Chapter Eighteen: It’s Lonely At The Top
Three weeks later
New York City
It’s been three weeks since my album was released and I have yet to come down from the high. In fact, I think it’s getting stronger. And why should I come down? It’s one of the best albums in years. And although I agree, I wasn’t the one that claimed that, my record label did. I get a kick out of the major ass kissing Jive does when I release something that makes them millions. It’s hilarious to watch them bend over backwards to make me happy. But they fail to realize that what made me happy was creating the said album. Any other flashy shit they throw at me for a job well done, is just a fucking bonus. It’s all really uncalled for, idiots! I know that the album is hot, and it may sound arrogant when I say that but whatever. That shit is hot! I’m proud of the work I’ve done this time around and to be completely honest, I don’t give a damn who else likes it, really. As long as I’m happy, then it’s all good. And I’m extremely happy so it‘s a mother-fucking good thing.
And with all mother-fucking good things, more work follows. Go figure! In my case, in my career, it means I MUST tour. Anything that Jive Records can do to make more money off of me, they are always down for. Or should I say UP? Trust me, I‘m a big money maker, kind of a big deal and all that mumbo fucking jumbo. But it’s not that I mind touring or anything, it’s one of my favorite things to do beside being in the studio, that‘s the best shit. But it’s a necessary evil in my line of work, that of course is if you want to stay at the top. And at the top, I am. So, touring is very necessary.
The evil part? Apart from being excruciatingly exhausting, physically, it’s a pain in the ass to plan. But I only have myself to blame for that, though, it’s the perfectionist in me. I refuse to put on a lame ass show just for the sake of touring. If I’m touring, I’m going all out, all the way. No half ass doing shit on this tour. My last tour, I was accompanied by Christina and while my show was pretty hot, it wasn’t just mine. This time, it’s all me baby! The Future/Sex Love/Show.
I just spent three hours in a meeting with the big wigs of Jive Records, Johnny, Marty and other people who are going to make my show happen. Needless to say, my budget is triple of what I was allowed on the Justified Tour. I’m fucking beside myself, really. But being the humble guy that my momma raised, I’m not showing it much.
While I’m looking forward to the actual show, I want to kick my own ass for telling those people that I wanted my hands on everything. It sounded all good in the meeting and everyone seemed to agree that I would have the last word on everything. But now? Shit, I’m kind of pissed that I just took on all the planning responsibilities. Thinking about all the shit I have to dream up has already made me tired. I know I can count on Marty to give me a good choreographed show but he can’t plan if I don’t know what the fuck I’m gonna do, can he? My head is spinning and it’s fucking cold as hell in New York. It’s not helping.
“Do you still want to check out the construction?” Rachel asks adjusting the scarf around her neck. “We still have time before going to the airport.”
“Let’s just go to the airport now,” I say as Eric opens the car door for me, when we walk out of the Jive studios. The shouting of my name is muffled by the door when Eric closes it. Seriously, why are they standing outside in the cold like that? If they’re cold, then I’m cold. Which means, no, I’m not talking any pictures. Shit!
“Why do you want to go home today, if we have to come back tomorrow night?” Rachel asks from where she’s now sitting next to me in the darkened SUV.
“I just want to go home,” I say with a shrug, readjusting my hat and I know she’s not buying it.
“Liar,” she says with a laugh. “She gets home today, doesn’t she?”
“Shut up, Rach,” I say yanking on her scarf, making her yelp and hit my shoulder. “I’m telling your mother!”
“What’s wrong, Justin? You don’t like your new PR?” she teases in that stupid voice she makes that I hate. “Poor baby..”
“Oh my god, Eric!!” I say while giving Rachel the finger. “You should have seen his face, dude. It was classic.”
“Who’s face?” Eric asks from the front seat as we pull into the New York traffic.
“The new PR dude,” I say and I start to laugh harder because just remembering the look on the guys face when he saw that fabricated picture of me, was just hysterical.
“Oh my god, I thought he was going to cry,” Rachel says after finishing her story to Eric. “Justin almost fucked up the whole thing, by laughing. It was great, you should of came upstairs with us.”
