{Chloe}
You can imagine my annoyance as I hear a light knock on my bedroom door, interrupting my studies. I glance up and call out to the offender. "Yeah…what?"
Seconds later, his head hesitantly pops inside and he gives me a little smile. I'm in no mood to deal with Justin tonight. We've managed to stay away from arguing for about a good four days now, and that's mostly because I've been working and studying like crazy lately.
Of course, I'm in no way building any progress at my deal with Elise just yet, but hey, I'm gonna make some attempts at it any day now…
"Um…what do you want?" I question, suspiciously, taking my reading glasses off and rubbing at my tired face.
"Mind if I come in?"
I roll my eyes and nod at him with reluctance. "Fine. Considering you've taken it upon yourself to trespass before, I suppose I should be grateful that you're actually asking for an invite this time."
Justin's face twists into confusion and I can't help but roll my eyes at him—yet again—geez, he is dense. "Anyways," I drawl out, agitatedly. "Are you gonna just stand there and stare, or does this visit hold a purpose?"
"Well," he says, crossing his arms over his chest in the process, "I actually wanted to—um, well—err—"
I'm not usually this mean to everyone, I swear. But damn—it's just Justin for God's sake. I can't help myself. "Just spit it out already."
"Vivian Green?" he suddenly asks, taking a different approach. "I mean…you like her, right?"
Initially I'm wondering this: how does he know that I like Vivian Green? And secondly I'm wondering this: why is he asking if I like her? I know he's up to something, something evil, probably. "Why do you wanna know?"
"Honestly?"
How many times do I have to mention the fact that he's an idiot? "No, lie to me," I answer him, sardonically.
His mouth curves up into a smile, and he shakes his head to himself. He's not even overreacting at all. I don't get it. He's calm—he's not making snide remarks back. This is really getting me even more suspicious of him right now. My guard is up, that's for damn well sure.
I watch as he then squirms in what I guess is discomfort, scratching at the back of his neck and idly running his hand over the top of his buzzed head. "Um, well…the thing is…I have these tickets and…"
"And your point is?" I interrupt him, boorishly.
"You didn't even let me finish!"
"Finish!"
"Listen, I ain't tryin' start a fight with you, I just—I've got tickets to her show this Saturday night, and I wanna know if you'd want to come with me, alright?" he finally spits out at me.
And holy mother of God. You know how when you suddenly find out about something that you never knew before, and then all of the sudden it starts popping out at you in your life from out of nowhere? Okay—so maybe that didn’t make entirely too much sense, but what my point happens to be is that ever since this whole deal with Elise came on, it's like Justin is all of a sudden taking this strange interest in me.
I just don’t get it. How did Elise know this was coming? Is this a trick or something? I mean she doesn't have any motives to trick me though. And she's so adamant about me 'crushing' Justin…I just don't get why he's being somewhat cooperative in my whole quest at getting him to like me. I guess I shouldn't be complaining though, this makes it easier on me, and…
"So—is that a no?" he asks, breaking the silence and my train of thought as well.
Shit. Yes, it is. I want to say no. I want to say no. But—I shouldn't say no. I have to say yes. This is a good start for me—for my 'job' with Elise. Say yes…I have to say yes. "Uh—not exactly? I mean...I don't get it, Justin. Why the sudden change of heart? Why are you being nice to me?" I ask, suspiciously, sort of desperate for some kind of explanation.
He's licking his lips; surprise, surprise. Gosh. He's annoying. But he's being nice. I'm so overwhelmed…overwhelmed and confused.
"I was just…I just kinda wanna call a truce between us," he admits, finally. "I mean, I've been thinking about this, and we have to live together for now, and I just thought this would be a good way to break the ice. And I was hoping you would want to see Vivian. The tickets seemed like a good idea at the time, but if you don't wanna go then…"
"No!" I find myself saying, rather hastily…too hastily. "I—I'll go," I say, though I'm cringing profusely as I do so.
Justin immediately grins at me, his eyes sparkling happily. "Awesome. And I guess you were studying, and I should let you get back to that, huh buddy?" he asks, brightly.
Oh God. He called me 'buddy'. I am not his damn buddy. "Yeah. Whatever." I say, rolling my eyes. I can't handle this chumminess with him for too long.
And I swear…I'm baffled right now. But I have to do this. I gotta keep reminding myself that because I'm definitely weary of this whole situation. I in no way, shape, or form trust Justin Timberlake; whether he's inviting me to a concert and calling a truce or not.
"Alright, that's fine. So can I get a hug before I go?" he requests, wiggling his eyebrows. "Just for symbolic reasons, of course."
