He didn’t know whether to leave
her door locked or unlocked. She told
him he could lock up, but he didn’t see her take any sort of key and didn’t
want to lock her out of her trailer. It
was just one more thing to add on to his list of confusion. He didn’t know what it was that had just
happened but he knew that he lost himself in the moment, something he couldn’t
ever remember doing before.
It was that damn song and her damn
eyes and her lips and just everything about her. He hadn’t been that mesmerized by a girl in a
long, long time. The whole idea scared
him. She was the first pretty girl since
He looked around the trailer from
where he was still perched on her couch, still in the spot where he had almost
kissed her. The bowl of cherries was
still in front of him, the cup of seeds and stems was there, too. He smiled.
She was so nervous when she touched him.
He had to admit he found it a little awkward, but to see her be so
comfortable with him one moment was something he wouldn’t mind seeing
again. Then she had clammed up and
seemed embarrassed to be there with him.
He wondered if she was a fan of his.
Perhaps that was the reason she seemed kind of rigid when they were practicing. His head shook. He hadn’t made it easy on her, trying to
trick her into kissing him.
He didn’t care about his lines, or
the scene, or the whole damned movie when they were there together. Something started to eat him from the inside,
something he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
It had started as soon as that damned pole fell. He and Cameron got rather predictable after a
while but it was the same feeling he had when he met her. It was the feeling in his gut he’d get before
they hung out or went out on a date.
It was that anxious, nervous,
excited feeling that came with a crush.
He groaned. He couldn’t afford a
crush right now. A talk with Trace was
in order with a side of sense knocked into him.
He was like this whenever he broke up with someone. As soon as he was alone again every
attractive female that walked by was suddenly potential. He wasn’t a pimp or a man whore, but he fell
easily and once he allowed himself to fall, he went a long, long way down that
pit and didn’t hit the bottom for quite some time.
And when he did hit the bottom it
was worse than those first few moments of loneliness from the past girl. It had been that way with every girl he had
dated since he was fourteen and he didn’t want that to happen to him again.
He couldn’t let that happen again.
What the hell was he talking
about? She probably didn’t even like
him.
He pushed himself off the sofa,
eyeing the clutter and mess in her place that normally would annoy him. Why was he finding it cute? He scratched his head and held his rolled up
script in one hand as he trotted to the door.
He needed to get out of there.
Fresh air would be good for him and a swift kick back into reality from
his best friend would be good as well.
The breeze had picked up outside and he held the door open for a minute,
still contemplating the whole lock situation.
After a second of thinking, he decided to leave it unlocked. The lot was pretty safe and security was
rather tight.
His trailer was a hundred feet or
so away, further away from the set than hers was. There were crewmen walking all around with
walkie-talkies and parts of sets. Some
of them were carrying electrical cords and other such strange things. It was a cloudy day and most people were in
side the studio, he assumed. It did look
like it was going to rain. He hoped
not. He had just had his Porsche washed
the day before and it was still in the driveway. Maybe he’d send Trace home to
go put it in the garage.
The walk to the trailer was pretty
quick and he walked up the steps and busted through the door. Trace was laying on the couch watching an
episode of Golden Girls on Lifetime.
“What the hell are you watching?”
Justin laughed, walking into the small room and plopping down in one of the
comfy chairs.
Trace’s voice immediately got
defensive. “Golden Girls. You know I
like this shit. Momma use to make me watch it.”
“My grandma loves this damn show,”
He chuckled
Trace moved his body in a stretch
on the couch and yawned while he said, “It’s funny.”
After sitting there for a few
minutes, watching the show but having his mind no where near the four old ladies
he figured he needed to do something to get his mind off of her. But no matter what he did, what he thought
about, she came creeping back. Her eyes
were like ice. They were blue but so
light and piercing. And her skin looked
so smooth and soft. She was thin too and
tall, but not too tall, probably came to his chin, maybe higher. Probably perfect stand up kissing
height. He shook his head. This was not working.
He tried to talk to Trace about
something irrelevant during a commercial, “You ever heard of this band, Death
Cat or something…” But she was connected
somehow and it was starting to worry him how much he was taken with her, after
only a couple hours.
“Death Cab for Cutie?”
Justin looked at his friend a
little shocked, “Yeah.”
“Yeah.” Trace yawned again and
Justin had to laugh.
“How is it that you know more
about music than me?” It seemed lately that Trace had been the one bringing him
new cds to listen to and new artist to look up when usually it was the other
way around. Ever since he had been with
Elisha things had really been rolling for him.