“Poor guy,” Eric says shaking his head with laughter. “You two need to stop making that guy’s life, a living hell with those pictures.”
“We’re just breaking him in,” I joke. “Like a puppy,” and Rachel laughs loudly with that contagious laugh of hers and suddenly all three of us are in an uproar inside the car. The driver must think we’re fucking nuts. “You know Rachel’s the Photoshop queen, not me.”
“Well that’s not completely true, you’re a queen too,” she says with a laugh that makes Eric laugh and me, not so much. She’s a dick, I swear. “Justin couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag, let alone a computer.”
“Very true,” Eric says with a chuckle. “What is it, Rachel? Technologically inclined?”
“Whatever!” I say waving both of them off. “I have better things to do with my time than sit on a computer. Like planning a fucking tour, for instance. You know, where thousands of people come to see ME. Scream MY name and show ME, not you, major love. So suck it.”
“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Rachel says as she sits up to talk to Eric.
Both of them continue talking about me and my inability to get around a computer, as if I’m not in the car. Under normal circumstance, I would join them in the shit talking and call them out on the shit that I CAN do that they can’t, but not right now. Right now, my very observant assistant is giving me a moment to make a phone call. This is why I love her, I mean beside for being my cousin and all.
I don’t have to think about it, I flip my phone open and hit the talk button, knowing it was the same number I dialed the night before. It rings a few times before I have a cheesy ass smile on my face when I hear the voicemail come on.
“You’ve reached Vanessa Martinez, with Wright Entertainment Group. I’m not available at the moment but please be sure to leave your name, a brief message and telephone number where I can reach you. Thank you.”
I don’t leave a message, instead I end the call and look up to find Rachel and Eric looking at me with knowing looks. I hate them.
“There he goes,” Eric sings and I laugh at my stupid travel companions.
“It’s all calculated to the tee,” Rachel says and I give her the finger yet again, as we pull up to the private airstrip of the airport. “In about two minutes he’ll call again and she’ll answer and he’ll be a fucking cheese ball. LOSER!!”
“And who’s a loser for noticing this?” I ask with raised brows as Eric steps out of the car and stands by my door for me to get out. Rachel huffs and pushes me out of the car.
“I bet you she’s not even nice to him,” Rachel says to Eric as they follow me up the steps of the private jet.
“Shut upppppppppp,” I say as I enter the jet and head straight to the back. My seat.
Mr. Myers is already on the plane and he’s typing away furiously on the laptop across from him. He’s such a nerd! He doesn’t say much, only speaking long enough to ask me certain things about the day and that’s completely fine with me. I can’t believe I can’t have my old PR back. I’m the shit, man! Jive said so! Why can’t I have my way? This fucking blows! Mr. Myers doesn’t have legs for days. He doesn’t have an ass that’s out of this world. And he’s doesn’t have a permanent place in my thoughts. He’s just a dude, with thick glasses that doesn’t talk! Fucking shit!
I can hear everyone else that is traveling with me getting on the jet as they arrive individually at the airport but I have more important things to do. I close the door to the private area in the back and when I receive a text message on my phone that says ‘okay’ in capital letters, I smile. I can’t believe I’ve come to these cheesy ass rituals and I haven’t even touched this woman in three weeks.
The morning after I’d spent the night at her place was a bit awkward in the sense that neither one of us wanted to ruin it. It was a welcomed silence, I guess you can say, as we sat across each other at a deli near her house. My nerves were already shot from having to sit in her living room, waiting for her to finish showering. Talk about torture to a neglected libido. I could picture everything that was happening in that bathroom and if she took any longer, I would have embarrassed myself because my imagination was running wild. And it still is but there’s something that has changed these past few weeks. Something’s different.
I’m starting to think that I really am lovestoned and it wasn’t a gimmick to make a song happen. It’s the truth. I’ve thought about Vanessa Martinez like that impossible to ‘kick’ drug and I find that words couldn’t be truer. She has me lovestoned to the point of being cheesy, and I don’t do cheesy. Cheese is for the bitches! I mean I don’t love her, love her. I don’t. I don’t think. It’s just different now, it’s not about me wanting to fuck her anymore.
