“Ky, come on. We’re supposed to be there 10 minutes ago.”

“I wanna bring Pepper.” The five year old yells as I grab his tiny hand and drag him down the hallway.

Kyle is my baby.

He may be five, but he’s still a newborn in my eyes. He’s everything to me and he’s really all I have. My parents kicked me out when I got pregnant and I haven’t spoken to them since. I currently live in a two bedroom apartment with my best friend, Cindy. She’s the best. We’ve been friends since kindergarten and nothing has ever torn us apart. I can count the amount of fights we’ve had on one hand.

“Mommy?” I hear the little voice ask from the back seat of my small Toyota Corolla. “Mommy,” he repeats when I don’t respond in three seconds.

“Yeah, baby?”

“Ms. R said she has a fish!” he says with enthusiasm “In a tank!” he adds as if it’s the most interesting things he’s ever heard.

“What color is it?” I ask as I drive down the quiet streets of our town.

“Blue!” he yells as he throws his arms up with astonishment. After a few minutes of nothing but the music on the radio he looks at me through the review mirror. “Mommy?”

I laugh, he is always addressing me before he talks like there are other people in the car with us. “What, Ky?”

His blonde hair falls in front of his eyes as he smiles at the mention of his name. “I’m going with you to job?”

It breaks my heart every time I drop him off at daycare, but it’s my option since his dad left when I was pregnant at 16 and my parents aren’t in the picture. Kyle doesn’t make it any easier, he’s always asking if he’s going to spend the day with me. “Not today, bud. Today, you’re going to see Ms. R at daycare.”

He frowns and crosses his arms across his tiny chest. “No.” He mumbles into his chest.

I’m not going to sit here and argue with my five year old son as I drive him to daycare, so I don’t say anything. Instead, I turn up the radio when his favorite song comes on. Unfortunately for me, it’s not one of my favorites. I will suffer through the three minutes as long as he’s happy again.

“Katy!” He yells as the song begins. It amazes me how he fast he can recognize this song and how happy he gets when it’s on. “you a firework...” he sings as he does some crazy dance move.

I laugh as I glance in the review mirror and see him rocking out to ‘Firework’. I sometimes think of what my life would be like if I never had him, but then moments like this happen and I can’t imagine not having his crazy butt in my life. He’s my special little man and I can’t even express how much he means to me.

I pull into the daycare parking lot and turn off the car, which means the music stopped.

“Katy! Firework!” he yells as he frowns. “I want it on.”

“You have to go see Ms. R. I promise you can listen to it when you get home later.” I try to compromise with the kid, but it isn’t working. He is still sitting there frowning and angry at the fact that I turned off his favorite song. “Come on, bud.” I say as I get out of the car and open his door. He doesn’t move so I reach over and unbuckle his seatbelt. “Come on.” I try again. He slowly gets out and grabs his little monkey backpack and sulks towards the building.

I laugh as he sighs very loud and mumbles something to himself. The kid should be an actor when he grows up, he’s certainly a drama king.

“Mommy, it’s a puppy!” he yells to me as I walk a few steps behind him. I look over where he’s pointing and see a guy walking two large dogs. I smile, every dog is a ‘puppy’ according to Kyle.

“Those aren’t puppies” I mention as the man walks towards us.

Kyle reaches out to the dogs and I quickly grab his and away. “You have to ask first.” I say as the guy stops and smiles at Kyle and then looks at me.

“You can pet them, kiddo. They won’t bite.” He says to Kyle. Kyle instantly starts to pet the big dogs.

“They soft.” Ky says as he smashes the dogs face his is small hands.

“Ky, don’t do that to the poor dog.” I say with a laugh as I pull his hands from the dogs face. “You have to pet him nicely. Like this,” I demonstrate by petting the dogs back.

“It’s ok, they wouldn’t hurt him. Boxers are very patient.” The man says as he watches Kyle pet the dog.

“I know, I just don’t want him to think it’s ok to smash a dogs face.” I look up at the guy and notice he’s wearing his hood up despite the 80 degree weather. I decide to put that fact aside. “I used to have a boxer when I was little. He was the best dog, never bit me even when I dressed him up.” I mention with a laugh thinking back.

“Mommy, look it’s Ms. R!” Kyle says as he waves at the woman through the window. “Can I go in?” I smile because just a minute ago he didn’t even want to leave the car and now he is thrilled to go in.

“Yeah, we should go in.” I turn to look at the mystery guy. “Thanks for letting us pet your dogs.”

“No problem.” He says with a smile and then looks down at Kyle. “I like the backpack, kid.”