Justin was proud of him and was happy that he had found such a great
girl. But to say he wasn’t jealous would
have been a lie and he felt pathetic that now that Elisha was around he didn’t
have Trace all to himself like he use to.
Trace was twenty-three and had
found his soul mate. And there he was,
the same age, yet completely alone and starting to think that it was all
hopeless.
Trace craned his neck back so he
could look at Justin from where he was sprawled on the couch, “Ya know the band
The Postal Service?”
Justin yawned himself and nodded, “Yeah…”
“One of the guys in that band is
in Death Cab. I think the singer. I’m not sure.”
“Oh…” Justin nodded slowly. “Ok.”
“Why?”
He looked over and Trace didn’t
seem like he was paying attention. He
hadn’t expected that question and didn’t know how to respond. He could feel his heart beat in his head and
shrugged, trying his best to play off the fact that he suddenly felt very
nervous and not quite sure why. He said,
“Oh no reason.”
The TV flicked to black and when
he looked over at the couch, Trace was placing the remote on a small table
beside the armrest of the couch and moving so that he was sitting upright. “Spit
it out.”
“Well, nothing.” He shrugged again
and sat back against the chair, trying to relax. He felt like pouting and when he glanced over
at his best friend he realized he that the ‘well, nothing’ wasn’t going to
work. He still had more to say. “Just me and Susan listened to some of their
stuff and it was pretty cool.”
“How did it go?” A small smile
started to form on his friend’s face.
“What?”
“Practicing lines,” He rolled his
eyes. “Or whatever you kids call it
these days.”
“It was fine.” Justin’s looked at
Trace hard and narrowed his blue eyes. His friend wasn’t looking at him but he
was smiling and nodding. Justin wondered
if he was insinuating what he thought he was.
“She had to go do some scene by herself.”
“Mmhmm.”
He narrowed his eyes at Trace even
further when he passed him a sly smile. “What is it?”
Trace nodded, “She’s hot, ya
know?”
Justin took a deep breath and
looked away. He knew where this was
going now and started to realize that Trace was going to push him to spill
something. He always did that. Whenever Justin was keeping something to
himself, Trace knew and he would push and push and push without ever really
asking until Justin exploded and told him everything. He didn’t know why he was so uptight
now. Five minutes ago he was happy to go
in there, tell Trace everything and get an earful from his best friend. Now, he realized this was going to be awkward
and wasn’t so sure if Trace’s reaction was the one he had predicted.
“She’s attractive I guess,” He
said trying to sound uninterested. He was uninterested. She was just a hot girl. That was all.
That was all.
He kept repeating it to himself
but when Trace said, “You get to see her boobs today, don’t you?” it really
didn’t work.
“I guess…” Justin closed his eyes and stretched, still
trying to play it off, but dammit, if that image didn’t burn into his
head. He was not only going to get to
see her half naked, but he was going to feel
her. They were going to in bed, pressed
against each other, making out, whispering.
Shit, he didn’t know how he was going to keep himself from getting hard
on set. God he could almost predict his
most embarrassing moment happening later on that day. He tried to convince himself, “But it’s not
like sexual.”
“I bet it will be.” Trace laughed, stood up off the couch and
walked towards the kitchenette. “You
said last night at the club that the scene was hot and that you were happy you
got to do it with a hot chick.”
“Well…” Justin rubbed his forehead and heard the
refrigerator open from behind him. Trace soon came back into view and handed
him a can of Pepsi. “It’s whatever. There
will be other people so it’ll be too much pressure to be sexual. I mean, it’s not like I care.” Justin popped the can and chugged a good bit
of it, knowing his friends eyes were on him.
Trace plopped down on the couch,
popped his own drink and laughed to himself. “You’ve changed. Now you’re all defensive.” He slurped the soda from the top of the can
that had spewed out when he opened it.
Justin realized this wasn’t going
to work. He had to put on an act and
nodded and sucked air through his teeth saying, “She is fucking hot man. It might not be really sexual but I get to
kiss her and shit. It’ll fucking’ be awesome.”
“How the hell did you get a job
doing this?” Trace chuckled. “You suck
as an actor.”
Justin already felt a little self-conscious
about his acting and that comment stung.
So he tried even harder. “I’m
being serious. She’s fucking doable. Nice ass, too.”
“Stop being a cock.” Trace said,
his voice sharp. He sat down his drink,
leaned forward on his knees and seriously looked at Justin. “You like her. I know it.”
“No I don’t.” He looked away down
to the floor.
“I would if I were you.”