It’s just different.
It’s not like anything I’ve ever felt before and trust when I say that I’ve had all types of feelings about my girlfriends. Hell, I still have feelings about Laura and Kayley and that was almost two centuries ago. So this thing, this cheese-fest is a bit crazy for me.
The fact that I’ve talked on the phone for hours on end about absolutely fucking nothing with a woman that I detested, well that’s insane. And while it’s fucking crazy, I look forward to it every single day. It’s like I’m speaking with a completely different woman. She laughs and makes jokes that usually revolve around making fun of me but they are jokes, nonetheless. And she talks TO me now instead of talking AT me like she was always doing. And well, I like that. I like that she has told me all about her childhood and her father. I like that she shares the same bond with Barker that I share with Trace. I like that when I tell her I can’t wait to see her, that she actually gets shy. I like that I like this woman, I like it and it scares me.
But there’s one thing that I don’t like. One thing that has had me so far up the wall, I’m being an ass to everyone, at least more than usual. My bad moods have been in honor of Vanessa being part of Nick Carter’s ‘people’ and I absofuckinglutely hate it. I can’t even begin to mention the things that go through my mind when I think about it. I mean, it’s not that I think Vanessa’s easy, not at all. She’s a tough chick and I know that she doesn’t think highly of him, as per our conversations, but still, I hate it. She hated me too, ya know? So it’s a bit worrisome. Am I supposed to be okay about her looking the way she does around a horny son of a bitch like Nick Carter? No way! I really wished she’d taken my advice and opted to wearing sweat pants and t-shirts during this stupid tour. She actually laughed when I said that but I didn’t think it was funny, I had been dead serious. I didn’t really have a problem with Nick until his eyes started wandering. I wondered why Vanessa shared that information with me in the first place, but she did and I have a feeling she did it on purpose to fuck with me. It worked.
Thankfully but not quite enough for me, she said she wouldn’t be wearing skirts on this tour. Of course she said it had been her choice and had nothing to do with my opinion. Deep inside though, I know it was and fuck it, that makes me smile. I thanked the Lord above about ‘her’ choice that day but then I suggested she wear sweats and t-shirts and she laughed. I guess I can’t win them all but I got her to laugh, which is fucking ridiculously satisfying.
I don’t recall ever feeling this way and I’m a little scared to say that I’m a jealous freak right now. And she’s not even my girlfriend, she’s my friend. That simple fact is what’s the scariest shit of all. But I’m enjoying the hell out of it. Every single moment that I get to speak to her. Every second that I spend doing the cheesy ass thing I’m involved in at the moment, are the highlights of my day. It’s become our little ritual. Jesus! We have stupid little rituals already! It’s a pretty cheesy one. I call her, I usually get her voicemail, I don’t leave a message, but I get a text message within half an hour with the word ‘okay’ on it, then I smile like a fucking idiot and then I follow-up with dialing her number again.
She’ll answer on the first ring because her ‘okay’ means she’s alone. It will mean she’s found a quiet place to talk to me without being interrupted. Can you fucking believe that? Vanessa Martinez has been making ‘time’ for me! I still have a hard time believing that simply because she barely has time to do anything for herself, yet she’s found the time to talk on the phone with me. I feel incredibly fucking special, which is why this is the cheesiest situation I’ve been in. A whole different kind of dairy, that’s for sure.
“Hi,” when the words are spoken into my ear, I get giddy and the smile never leaves.
“Are you home yet?” I ask and I hope she says that she is so that I feel better about making this financially stupid trip back home. Whatever! It’s not like I spend millions a day like other people do. A few thousand on a private jet is nothing. Johnny needs to leave me alone about that shit.
“I just…” she starts to tell me but there’s a commotion of some sort on her end and all I can hear is laughter in the background.
“Hello?” It’s not her on the phone speaking to me and because it’s not the first time I hear the voice, I know who it is right away.
“Bark Bark!” I say happily into the phone and she laughs.
“Lago Lago!” she says and I laugh when I hear her tell Vanessa to get in the car and shut up. My heart kind of skips a beat when I hear Vanessa tell her that she met me first and to back off. I’m sure that wasn’t meant for my ears. “She’s blushing now, by the way. I don’t think she meant to say that out loud.”
