Chapter 28

( 1 month later )

“I don’t see what the big deal is!  I haven’t seen him in weeks.  You’ve known all this time that when you left I was planning on going over to Virginia Beach to help him and Trace out.  Why is it now all of the sudden a problem?” Kerrigan demanded.  She seemed to have been demanding the answer to that question a lot over the last couple of days.

Everything had been fine up until a few days ago.  Her and Cody were getting along great, spending all of their time together doing a variety of things.  Kerrigan hadn’t seen Justin since he had left for Virginia a few days after their night at the restaurant.  He had decided that since she was staying back in Florida he’d just got ahead and take what he needed with him, and hadn’t come back the following week like originally planned.

And Cody hadn’t had a problem with the idea of her going to Virginia until two days prior.  Then all of the sudden he was bitching about her going over there.  Saying there was no need for her to go.  If Justin had made it this long without her, then he could continue to go on without her presence being there.  And Kerrigan couldn’t understand why he had suddenly changed his views on the whole thing.

“I just don’t think you need to go.  He doesn’t need you there.  You never do anything anyways.  Even when we were all on tour you never did anything.  So why the hell does he need you in Virginia?”

“I beg to differ.  I did to do stuff while we were on tour.  Granted I didn’t do anything too major but I did do things!” she argued.

“Whatever.  You filled out and looked over some paperwork here and there.  That’s hardly any reason to run off to Virginia Beach.  If he has papers for you to look over he can send them to you here and you can do it here.  You don’t need to go all the way over there to do it.  That’s just stupid.”

“It’s not stupid.  He’s doing a solo album, Cody.  He wants me there for support, I’m his friend.  I honestly do not see what the big deal is.”

“If you go over there then you guys will start going out and partying and God only knows what else.” Cody muttered.

“Oh this is about the whole trust issue again.  We’ve been over this time and time again.  What do you think I’m going to do?  Cheat on you?”

“It could happen.”

“Get real Cody.  That’s not what I’m about.  Besides, Justin and Trace both know I’m with you.  And they’re way too protective to begin with.  They’re not going to let any males within ten feet of me.  You’re just being silly.”

“Maybe it’s not outside males I’m concerned about.  More like the ones you know.” he stated.

“The ones I know?  You mean Justin and Trace?  Are you serious?”

“Hell, yes I’m serious!”

“Ok, what happened to the whole you trust me and believe me and J have nothing going on?  You said he assured you that he only seen me as a friend.  Why all of the sudden is that an issue again?”

“Did I say I was worried about his reaction?” Cody quickly covered.  He’d been constantly feeding it into her head that Justin didn’t look at her like that, but leave it to him to slip up when he was angry.

“Oh, so now you’re suggesting I’m after Justin.  I thought we had been over this.  I thought this was in the past.  You know I used to see him as more than a friend, but that was before you.  Why are you so insecure about Justin?”

Cody scoffed.  “I’m not insecure about him.  I just don’t like you two spending every moment together.  Things have been nice over the last month with him not being around.  It was just us.  I didn’t have to contend with any of his angry glares when I kissed you or hugged you.  He doesn’t like me and I don’t like him.  Is it really that hard to understand?”

“No I respect the fact that you both have a mutual distaste for each other, but as I’ve said before.  J, is my friend and you’re my boyfriend.  Ya’ll need to learn to deal with it.  And besides I haven’t seen him in a month, Cody.  A whole month.  Do you realize how long it’s been since we’ve been separated for that long?”

“I don’t really give a shit to be honest.” he sneered.  “Just take my advice and don’t go over there.  Just stay here.”

“I’m not going to do that, Cody.  I promised him that after you left I would come over there and cheer him on.  And I’m quite anxious to see what he’s come up with so far.  You cannot ask me to turn my back on one of my best friends.  He needs my support.”

“I’m not asking you, Kerrigan.  I’m telling you.”

“Telling me?” she questioned.

“Yes.  I’m telling you that you are NOT going over there.  I don’t want you staying over there and as your boyfriend I have the right to ask that of you.”

“Yeah, you have the right to ask, not to tell me.  And just because you ask doesn’t mean I’m going to listen!”

Cody grew angry.  After spending the last month with her alone, with no Justin influence he would have expected her to go along with this a little more willingly.  But no, she was fighting him the whole way.  And he was going to have to put his foot down.

Stepping forward Cody grabbed Kerrigan by her arm and jerked her closer to him.  “You are NOT going over there!  Do you understand me?” he growled.

Kerrigan stared at him in disbelief.  She couldn’t understand where all of this was coming from.  Things had been fine up until a couple days ago when she started talking about looking forward to going to Virginia.  And now he was trying to forbid it.

Squirming to get away from him, Kerrigan continued to stare at him.  Anger covering his face.  Suddenly she got a sinking feeling.  He had the same look in his eyes as he did that time at the venue when he had hit her.

When Kerrigan didn’t answer, Cody repeated himself.  “Do you understand me, Kerrigan?” he demanded.