He turned back to look at
Trace. “Why do you say that?”
“She seems nice. She’s hot.
Go for it.”
“No, Trace. Just lay off. I don’t like her. She’s just hot.” Justin shook his head and looked down to his
soda can, rolling it between his hands.
“You know how I get after shit like this.
“Forget her,” Trace interrupted.
“Sorry.” Justin laughed, a little
upset his friend would be that harsh. “Too
hard to do when you were with some on for, oh I don’t know, a couple years.”
“Look…” Trace sighed, “I know how
you get. I’m not gonna let you go crazy
over this girl if you don’t want to. But
who’s to say you cant enjoy her.”
At first he didn’t think he had
heard him right, but when he saw Trace’s small smile and wink he knew Trace was
being the fucking ass he could be at time.
He stood off the chair gritting out, “And you call me the cock. She’s not a fucking toy, Trace.”
“Ah ha! I knew you liked her,” He heard as he walked
over to the sink. He didn’t acknowledge
his friend that was still on the couch but instead slowly started to pour out
the contents of the Pepsi, wasting it.
He didn’t know why he was doing it.
He still was a little thirsty. It
made sense to him though. Lately he
didn’t understand most of his actions.
Like the kiss thing. Why did he
try? What was he thinking?
Shit with
“I do not like her,” He said
softly.
“You’re being protective.” Trace
teased, “You get protective when you like a girl.”
“I’m just tired of it. I need a break.” He crushed the can, turned to toss it in
trash and leaned back against the sink.
“A real break from all these women.
They’re just wearing me down, man.”
“But maybe she won’t.”
He crossed his arms over his chest
and looked over to where his friend was still seated. “But maybe she will. Plus, I don’t want her to be some experiment
or some rebound. She deserved better than that.”
Trace eyed him for a few minutes
and he looked away, uncomfortable under his friend’s stare. He knew Trace could see right through him and
was slowly figuring out that Justin had developed feelings for this girl. But, no…that was impossible. Ok, so he cared about her. He cared about a lot of women. He just didn’t understand why, and why so
fast. Maybe it was because of the little
life story she had given him about living in
And she hadn’t been with a man in
a long, long time…
He wasn’t use to that. He was use to these LA girls who fucked a
different man every other weekend or who were in a relationship and fucked the
same man every weekend. Most everyone in
LA was either taken or enjoying themselves to the fullest. But she was an East Coaster and even though
he was sure most everyone there was just as sexually active as Californians,
something about her, something about her was so pure and beautiful and
sweet. She seemed so reserved but he
could tell she was longing for something…
God, he wanted her to want him.
“Man, you really do care about
her. What the hell happened back there?”
He gulped and was snapped from his
thoughts, “What do you mean?”
“You’ve changed in the past
hour. What happened?”
“What?”
Trace laughed and moved to lie
back on the couch, this time laying so he could still see Justin. “What else did you do with her besides
practice lines?”
“Nothing.”
“Fucking Camel Shit!” Trace
laughed.
With a sigh, Justin walked back
over, flopped in the chair, leaned forward with his hands on his knees and
said, “We practiced the kissing scene.”
“How was it?” Trace asked
seriously.
“It went fine.” Justin rubbed his
hands over his face.
“No, kissing her.”
He breathed heavily and whispered,
“I didn’t kiss her.”
“Riiight,” Trace said
sarcastically.
He pulled his hands off his face
and moved them to his neck, giving himself a massage. He was tense already and it was only
“Dammit.”
He looked over and noticed Trace
looked like his team had just lost a field goal. He narrowed his eyes and let his hands fall,
saying in a pissed off tone, “God Trace, just because you’re fucking lucky as
hell and are engaged and shit doesn’t mean you have to pressure me into getting
married, too. I mean, fuck, I thought
you’d put some sense into me and tell me I’m being crazy and need to back down. And here you are preaching to me that I need
to go on and fuck the girl.”
“Fuck who?”
Both of them jumped to see Jason
peeking in with a bright smile on his face.
“Holy shit,” Justin breathed out
and then returned his voice back to normal, not wanting Jason to get in on
their business. He knew if Jason found
out he wouldn’t hear the end of it, and neither would anyone else on set. “No one, don’t worry about it. What’s going on?”
Jason sauntered in and closed the
door behind him. He was carrying a couple hangers with clothes in one hand and
had his other on his hip. “I’m here to
get you out of those clothes and into some new ones.”
Justin rolled his eyes. “You just
wanna get me out of clothes.”