“Too late,” I say with a laugh. “How was your trip? Trace said you guys did some interesting things.”
“Let me tell you how crazy your boy is,” she says and I can tell she’s in a car because the noise of what I could only imagine was the airport is gone. I can faintly hear Vanessa in the background talking to someone and I’m wondering who she could possibly be talking to when she should be talking to me. See how cheesy I’m getting? This girl has me all fucked up, I swear! “He rented out the whole floor to the hotel and if I were you, the boss, I would seriously consider looking into the William Rast petty cash because he’s out of control.”
“Is that right?” I ask with a laugh. “I’ll make sure to rip him a new one or two when I get home.”
“Oh well Joanna tried but failed miserably,” she says with a contagious laugh. “Good luck on that one.”
She goes on and on about the offer that Trace and I made about being our model for the clothing line and I put in a few words here and there. In all honesty I’m dying for her to get off the damn phone so that I can talk to Vanessa, who apparently is still talking to someone in the background. The longer I wait to hear her voice the more annoyed I get. The engines of the jet are going strong outside the window I’m looking out of and I know that my chance to talk to her, to hear her voice is going to be cut short.
And it’s proven when the jet that I am in is literally jetting down the runway and Barker is still talking to me about something that I could give two fucking shits about right now. I like the girl but right now she’s keeping me from the only contact I’ve had with Vanessa Martinez in three weeks. I could kill her, really.
And just like that, I feel the pressure of the jet as it takes off and I’m in the air. Which also means that my call is fading, fading, fading and fading until my phone beeps and I hear nothing but the sound of the engines and see nothing but the New York skyline underneath me. I’ve lost my cheese for five and a half fucking hours.
Fucking gouda!
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4pm (Pacific time)
The longest five hours of my life were spent on that jet and I’m seriously thinking that something is wrong with me. Seriously. And because someway somehow, the fuckers with cameras know I’m back home, my attitude is sinking toward the deep end of the fucking pool. Just what I need.
There are rare moments in my life where I wished I wasn’t who I am. When I want to be that regular dude from Memphis who everyone passes at the airport like he was just that, a regular guy. These moments don’t come often, but they make their way once in a while. Not even when I’m on tour, the hardest part of my career, do these moments occur. But when it takes half an hour for the car that I’m in to make it past the swarm of assholes with cameras, the moment is here. I want to get out of the car and fucking pound one of them, I swear! I want to scream at them that I AM that regular guy from Memphis! I want to scream at them that I am infatuated with a woman that would probably cut their dicks off, if she were there. I hate my life!
But I start feeling better when the car makes it’s way up Mulholland Drive and my house it’s in eyesight. And by better I mean not quite happy enough to actually enter my house. I mean better as in I’m getting in my Jeep and I’m out of here. Rachel looks at me with raised eyebrows and shakes her head as she gives Eric the information he needs for the following day.
“Thanks for the help, Justin!” she yells out as I pull out of my driveway.
“You’re welcome!” I yell out the window as I drive past her and Eric who shake their heads at me.
The drive over to my destination shouldn’t take more than ten minutes but as my luck would have it, it’s going to take at least twenty minutes. Why does every single movie premiere have to happen when I’m home and trying to drive down Hollywood Boulevard? It never fucking fails. When I’m yet again delayed by the stupid traffic light on Highland, I regret having taken the Jeep instead of the blacked out seven-fifty next to it. There’s a group of teenage girls waiting to cross the street and I’m stuck right in the front of the line of cars. They see me and wave like they know me or something. I don’t wave back, instead I give them a small smile and pray that this fucking light changes. I did lock my door, right?
The light changes and I make my left on Laurel Avenue and hope that the traffic to get onto Sunset Boulevard isn’t as crazy as it always is. Luckily within minutes I am making a right onto the street that I want to reach more than anything. And I realize that I haven’t checked if she’s even home. Please god don’t let this be another waste of fucking time. Please!
