You might think that loving him is the easiest in the entire world. No complications, no worry, no strings attached. No pun intended. Wake up, see the amazing specimen of a person lying next to you, and thank God that you were so lucky to find someone like him. Because he is perfect, number one, the best. I should be thanking my lucky stars every single second of the day that we’ve found each other in life because there are so many other women who would fucking kill to get the chance to be in my position. Yes, loving him should be oh-so-easy…
“Justin Timberlake, what the fuck…”
Yeah, guess again.
I, Lauren Walters, am the most retarded woman on the face of the planet. If one thing needs to be said, it is that dating Justin Timberlake, Pop God, and Entrepreneur Extravaganza, and holder of my heart is a pain in the ass, and he is a royal shithead.
Which, I guess is why I adore him so much.
“You shrieked my love?” I look up from the whirlwind that is my closet and see him leaning comfortably against the doorframe. He looks so put together and is watching me as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. He shouldn’t. He doesn’t have to pack for the both of us.
“Justin,” I begin with a sigh as I look at the pile of unfolded clothes sprawled throughout the closet and silently curse myself for not putting things away after doing my laundry. It’s times like this I wish I had the mind set to hire people to do the easy shit for me, “Is there a reason why you’re downstairs watching football with Trace when I’m up here packing?”
He looks at me thoughtfully for a moment and takes a sip of the beer he’s holding onto before staring at ground zero with yours truly right in the middle. His idleness is driving me bonkers right now and I just want to throw up my hands in defeat and tell him to pack up his own shit.
“Because the domestic shit is best left to a woman?” a piece of underwear finds itself sailing through the air and landing on its target, the neck of his beer bottle. He delicately separates the two and looks at my pair of frilly underwear with a bemused expression on his face before he looks at me and raises his eyebrows, “And may I enquire as to what you’re wearing right now?”
“Perv,” I respond as I fold a pair of his jeans and shove it into the suitcase that’s by the bed. He drops the underwear unceremoniously into the luggage and sits on the edge of the bed, looking at me thoughtfully. “Well, aren’t you going to help?”
“You seem to have everything under control,” he explains casually and I almost throw another article of clothing but I know it isn’t going to help my situation. “Why are you packing right now? We don’t leave until tomorrow afternoon.”
“Because I’m not going to leave it to the last minute, which is something you always do. I do not want to miss the plane, and I don’t want to be late getting to your mother’s house. Is that a problem?”
“Yeah, it is a problem.” I hate it when he’s being difficult and I just want to take the beer bottle and slam it over his head. Patience, Lauren “ count to ten.
“Why is that?”
“Because you aren’t downstairs with me,” he all but pouts and of course I find myself melting into his sincere and all too sweet gaze. I sigh and feel the tension leaving my body as I sag and look at the pile of clothes that surrounds me. I hate the fact that he always knows exactly what to say. “I haven’t seen you all day!” he whines. That is a big ass lie and he knows it. We woke up together, had breakfast together, watched random television together, had lunch together, made out for the majority of the afternoon and, after realizing that I had spent most of the afternoon locked to his lips, I scurried upstairs to pack for our trip to Tennessee while he putzed around downstairs with Trace.
“Well if you need more time, you can stay up here with me and let Trace entertain himself downstairs,” I explain as I fold a shirt and throw it in with the other articles of clothing prepared for the journey. Justin sets his bottle down on the bedside table and tries to stifle a snigger at my comment.
“I’m sure he entertained himself earlier today,” he jokes and I roll my eyes and try to keep out the onslaught of mental images that are beginning to seep into the corners of my mind. Men, always thinking with their damn penises. A silence fills the room and before I can stop him, he surges forward and tackles me to the ground, the both of us landing on piles of clean clothes.
“Dammit, Justin I just washed these!” I complain and he silences me by placing his mouth over mine. Even though we’ve been doing these little random kissing things for almost two weeks, I’m still getting used to them. I mean come on, last year I was busting my ass for this guy and now I can hardly stop making out with him.
How things change.