“So? I gotta get ready you for the
kissing scene. Wanna practice?” Jason
puckered up and Justin turned up his nose. He then walked over to a closet door
to hang the clothes on the doorknob. As
Justin turned to look at him as he hung them up, he noticed that the clothes
looked like nothing more than jeans and a wifebeater.
“I think he’s practiced enough
today.” Justin whipped his head back around at Trace’s voice and widened his
eyes as if to say “shut up.”
“Mmmhmm, so I’ve heard,” Jason
cooed.
“Did she say something?” Justin
tried to act like he didn’t care, drumming his fingers on the armrest and
wishing to God that Trace would turn the TV back on.
“Don’t you know anything?” Jason
rolled his eyes and moved in front of the TV.
Dammit, now even if Trace had something playing he wouldn’t be able to pay
attention. “Us girls do not share secrets.”
He usually had a tolerance for
Jason, but right now the guy was annoying the snot out of him. “Why are you here anyway? Aren’t you the hair dude?”
“I prefer hair specialist, dude,”
He mocked. “And Bridget and Nicole have boycotted you. Apparently someone was a little bitch this
morning.”
He ran his hands through his hair
and blinked a few times, “Fuck. Was I
that bad?”
“So grumpy it turned me on.” Trace
laughed at Jason’s comments.
“Great. Will you tell them I’m sorry? I’ll have to bring them flowers tomorrow or
something.”
Now it was turn for Jason to laugh.
“Do I look like a messenger?” He said with attitude. “You can tell them yourself. And I don’t think flowers are gonna work with
them. Maybe Nicole. Bridget would just rather you let her burn
you with a cigarette or something. That girl is scary.”
Tired of hearing Jason ramble so
much, Justin stood up and walked over to the closet to stand near Jason, but
not too near. He was going to get his
clothes and lock himself in his bedroom for a few minutes to be alone. He need some deep breaths and a moment of
quiet to clear his head. So far his head
was the one that was being the loudest and he prayed his mind would just shut
off and shut up. “So…here’s your
clothes.” Jason made a grand hand motion and then stuck his hand on his hip
again. “You excited to get to kiss her
again?”
“I didn’t kiss her before, Jason.” He grabbed the clothes and looked at him
saying softly, “What’d she tell you?”
“Nothing. Just that you didn’t come through…”
“You fucking interrupted us!”
“He likes her…” Justin looked over at Trace and he now was
turning the TV back on and rolled his eyes.
“If you haven’t figured it out already…”
“Oh my god, I get to play cupid
and hook you two up!” Jason squealed, clapping his hands.
Justin grabbed the gay man’s arm
and pleaded with him, “What? Does she like me?”
“Hmm…” He thought. “She did blush
when I mentioned you.”
“Really?” Justin started to
smile. He didn’t know why the fact that
she might return his feelings was so warming to him. He didn’t want to get into a relationship
again. Well he did, but only if it was
going to last and he was sure this probably wouldn’t last. It couldn’t.
They had just met each other. She
probably wasn’t even his type so it couldn’t work. But what if it did…
He didn’t know her very well,
but…but what if it worked.
“But then again Susan is pretty
shy and was probably just embarrassed about later on.” Jason shrugged him off
and turned to go sit on the couch near Trace.
Trace looked at him blankly and then scooted down a little bit.
“Damn…” Justin sighed having a bit
of reality hit back into him. He threw
the clothes over one of his arms, leaning against the doorway that lead to his
small bedroom. She probably didn’t like
him. I mean, she didn’t know him. They were just co-workers. It had just been the atmosphere and that
song. That was all. Nothing else.
No, he couldn’t like her.
“Ok, see, you’re admitting it now
with all your little sighs and shit,” Trace laughed.
But he did like her. Trace was right. Shit, he really did like her.
“Fuck, ok?” Justin exclaimed as
realization hit him. He licked his lips nervously, “I-I do like her. But…Man, I don’t- Just fuck!”
Trace looked over at Jason after
settling on an episode of Pimp My Ride on MTV. Jason was staring at Justin like
he was crazy but Justin didn’t care and Trace tried to explain. “He just broke up with Cameron and thinks
it’s too soon. Get this…” He paused for
a moment and Justin looked away from them, completely and utterly annoyed. “He doesn’t want to hurt her. Doesn’t want her
to be a rebound.”
“Hell boy! You really do like her!” Jason smiled.
Justin rubbed his forehead. “Why do you two keep saying that? It’s just a
stupid crush. I’ll be over it
tomorrow.”