Kyle smiles and spins around so the guy can see his bag. “It’s a monkey!”

We all laugh as he jumps up and down like a monkey.

“Come on, Ky.” I say as I grab his hand. “Thanks again.” I say to the guy. I nudge Kyle to say thanks.

“Thank you!” Kyle yells as he waves as we walk into the building. We reach the doors and Kyle turns to me. “I want a puppy, mommy.” He says as I hold the door for him. He hangs his backpack up on his hook and turns towards me. “Please?” His brown eyes are huge and he knows I can’t turn down that look.

“We’ll see, monkey.” I hold out my arms and he walks into the hug. “Be good and play nice.” I say as I kiss his cheek and squeeze his small body. “I love you.”

“Love you.” He says as I let him go. “Be good and play nice.” He repeats back to me. I smile and ruffle his hair. “Bye mommy!” he says waving as he runs towards the toys.

I wave at the teachers and then make my way back out to the car. I stop when I see the guy with the dogs standing in the parking lot. For a second, I’m scared he might be a murder or something, but I have to get to work so I keep walking.

“Can I help you?” I ask as I reach my car.

“Uh, yeah.” He says quietly and shifts so he’s leaning against my car. “This is going to sound weird, but I, ah”

I lean my head to one side and look at him shielding my eyes from the sun. I really want to know what the deal is with guy.

“I’m sorry,” he says as he pulls down his hood.

My hand goes to my mouth as I stand there in shock. “You’re. You- You’re famous.” I stumble over my words. I slap my forehead with my palm and close my eyes. I’m such an idiot.

He stands there nodding his head as he kind of looks around. I assume he’s seeing if anybody else is around.

“Sorry, I’m just shocked because, well, because this is a tiny town and there are never any famous people here. Why are you here?” The dumb questions just flow out my mouth, like vomit. “Sorry,” I add and then slap my forehead again.

He laughs at my reaction. “I understand. I’m here for a movie. We’re taping down at the court house,” he says pointing towards downtown.

Our downtown is quite lame. There is one grocery store, a bank, a couple clothing stores, a town center, the courthouse/jail, and the small 50’s themed diner I waitress at.

“Wow,” I mumble more to myself than him.

“Yeah, so the reason I waited for you was, because I was wondering if you had any ideas of a good spot to eat.” I can tell he’s uncomfortable by the way he keeps shifting his feet.

“I’m actually on my way to work-”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll just leave you to go to work. Don’t want to make you late.” he says and starts to turn away.

“No,” I say louder than I expected. “I mean, I work at a diner just a couple blocks down the street. I could give you a lift if you want.”

“You don’t mind the dogs?” he says as he lifts the leashes slightly and smiles at me.

I shake my head, “Nah, it’s perfectly fine. I have a kid who is probably more messy than both of them combined.” I say with a laugh. I reach over and unlock the car opening the back door and motioning for the dogs to enter. They both jump in and instantly lay down on the floor. “Wow, they’re better behaved than him, too.”

“They’re used to being in cars and stuff.” he says as he shuts the door.

“Oh,” I say as I reach to open my door. I stop and turn to see him walking towards the passengers side. “I should probably tell you my name before taking you anywhere in my car. Just so you don’t think I’m a kidnapper or anything.”

He laughs as he stops and looks at me over the top of the car. “Yeah, getting in a car with a stranger isn’t the best idea I’ve had.”
I hold out my hand to shake his over the top of the car. “I’m Juniper.” He shakes my hand.

“Justin.” he states still shaking my hand.

I scrunch up my nose, “I know.” I say with a laugh and let go of his hand. “Let’s go get you some food.” I say trying to distract from the awkwardness.

We both get in and I start to drive towards the diner. At first I thought the whole ride would be awkward and silent but then he started talking.

“Juniper’s an interesting name.” He states and I laugh slightly.

“Yeah, my parents were into the whole hippy thing when I was born.” I turn to look at him as I come to a stop at the red light. “It’s weird, I know.”

“No, not weird. Just different. I kind of like it.”

“Kind of. See, it’s a weird name.” I say with a smile. I look over at him and realize that he looks different in person. It’s not that he’s better or worse looking, he’s just different than I expected. I don’t know how I didn’t recognize him when we first encountered each other. It seems ridiculous that a hood could be that much of a disguise. I laugh at the thought of Kyle squishing Justin Timberlake’s dog’s face.

“What?” he asks as I laugh.

I shake my head, “Nothing. It was just something funny that happened earlier.” The light turns green and I drive closer towards the diner. “So, what movie are you taping?”

