Raine (Gods of the Fifth Floor #2) - M.V. Ellis Page 0,1
and God knew what else.
That was something we’d forever have to live with—the fact that we’d let our concerns and preoccupation with work shit distract us from what we all knew mattered way more than any client project, or press-worthy ad campaign, or lawsuit, or fucking award at Cannes.
The stupid thing was that we were well on our way to winning the lawsuit, anyway. It was an open and shut case, and we were going to clean up and come out smelling of roses on the other side.
The fact was, in reality, we didn’t care if we all ended up penniless and homeless, if it was a trade-off between the health of one of us and whatever business bullshit was the pressing matter of the day. We knew this, but we lost sight of it, and while we did that, our friend had desperately needed our help—even if he didn’t realize it—and we’d failed to give it to him.
With hindsight, it had been so easy to take his word at face value when he told us that he was okay, that he wasn’t drinking and using as much as we thought he was, but that he was just stressed and strung out trying to get everything done for the Carlisle campaign.
Partially that was true, but there had been more to it. We’d all known it and ignored the warning signs. It was a fucking rookie error when dealing with someone with Raine’s issues. Denial and working hard to cover up the fact they had a problem were such common behaviors.
But there were other signs: the UDIs, or Unidentified Drinking Injuries—bruises Raine just couldn’t explain and seemed never to be able to recall inflicting on himself. Then there were the dizziness and near blackouts, as well as nosebleeds. Plus, the dude had been practically living in the office, and that hadn’t even set off real alarm bells.
Today’s meeting had been a case in point. Raine had stormed into our building after a huge blow up with his girl. He’d been angry with her, and even angrier with us for our part in supposedly ruining his day, or even his life, by apparently caring for him more than he wanted any of us to, and possibly more than he cared for himself.
We should have cancelled the meeting with Carlisle. After everything that had happened that day, nobody had been in the right frame of mind to do it justice, least of all Raine. As much as we all had a part to play in the process, important creative presentations like that one were really his show.
The trade-off we’d made was that if we’d cancelled or postponed the meeting it would have halted the production process, and nobody could afford for that to happen, least of all us. It would have been a blow to our reputation in what was turning out to be a very notable project, for all the wrong reasons. There was nothing like a high-profile lawsuit to focus the mind.
Once the ads were made and the campaign had launched, we knew it was going to kill the game, but we had to get to that stage first. The process up until that point had not been without its challenges, and we’d let those concerns cloud our judgement. It was a call we’d all regret for a long time to come.
As it was, the fact that Raine’d had to run the meeting without his creative partner on the project—who just so happened to be more integral to the whole thing than Raine himself—was bad enough. We’d lied and told Carlisle that there was a family emergency involving a sick grandmother, and had just about gotten away with it, but as we progressed with the shoot without her, we would have to fess up that something was wrong, or they’d guess themselves anyway. It would be better for us to stage-manage the process than let them come to their own conclusions.
Raine had presented to the clients with his usual passion and persuasion, but toward the end of the meeting the cracks had begun to show. First it was missed or confused words here and there, then it was a spaced-out look taking over him, and then moments where he seemed woozy as though he might faint. I’d been just about to call a close to the whole thing, to try to save face for us all, when Raine had gone white as a sheet and hit the deck.