“Because baby,” Justin said
grandly. “If you didn’t care about her,
if you didn’t like her, you wouldn’t give a shit if she was a rebound or not.”
“Yeah I would! I’m a nice guy. I don’t use girls like that.”
“Still,” Jason added. “The fact
you are freaking out about it means you like her.”
“No, I think the fact that I’m
freaking out means that I’m really unsure.”
“Of course you are unsure!” Jason
waved his hand around. “Guys are usually
about 80% clueless when it comes to women.
That’s why I’m gay. Well, that
and I like dick too much.”
“Ok we don’t really need to hear
it.” Trace put a hand up in between him and Jason and then got up to sit in the
chair.
“I’m sorry boys, I just talk to you
like you’re one of the girls because you both are so damn pretty.”
“Jason stop harassing them…”
Everyone jumped at the sound of a
female voice and Jason clapped his hands once and then got up to go greet the
lady that was hanging in through the doorway.
“Dammit Olivia, I was just about to seduce them!” He exclaimed and
brought her into a hug. Justin looked at Trace who was just shaking his head at
Jason’s antics.
“Were gonna be needed in about
five minutes,” she deadpanned.
“For what?”
“Clean up crew. Rich went off on her again.”
Jason gasped dramatically, “Bastard!”
“What do you mean?” Trace asked.
Olivia shook her head and said
sympathetically, “Richard doesn’t like Susan that much. Well, from what we can tell. He goes off on her a lot.”
“What are you guys talking about?”
Justin said, stepping forward. He didn’t
know what they were saying. He had never
heard from Richard that Susan was a problem.
In fact, he had heard otherwise.
If he was giving her a hard time maybe he could talk to Rich. He stopped himself. What the hell? He wasn’t her boyfriend or her protector and
he definitely wasn’t Richard’s superior even though they got along great.
He shook his head. What was going on with him?
“You haven’t been here the past
few days, but Susan was doing this scene with Zooey yesterday and in the middle
of it she messed up the lines and started doing another scene and she didn’t
even realize it. And the poor thing was
so into it that Richard didn’t stop her but just let the camera roll and stared
at her. And when she finally finished,
Richard gave her a round of applause, laughed at he, and told her to not to
come back to set until she was capable of not wasting anyone else’s time. Poor girl started crying.”
“Are you serious?” Justin stared
at Olivia not believing what she said. “He
doesn’t seem that way to me.”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “He’s
got it out for the poor thing. She’s not
doing well right now. Keeps messing up
lines and she spilled a cup of coffee.
She’s jittery as hell. You can tell her mind’s on other things.”
“I think we all know whose fault
that is,” Trace laughed.
“Shut up Trace,” He said in a low
voice.
Olivia got defensive and stepped
forward, “What’d you do to her?”
“Nothing.” Justin shrugged.
Jason wrapped an arm around Olivia
and said, “He tried to kiss her.”
“Really?!” She asked shocked, looking
at Jason and then turning to Justin.
There was a smile on her face and he didn’t understand why everyone
seemed more excited that he kind of liked her than he was.
“God,” Justin groaned, “I thought
you said girls didn’t tell secrets.”
“Unfortunately I’m not a girl!”
Jason giggled and beamed, causing everyone else to laugh as well, except for
Justin of course. He felt like they were
all laughing at him and it pissed him off.
He wanted help. He wanted Trace
to cure him and everyone else to get off his case, but no. Everyone seemed to be excited that he liked
Susan and he felt like he was in middle school and everyone knew he liked the
most popular girl and was picking on him
He hated it and he wanted to be
alone.
“Dammit” Justin growled. He whipped around he threw his clothes on the
bed, then turned to yell at all of them before slamming the door, “leave me
alone!”
He fell down on the bed after locking
the door and stared at the ceiling.
He blinked.
He took in a deep breath and let
it out slow. He could hear them talking
and laughing in the outside room and knew they were probably making fun of
him. He didn’t care though. What if she was upset? What if Richard had really hurt her feelings
or embarrassed her? And it was all his
fault. She was so awesome and focused
that morning, besides the pole and the money thing. Then he had tried to kiss her and probably
confused the hell out of her and made her feel awkward.
He rolled over on his stomach and
pushed himself off the bed, moving his hands to his jeans so that he could
change clothes. After getting into
wardrobe he figured he’d go check in on her and see what was going on. He needed to apologize for the kiss and he
needed to check to make sure she was ok and that Richard hadn’t hurt her.
He shook his head and laughed at
himself. Who was he kidding? He really just wanted to see her again.
He needed to.