My eyes were wide when I saw Travis standing in front of me. What was he doing here? And, no, I did not mean it in the ‘oh-my-god-I-hate-him’ way, because I seriously didn’t hate the guy. I just didn’t understand what he was doing here. People seeing us this close together could lead to serious consequences. As much as I would like to catch up with him, since he was still my friend, we really couldn’t be doing that. This was dangerous territory.

“Travis, what are you doing here?” I said with pleasant surprise, but actually genuinely being very confused. The only logical explanation was that he was also in this movie, but I still asked. It was like asking somebody something you already know the answer to.

“Same reason you are,” he confirmed my thoughts with a smile, “I only have a super small role, though, basically an extra. I’m just the drug dealer, no biggy.”

I laughed at his comment, but it wasn’t like my role was any better. Sure, I was the main character, but this whole movie wasn’t all too happy and was actually quite eerie and dark. It was certainly new territory for me. “Look at us, we started out as the happy-go-lucky teenagers and now we’re playing drug dealers and a girl who’s a drug addict and dates an older man for money only to fall in love with his son while he’s trying to help her get out of it. Definitely a whole new thing. I never thought I’d be playing roles like this a couple years back. Tell 19 year old me that I’d be playing in this movie and I’d laugh in your face.”

“Same for me,” he smirked, thinking back to our first movie as well, “but I’ve always been fascinated by the weird roles.”

“Yeah, I know,” I shook my head at him while I remembered the occasional times I’d help him prepare for auditions. It was completely normal for me to help my husband seem more psychopathic just so he would ace the audition. Weird for other couples, but it was normal for us. However, I still didn’t know if what we were doing now was fine, “But are we supposed to be this close to each other right now? I don’t mean it in a bad way, but it would be terrible having to basically ignore each other for a couple months only the fuck up at the end and not being granted a divorce.”

“No, it’s fine, there’s a guy constantly watching us now, though,” he nodded his head towards a wall where a very official looking person was keeping an eye on us, “we can’t really help having to be around each other for work, as long as nothing else happens. I just thought I’d come say hi now before you’d question it all and be freaked out by him watching us. Just, no silly business.”

“Trust me, no silly business. That would have happened months ago, there’s no way it’s going to happen now,” I rolled my eyes. I didn’t understand having to do the whole separation thing before the divorce. Yeah, I knew it was necessary because some couples couldn’t do it, but Travis and I had been doing it for quite a long time already. We both knew we were completely ready and could live our lives on our own; we didn’t really need a test to prove that. But if the government needed it, then sure. I was also ready to go on with my life without being shamed for it.

And then my phone buzzed on the floor, I went to pick it up expecting a text from David telling me how disgusting he thought the bottles were, but no. It was Jack instead. And forget about the funny business thing, because the message he sent me was really weird. No, not because what he did was weird, but because of what I did. I somehow had managed to leave my shoes at his place. How the fuck do you leave your shoes at somebody’s place! I literally walked out of his apartment not wearing any shoes and I didn’t even think about it. How the shit did I do that? I remembered the asphalt hurting my feat, and I didn’t even think twice about the fact that there was nothing on my feet, not even when I changed into other clothes! How did I do that!

I let out a sigh, I really needed those shoes back or I was going to have serious trouble with my stylists. They absolutely hated it when I lost clothes, even though they were all my possessions and I paid for everything. It just meant they’d never be able to use it again, which made no sense to me because they basically always bought new stuff… Just don’t lose any clothes around them.

I quickly shot a text back to Jack, telling him I’d drop by after I was finished, but that I had no idea how late that would be, before decided it would also be a good idea to tell David after all that happened this morning. I didn’t want him to be annoyed with me by changing the plans again without giving him any notice beforehand. He would always still do what I told him, but he would show his annoyance for quite some time, and he would also use it to blackmail me later on. It was just way better if I told him straight away. Don’t you agree?

Later on, I met all the other people who would be playing in the movie, including the co-star who my character was going to have to fall in love with. He was supposed to play a teenager, while I played somebody who was around my age. You might have heard of him before: Nat Wolff. Yeah, you know, from the John Green movies. He was only four years younger than me. I just hoped I could make the whole thing realistic enough…

---

I was holding a large box of donuts in my hand as we pulled up at the small parking lot in front of Jack’s apartment block. Why was I holding donuts? Well, that’s a simple answer. There were loads and loads of donuts at the script read through and we just didn’t eat them all in one go. I couldn’t just let them be! Seriously, who would I be if I just left them there for nobody to eat them?! I couldn’t just do that! If donuts were involved, I didn’t care if people were going to judge me. I could easily just exercise to get rid of those extra calories, it wasn’t such a big deal. Trust me, I was the person who would eat everything coming in their way, but actually worked out a lot to stay the way I was. Although I did think I was pretty thin lately and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it…

My weird always-thinking-about-food mind made a terrible mistake and made me stuff a donut in my mouth just as David turned the engine of the car off. Yeah, not such a smart idea, amiright? I didn’t just not want to eat the donut, but this did mean I would be eating a donut when I went up to go see Jack. Oh well, he’d just have to deal with the fact that I was a normal person who, in fact, also adored these delicious sugarcoated pastries. People sometimes forget that celebrities are also just people trying to live their lives. But hey, surprise, it is true!

