fifteen: summer love
The morning had just turned to afternoon when Nadia was walking out of her daily post-show meeting for The Cameron Crew. She stopped at her desk to drop off her iPad before heading to the restroom, but was pleasantly surprised to see Justin sitting in her seat.
“Hey,” she greeted him cheerfully.
He looked up from playing Angry Birds on his phone and smiled at her. “Hey.”
“I thought we were meeting at the restaurant.” They’d made plans for lunch, but not at her office, and not until 12:30, so she was confused.
“We were, but it’s raining, so I figured I’d do you a favor and pick you up?”
“Oh shit, aren’t you sweet.”
“Not really.”
“Well give me a minute, I’m gonna run to the restroom and then we can go.”
“No rush.” He picked up her iPad and immediately started to tinker with it. “Is Kristin around?”
“She usually leaves right after our meetings, but she might still be in her office.”
“I’m gonna go say Hey real quick.”
The two of them headed through the bright halls of the Fourth Floor, ignoring all the heads turning to watch Justin pass by. It was pretty well known throughout the office that Kristin was good friends with Justin Timberlake, but in the eight years she worked there, he’d never come for a visit. Everyone was starstruck, it appeared.
Kristin was coming out of her office, purse in hand, ready to head out of the building when she spotted Justin. “Oh my god, hey you!”
“Oh my god,” he mocked her playfully, immediately enveloping her in a hug. “How are you?”
“What are you doing here? You never come here.”
“Oh, me and Nadia are just going to lunch. You wanna come?”
“Do I wanna come on your date with Nadia?” she chuckled, gesturing for him to join her back in her office. “I think I’ll pass.”
“No, it’s not a date.” He took a seat in her chair at her desk “ something he clearly liked to do “ and watched her drop into one of the other seats.
“What do you mean it’s not a date? I thought you two were ‘dating.’”
“You thought wrong. We went on one date and she decided she wanted to be friends, so…”
“And this is after you guys sexed it up at my house all Fourth of July, correct?”
“Correct.” He knew she was confused, but truth be told, so was he. “I realize it doesn’t make sense, but…”
“Not your decision then, I take it.”
He shrugged. “I’m not against it. Turns out dating isn’t exactly my forte.”
“You, Mister I-Don’t-Call-After-We-Bang? That’s shocking.”
“That’s cold.”
“You’re cold,” she grinned, obviously happy to have her friend there. “At any rate, I wish I could come, but I have to meet Grant and the wedding planner, so you and your buddy are on your own.”
“I am so jealous of Grant’s life,” he sarcastically noted.
“Well you should be, you missed out on alllllllll this.”
He knew she was kidding, of course, but sometimes, he did wonder what his life would have been like if he’d ever pursued a relationship with Kristin. There was a very small window of time “ she had just moved to New York for college and *NSYNC was right on the verge of mega-success “ that he could have made his move, but he never did. He never regretted it, mostly for Kristin’s sake, but he did wonder sometimes.
“Yo, you ready?” Nadia appeared in the doorway with her umbrella and her bag in hand.
“I’m ready,” he popped up, pulling his newsboy cap a little further down on his head. “Kiki, I’ll see you around.”
“Hopefully before Labor Day.”
“We’ll do lunch,” he promised. “Tell Grant I said Hello.”
“Will do. And Nadia, I’ll see you at 5:45!”
“Thanks, you know how I love to be reminded of that.”
“Have fun,” she cooed, watching the two of them walk out of the door.
“What a weird ass,” Nadia commented, leading Justin back towards the elevators. She noticed that several people “ people who normally didn’t speak to her “ were telling her goodbye, and she wasn’t sure how to feel about it. “You make people act different,” she made sure to tell him once they were alone inside the elevator.
“Yeah, no shit,” he chuckled. “Curious, isn’t it.”
“But why. You’re just a person.”
“I told you, people freak the fuck out, and I have no idea why. It actually freaks me out.”
“Well not everybody does,” she wanted to append before his ego got any bigger than it was, “but when they do, it is obvious as fuck.”
“No, really, most people do.”
“Oh, shut up, it is not ‘most people.’”