I reach for my phone as I turn into the condo’s private gates. The security guard nods at me and doesn’t even ask me who I’m there to see. I got it like that! Or I could just be because Vanessa Martinez is the only young resident of the place and I’m surely not visiting grandma and grandpa. Why she chose to get a place in a nursing home community is beyond me, but her choice of living area is the least of my worries right now.
The phone rings a few times and I hope she answers because if I don’t get at least that, I’m going to flip a fucking burger. I’m not kidding. I’m like a drug fiend with desperate need of a fix. I mean all I want right now is to see her. Just to look into her eyes when I speak, that’s it. Is that wrong?
“Hello?” Yes! It’s her, answering the phone on the third ring. Yes, I’m counting!
“Are you home yet?” I ask as I get out of my car and hand the parking attendant my keys. I’m pressing on the elevator button furiously like pressing it a thousand times will make it arrive faster. I’m a mess.
“You know, you keep calling and asking that question and it’s rude,” she says and I have to smile to myself. “Normal conversations start with a hello or something along those lines. Inquiring my whereabouts is getting you nowhere.”
“If you’re home then it’s getting me where I need to be,” I say as I let an old couple walk out of the elevator before I hop on and pray that no one makes this elevator stop on my way to the top floor. “Are you?”
“Yes,” she says and my smile gets wider when the elevator bypasses every floor and takes me right to Vanessa’s floor. I’m like a fucking kid waiting to meet, I don’t know…me, maybe? That was wrong, I’m so arrogant sometimes, I disappoint myself.
“Well then open the door,” I say and I’m two feet away from her door. I wait for a few seconds and the door opens wide and there she is. I flip my phone quickly, stashing it in my jeans’ pockets and hell I’m not going to kid myself. I’m so pussy whooped when my eyes meet hers that I don’t say anything. I lunge at her in one stride into her place and my lips are on her like there’s no tomorrow. Because there actually isn’t when I’m with her, that’s how I feel. Every fucking moment could be the end, I’m so lost.
She tastes just like fucking heaven, as cliché as that may sound. She’s kissing me back, her arms are around my neck and I’m actually holding her off the floor. When I did that, I don’t know, but she’s in my arms and I don’t think it’s possible for me to stop kissing her. I don’t know which one of us moans at the pleasure of being hugged up to each other and having our tongues down each other’s throats but it happens. The laughter in the background brings me back to reality long enough to bring my lips away from hers.
“Who,” I say and for the first time look around the large condo and find my best friend, sprawled on the couch. Joanna and Barker are sitting across the coffee table with magazines all around them. And all three are staring at Vanessa and I cackling like fucking idiots. What the fuck is so funny? What the fuck are my friends doing here? I turn my line of vision to the woman that is still in my arms and look into her eyes. They are smiling at me and I’m so glad she missed me as much as I missed her, she doesn’t have to say anything, I see it. “Hi,” I say with a smile to match hers as she slides down the short distance to the floor.
“Hi,“ she says back and is about to say something else but my best friend is clearly a dick.
“Hey fucker!” Trace says when he stops laughing. “Took you long enough.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask as I watch Vanessa go around me to close the door. She looks at me with a shy smile and I have to smile at her before looking back at the giggly women on the floor. “What’s so funny?”
“What’s up Lago? Are you mad at me?” Barker asks from the floor and she gives me puppy dog eyes for effect. I’m still pissed that she got on the phone when all I wanted was to talk to Vanessa, so puppy dog eyes or not, I was still annoyed.
“He’s always mad at somebody,” Joanna volunteers with a chuckle. “We all know he’s not mad at Vanessa, that’s for sure.”
“I’m gonna be mad at you in a minute if you don’t shut up,” I say to her with a smirk and I can feel my cheeks burn. My friends are assholes embarrassing me like this. Why AM I embarrassed in the first place? I’m the man!
“You’re blushing, Mr. Timberlake,” Vanessa whispers in my ear and chills run down my spine.
“You’re such a pussy,” Trace says and Joanna smacks him on the stomach with a magazine. She hates when he uses that word.
“Why are they here?” I ask Vanessa and she laughs a bit before shrugging.
“They seem to be attached to Barker’s hip,” she says and Joanna gasps.