"Don't push your luck. I'm already going out with you, remember?"
Justin nods with a salute. "Yes, whatever you say, Rella."
What the fuck? I seriously question his dammed mind sometimes. And gosh, I wish he'd just leave already. "Excuse me? Rella?"
"Yeah…you know," he smugly grins, gesturing at me with hands, suddenly singing in explanation, "Cruella de Ville, Cruella de Ville, if she doesn't scare you…no evil thing will…to see her is to take a sudden chill…"
Oh, the stupid, stupid bastard! He's calling me after a fuckin' ugly white and black haired, fur abusing heifer from a Disney movie. And he's not even saying her name right! Who the hell gets Rella from Cruella? Only someone as dumb and unoriginal as Justin, that's who. And besides the fact that his voice is half ways decent, I'm about ready to smack him one, as he continues on with his song cheerfully…
"...the world was such a wholesome place until…"
"Leave! Now!" I finally demand, forcefully. His singing is still going strong, and so I'm now reaching over for something to throw at him. I chuck a magazine towards his big head, and I unfortunately miss as he hurriedly runs out the door, boastfully calling to me over his shoulder as he does so. "Later, Rella!"
His moronic, loud chuckling ensues that statement.
***
Argh…so today is the 'big' day. My outing with Justin is supposed to take place tonight, and I am so dreading it. (Besides the fact that I get to see Vivian in a live setting, of course).
Elise is opening her door and she has a wide smile on her face as she greets me. "Eek! I'm so excited, Chlo. I mean…I didn't think you'd be able to pull a date off with him this quickly!"
"Gee, thanks," I roll my eyes, allowing her to usher me inside.
"I meant that in a nice way though!" she insists, cheerily. "And oh my gosh! This is gonna be the perfect time for you to show off the whole make-over thing we've been working on lately! It will be in full force tonight…Justin isn't gonna know what hits him when you step out for this date…"
"It's not a date," I reply, annoyed. "God help me, the only reason I agreed to go with him was because of our deal, Elise. I hope you know the trauma this is putting me through. Honestly."
"Oh please," she hushes me with a hand. "Don't be so dramatic. Justin is taking you out on a date, and he is going to act like the perfect, little gentlemen coming into your life tonight. He's done it to the best of us honey."
Elise and I are slowly but surely becoming friends now, and surprisingly enough, I actually find myself enjoying our little banter filled conversations. But this is just ridiculous talk now. "Whatever…it's not a date," I repeat, weakly. "And what are you gonna do to me exactly?"
"Well—there's your hair. And I already picked out a killer outfit for you tonight and your makeup…"
"I know how to do my own makeup, thank you very much," I quickly interrupt her, only mildly offended.
"Chloe," Elise chastises me, once again. "What would be the fun in that?"
***
{Justin}
I'm on a date.
I’m on a date, and it's with Chloe.
Ha…and you thought I didn't have any game.
Granted the evening has been a little rocky as of yet—but if I do say so myself—things are still off to a pretty okay start. We're currently sitting side-by-side on the L, takin' our asses to the Loop so that we can have ourselves a grand ole time together.
Heh.
My eyes drift away from the empty seat I've been idly staring at for the past five minutes, and I carefully take a sideways glance at her. Now let me just tell you, Chloe has never been one that I would label as 'ugly' or anything such…but she's never really been so fine as she is tonight, either. I mean, usually she's not all dolled up and shit like this is what I mean, I guess.
So basically, my point is that she's lookin' hot, and whether or not it's cocky and presumptuous to presume so, she's lookin' hot for me 'cause it's on the night of our date. Our date…how I'd love to laugh in Trace's face right about now. That can wait till later though.
"So…you excited for the concert?" I abruptly ask, breaking the silence between us.
She looks at me and shrugs. "Sort of."
"Sort of?" I frown. "I thought you liked her."
"I do," she answers, carefully, and then sighs. "I mean—yeah, I'm really excited. I don’t really understand why you've invited me, but—"
"I invited you 'cause I wanted to," I respond, casually.
Her mouth just goes into an 'o,' and then the silence once again ensues between us. My eyes resume their drifting, and I manage to keep them off of her for about a few good seconds before they finally are back onto her again. She's looking straight ahead, and I think she's pretending that she can't feel my stare. Which is fine by me.
Her hair is actually down tonight, instead of up like she usually wears it, and it looks all shiny and soft. I wanna reach out and touch it, but I think she might try to attack if I did that. Really, she's not wearing anything all that revealing either—the weather outside is pretty chilly, so I suppose that's appropriate—but her gray coat is closed tightly around her, and it's starting to make me wonder what's underneath.
