(A/N I know I said this chapter would be JC, Lance, and Justin but I got a flow going and this conversation was really important and I figured it deserved it’s own chapter.)
The Encounter with the Third Amigo
The cab ride to the hotel
Laura turned to face him, matching his glare. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Don’t play that innocent role with me. Maybe the rest of the guys fall for it but I won’t. Why did you follow me?”
“I didn’t follow you for the reason that you have imbedded in your head. Honestly, I followed you so I can bitch at you for being so fucking rude to me! Seriously Justin, the world doesn’t revolve around you. I don’t have this evil, diabolical plan to ruin you. So do me a favor and stop being such a fuckin’ ass.” If it was possible, Laura pushed her self further into the door, away from him.
“Whatever your reason was, you heard something you shouldn’t have. What did you hear?” Justin’s nose’s seemed to flare a bit, she wondered if that was an indication that he was mad.
“I heard all of it.” Laura’s voice was strong and unwavering.
“Shit. Why did you have to go outside? That was not meant for you to hear!” Justin turned away from her and stared out of his window. “The last thing I need right now is the tabloid posting this everywhere.”
“How many times do we have to go over this? I am not a tabloid writer! Jesus Justin, I’m not here to ruin your fuckin’ life! What do I have to do to prove it to you?”
“You’ll have to do a hell of a lot more than just prancing your pretty self around and batting your eyes.” As soon as Justin said it he regretted it. He could only hope that she was mad enough to not read into what he said and that she didn’t take it for what he really meant; that she was the first person to get his mind off of Cameron.
“Like what? Do you want me to expose my whole self to you? Would that make you comfortable? You know, since we’ll be even because you’ll have my secrets and I’ll have yours.” Laura looked at him from the corner of her eye and saw him intently staring at her. What she meant as a sarcastic comment Justin took seriously.
“I’m not gonna lie, that would make me feel better about you being with us all the time.” He studied her facial features, they where strong and showed a lot of strength gained over her short life.
“What else is there for you to know about me? Apparently you already know some details about my life that none of the other guys know.” She turned to face him and saw he kept his intent staring of her.
Justin was about to reply when the driver interrupted them.
“We’re at your stop. That’ll be $25.82.”
Justin handed the driver thirty dollars. “Keep the change.” He opened his door and let him and Laura out of the car. The walk to their rooms was a silent one. Laura was waiting for Justin to reply to her comment, while Justin was avoiding her discovery of his little investigation on her. They reached Justin’s room and he reached for the doorknob.
“Justin, stop avoiding the issue.” Laura stepped in front his door, blocking his way into the room. “How do you know that I went to Northwestern?”
“Your editor told us about you. Can you move so that I can go to sleep?” Justin tried to slightly nudge her aside but she didn’t budge.
“I strongly suggest that you don’t lie to me.” Laura locked eyes with him, almost like a staring contest.
“You aren’t one for me to impress, I have no need to lie to you.”
“I may not be someone you need to impress but I am someone that you fear.” Laura slightly raised an eyebrow and had a smirk on her face.
“And why exactly do I fear you?” Justin took a step back and crossed his arms against his chest.
“Isn’t it obvious? You’ve only said about 5 millions times.” Laura’s voice had a bit of amusement in it as Justin stared at her dumbfounded. “I have the ability to ruin your life. If I wanted to, I can portray you in the worst light ever, Rolling Stone wouldn’t care; they’d be ecstatic. Now tell me, how do you know that I went to Northwestern.”
“How do you know that’s not what your magazine editor told us?” It was Justin’s turn to give her that ‘look’.
“Because I asked the rest of the guys what school did the magazine say I went to, they all said Berkley. And they where surprised when I mentioned that I am from Chicago. Now I’ll ask you again before I decide to go super bitch on you. How do you know I’m from Chicago and went to Northwestern?” Laura’s tone changed from playful to serious.
He took a deep breath, what he was about to say was going to involve a lot of explanation. “When I found out that we where going to have a reporter on tour with us, I Googled your name.” Justin looked down, as if hiding his head in shame.
Laura’s eyed widen in a bit of panic. Once she Googled her name herself and a lot of articles about her past came up. “What did you find out?” She spoke slowly and softly.
“Actually, a lot more than I think you want me to know.” Justin looked up and saw her looking down the hall in sort of a daze, her eyes a bit watery. He was about to continue when the sound of elevators rang through to their ears. Laura was still in a daze so Justin took that opportunity to slide around her and open his door. “Laura,” she looked up at him in acknowledgement, “if you want to continue talking, lets take this inside my room before the guys or someone else over hears.”
Laura nodded and slowly walked into his room. “What exactly do you know?” She stood almost frozen in a standing position near his door.