“It’s a drama about a guy robbing a bank and then he is also a murderer. I’m not great at describing it.” he says with a laugh. “It’s better than I’m making it sound.”

“I would hope so.” I turn to see how he took that. He rolls his eyes and smiles. Good, he can take a joke. “We’re almost there.” I say as I turn onto the street the diner is located on. My coworkers will be so surprised to see who I bring in. I can picture them pulling me aside when I get there and asking 100,000 questions about him. They all act like teenyboppers when we talk about celebrities, so actually have one in the diner will be interesting.

I pull into the parking lot and pull into a spot. “Here,” I turn towards him and smile. He returns the smile and then opens his door and stops.

“What about Buckley and Brennan?”

I scrunch up my face in question and then realize he’s talking about his dogs. “Oh,” I say looking around the outside of the diner. “You can tie them to the bike rack and put some water out for them.” I suggest with a shrug.

“Yeah, that should work.” He gets out and opens the back door, grabs the leashes, and walks up to the diner and ties them to the bike rack. “You start right away?”

He catches me off guard, I was watching his ass as he walked in front of me. “what?” I say and then realize what he asked. “Yeah, I was supposed to start two minutes ago.”

“If they yell at you, just blame it on me.”

“I was planning on it.” I say as I walk into the diner and hold the door open for him. “You can sit wherever, I’m the waitress on duty so just let me know when you’re ready to order.”

He sits down in one of the smaller booths and grabs the menu sitting in front of him. I walk to the back and get my apron and visor, I pull my hair into a messy ponytail and check my self in the mirror. I hardly ever wear makeup to work, because I think it’s a waste since I’ll just sweat it off, but today I wish I would have cared and put some on. I sigh as I put some chap stick on and tie my apron around my waist.

I walk out into the kitchen and see Cindy sitting on a stool snapping her gum and reading a magazine. “Hey, whore.” I greet her. She looks up and smiles and goes right back to reading her magazine. The two of us have been working at this diner since we were both sixteen. I was working here when I was pregnant and the owner let me take a month off after Kyle was born and then gave me back my job, that’s the only reason I’m still here. That and the fact that there are no other jobs in this tiny town.

“What’s up?” Cindy asks as she continues to stare at the magazine.

“Nothing much. Kyle didn’t want to go to daycare, he sang ‘Firework’ in the car, and then I picked up a celebrity and his dogs. The usual.” I say as calm as possible.

“Ky is so funn - wait, what?” Cindy says as she looks up from her magazine. “Did you say you saw a celebrity? Who? Where?” She says quickly.

I laugh at her reaction and sit down on the stool next to her. “I was dropping Ky off at the daycare and a guy walked past with two dogs. Ky had to pet them and then I took Ky inside and when I returned to my car the dog guy was waiting by it. I walked up and he asking me where a good place to eat was and then he took off his hood and I realized it was Justin Timberlake.” Cindy’s mouth drops open and her gum almost falls out. “I drove him here.”

“OMG!” Cindy yells as she looks out into the dinning area and sees Justin. She squeals and smiles at me. “What’s he doing here?” she says emphasizing the word here.
“That’s what I asked. He said he’s taping a movie downtown.” I stand up and look out at him. “His dogs are outside, I’m going to bring them some water.” I walk away and hear Cindy mumble “He’s so hot.” to herself.

I get a bowl and fill it with water and carry it out to the dinning area. “I’m gonna put this out for them.” I say as I lift the water to show Justin.

He nods, “Thanks, they’ll like that.”

I step outside and place the water on the pavement and both dogs walk over and start drinking.

“They are thirsty,” I say as I step back inside and walk towards Justin’s table. “You ready to order?”

“Yeah, I think so. I’ll have the turkey club and with chips.”

“I’ll go get that started.” I smile before returning to the kitchen.

Cindy is standing there staring at him from behind the counter. “What’d he order?” she asks excitedly.

“You get to make a turkey club!” I say with a fake smile and I roll my eyes. “He’s just a person.” I add as we both walk back to make the food.

“But he’s really hot.” she says with a smirk. “Did you kiss him?”

“What! No, I’m not a slut like you. I just met him 20 minutes ago. He doesn’t even know how old I am.” I say as I pour some chips on a plate.

“I would have kissed him.” She says as she makes the sandwich. “Go talk to him,” she says looking up at me. “I can finish this.”

I walk back out to his table with a water and set it down. “Thought you might get thirsty.”

“Thanks,” he says looking up at me. “Want to join me?” he motions at the seat across from him.

I sit down and lean against the table. “It’s dead today.”

“Is it normally busy?”

“No. We just have a couple regulars. Nothing very interesting.”

