as he spoke, his words barely above a whisper.

“What…”

And then, in a much stronger tone, his voice a bit louder this time, he questioned again in complete shock!

“WHAT?!”

* * *

“You guys think he’d go out with me if I made stronger advances?” Betty, a beautiful lady, shamelessly asked while gently twirling her blonde locks.

“Well, unless you live under a rock, I’m pretty sure he’s made it clear that he’s not interested in anything of sort” her friend, Cassie, who had black hair and was also quite beautiful, rolled her eyes as she answered.

“And besides, with the shit we put him through two months ago, you think he’d really want to go out with any of us?” the last friend, Jennifer, who had brown hair, quickly shut down her friend’s stupid delusions.

“But he might be more receptive now you know. That last time we spoke to him in the cafeteria too, he didn’t seem to completely hate us or want to leave until that bitch Lily came along. Maybe he’s just playing hard to get…” Betty continued with her delusions as she swooned.

“Hard to get? Really, Betty? When he literally seems to have a really good relationship with Lily and a bunch of other girls?” Jennifer gave her friend the side-eye.

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure him saying nothing to us that last time was his way of telling us to politely fuck off” Cassie massaged her temples and sighed, genuinely regretting her and her friends’ actions a few months back.

Glancing over to their friend Haley, who was pretending not to hear their conversation, although her eyes constantly kept drifting to the middle of the outdoor lawn where Kyle was seated on the ground just a few meters away from them, they all couldn’t help but sigh in regret once again.

However, just as Haley kept gazing, she soon watched as a familiar face approached Kyle and plopped down just in front of him.

Her friends noticed the sudden frown that formed on her face and also glanced over to see a pretty girl with her blonde hair tied in a neat bun and thin-circular glasses that framed her eyes, grinning at Kyle as she began to speak using sign language.

And in reply, they watched with widened eyes as the young man raised his gaze from the academic textbook he was reading and then responded with sign-language too.

‘He just becomes more and more endearing doesn’t he~’ Betty swooned for a bit before she then asked, a scowl forming on her face.

“Who the hell’s that bitch?”

A bit of silence was exchanged between all four since no one seemed to know whom the blonde-haired lady Kyle was currently conversing with was.

However, after a short while, Haley reluctantly replied to her friend with a regretful sigh.

“Christina Aubert…”

Completely oblivious to the four ladies and how they were watching her interaction with Kyle though, Christina just kept conversing animatedly with the young man.

<Number one on the chart! That’s amazing!> she beamed at him.

<I was so surprised too! Could not believe my eyes!> Kyle replied with the same enthusiasm.

<You deserved it. Congratulations!> she nodded her head happily.

<Thank you Christina. I really appreciate it> Kyle smiled in response and Christina gave a thumbs up with small grin.

Yes. Seeing [Needs To Be Loved] as number one on ‘New and Hot 100’ was something Kyle was still coming to terms with.

Even [Embers] was now at number 10 while [Sparks] was currently at 17.

Honestly, the young man wasn’t too sure why the songs were doing so exceptionally well but it seemed like him tagging all his friends and all of them also helping him repost it had helped a whole lot.

Little did he know, the main cause of it was Jennie, Princess Peach and his small core fans banding together to push the song higher and higher on the charts.

In addition to that, all three songs were really good music that had a lot of heart to them and that too, had also been a major reason as to why the song was doing so very well.

It was also the reason why even the occasional music listeners along with music enthusiasts who had never heard of him before or watched Rising Voices for that matter, were listening to a song with no popular name attached to it.

That being said, the ‘New and Hot 100’ was a chart that was really only for aspiring musicians in the music industry and it really didn’t even amount to much on the far more popular playlists.

To put into perspective, a song that took the number one spot on ‘New & Hot 100’, might not even reach top 100 on the much popular ‘Indie Sensations’ chart, place top 200 on the ‘Buzzing 100’ chart or ever dream of reaching top 300 on ‘GrooveList Top 100’.

Add that to the fact ‘New & Hot 100’ was a rapidly changing chart where any new music could dethrone his song within a day, Kyle more than anyone knew that his current achievement was very temporary.

All that being said, what he had achieved was still no small feat for his very first song release and Kyle was at the very least, really proud of that.

<Will you be coming to the club today?> Christina soon asked the young man as their conversation continued on, her evergreen irises hopeful.

<I might. Final year exam’s in a month and I still have a lot of reading to catch up on so it’s still up there for now though> Kyle directed his gaze towards his textbooks for a split moment and Christina nodded in response while replying;

<I understand. I wish you the best!>

<Thank you Christina. I appreciate it> Kyle signed back in genuine appreciation.

No sooner had that happened though, both of them heard a familiar voice boom across the lawn to meet them!

“Eyyy! There’s the man of the hour!”

Lightly smiling, Kyle and Christina turned over to see Ryan casually walking over to them with his arms spread wide open.

Waving over to him, Christina beamed happily while Kyle questioned;

“Yesterday or this morning?”

“Yesterday. Had to lodge at a hotel due to arriving at midnight” Ryan replied as he plopped onto the ground beside them.

“Congratulations once again man! You earned it!” the young man offered a fist bump to which Kyle returned the gesture.

Considering he and Ryan had already spoken this morning and he had congratulated him, this was a fitting response.

Turning his attention over, Ryan then lightly smiled at Christina.

“Hello Christina. How’ve you been faring?” he acknowledged her presence to which the bespectacled lady gave an ‘ok’ sign that signaled that she was just dandy!

Glad to see her doing well, Ryan exchanged a few more gestures with the pretty lady until Kyle soon asked a curious question.

“So, how’d the meeting with that agent go?”

“Well, let’s just say it was a really, really good offer. One Joe and I were more than willing to take our chances with…” he answered and then proceeded to give all the details to Kyle.

* * *

Constantly getting calls from multiple record labels that wanted to recruit Kyle, Oliver began to have a bit of a headache as he massaged his temples.

‘Literal hawks these people’ the suave man slightly frowned as he reclined back into the comfort of his chair.

Ever since the moment Kyle had left the show, so many people had kept bugging both of them frequently with calls, all of them very intent on making the talented young chap theirs.

The calls had then further exploded beyond normal just this morning when his songs had taken the number one spot of the lowest of the charts too, instantly throwing Oliver into a busy state.

Some agencies and record labels had also been very rude in their approach, some of them even going as far as to belittle both individuals, telling them that Kyle would never go far if he didn’t receive their helping hands.

However, the young man had made it very clear to Oliver that regardless of whatever or whoever contacted him, he wanted to stick to having a single agent and focus on his studies till he was done with final year exams and college in general.

After that, they could focus full-time on moving his career forward. Those were his exact words.

Oliver too, also taking it as a good chance to work out a few good acting and singing gigs here and there for the young man the next few months after, was also onboard with Kyle’s decision.

Glancing over to his table where a script for of a popular series that would soon be reaching its season finale in the next three months was, Oliver sighed to himself at the thought of all the future plans he had for Kyle.

He had made a few calls here and there regarding some other projects and it seemed like there was one, along with another his friend had informed him about a few months back that would both begin pre-production into the early or late first-quarter of the next year.

With all that information in hand, the agent wondered if he’d be able to make it all work out and if Kyle would be able to land any roles if he auditioned for them.

Sadly, those were questions he had no answers to.

Running his hands through his dirty-blonde hair, Oliver pushed his many thoughts aside for the meantime, hoping that all these endeavors for his talent’s future would work out fine.