11: Not All Surprises Are Bad
“Justin, are you here, babe?” It was Scarlett, walking through the house, searching for her husband, who was apparently missing in action.
He rounded the corner of his kitchen, shocked to find his wife staring back at him. “Whoaaa, what are you doing here?”
“I’m here to see you, obviously,” she grinned proudly. “Did you really think I was gonna miss your birthday?”
“I… didn’t think about it, I guess.” He pulled her into a long embrace, one full of panic, and kissed the top of her auburn hair. “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too,” she pulled away with a smirk. “Happy birthday to you.”
“Happy birthday to me,” he commented back wryly in an attempt to hide his state of uncertainty. “So you’re coming with me to my party?”
“Well…”
“Well?”
“I was thinking…”
“That’s always dangerous,” he smiled warmly.
“Right?” She took his hand into her own and pulled him towards their living room. A living room she’d yet to set foot in since they became husband and wife. “I was thinking that we could skip all the parties and Grammy festivities tonight and have a quiet dinner, just the two of us.”
It hadn’t really registered with him that it was Grammy night, or that his birthday party was set to be hosted at a pretty popular club in West Hollywood, where club promoters needed their celebrity guests to show up when they said they would. All that he could think was that he wouldn’t get to see Zooey.
“I’m sensing that you don’t really wanna do that,” she guessed.
“I mean, I do. Of course I do,” he countered. And he did. He hadn’t seen his wife in ages, spending the night with her sounded… relieving, actually. But… “It’s just that you know, Trace and Rob, they planned this whole night for me, I think they’d be a little disappointed if I didn’t show up.”
“Babe, it’s your birthday. They would not get mad at you for doing what you wanna do.”
“Ideally, you’re right, they shouldn’t. But realistically, I’m pretty sure they would and will.”
“Then it’s up to you, I’ll do whatever you wanna do.”
Truth was, he really wanted to go to his party and hang out with his friends “ namely, Zooey. But he would’ve felt like an asshole having his wife come all the way from New York just to have her sit in a club and socialize with his group of friends. “You’re right. Let’s go out to dinner, babe. Wherever you wanna go.”
“No, it’s your birthday. Wherever you want is fine.”
“What I want is to spend the evening with my beautiful wife. The city is crawling with parties, so I’m sure we can have a nice quiet dinner somewhere without drawing much attention.”
“Okay,” she grinned happily. It felt like an eternity since she’d been able to spend a quiet night anywhere, much less with her husband. “How does Beso sound?”
“Beso sounds good.”
“Kay, go get dressed and I’ll make a reservation.”
Nodding, he did as told, pulling his BlackBerry from his pocket in order to warn his friends that he wouldn’t be able to make it, but Scarlett had other plans for his phone as well.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” he paused, turning back to her.
“No phones tonight. Gimme that.”
“No phones?”
“No phones.” She snatched the phone from his clutches and threw it in a nearby drawer. “It’s just you and me tonight.”
“O…kay,” he agreed hesitantly, inwardly panicking about the fact that he had tons of texts from Zooey in his inbox, just waiting to be discovered. “Can I just let the guys know that I won’t be there?”
“No,” she playfully waved him off. “Go get ready, it’s getting late.”
He quickly turned to do as Scarlett said, knowing that his inward alarm was going to quickly be shown all over his face, and the last thing he wanted to do was field questions all night about what was wrong with him. He’d have to chalk this one up to a loss and move on with his evening.
____________________
The time was rounding the eleven o’clock hour, the Grammy’s were well past over, and the club was getting more crowded as the minutes passed, everyone still waiting on the guest of honor to show up. Zooey was particularly antsy because she’d been texting him for over an hour with no reply. She wondered if he was mad at her, or did he forget? Was he sleeping? Was he hurt? What was going on?
She left her table full of acquaintances and strutted over to where Trace sat, entertaining a table full of females. “Hey, Trash,” she called him out, referring to the tattoo on his forearm where he’d inked himself as Tennessee Trash, “where’s your friend?”
