Jamie sat in her car for a moment to collect her thoughts, but when she did that she remembered why she was sitting in her car and not in the house with Justin. She angrily started the vehicle and shoved it into gear. Tears were streaming down her face and the sight of Katie walking toward them from the back of the house kept flickering through her head.
What would have happened if Jamie hadn’t show up when she did?
She pushed that question and the thoughts that went with it out of her head and drove the rest of the way to Johnny’s. When she arrived she was disheartened to see that there were other cars in the drive way, and most of them weren’t there usually. This meant that there were people there, and knowing Johnny, he’d want her to meet them.
Jamie went in through the side door, closest to the stairs. She let out a sigh when she saw the room was empty and she made her way up the stairs to her room. She had made it about half way up the stair case when she saw JC standing at the top. He had an unreadable look on his face and Jamie had a feeling that he knew what was going on.
“Hey James, how are you doing?” The tone of his voice wasn’t the normal, up beat JC, and she knew right away that Justin had called. Well, there was no use in beating around the bush.
“Terrible JC, I feel like shit.” She tried to shove past him but he put out his hands to stop her.
“Jamie, talk to me.” She turned to look at him and as soon as eye contact was made she lost any sense of control she had gained. She collapsed into his arms and let the tears flow freely. He led her into her room and sat with her on the couch. When she regained her composure she looked up at him and spoke the words that had been on her mind the whole ride home.
“God Jace, I still can’t believe this happened to me…to US.” JC handed her some tissues and she wiped her nose and eyes. “I never thought he would hurt me so badly.”
“Sweetie, I don’t know what to tell you. I was so shocked when he called me and told me what happened. He’s not this type of person, and I have no idea what made him do this.” He stroked back the hair that had fallen in her face and she leaned her head against his shoulder.
“I can understand him being jealous, but I never imagined he’d be so stupid.” She sniffled a few times and hiccupped once, enough to startle her. JC’s heart went out the girl he saw. She looked as if she’d just lost a very long battle, and he was sure it felt that way to her. He still couldn’t quite grasp the fact that Justin was about to cheat on Jamie. It baffled him because one; Justin wasn’t the cheating type at all. If he ever felt the need to cheat, he’d take it as a sign and break things off. And two; even though it hadn’t been said yet, Justin was madly in love with Jamie.
JC knew the latter because it was written all over the boys face, and he’d even come close to admitting it to JC one night on the bus. Now, JC had known Justin for a long time now, and in a span of time like that, you begin to learn things about a person, and understand them more than say, someone that’s new to their friendship. He knew that Justin regretted everything that had gone on that night, and he also knew he was going to have one hell of a time making it up to the girl that was crying in his arms right now.
“James, why don’t you get some sleep? You look beat and I’m sure you wouldn’t mind some shut-eye.” She nodded and stood up, stretching her tired muscles.
“I need to be up early so I can say good-bye to Luke at the air port tomorrow.” She yawned widely and JC fought the urge himself.
“Do you have a ride?”
“Yeah, I have the car that Johnny’s letting me borrow until my dad comes down next week.” She moved around the room and JC watched her, his concern growing with each passing moment.
“Let me take you tomorrow James. I don’t want you to be alone.” She glanced at him and gave him a bitter smile.
“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?” She sighed and shook her head. “I’m sorry, JC. I shouldn’t be taking this out on you; it’s not your fault.” She plopped back on the bed with another sigh. “I’ll be OK, I just need some time. And who knows? Maybe we’ll be able to work though this.” The words that she spoke were hopeful, but they weren’t filled with very much conviction and that worried JC even more.
“I know I shouldn’t really step in here, but James, Justin is going to do everything in his power to make this up to you. He really didn’t know what he was doing tonight, and nothing did happen. You do have to give him credit for that.” She stared at him for a few seconds before speaking calmly.
“I heard a quote somewhere, it goes ‘… people will judge you by your actions not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold, but so does a hard boil egg.’ In this case, both Justin’s intentions and actions were wrong, and I don’t know if forgiveness is possible just yet.” She wiped at her eyes again and looked up at JC with fresh tears. “How am I supposed to forgive the man that broke my heart? How am I supposed to make him see how much pain he put me through? JC, I’m falling so hard for him that it hurts to breathe…how do I make him see that?” JC didn’t know any of the answers to any of those questions, but he had a good idea that Jamie wasn’t asking to get any answers. He walked across the room and pulled her up into his embrace. He kissed the side of her head and tried to give as much comfort as he possibly could.