Two weeks ago my life was running at normal speed. I was working at the Zomba/Jive offices in London and trying my best to fight back my feelings for Justin and to keep my life as normal and Justin-free as possible. Naturally that didn’t happen and now I’m back in LA, living in his house, and earning the title of his girlfriend. Hardly anything from normal but then again, nothing with Justin ever is.
Our little routine of spending as much time together as possible is being jarred Thanksgiving week, however. Justin has the tradition of migrating home every Thanksgiving and Christmas and this time he’s bringing me along for the ride. I’ve been to Shelby Forest numerous times, but never for a huge family function or get together. Normally Trace is the one who takes care of Justin when he’s with his family, but this time I’ll be there. And it won’t be as his personal assistant and slave driver. This time I’ll be going as his girlfriend.
And I am so fucking nervous.
I break the kiss and stare up at him for a moment. He’s smiling like a little kid on Christmas morning and I shake my head at him, “I just washed all of these clothes and now your stupid butt is getting them dirty and smelly.”
“Shut up,” he murmurs before he kisses me again. I’m being pressed into laundry and I really don’t care if we’re wrinkling it or making it dirty. The fact of the matter is, I’m happy with him albeit nervous since I’ll be meeting the family tomorrow “ and I’ve been Girlfriend for less than two weeks.
I guess you could say we move fast. Like a rocket at super sonic speed.
He can tell I’m not into this particular random make out session because he stops for a minute and looks at me with questioning eyes, “You okay?” I nod my head but avoid his eyes and of course he knows that something is up. He leans back and his hands instinctively begin to play with my hair. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” I mutter. I’m not used to this whole ‘tell Justin about your feelings and he won’t make fun of you or tell you to shut up’ thing. I’m used to keeping it bottled up and then, when we’re in the heat of the moment, I lay it all out there for him and then the argument just increases. I’m not used to this ‘stop it before it begins’ thing. I guess I still have to get used to it.
“I know you know, you just don’t want to tell me,” he argues as his index finger wraps around a strand of my hair, “So stop avoiding the topic and tell me. I promise I won’t laugh too hard.”
“Oh you are so funny,” I grumble. He looks at me with a questioning look and I sigh knowing he isn’t going to let me get away with not telling him what’s on my mind. “Okay,” I finally say, giving in. The small triumphant look on Justin’s face makes me not want to tell him at all. Giving into him like this is not something I would have done back when we weren’t dating.
God, even thinking about the fact that we’re dating is so weird to me. It’s such an alien concept. I wonder what Melissa would think? Or Neal. Oh I want to find Neal and his Amazon Barbie and laugh in their freaking faces. But that wouldn’t be polite. On second thought, when have I ever been polite? Or Justin for that matter?
“You were saying?” Justin asks breaking into my rambling thoughts. I really have to get a CAT Scan or something. Sometimes my mind just goes on and on and doesn’t stop… “Lauren?” There I go again.
“Sorry. Spaced out,” I add. He nods thoughtfully and I realize that I still need to tell him what’s going on. “I don’t know, I guess I’m just nervous,” I breathe out quickly.
“About what?”
“Meeting your family,” I finish and he gives me a look that seems to say I’m fucking crazy.
“You’ve met them all before, why is now anything different?” he ponders. He’s still playing with my hair and half of me just wants to fall asleep and the other is running around trying to figure out how to handle the conversation we’re having while laying in the middle of laundry.
“Well for one part I’ve only met them in sporadic periods of time. Not all at once. And to add onto that, the majority of the time I’ve met them it was as your no nonsense assistant who you always described as a heartless banshee…”
“I would never!” Justin exclaims in indignation.
“Um…you did it when I went home with you to surprise your mom for Mother’s Day, remember?”
“Oh yeah…I think I threw in baby eater as well,” he adds and I punch him in the shoulder.
“You aren’t helping…” I mutter. He shuts up immediately and looks at me with a caring look that I’m not accustomed to seeing.
“Don’t worry. They’re going to love you as my girlfriend because you don’t have to run after me, now you can run with me.” Was he ever this sweet in the past? Man I know it’s cliché but the little fucker is giving me a toothache. I sigh and shake my head at his words and he grins knowing that he’s broken the little wall of anxiousness I have built up about meeting his family.