Hopefully I'll get to see. I wouldn't mind seein' what's under those jeans, either, but hey—even I can admit that I'm probably getting a little to ahead of myself with that one. Chloe isn't in any way easy—and you can interpret that how you please.
Once again, I attempt to break the non-verbal action we got going on. Not that I'm really complaining, 'cause at least we ain't at each other's throats yet. "Have I mentioned to you that you look gorgeous tonight?" I inquire, charmingly.
She shifts in her seat and then smoothes her hair out before touching at her ear. "Um, yeah. Thanks. You look…okay."
"Pssh…just okay?" I ask, giving her a pout.
Wow—and is that a smile I see on her face? Have I, Justin Timberlake, made Chloe Marin crack a smile at me? This is major progress here, folks. And with this suddenly newfound encouragement, I boldly poke at her side, prying at her again. "Only okay?"
"Pretty much," she confirms, a hint of amusement in her voice.
This is actually quite the surprise. Who would of thought it? Chloe can actually flirt…in a completely cynical and hard-to-get type of way of course, but at least she's flirting with me, eh?
"So what do you wanna eat?" I ask, changing the subject. "I'm kind of thinking pizza."
"Whatever."
"Great, pizza it is," I reply, cheerily. I'll just have to keep up the good mood for the both us right now. "You know, you should really wear your hair like that more often," I add, sweetly, and this time I don't resist the urge to touch it either.
She immediately pulls away though, as I somewhat suspected she would. "Keep your hands to yourself, please."
An old bag nearby sort of chuckles at that, obviously eavesdropping in on our conversation, and I quickly shoot him a dirty look before excusing myself to her. "Sorry about that. You're just…"
My sentence trails off and kind of just lingers in the air for a bit after that. I guess this bugs her though, because she finally asks me, "I'm just what?"
"Irresistible?"
Chloe rolls her eyes, looking at me accusingly. "Oh God, would you please cut it out with the wannabe cute one-liners? They may work on some of your other…they don't flatter me and I don't appreciate them," she finishes off, at last.
Once again, the old jerk-off chuckles at us, and I roll my eyes too, wiping my palms against my pants with an exasperated sigh. "Sheesh—you don’t have to bite my head off about it. I was just joking, you know? You shouldn't take everything so seriously—I was just trying to play with you."
"Right…this is our stop," she concludes, ignoring me and getting up with most of the others that have joined in on our ride. I obediently follow, the cool Chicago air hitting at my skin as we exit the train.
Chloe shivers a little and just I as reach my hand out to rub at her arms or something, she briskly starts walking forward, mumbling for me to keep my distance.
Rawr. I love it when she plays hard to get.
***
Things have quickly started to heat up again, and as Chloe pries her coat off, I can't help but stare at the vast expanse of skin that is now being revealed to my appreciative self. I've never, ever seen anything so small and showy on this woman, and it's a really good surprise that I am getting to experience right now.
Women have the sexiest backsides ever. Guys have ugly ones, but that place on a girl where their lower back starts to dip in is so dammed good. And Chloe only has a few strings tying her top in the back, and her jeans are nice and low and she's even got this little tattoo. I can't believe she has one…it's nice…very nice…
"We should probably sit now, Justin," she suggests, quietly. I almost don’t hear her over the loud chatter and the band that's playing at the stage, but I mange to somehow. I quickly nod in agreement, distractedly pulling out a chair for her. (I may be a jerk at times, but my momma taught me well enough to practice some chivalry.)
"You're right, Rella," I agree, finally taking my seat besides her.
"Stop calling me that," she hisses at me.
I smile. "Why? That's who you remind me of."
"I hate you."
"No you don't," I argue. "C'mon, Rella…you know I’m only kidding with you."
"Why are we doing this?"
"Doing what?" I ask, quizzically. I don't know what she's talking about.
"Really, Justin. Why did you invite me here? And why are you all of a sudden wanting to…be my friend?"
Damn, she is so frickin' caught up on this question, isn't she? And ah—if only she knew, if only she knew. I want to be much more than her friend, that's for sure. Friends with benefits if you will. Wink, wink. "Listen, I told you, I just want to get on good terms, you know? And I didn't have anyone else to take anyways."
"Yeah right, you're…"
The lights are dimming now and the crowd is getting loud with applause. "Shh…it's time for Viv," I interrupt her, excitedly.
***
{Chloe}
My heels are clanking against the cement, and I think my feet are just about ready to die of exhaustion. I don't usually wear these fucking types of shoes. They are uncomfortable, regardless of whether or not they are cute. Bitterly, Elise's annoying little mantra pops into my head, 'pain is beauty...pain is beauty'.