“Good night James, sleep well. If you need anything, I’ll be in the room across the hall.” He kissed her forehead and then left, closing the door behind him. Jamie fell back onto the bed and let the fatigue plaguing her body take over as she gave into a fit full sleep.
(The Next Morning; 7:00am)
Justin sat at the kitchen table, an empty beer can sitting, clutched in his hand, many more spread randomly around the room. His jeans were wrinkled, his shirt was dirty, but at this point he didn’t care.
He had attempted to sleep once last night, but as soon as he started to drift off, he could hear Jamie’s voice coming at him from somewhere in the dark. He had woken up, sure that she was in the room with him, but he was met with an empty house.
Empty.
That’s how life felt right now. He felt empty all because of his hormones and his nasty jealous streak. How was he supposed to fix this? He, the preacher of trust in a relationship, had just done the one thing he swore he would never do. He had broken Jamie’s trust by even thinking about using someone to forget his anger and pain. That’s all Katie would have been anyway. She would have been a way to forget, and that’s something he never thought he himself would do.
Never say never, right?
The one thing that kept flashing through his mind was the fact that nothing DID happed. Sure, he’d invited her over intending to indulge a little, but he wouldn’t have gone all the way…would he? That was where things got scary. He didn’t know how far things would have gone last night if Jamie hadn’t shown up. Katie was a nice girl, but Justin had always known that she’d wanted to get with him for a long time. She had never tried anything, but he had never given her the opportunity. Last night, for one fleeting second, Justin had seen just how deep her desire ran. So even if he hadn’t been intending on doing much more than make out in the hot tub…Katie’s mind was set upon something else.
Shaking off his depressing thoughts, he swallowed the last of his luke warm beer, and set the can down with an angry clink. He was royally fucked at the moment, and he had no idea which way to turn. Being intoxicated didn’t help the situation much, but that was beside the point.
He stood up quickly, regretting it the moment the action was done. A wave of dizziness came over him and he felt he was either going to hurl or pass out, whichever came first. He sat back down with a thud and rested his aching head on the table. After the intensity passed, he slowly stood up again and carefully made his way up stairs to his bathroom.
It was as if the powers that be were trying to punish him, and rub in the fact just how much he had screwed up. First, he stubbed his toe getting into the shower, and then the hot water stopped working, giving him the coldest shower he had ever taken. After that, he towel got stuck in the door, and the pants he was going to wear were in the dryer, and they weren’t dry. The day from hell had started, and Justin Timberlake was its prime victim. The worst part of it was the fact that Justin knew he deserved everything that happened to him that morning, and then some.
Jamie stood next to Luke at the airport. She shoved her hands into her pockets and rocked back and forth on her heels.
“James, you know I’ve never been one to hide the truth, and I’m not about to start now. You look like shit.” She smiled ruefully and adjusted the dark glasses that covered her dark circles.
“You can thank Justin for that.” Jamie had explained everything that had happened earlier this morning, and Luke was beginning to thing that his leaving wasn’t such a good idea.
“I can stay for longer in you want me to…” Jamie held up her hand to stop him.
“There’s no need to baby sit me, I’m a big girl Luke, and I can handle big bad Justin on my own. Believe me, four angry pop stars is a little more effective than just one angry best friend.” Luke smiled and hugged Jamie to his side. He kissed her forehead before picking up his carry-on and slowly making his way to the gate.
“If you need anything, please call me, and I want you to call and vent too.” He sighed when the stopped at his gate. His eyes searched the area before he looked back down at Jamie. “Be careful with your heart and his, Sweet stuff. It’s a precious thing, and it shouldn’t be broken too often.” He smiled evilly before continuing. “Oh, and tell JC that that ‘just woke up and rolled out of bed’ look suits him very well…very well indeed.” He let out a low whistle and Jamie bubbled with laughter.
“I’ll tell him that Luke…and thanks.” He kissed her cheek before winking and then turning to walk down the sky way. Jamie waited until she couldn’t see him any more before she turned and headed back to where JC was waiting.
JC watched as a worn and wary Jamie came walking in his direction. She looked like she had gone ten rounds with a WWF super star, and lost horribly. He had known she hadn’t gotten much sleep because he heard her pacing and crying throughout the night. He had wanted so badly to go comfort her, but he didn’t exactly know HOW.