But Kerrigan couldn’t find any words.  She was frozen in fear, just waiting on him to draw back and hit her.  There were simply no words, so she nodded.

“Good.  I’m glad we understand each other.” Cody said, releasing her arm.

Kerrigan backed away from him.  She just needed to put some space between them.

Cody eyed her.  Pleased with himself that he had put the fear he saw in her eyes there.  If she feared him, then she would obey him.  That was all he wanted.  He just wanted to know that she would listen to him when it came to Justin.  And if he had to threaten her to get that result then so be it.

“Ok, well I’m going to go.  I need to finish packing and I have some other things I need to do as well.” he said moving towards  her.

Kerrigan struggled to find her voice.  The anger she had seen in his eyes only seconds before, was now gone.  “Ok.” she said softly.

Cody walked over to her, wrapping his arms around her waist.  “I’m sorry I yelled, but this is for the best you’ll see.” he said before leaning down, gently kissing her lips.

When he pulled back he stared into her eyes.  He could see the fear and confusion there.  It pleased him, but at the same time it wouldn’t do.  He couldn’t have her so scared of him that she was afraid to be around him.  That would ruin everything.

“Look I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon, once I get into New York.  We can talk about this more then.  OK?”

“Yeah.” Kerrigan answered, unsure of what else to say.  She didn’t want to say anything that was going piss him off again.  She couldn’t deal with his angry glare.

“OK, well I’ll talk to you then.  I love you.” he said kissing her once again.

When he pulled back from their embrace, Kerrigan smiled at him the best she could telling him, “I love you, too.” as he headed for the door.

“See ya later, babe.” Cody smiled at her as he opened her apartment door and then disappeared into the night outside.

Once the door was closed behind him, Kerrigan sunk into her sofa.  A million thoughts running through her head.  She was so confused she didn’t know which end was up.

She really cared about Cody.  The time they had spent together over the last month had brought them so much closer.  And he was usually so sweet and giving to her.  But it was times like this when she didn’t quite know what to make of him.  He had this hidden anger inside, that didn’t surface very often, but when it did you knew it.

She didn’t have a lot of experience with relationships so she only assumed it was normal for the guy to be jealous.  She could understand his insecurities.  He knew that she had once thought of Justin as more than a friend.  And he was Justin Timberlake of all people.  If that didn’t make a guy insecure, Kerrigan didn’t know what would.  So that was at least somewhat understandable.

But what she was really unsure of, was how she was supposed to react to it.  Was she supposed to just ignore it and go with it?  Or was she supposed to stand up to him?  She cared about him and didn’t want to lose him.  She didn’t want to go back to being the girl she was before she had started dating him.  The girl that was always just one of the guys and along for the fun, but never there as anything else than that.

Kerrigan liked the way Cody made her feel.  She loved the attention.  Who wouldn’t want to be wanted and desired?  She had spent so much of her life fading into the background that now when she was being placed front and center, going back was just not an option.  She didn’t know if she could stand being that person she was back then.  She liked who she was now.

At least she liked it most of the time.  Unfortunately for her this wasn’t one of those times.  She knew if she went against Cody and went to Virginia to be with Justin and Trace that it would cause a whole world of problems between her and Cody.  Problems she wasn’t sure they would be able to recover from as they had in the past.

But at the same time Justin was her Best Friend and she couldn’t let him down.  She had promised him she would come to Virginia as soon as Cody had left.  In fact Justin had called her earlier that day to confirm that Cody was leaving the following day and to make sure she was still planning to come out to see him.  How was she supposed to tell him now that she couldn’t come?  How was she supposed to tell Justin that she was breaking a promise to him?  A promise that she knew meant a lot to him.

She couldn’t.  There was no way around it.  There was no way that she could not go to Virginia.  Justin had always kept his promises to her.  He would never do something like that to her and there was no way she could do that to him.  Besides, she wanted to be there.  She wanted to see what he’d spent the last month working on.  She missed him.

She missed spending time with him.  Even if it was just following him around to all of  his appointments.  She missed laughing at his silly impersonations and jokes.  She missed teasing him and giving him a hard time.  She missed everything about being around him.

It was settled.  She would have to figure out some way to get over there.  She would just have to go and pray to God that Cody didn’t have a cow about it.  He would be gone for the next five weeks and wouldn’t be back, so it’s not like he would know where she was and where she wasn’t.

Kerrigan was quickly pulling a plan together in her head on how she could pull this whole thing off.  Keep Cody happy, thinking she was in Florida.  While keeping herself happy and Justin as well, by being in Virginia to support him.

It was going to be a tricky situation, but she was pretty positive she could pull it off.  She could have all of her home phone calls forwarded to her cell phone and he would never know.

She knew people would tell her that she was being stupid for going to all of this trouble and not just standing up to him.  But if she could pull it off then it wouldn’t be a problem.  All she cared about at the moment was getting to Virginia to hang out and spend time with her friends, while keeping Cody happy at the same time.

In the end he would never know the difference.  And what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.  Or their relationship.