“That makes me feel a little bit better,” I explain as he leans forward and kisses me on the forehead.
“Glad I could help,” he murmurs before he moves his head so his forehead is resting on my own. Was he ever this affectionate with his other girlfriends? I can never remember because I was always so busy trying to get them separated from whatever lip lock they were in so Justin could either get to an interview or on stage on time. I just know I could definitely get used to this.
“Speaking of help, that reminds me,” I exclaim softly and he mutters a response to alert me that he’s listening, “You have interviews with potential new assistants that JIVE wants to send over when we get back from Tennessee.” Justin groans at the mention of work and it causes him to roll away from me. He isn’t getting away so easily and I quickly roll over so I’m resting on top of him now.
“Do we have to talk about this now?” he whines. I nod my head vigorously before tweaking his nose.
“Yup. After all, finding my replacement is going to be very hard work. I don’t know who else would be able to put up with your lame ass,” he winces like I’ve punched him in the face, but I don’t care. It’s fun giving him a hard time for a change.
“I leave it entirely up to you,” he explains, “I don’t care who you pick as long as it’s a she and she can sit there and take all the shit you couldn’t.”
“So you want me to get you a pushover?”
“Precisely. Because if I had another assistant running around acting like you did, I probably wouldn’t be able to spend any time with you,” he explains, “You were always yanking me away from my old girlfriends…”
“Poor baby,” I whine right back, “You’ll get over it. Because I’m not going to be sitting in your lap two minutes before you’re due onstage.”
“Why?” he pouts. He’s starting to do his famous little mope but thankfully years of working as his assistant has made me immune to it.
“Because I’ll probably be working,” I explain and he frowns up at me. I shrug it off; just because I’m dating one of the most famous men in the world doesn’t mean I have to stop working.
“Why can’t you just not work and be with me all the time?”
“Justin, I couldn’t be around you all the time when I was working for you. And just sitting around the house while you’re doing interviews or going on tour isn’t going to work for me. I need something to do, and working for you is out of the question,” I explain. “This new job will be good for me.”
As soon as our plane from London landed in LA, I immediately quit my job at JIVE and went on the market for another job. Thankfully the Beverly Hills Hotel was looking for a new event planner and they gobbled me up. They informed me they would give me Thanksgiving off and I would start the following Monday. I can’t wait. I’ve been without a job for way too long and just doing odd things around Justin’s house isn’t enough for me.
“Of course. You can’t be truly happy unless you have someone to yell at,” Justin says as he pulls me closer to him.
“Which is why I have Trace,” I quip and he chuckles before he kisses me quickly.
“Correction,” he says in between kisses, “we have Trace. I can’t yell at you anymore.”
“So I take the brunt of the bitching?” a voice says behind us. I sit up, straddling Justin’s upper legs and look around. Trace is standing in the doorway, shaking his head in dismay, “Am I a punching bag now?”
“A pretty small one, I’d probably keep missing,” I mutter under my breath. Trace rolls his eyes and walks into the room, sitting on the bed. “What are you two talking about amidst a sea of laundry?”
“Nothing really, just discussing how you’re going to have to redo all this laundry when we get up,” Justin explains and Trace throws him a dirty look and the finger to boot.
“Does you two being together mean you’re going to be complete bitches towards me? Last time I checked I helped bring you two together,” Trace mutters as he crosses his arms and looks at us with indifference.
“Last time I checked, it was Marty who got me on the plane,” I point out.
“Irrelevant. You two would be lost without me,” he states. Both Justin and I roll our eyes in his direction and with a battle cry that would upstage Xena, Trace rushes forward and knocks me off of Justin’s lap and into another pile of folded clothes.
“Trace you moron!” I yell but soon the three of us are giggling around in a pile of clean laundry that should have been in suitcases twenty minutes ago. I shake my head as Justin grasps onto my hand while we continue to joke around in clean clothes.
I can’t believe this is my life.