“Well, first of all, I’m assuming that this will take longer than five minutes so I suggest we get comfortable. I recommend you taking off those painful looking heels.” Justin walked into his bathroom. “Just take a seat on my bed. I’m paying attention, I’m just packing up some of my things.”
Laura sat on his bed, her shoes sitting neatly by the exit. “Well like I asked before; what do you know?” Once again she was fidgeting with her skirt.
“Umm, I know you’re from Chicago, and that you attended Northwestern. Your dad is one of those powerful wealthy people. He owns chains of restaurants and a construction corporation, your parents are divorced, and you have an older brother that graduated from Purdue University.” Justin walked out of the bathroom in boxers and an undershirt. “Here, you’re probably uncomfortable in that.” He handed her a pair boxer shorts and a t-shirt.
“Thank you.” Laura stood up and walked into the bathroom to change. “Justin, I know you know more than that about me. What else did you read?” She called out from the bathroom.
“Yeah, well, that you are or were in a band. By the way, I like some of your songs. I also know that you kind of got into a bad crowd.” Justin sat on his bed and stared at his hands. “Your ex-boyfriend, John, was caught dealing at a gig you guys played at. And---“
Laura walked out of the bathroom into the bedroom area and finished his sentence for him. “And I was charged with conspiring in the distribution of an illegal substance.” She took a seat, comfortably, next to him.
“Yeah. I have a question about that. From all the articles I read, it doesn’t seem to add up to why where you charged, what did they have against you?”
“They caught me dealing some pot. I dealt to a cop, that’s how they found out about everything. But they let me go with a fine.” Laura pulled her legs to herself, sitting Indian style on the bed.
“Why did they let you go if you were caught red-handed?”
“I’m the daughter of a powerful man in Chicago, my daddy paid the cops off to say my boyfriend was caught dealing, and the only part I played was knowing about it. My boyfriend and my other friends got let go because they lead the cops to an even bigger fish.” Laura was a little hesitant in letting him know this about her, but he already knew.
“Wow. So do you smoke?” Justin’s voice was a little more eager that she would have thought.
“Yeah, not as much as I used to but if it’s around I take some hits. Do you smoke?” A smile broke on Laura’s face when he looked away, as if a bit shy.
“I guess it’s only fair for me to truthfully. Yeah I do, but not as much either, if it’s around I’ll do it but I won’t go looking for it.”
“Okay, so two nights ago, when Mike left, why did you go all ‘Laura is a spoiled little rich girl that doesn’t know shit about life’ on me when you knew the crazy stuff I did?” Laura laid down on the bed, feeling the effects of the alcohol making her lightheaded.
“Well I was hoping you’d tell me your self, I guess my weird way of you proving that you are trustworthy to me. And when you think about it, your dad always bailed you out, so you never really faced the consequences of your actions.” Justin laid down beside her.
“True, which is probably why I continued to rebel. I always had this notion that daddy will save me, hell, I still do. The only person that kept me grounded was my mom, but most of my crazy stuff was after 18 and by that point I moved in with my dad.” Laura looked at Justin and smiled. “So do you trust me now?”
“Honestly?”
“Yeah.” Laura knew the answer before he said it, his eyes told her.
“It’s hard for me to trust people. Can you blame me? But I think before you leave us, I will trust you on some level.” His eyes showed sadness but he smiled at her any way.
“Justin, why did you decide to ‘investigate’ me? Where you that nervous about having a reporter here?” She searched his face for any clues to how he was feeling, but he seemed to have shut his emotions off.
“After all the shit the group has been through since we started, it’s been hard for me to let people into my life. In this business you learn fast that not everyone wants the best for you. And you learn fast that people aren’t who they say they are. I figured if I know who you are before you know me, I’d have the upper hand.” Justin looked away from her and focused on the ceiling.
“Oh, well that’s sounds nice, now tell me the real reason. Tell me about the girl from Europe that screwed you over.” Laura continued to stare at him and saw his face show some panic.
“How do you know about that?” His low voice spoke with a megaphone; it said ‘I’m scared’.
“The morning after we dropped off Mike the night before, when you all thought I was sleeping, I heard everything.” Laura found her self secretly scooting away from, from what she’s seen so far, he gets angry quickly.
“Stop putting space between us, I’m not gonna get all angry and stupid on you. I’m just trying to absorb this and think of a logical response.” Justin took a deep breath and looked at Laura. “The girl from Europe spent a weekend with us when we first started out. She wanted to really get to know us so that she can introduce us to the public properly. Whatever. At that point in our career we didn’t care what she wanted to do, we where just happy to have some publicity. Well that weekend I spent most of my time with her and things escalated to what I thought was a relationship.”