“Oh, so I see how you are,” Joanna says. “The minute Timberlake makes an appearance, you deny inviting us over? I see how it is.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about Ms. Garcia,” Vanessa says and I have to stare at her because I’ve only heard this person over the phone. I like it. A lot. “I’ve been in my office the entire time. I didn’t even know you were here.”
“Liar,” Barker says with a shake of her head. “She just wants us gone because you’re here now,” Barker says to me and out of the corner of my eye, I can see Vanessa making a fist at her friend.
“Alright, then get out,” I say walking into the room further and meeting Trace in one of our half embrace gestures we do.
“We were just leaving anyway!” Barker says with an attitude but by the many conversations I’ve had with her as well, I can tell she’s joking.
“The hostility in this room is too much for me anyway,” Joanna says as she walks past me and I meet her halfway for a kiss on the cheek. “Welcome home, dork!”
“Thank you,” I say and I laugh when Barker walks past me rolling her eyes at me. She’s silly. Vanessa watches as intently as I do as my friends and her friend gather there stuff and walk out of the door. Just like the Staples button, that was easy. “That was easy.”
“I know you’d like to think you had any doing in them leaving but they were forewarned,” Vanessa says as she locks the door after our friends and leans against it.
“So you told them they should leave when I got here?” I ask as I approach her slowly.
“No,” she says and shakes her head. “I told them to get the hell out of my house when you got here, actually. Those were my exact words.”
“You were expecting me?” I say as I stand directly in front of her and our smiles are so big, if it was dark we’d light up the place. This is the cheese I was talking about.
“You can say that.”
“So now that I’m here, Vanessa,” I say as I play with a strand of her hair from the ponytail she has across her shoulder. “Why did you want to be alone?”
“Why not?” is what she says before I’m kissing her like I did when I entered the condo. I can’t believe how much I’ve been wanting this. How much I’ve missed her hand around the back of my head. And how good she smells and how much I want her.
“I’ve missed you,” I say or at least try to say when she stops kissing my lips and moves hers to my neck. Christ!
“Do you want to talk right now or do you want to go to my room?” she says as she places various kisses along my neck and up to my chin and stops at my lips. “Shut the fuck up,” she says and I let out a throaty laugh when she smiles at me.
“Lead the way, Ms. Martinez,” I say backing away from her and inviting her to walk past me. “The view is always better when I’m behind.”
“You’re a pervert, Mr. Timberlake,” she says but she walks her jean clad ass past me and I’m less than a foot behind her.
“You’re the one kicking people out of your house because I was coming, and you’re the one asking if I want to go to your room. Which is the dumbest question I’ve ever heard, by the way.”
“Dumber then calling me at two in the morning and asking me if I missed you?”
“Way dumber,” I say as I follow her into her room and close the door behind me, and I smile when my hands make contact with the exposed skin on her waist, making her jump. “Did you miss me?”
“That’s a dumb question, Mr. Timberlake,” she says and she makes the first move by wrapping her arms around my neck.
“You so did,” I say with a chuckle before I bring my lips to hers in a slowly and dare I say, passionate kiss. My body tightens at the contact and those three weeks were so worth the wait. She’s in my arms now and she’s warm and sweet and everything that I was missing.
We’re just standing in the entrance to her room, kissing each other and I am for one, happy just to be doing that. I can’t get enough of her. I knew I’d missed seeing her everyday when I spoke to her but I didn’t realize it had been this bad. I didn’t realize that kissing her makes everything else go away. It’s a scary feeling and I hope to the heavens that she’s feeling the same way because if I’m the only one feeling this way, well that would really suck.
“Justin?” she says when I slowly kiss down the side of her neck, making her moan.
“Hrmm,” I say because no way in hell am I stopping. She better talk fast.
“Will you make love to me?” she asks in a whisper and I kiss her so hard that I think I might have strained something. Will I make love to her?
Now, if that’s not the dumbest question I’ve heard, I don’t know what is.
“Dumb question, Ms. Martinez.”
To be continued…
LoveStoned by Lynn
Story Tags: interracial wallsex celebrityj enemiesturnedlovers