So, I walked up to the glass door with my box of donuts, still happily munching on the one I had chosen, with David staying close behind me. I pressed the buzzer to ask Jack to let me in, and in no time I was making my way upstairs in the marble elevator. This building wasn’t anything like most apartment complexes, it wasn’t cheap and a place for daily living spaces. Living here probably still cost quite a lot of money. Not that I was expecting anything else from Jack… I mean, he did have a pretty successful band, he could definitely afford to live in a large house if he wanted to. He just didn’t need all that space. Thinking about it, neither did I… but I still lived in a gated mansion at a gated community all by myself. It might have been a much better idea to move into an apartment when I was required to move out of the house I shared with Travis. Well, too late for that now.

I rang the doorbell once I was on the right floor and in front of the right door, causing Jack to open it from the other side. He smiled and greeted me before being confused about David standing there with me. David might have been much older than me, but he definitely didn’t look it. Whatever was going through Jack’s mind was probably a judgement before he actually knew what was going on. He still told us both to come in, though.

“I’ll go get the shoes, you can wait here,” Jack smiled at me, leaving me and David both in the living room while he went to his bedroom. And, boy, was this awkward. No, not because I was here with David, not because I left my shoes with Jack, but because Jack’s roommates were all here, staring right at me.

I was slowly eating my donut to try and get out of the awkward situation, but of course that didn’t help. My logic was pretty screwed up, you could say. So, I just did something even weirder, and held the box in front of me, asking them if they also wanted a donut. It didn’t seem such a bad idea in my head, but it was embarrassing as they just continued to stare at me, not saying a thing.

Maybe I was eating the donut in a disgusting way… did I get the glazing all over my face or something? I was used to these looks in public, and I could easily ignore them then, but this was completely different. This was in a private situation with friends of a friend. I wasn’t sure how to react! Nobody ever trained me for this! I had always been told what to do in which social situation, but I wasn’t prepared for whatever this was.

“Wait… you are the girl that kept us up last night?” A guy with glasses and red-brown hair asked me with raised eyebrows and eyes that didn’t believe what he was seeing.

I blushed, my face turning a nice crimson color. When you’re in the moment you really don’t care who’s able to hear you, it’s literally just about how good everything feels, but then when you find out who heard later on, it’s the worst thing that could happen in your life. Neither Jack nor I gave a shit about how loud we were being, even though Jack had warned me at the very beginning. It was just nearly physically impossible for me to keeps the moans down, but I probably could have at least tried a bit harder. But I just hadn’t had any sex for years, I couldn’t just hold it all in with how good Jack was. I couldn’t deny it. Jack was a master in bed, and I loved it. It just happened that other people also knew now.

“Leave her alone,” Jack came back in holding the shoes in one hand. He glared at his roommates, who looked away shortly after, before giving me one of the friendliest smiles he could muster.

I was still very flustered about the question before and wasn’t very sure what I had to do, so I just looked at Jack blurting out, “do you want a donut?”

Jack chuckled at my socially awkward behaviour and accepted what I offered. I just mentally cursed myself for not coming up with an awesome come back to what Jack’s roommate said. Worldwide, I was know as one of those people who could just come up with the best things to say back, but I had just completely frozen up and even made myself look even worse by not being able to talk properly afterwards.

I just decided to introduce Jack to David and the other way around before assumptions were made, “Jack, this is David, Dave, Davey, Davey-Wavey, whatever other nickname you can think of. He’s my bodyguard and drives me around everywhere, but he also acts like he’s my much older big brother who needs to protect me from all the evil out there. David, this is Jack, the person who’s been hoarding my shoes.”

They shook hands and I could immediately tell that Jack already felt more at ease. He probably thought that David was another guy I was seeing, but I would never ever do anything like that. Jack was the first person I was dating in ages, he had nothing to worry about.

Not wanting to stay much longer with Jack’s roommates giving me glances, I suggested having to leave now, that I still had a couple things to do. It wasn’t a completely lie, because I had promised Judy to give her all the details about my date with Jack… excluding all the details about the sex, of course, but I was going to mention it. I told Judy everything, so why would I keep this from her?

David decided to go call the elevator while Jack and I stood at the doorway for a bit longer. I wasn’t sure what David thought of Jack so far, but I honestly didn’t care. I really liked Jack, so it was my choice if I wanted to see him or not, David had no say in that… unless he actually knew something that made it obvious that I had to stay away from Jack.

“I’d like to take you out on another date,” Jack whispered, looking me right in the eyes as we stood pretty close to each other.

I smirked up at him, happy to know that this wasn’t supposed to be just a one night stand to him, “I’d like that too, but I want to organise it this time.”

He was about to ask me what my plans were, but the elevator had already arrived. So, I told him I’d text him later before giving him a peck on the lips and hurrying to meet David in the lift.

Notes

Still not writing for this story... I think I first have to finish my other stories. I'll continue to put up the chapters I have already written (which is only two an a half more chapters though). I mean, if somebody can motivate me to start writing, go ahead, it will be very much appreciated.