He glances out the window at his dogs. “Regulars can be interesting.”

I laugh a little, “not if they are 80 years old and act like your grandparents.”

“My grandparents are interesting.” he says as he places his hand on his chest and smiles.

“Well, good for you.” I say with a laugh and I look over to see if Cindy needs any help.

“You need to go back to work?” he asks concerned.

“Oh yeah, it’s so busy!” I dramatically say as I look around the empty diner. “Nah, it’s fine. Cindy is more than capable at making a sandwich and bringing it out.”

There’s a few minutes of silence. I’m not sure what to say to him. I’m usually really comfortable around strangers and making small talk, but for some reason I’m not all here today.

“Was that your little brother with you earlier?” Justin asks and I’m pulled from my daze.

Oh crap, he thinks Ky is my brother. “Not really.”

“Not really?” he says with a laugh. “What does that mean?”

“It means he’s not my little brother.” I say with a nod of my head. “This might surprise you but he’s mine.” It comes out quieter than I expected.

“Yours? As in your kid?” he asks kind of surprised.

I nod my head and look down at my hands. “Yep, my little Kyle monkey.”

“Wow,” he mumbles “I mean, you just don’t look old enough to have a kid his age. I - uh, I, I just assumed he was around four and I thought you were like nineteen or twenty. Not that you couldn’t-” he stops talking and rubs his hand over his face. “I’m just going to stop talking.” He says with a small laugh or embarrassment.

“You’re right, Ky is five and I’m twenty-one. I’ll let you do the math.” I say, knowing he’s already subtracting years in his head.

“Wow,” he says again. “He’s a pretty cool kid or at least he seems like it. I don’t really know him, so I’m not sure why I just said that.” His face turns a shade of pink and he tries to hide his face behind his hands. “Ok, I’m just going to stop talking.”

We both laugh “He’s a great kid, despite the fact that he squishes dogs faces.”

Cindy walks out with his food and sets it down in front of him and then she turns towards me. “ I wasn’t aware you were taking your break.” She jokes as she smirks at me. “What’s happening buddies?” she says as she sits down next to me in the booth. “I’m Cindy.” she says holding her hand out Justin.

“Justin.” he says quietly and looks around.

Cindy laughs and shakes his hand. “You don’t have to worry, there’s nobody to hear or see you.” She tightens her ponytail and chomps on her gum. “Look everybody, It’s Justin Timbelake!” she yells into the empty dinning room. I cover my face in embarrassment and look over at Justin who is looking at me with a confused face and laughing.

I wrap my arm around Cindy, “Cindy isn’t always with it.”

“I’m right here.” she says as she pinches my cheek and smiles at Justin.

“You two seem close, you sisters?” he asks as he eats his meal.

Cindy and I look at each other and start laughing. “Nope, just really close friends. We don’t even look alike,” I say as I place my pale arm next to Cindy’s olive colored one.

“Adoption.” he simply says and we all laugh.

I feel my phone start to vibrate in my pocket and I reach for it and groan when I see the daycare’s number on the screen. “I have to take this,” I say as I push Cindy out of the booth so I can go outside and answer.

“Hello?” I say sitting next to Brennan and what ever the other dog is named.

“Hi Miss. Orray. We are just calling because Kyle doesn’t seem to have his lunch with him and we were wondering if maybe you took it be accident.”

I slap my hand to my forehead and groan inwardly. “Yeah, I must have forgotten to pack it. I’ll stop by in a few minutes and drop it off. Thanks” I say before saying bye and hanging up.

When I walk back into the diner I see Cindy is leaning over the table laughing hysterically at something, while Justin is sitting there confused and he shrugs when he sees me looking over at them with an eyebrow raised. “I forgot to make him a lunch,” I yell to Cindy as I walk to the kitchen.

She stops laughing and wipes her eyes. “Again? That’s like the third time this week.”

“No it isn’t. Come help me make something quick.” I saw as I look through the fridge and get ingredients for a pb&j.

“That boy never has a lunch,” she says to Justin before joining me in the kitchen.
“You’re making me look bad.” I say as I spread the jelly. “Can you watch over the diner while I take this over to the daycare?”

“Of course,” she says as she hands me a bag of chips and a banana. “I can “watch” Justin eat.”

I roll my eyes and yell a thanks as I run out to my car. I wave at Justin as I pass him.

I turn back to see him watching me out the window and then turning to ask Cindy something. He probably thinks I’m leaving him there alone all day with her. I would never put him through that hell. I love Cindy, but sometimes she’s a little much.

I smile and wave as I back out and pull into the street.

This day has been anything but normal.