Trace looked up from underneath his cap and stared for a moment, as if trying to place Zooey’s face. “What?”
“Where’s Justin?” she shouted over the music. “This is his birthday party, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yeah. He’s probably on his way. You know how he likes to make an entrance.”
“Does he?”
“Well not really, but it’s his birthday, it’s Grammy night, there are a bunch of parties in the city, he’ll be here soon.”
“Have you talked to him? Have you confirmed this information?”
“No, but I know him. He’ll be here.”
Annoyed, Zooey shook her bangs out of her face and scanned the crowded area, searching for someone with a shred more sense than Trace apparently had. Spotting Rob, she stalked over to his table, where he sat with a bunch of ‘music people’ as Justin previously introduced them to her as. “Rob, where’s Justin?”
“Oh, man he can’t make it,” he seemed to suddenly remember. “I talked to Scar a little bit ago, they’re hanging out tonight.”
“Scar as in Scarlett?”
“As in his wife, yeah,” Rob smirked. “Is that all right with you?”
She felt like she was sensing some brand of mockery and she didn’t like it. “Fuck you, Robin.”
“Oh come on, I was just kidding,” he shot up from his seat to apologize before she walked off. “You know I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Whatever,” she nudged him away, frustrated that she’d just spent two hours waiting on nothing. “Have a good night.” Silently, she grabbed her jacket from her original table and headed out of the busy club, hating herself for even caring.
But alas, she did. She cared a lot, and it stung like hell to know he was ignoring her many attempts to contact him because his wife was in town.
“I am so fucking stupid,” she whispered to herself.
Leave me out with the waste
This is not what I do
It’s the wrong kind of place to be thinking of you
“Babe, what is wrong with you?” Scarlett wondered as she drove the streets of Los Angeles with her husband next to her, seemingly in a trance. “You’ve been acting weird all night.”
“Huh?” was his dazed response.
“Are you here? With me?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I said you’ve been acting weird all night. Like, weirder than usual.”
“I have?”
“Yes!”
“I dunno, I guess I’m a little thrown off because I don’t have my phone.”
“That is not what’s wrong with you.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” he maintained. “I’m a little distracted, I guess, but there’s nothing wrong.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“What’s not to believe,” he chuckled tiredly. The wine from dinner had apparently kicked in and nothing was really making sense. “I mean, you show up out of nowhere and throw my plans out of whack, I’m sorry I’m not in my usual state of awesome.”
“Oh, I’m sorry I interrupted your plans,” she retorted, her tone swimming in sarcasm. “I’m so sorry that I made the effort to come and see you for your birthday and you missed out on the opportunity to hang out with Trace and Rob for the thousandth time this month.”
“Whoa, when did this turn into a fight?”
“When you implied that I ruined your night.”
“I didn’t say that, Tess, I just said I was a little weird because of it. I’m not mad that you’re here.”
“Well you sure as hell aren’t happy.”
“I am happy. We had a good night, I thought.”
“Were you there, Justin? Because the dinner I had was awkward and silent.”
“I thought you liked silent. You said you didn’t need to talk to enjoy yourself with me.” She was the one who said she loved the ease of marital, nonverbal communication while he was the talker in the relationship. He hated that they no longer had to speak to one another to get their points across. Except for that night, it seemed.
“That’s usually true, but I haven’t seen you in a month!”
“We talk like everyday, though.”
“It’s not the same, Justin. And if you don’t know that we should be able to talk easily after not spending any time together, then I don’t know what to say to you.”
He was so thankful that they were rounding the corner to home, because the feeling of not being able to escape this conversation was suffocating him. “I’m sorry, Scarlett. I really am. I didn’t know that I was making you so uncomfortable.”
“I didn’t know I was making you so uncomfortable,” she replied softly. Turning up their driveway, she began to dig through her purse to locate his phone, which he had clearly been suffering without. “Here.”