“I’m telling you,” he shook his head, allowing her out of the elevators ahead of him. Strolling through the lobby of the swanky building, he continued to make his point. “Even people I really admire, like Adele? I’m a huge fan of hers, and a couple of years ago at the Grammy’s, I wanted to meet her. So I cleared everyone out of my dressing room and had her come in so we could talk, and she was seriously, like, shaking like a leaf. She couldn’t talk to me.”
“You’re such a fucking liar,” she laughed.
“I am so serious, Nadia.”
“So what did she do, just stand there?”
“Yes!”
“Well that’s retarded,” she was cracking up, “but still, she does not equal ‘most people.’ I mean, I sure as hell didn’t spaz out just because you entered a room.”
“Yeah, but you’re like the most nonchalant person on the planet.”
She slapped him in the shoulder as he opened his car door for her. “Shut up, asshole.”
“Oh, so you’re gonna act like you’re not?”
“What can I say, I’m a New Yorker,” she shrugged, watching him get situated in his seat. Truth be told, she very much enjoyed that she would get to spend the rest of the rainy day with Justin Timberlake, but he was right, she’d be damned if she showed it. As far as anyone would be able to tell, it was just another day for her.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Two hours later, Justin and Nadia had finished a great lunch at Beyoglu and had made it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they were wandering the halls of a gorgeous exhibition featuring Alexander McQueen. Their friendly outing was going well, it appeared.
“He was a genius,” Justin marveled at a collection of headmasks displayed before them. “There aren’t enough geniuses in the world.”
“I think everyone has genius in them,” Nadia countered thoughtfully, staring up at a headdress she was certain she’d seen Lady Gaga wear.
“You overestimate people,” he returned dryly.
“You’re cynical.”
“That’s hilarious coming from you.”
“Oh, fuck you.” She smiled, leading him out of the room and towards the next one. “You’re a musical genius, are you not?”
“Me?” He scoffed so hard that he almost coughed. “I think you have me confused with Prince.”
“Well you’re no Prince, I’ll give you that, but you’ve got your own thing. You’re good at what you do.”
“That doesn’t make me a genius.”
“I think you are.”
He looked at Nadia for what felt like forever to her, attempting to gauge her sincerity. If she was serious… “Are you serious?”
“Of course I am.”
“Wow.”
“What what?”
“That’s a very generous adjective,” he grinned. “But thank you.”
“Justin, this is why people want you to make music. You’re too good at it not to.”
“People don’t care about what I'm doing,” he blushed.
“You’re delusional.”
“Let’s move on,” he urged her, becoming uncomfortable with the topic at hand. “McQueen awaits.”
“No, let’s stand right here for a minute,” she narrowed her eyes at him. This was the same guy that had been telling her, just hours before, that people flocked to him like flies to honey. She couldn’t figure out his hesitance, and she was going to get to the bottom of it. “Is everything cool?”
“Everything’s cool.”
“You seem suddenly antsy…”
He shook his head as if he had no idea what she could be referring to. “I just wanna keep it moving.”
Nadia wanted to do the exact opposite. “Justin, tell me four good things about yourself.”
“What?” he chuckled nervously.
“You heard me.”
“I heard you, but I mean, why?”
“I’m just curious as to what you’ll say.”
“That sounds stupid.”
“Humor me.”
“You tell me four good things about yourself,” he submitted instead.
She only looked at him for a few seconds before rattling off a list of her favorite attributes. “I’m smart, I’m good at my job, I’m hot, I’m good in bed, I don’t believe in bullshit, I do believe in happy endings, every day that I wake up, I aspire to be better than I was the day before, even if I don’t always succeed, I speak Spanish and American Sign Language because I was good at my job before this one, and that was because I gave a fuck about people, and that’s what I’m doing now. So now it’s your turn. Tell me something good.”
“Jesus, Nadia.”
“You asked.”
“I don’t have that in me,” he chuckled. “People already think I’m full of myself enough.”
“Fuck people. I asked.”
“I umm… Okay,” he sighed. “All right. I’m smart, too. I also care about people and have a genuine curiosity about the people I meet. Umm. I don’t know why this is so hard,” he realized softly. “I’m also good in bed and I’m also good at my job,” he grinned. "Happy?"
“You cheated,” she shook her head.
“W-what?” his stomach dropped to his feet and he suddenly wondered if she had been talking to Mila behind his back or something.