“Ready to head back?” Jamie asked as she fell into step beside JC.
“Actually, I have a few things I need to do, if you don’t mind tagging along. I just figured I get them out of the way now.” Jamie looked at him skeptically, but she sensed no underlying meaning in his words so she shrugged.
“What the hell? Why not?” JC smiled at her and they made their way to his car.
Jamie played with the radio as JC drove along, lost in his own world. “Where are we going?” She asked, after she had settled on a station of her liking. JC bopped his head to the music and didn’t answer. She reached over and smacked his arm.
“Huh?” Jamie rolled her eyes and smiled.
“Where are we going?”
“Oh. Well, I have to pick up some things at my friend’s studio; he’s got some tracks that I’m working on. I need to drop off a few things at the post office, and then I need to grab my bag and head over to the rehearsal studio. We have more recording and practice to do today.”
“And where in this is Jamie needed?”
“No where, I just want the pleasure of your company.” She eyed him carefully before asking her next question.
“And where in this list is the ‘take Jamie home’ part?” A small grin slid on his face, and Jamie didn’t like it at all.
“That part is after the ‘take Jamie to rehearsals with me.’ ” Jamie groaned and threw her head back against the seat.
“JC, I really don’t want to confront him now. I don’t want to hear his apologies and his reasons, not yet. I can’t bear to look at him and know what he was going to do. I know you want to help, but doing this will only set us back.”
“Hey, no where on that list did I mention helping Justin and Jamie. I don’t think he deserves your time yet anyway. I want you to come with me, because I think we need to talk, and I won’t have time to take you home anyway.” She watched him carefully and sighed.
“But you know that he’s going to be there, and he’s going to want to talk to me.” JC bobbed his head in agreement.
“I know that, but it’ll be damned hard with four of us standing in the way. I promise James, you don’t have to talk to him if you don’t want to.” She sat back in her seat and closed her eyes. All she really wanted to do was sleep, but she knew that hiding away from everything wouldn’t help much. The pain of seeing him with someone else was still fresh and deep in her mind, and she knew it was going to take a whole hell of a lot to forgive him.
An hour later, JC’s car pulled into the lot in front of the rehearsal studio. It turned out that instead of just doing a second leg of their previous tour, they were going to start a month later, and do a whole other tour all together. This added a lot of stress to the crew, and management, and especially the guys.
JC grabbed his bag out of the back and Jamie followed him inside. She had spotted Justin’s car a few rows over, and now she was nervously chewing on a finger.
“Will you calm down please?” JC laughed a little to see the worry on Jamie’s face, but he was worried too. He knew that bringing her wasn’t a good idea, but he also knew that the two of them needed to work things out before it got too deep, and they could never forgive one another.
The room where their dance practice was held was filled with all kinds of people. Tour managers, stage hands and crew, the rest of *NSYNC and their choreographer, Toni, all huddled around Johnny.
“OK PEOPLE!” Toni clapped his hands and tried to round up his pupils. The rest of the crowd thinned until it was just Johnny and *NSYNC.
Jamie stared at Justin across the room. His back was turned to her and she felt a pang of anger, fear and longing all rolled into one. This was a bad idea, and she just wanted to leave. She wasn’t ready to face him yet, and she knew that this was all JC’s doing.
“Jace, I want to go. I’ll call a cab or something, I can’t stay here. Please.” She pleaded with him and JC almost regretted having to do this.
“It’s OK James. Just go sit over there on that couch, and relax. Here, read this.” He handed her a stack of papers and she looked at them strangely.
“JC, this is the stage set up for your show, I really don’t want to read this.”
“Would you rather watch Justin watch you all afternoon?” Her eyes widened and she shook her head.
“I’m going to go get a soda from the machine I saw. I’ll be back.” JC was about to stop her from leaving, but Toni called for them to get ready and he reluctantly turned around. He came face to face with Justin, and the boy didn’t seem very excited.
“What is Jamie doing here? How did you get her to come here?” He seemed eager to her that Jamie was here for him, but they both knew that was too good to be true.
“Jamie and I were hanging out today, I took her to the airport to say good bye to Luke, and she had to come here because I didn’t have time to take her home. Justin, please, give her space and time, she’s not ready to face you yet.” Justin’s shoulders slumped and he looked as if he had just lost his best friend. Which in a way, he did.