He looked down, unsure whether he wanted to take it. He saw the red message indicator blinking, which meant that at least one person had called or sent a text, but he knew that it was more along the lines of several to many. “Thank you,” he hesitantly accepted.
“Sorry for ruining your birthday.”
He sighed exasperatedly and looked at his wife as she pulled in front of the house. “You did not ruin my birthday. Why are you being so dramatic?”
“Why are you?”
“What did I do besides say that I wasn’t expecting you?”
“Forgive me, I thought I would be a pleasant surprise.”
“You were! You are…”
“That sounds sooo convincing.”
She piled out of the car as quickly as she could while Justin stayed behind to look through his messages to see what he had missed. Thankfully, they were mostly birthday wishes and ‘Where are you’s from people at his party, but there was quite a collection of messages from Zooey, ranging from random to irritated. He scrolled through them, smiling at the funny ones and wincing at the ones that asked when he would be showing up. He hated that he had ditched her. He had to call her quickly.
It’s the wrong time for somebody new
It’s a small crime and I got no excuse
“Hello?”
“Hey,” he found himself involuntarily smiling at the sound of her voice.
“Oh, so you are alive,” she answered dryly. “That’s good to know.”
“Listen, I’m really sorry, Zo. Something else came up and I just--.”
“Where the hell were you,” she demanded to know. “I sat there for two hours, watching the door like a punk, waiting for you to show up.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered again, as if Scarlett were somewhere listening, even though she had been in the house for minutes now. “Scarlett came home, she wanted us to go out, just the two of us. She took my phone so we wouldn’t be interrupted.”
“Convenient.”
“I’m serious.”
“Well why are you calling me now?”
“We just got home. I honestly didn’t even go in the house yet, I feel so bad for not calling anyone… not calling you.”
She sighed in frustration. “Justin…”
“I know.”
And is that all right, yeah
Give my gun away when it’s loaded
That all right, yeah
If you don’t shoot it how am I supposed to hold it?
“I gotta go.”
“Zooey, wait.”
“What?”
“I’m really sorry.”
“I heard you the first two times. Go hang out with your wife.”
“Zooey--”
And then she was gone. He knew that she was still pissed, and rightfully so, but he hated it. Dangerously, he hated it even more than the fact that his wife was pissed at him, too. What the hell was wrong with him?
He hesitantly headed inside his home, where Scarlett sat at the kitchen counter waiting for him to come in.
“Justin, what’s going on?”
Leave me out with the waste
This is not what I do
It’s the wrong kind of place to be cheating on you
“Nothing,” he answered without looking at her. He dropped his box of leftovers to the counter with her and then headed back for the door. “I’m gonna drop by the party, say hi, thank everybody and all that.”
“All right…”
“You wanna come?” He had no plans to drop by any party, but his asking her to come was pure reverse psychology.
She shook her head and somberly pulled his leftovers in front of her, beginning to pile cold sweet potato French fries into her mouth. “Have fun.”
He didn’t know what happened to this night, and even worse, he didn’t really care. All he wanted was to get to Zooey.
It’s the wrong time
She’s pulling me through
It’s a small crime, and I got no excuse
____________________
It was midnight now “ officially Monday, officially no longer Justin’s birthday, and Zooey had officially surrendered to her bad mood and decided to go to bed. But no sooner than her head hit the pillow did her doorbell ring, completely knocking her out of her state of fatigue.
She knew it was Justin “ there was no one else it could possibly be, unless there was some kind of emergency where her cell phone number had been forgotten “ and it made her simultaneously furious and satisfied.
Quickly puttering to the front of her home, she peeked through the living room window, and sure enough, there sat one of Justin’s many Audis. And for one more confirmation, she looked through her peephole to find him standing there, with his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, looking at the ground.
She pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her head and swung the door open. “What are you doing here?”
“I feel bad.”
“Shouldn’t you be with your wife?”
“Yeah.”