“But when you all started in Europe you where only like 15/16 years old. This girl must have been over or at least 18. How did something like that happen?” Laura saw sadness in his eyes; it was taking a lot of him to tell her this. Instinctively she reached out for his hand and held it there in a comforting manner.
Justin took a quick look at their entwined fingers and went back to their eye contact “Yeah, well apparently she knew that but she was too concerned with getting the dirt on us that she didn’t care. But I cared; I thought her and I really had connection. It’s been over seven years since the incident, but I still think about it, I still go over it in my head trying to figure her out. I realized that everything she told me was just what I wanted to hear. She made her self appear to me as the perfect person. So being the stupid love sick puppy I was I told her everything.”
He looked back at their hands and brought it to his chest, pulling her closer to him. “She crushed me. I was so wrapped up into her that I didn’t realize that what I told her could possibly harm us. After that weekend she did kept contact with me. I thought she was my girlfriend and she led me to believe that. But a few weeks had passed and her calls decreased. Eventually we just lost contact.
I was truly heart broken. It felt like someone tore my heart out and jumped all over it. About a month after it ended we got a call from the magazine she worked for. They said that our article was out and they’ll fax it over to us. Well everything I told her, everything about the guys was out. We honestly thought we were ruined. Some how our PR was able to turn it around to create our own individual images and stuff.” His eyes focused on her hand that he held tightly in his.
“So is that how you all got your nick names? You where the baby and Joey was the flirt, stuff like that.” Laura scanned his body and how comfortable he seemed to be at the moment. The way they were position you’d think that they were a couple. Justin held her hand on top of his chest, her whole body was turned towards him and he was lying on his back.
“Yup, she was the cause of that.” He still was still staring at their hands when he decided to lightly play with her fingers. Running his finger along the outline of her hand.
“Justin, I’m not going to do that to you guys. Believe me. I’m here to portray you as humans, not to tear you down.” She rested her head on top of his shoulder. Maybe it was all the drinks that made them really relaxed.
“I’ve dealt with so much heart ach these past few years that whatever it is that you end up doing to me won’t effect me. But if you hurt the guys I will feel that pain. If you plan expose us completely, please focus on me, the guys don’t deserve to be dragged into another horrible article because of my stupidity.” Justin looked at her with pleading eyes.
“Justin, I hope this will be the last time I tell you this, I will not bring you guys down. If anything I would hope to bring you guys a new level of respect from the industry. I’ll make a deal with you; every thing that happens on this tour is open for me to use in my article unless you or the guys state that what will happen or what happened is not to be disclosed to any one else.” Laura smiled when he looked at her with a relieved expression.
“That seems fair.” Justin flashed her a smiled and pulled his hand away from hers to wrap his arm around her body. “Laura, what we talked about and what ever else we’ll talk about tonight, don’t use it in your article. You can mention vague bits, but please don’t get detailed about it.” He hugged her close to him.
“Don’t worry ‘bout it.” She looked up at him when she felt him playing with her hair. The urge to kiss him was almost unbearable. Her method of not giving in was to keep talking. “Do you realize that our conversation started as an argument?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry for being an ass, I’m just still pissed about the Cameron deal. And I guess since I was unsure about you, when I found out you heard my conversation it just set me off a bit.” He stopped playing with her hair and just held her closer to him.
“So are we cool now?” Him being so close had her thinking ‘Mike who?’
“To be up front with you, it’ll take a while before I can fully trust you. But as far as us just being cool with each other, yeah we are.” Justin rested his hand on her hipbone.
“Justin, answer me truthfully here.” She took a deep breath and continued. “If I didn’t have a boyfriend, and if we didn’t just get over our arguing, would you object to me kissing you?”
“No I wouldn’t. But you do have a boyfriend.” Justin traced the outline of band of the shorts she had on.
“Right, I have a boyfriend.” As if almost on cue her cell phone made a jingle noise indicating that she received a text message. She stood up and took her phone out of her purse; it was Mike
Hey babe, call me when you wake up. Miss you tons. Luv Mike.
“What is it?” Justin sat up and looked at her with almost sad eyes.
“A text from Mike.” She closed her phone and turned to him. “So, I better get going. We have to be up in about five hours.” She gathered her things. Justin stood up and walked her to his door.
“Laura, if I were to kiss you right now, would you object?” He stepped into some of the space between them and kept eye contact with her.
“Yes I would. I have a boyfriend and we still have the effects of all our drinks still running through us.” She filled in the rest of space between them and pressed her lips against his cheek. “But had our circumstance been different, who knows what would have gone down tonight. I’ll see you later.” She saw him lick his lips and inch towards her lips but she was able to open the door and leave before he did something they both would regret.
The short walk to her room was her longest walk yet. Not only did Laura just want Justin physically, she wanted him entirely. Timing just sucks sometimes.
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