Fuck beauty.
"Okay. So tell me what you thought!" Justin suddenly pries, much too energetically for my taste might I add. "I mean, I sort of watched you a few times, and you looked like you were having fun…but did you like it? I thought she was awesome."
"Yeah…she was amazing," I admit, quietly. We stop a street corner and wait for it to clear before we can cross. "I loved all the songs she did."
"So you had a good time?" he prods me again.
"Yes. I'm just kinda of tired, or I might be a little more…"
My feet suddenly halt in their movements, and we end up stopping right at the next corner of the street, as we have just bridged the gap between the two of them. I look down at our suddenly connected hands, and I can literally feel my stomach turn with nausea. I swear this whole night is surreal…and just plain old weird. But I can't really pull away exactly, now can I?
To give Justin a smidgen of credit, he hasn't been completely obnoxious tonight. I don’t know—maybe he's changed or something. And plus, I have to let him hold my hand because of this stupid Elise arrangement. It's just because of that though. Otherwise, I wouldn't allow it.
Shaking my head, I quickly glance up into his blue eyes, which are staring at me curiously. Like he doesn't know what he's done. "Erm…anyways," I say, immediately starting up on our trek again. "She's an amazing performer."
The whole rest of the way home is pretty boring and during the ride back, I almost find myself dozing off. It's been a long day—and this whole Justin situation has completely drained my head out. I'm too exhausted to deal with much more tonight.
"Rella?" Justin asks, nudging my shoulder.
"What?" I groan. His voice is so damn annoying to me.
"Are you falling asleep?"
"No, of course not," I retort, glancing at him with an aggravated expression.
He smiles at me—the stupid lop-sided grin smile—and he even has the nerve to wink, too. "Oh, that's good to hear. I'd hate for you to fall asleep before the real fun begins."
"Excuse me?"
"Erm, nothing. I was just saying…"
"You know what? That's it! I'm tired of trying to be nice to your ass," I suddenly snap. Blame it on my lack of sleep, but I just can't handle this anymore. "If you think that you can just fuck around with me and take me to some concert so that you can get laid, then you can just forget it! I'm not one of your normal little sluts that you can just buy off and pretend to be all charming with, when in reality you're just a…"
A few people are looking at us now, and Justin's face looks admittedly pissed. I think he's not gonna be so friendly anymore for the night. "You're such a bitch," he hisses at me, under his breath. "I don't know why I waste my time with you."
"Didn't ask you to, now did I?"
He says nothing in answer and for that I'm sort of grateful. We've already caused quite the scene already.
***
Chris looks on in surprise as we both come stalking in the door, Justin mumbling a few choice words under his breath at me. After we got off the train, we spent the rest of the way home arguing again. He's such a damn prick. I seriously retract any of the decent things I've said or thought about him tonight.
"Don't fuckin' touch me," I growl at him, as he skids past me and goes for his room, conveniently bumping into me on the way.
"Umm…" Chris asks, questioningly. He's on the couch and I just roll my eyes at him as I too, head for my own room.
"Justin?" he calls out in another attempt.
"Not now, Chris."
He slams his door shut and I quickly do the same with mine, not at all in the mood for his shit. The whole night was going fine until he had to come out with his crude, little comment about getting me into bed. Just goes to show that he is a one-tracked minded pervert. And I can't stand the guy.
Suddenly, his ugly mug is right back in my view though, as he comes stalking through my doorway. "What the fuck? Do you not know how to knock?"
He holds his hand out and rolls his eyes at me. "Shut your damn trap, I'm just returning the phone you left on the table. Which—mind you—you wouldn't have noticed you were gonna leave had I not picked it up for you."
"Great! You've returned it, and you can leave now."
"Gladly," he spits out, stridently slamming the door behind his retreating form.
I'm so mad, angry, pissed off, and way beyond my rational thinking that I quickly follow in his same path, me ending up as the intruder this time. "Who the hell do you think you are? Don't ever slam my door like that again!" I yell at him. And with that said—I do the really mature thing, the thing that any other human being in my situation would do—I slam his damn door shut.
Yeah. Right back at ya asshole.
As I enter into my own room again, I quickly press the 'play' button on my stereo and let the mellifluous, soulful voice of Vivian Green drift into the air. I had the CD in already because I'd been listening to it in anticipation of the concert.
As one of my favorites, track number eight to be precise, comes to an ending I shift on my bed, quite irritably. The lyrics continue to penetrate my tired brain.
Now I see, I must first love me
And maybe Mr. Right will come strolling along
Ha—like that'll ever happen.
In the meantime though, I have my schmuck of a roommate next door to deal with.
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