“Then go away. What is wrong with you?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Justin…”
“Can I come in?”
She shifted her weight from one heel to the other as she raced through all the different outcomes of this scenario “ none of them had a particularly pleasant ending. She felt a sudden chill go down her spine and found herself wishing for more than just the sweatshirt and boxers she was wearing. “Could you just go?”
“No.”
“Someone’s gonna see you.”
“Then let me in.”
She reluctantly did so, looking down to her own floor as he took the half a dozen steps to come inside her house.
“Why are you upset?” he wanted to know.
“I’m not.”
“Why do you keep saying you’re not when you clearly are?”
“I’m just trying to learn to keep my distance.”
“Why?”
“Why?” she felt like shouting. “Because… maybe I’m the only that seems to remember this tiny little factoid, but you’re married.”
“I know that, Zooey.”
“So what the fuck makes you think that you being here right now is okay?”
“I don’t know what to say,” he whispered guiltily. “…I like you.”
“That doesn’t matter,” she shook her head sadly.
He moved in closer to her, silently amused to see her stumble backwards. “Zooey, tell me you haven’t thought about me and us kissing every time you walk through your front door.”
“I can’t say I haven’t,” she admitted. “But then I have the luxury of rewriting that memory. I conjure up an ending where I don’t end up falling in love with that moment and I make myself react differently… Correctly.”
“Why are you so hard on yourself?”
“Because I know how this ends.”
“So what.”
“So I don’t wanna get hurt, Justin. When everything breaks open, you’ll still have a wife to go home to. I’ll have nothing.”
“You’re the one that said nothing was everything.”
“Everything means nothing if I ain’t got you…”
He hated how she made him laugh in even the tensest of moments. He also loved it. “I want this, Zooey. I want you. I don’t care about the consequences “ finally. That has to mean something to someone like you.”
She shook her head vehemently, trying to shake all her thoughts and temptations away. She had to walk away.
“Where are you going.”
She walked back into her living room and took a cross-legged seat on the floor, still looking down. “I’m trying to do the right thing,” she said to her chest. “Why are you making it so hard?”
He entered the threshold of the room, watching her in the middle of the floor, looking like a crazy person, and smirked. “That’s what she said.”
“Justin, I am fucking serious here!”
“Calm down.” He took a seat in front of her and exhaled loudly as he thought of an answer he didn’t really have. He didn’t know why it was so hard to stay away from her. “I dunno,” he replied honestly. “Sometimes, the right thing… isn’t always the right thing.”
“We would regret it.”
And is that all right, yeah
I give my gun away when it’s loaded
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Is this really how you wanna spend your birthday?”
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be, Zooey.”
Is that all right, yeah
You don’t shoot it how am I supposed to hold it?
Is that all right, yeah
I give my gun away when it’s loaded
He made her feel the good kind of weak. The kind of weak that made you stop by Krispy Kreme because you just saw the ‘Hot’ light come on and no one was in line yet. The kind of weak that made you push the snooze button on the alarm clock one more time than you should have. It was the kind of weak that led to temporary bliss.
“Fuck it,” she sniffled, pulling off her sweatshirt. Without giving any of her reservations another thought, she crawled to Justin and kissed him.
Is that all right with you?
Lyrics: “9 Crimes” “ Damien Rice feat. Lisa Hannigan (9)
Author's Chapter Notes:
Sooo... remember me? I KNOW how much you guys must hate me, and I really am sorry, but I come bearing kinda good news! I didn't want to post another chapter until I finished the story, but... I also wanted to let you guys know that's what I'm doing lol. So. Here's one more chapter until I complete this mess I've made. And I'm verrry close to being done, so it shouldn't be long at all. But in the meantime, enjoy this chapter, if you can even remember what this shit is about, and I'll be back soon, I swear! If you're reading this, thank you so much for not disappearing on me like I did to you. :happysmurf - Ash
Chapter End Notes:
Again, a fantastic song that you should add to your library if you haven't already.
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