Jamie waited in the hallway, sipping on a Pepsi. She could hear the music and Toni barking out orders. She didn’t want to go in, because she knew that seeing Justin dance would weaken her defenses, she always had a soft spot for his performing.
Pushing her doubt aside, she quietly opened the doors to the studio and crept over to the couch in the back. No one really seemed to notice her, except for Justin that is. His eyes had found her the second the door clicked open, and had followed her across the room. She looked tired, and rightfully so. A familiar pang of guilt shot through his heart and after minutes of watching without her returning his glances, he gave up and put his focus back on dancing. It was no use pushing something he had no control over anyway. So he danced, with more passion than anyone had seen out of him in a long time.
“All right everyone, that’s it for today. Nice job guys. Go get some sleep, and Chris…get some ice, will ya? It hurts me just to look at you.” Chris gave Toni a dirty look and the finger, accompanied by the laughter of his band mates.
Jamie sat in the back of the room nervously twisting her fingers together, anxious to get out of there. But there was a small, SMALL part of her that wanted to talk to Justin. Wanted to see what he would say, wanted to hear his voice. The part was very minute, but it was there all the same, tugging at Jamie’s conscience.
JC walked over and explained that he needed to find Johnny, and that he would be back in five to ten minutes. Jamie nodded that she understood and told him that she would just wait outside. She was about to leave when she heard someone approach her from behind, and Justin’s soft voice called her name.
“James…can I talk to you please?” Jamie looked around the room, noticing that it was empty. It was then that she knew they had been set up, and JC didn’t really need to find Johnny.
“Justin…I don’t know if I can listen to you tell me the words I want to hear, and know that you were about to cheat on me.” Justin closed his eyes and searched for something, anything to make her understand, but he came up empty.
“James, I’m sorry…God I’m so sorry. I know that doesn’t fix the situation, but I just want you to know how much I regret what went on last night.” Jamie stayed silent for a few moments before she spoke.
“You broke my heart Justin, and nothing even happened. It made me feel so small…and so…so WORTHLESS to see you with Katie. I had felt so terrible about being with Luke, and all along you were with someone else.” A tear slipped down her face, over her slightly red cheeks, and it was all Justin could do not to reach out and wipe it away.
“My biggest fear is losing control. When I see you with Luke, I feel so out of control it scares me. I know that you two are best friends, but you look so comfortable with him, and you two know each other so well, I feel like competition whenever were all in a room together. I feel as if I’m stealing you from him. When you said that you were going out to dinner with him, I lost it. I felt as if he had stolen you away, and that I would never get you back. It scared me to feel that way; I never want to lose you.” He was bordering on breaking down himself, and his vision blurred for a second with unshed tears.
“Justin, I’m not an object of your possession! You can’t fight over me with Luke, and there never was any fight to begin with. Luke never had a claim on me, but you were too wrapped up in your own insecurities to see that. I wasn’t going anywhere; you were never going to lose me.” She sighed and rubber her temples. This was harder than she expected, but at the same time, it was freeing, to get all this out in the open.
“I didn’t want to see any of that James, I was being selfish and I know that. But you have to understand what it looks like to me. I know that’s no consolation for what I did, but James, I never touched her, and there wasn’t a moment that I was with her when I wasn’t thinking of you.” She laughed bitterly.
“Gee, thanks.” She angrily wiped away the tears and fought to gain control over herself. “Justin, I don’t know what you want me to say to you.”
“I know that it will take you a while to forgive me, but please, don’t walk away. I don’t think my heart could take watching you walk away from me again. Jamie, I need you. I need you so badly it scares me. Please, please.” He stared at her with eager eyes and she sighed before answering to those eyes.
“I won’t walk away from you, but I need time. I need to figure out just what it is that I want and need. It will take time for me to forgive you, but I think that it’s possible. Just give me time, OK?”
“How much time?” His words sounded relieved and he looked like he had just been handed the world.
“I don’t know. A few days maybe…just let me do this on my own. I’ll call you when I’m ready. Can you do that? Can you give me that time?” He nodded slowly and Jamie let out the breath she had been unconsciously holding.
“I’ll give you all the time in the world James, and I’m so sorry for everything.”
“I know Justin, I know.” She leaned in and placed a small kiss on his soft cheek before turning and walking out the door. Justin watched as she left and his heart fluttered with excitement. Things would work out, he knew it.