“You basically just regurgitated half of what I said!”
“Well hell, you didn’t leave much to say,” he laughed, relieved. “Can we go now?”
“I’m gonna get you to come up with your own one of these days. But in the meantime, I guess we can move on.”
He draped a friendly arm around Nadia’s neck and they continued their trek through the museum. “I noticed that you didn’t mention anything about my acting career,” he joked.
“Well you know how they say that some things are better left unsaid…”
“That’s rude.”
She grinned, snaking her arm around his waist in a display of affection that she’d never shown before, but somehow felt uncharacteristically comfortable doing now. “I never claimed to be nice, you know.”
“Is that supposed to scare me?”
“Only a little.”
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
The following morning, at 6:00 a.m. sharp, The Cameron Crew had taken to the airwaves, and typically, they would begin the show with news, followed by a discussion of what they did the evening before. But on that particular day, one member of their crew was missing, and they were going to capitalize on it.
“Well, New York, we’re starting the show without news today, because our news director, Nadia, has disappeared,” Jeff calmly announced, staring at Rachel, from across the room.
Nadia was never late, and if she thought she was going to be, she always called. So when she hadn’t made it in at 5:45, they went into a frenzy of calling and texting her before the show began. Rachel finally got an answer. “She’s on her way,” she told her co-hosts, off mic. “Sick.”
“But we have confirmation that she’s just fine,” Jeff went on, “so we’ll play a quick song, get some coffee, Rachel will do the entertainment buzz and then we’ll get back to our regularly scheduled programming.” He made a very conscious decision to play Justin’s song, Summer Love, and with a smirk, headed into the hallway with the rest of his coworkers.
“So is it just me, or does Nadia’s sudden ‘sickness’ sound a lot like ‘I overslept at Justin Timberlake’s house?’” Caleb wondered loudly. “Because in four years, this has never happened.”
“Shut up,” Kristin was quick to defend both of her friends. “There’s a first time for everything.”
“Yeah, like Justin showing up in this building yesterday and now Nadia is mysteriously ‘sick,’” Rachel agreed.
“All I know is, we should be able to talk about this on the radio by now,” Jeff joked. “She agreed when she joined this operation to disclose details about her personal life.”
“I need all three of you back in that room,” Kristin was shaking her head. “And this is not up for discussion until both of them express to me that they’re comfortable with it.”
“Jesus, Kris, are we running a radio show or not?” Caleb submitted eagerly.
“We have plenty of content without selling out our coworker or my best friend for ratings.”
“I agree,” Rachel inserted with a nod. “But we have to have some fun with this, Kris.”
“I don’t care what you do off air,” she smirked with a raised eyebrow. “But it better stay off air.”
The three hosts held up their hands innocently and headed back into the studio as the song came to an end. “Hey, wouldn’t this be considered entertainment buzz?” Rachel whispered as they took their seats.
But Kristin, all-knowing and all-hearing executive producer, answered her from outside the room. “No, it is not!” Just as she turned from her duties as EP, she found Nadia slowly meandering down the hallway. “Holy shit, look what the cat dragged in.”
“I am so sorry, Kris.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m alive,” she smiled weakly. “How much did I miss?”
“Nothing at all,” Kristin waved off. “You really are sick, huh?”
“Well yeah, that’s what I told Rachel…”
“Yeah, but we thought sick was code for Justin.”
She attempted a chuckle. “What?”
“Well everyone knows he came to pick you up yesterday. We just figured it was another one of those nights.”
“Oh god,” she groaned tiredly. “No, we had a great day, but I was at home and in bed by eight.”
“Alone?”
“Of course!” She wanted to laugh, but everything hurt at that moment. “I woke up with awful, awful cramps. I had to stop at Starbucks on my way here and will myself not to throw up in their bathroom.”
“Oh god, honey, are you serious?”
“I never have cramps this bad,” she nodded, “or maybe it’s the Turkish food we had yesterday. But god, I feel awful.”
“Well why didn’t you just stay home?” Kristin exclaimed in worry. “You look awful, Nad.”
“Well thanks.”
“But seriously…”
“I didn’t realize how bad it was until I got on the train. And then I figured if I got that far, I could make it four hours in there,” she pointed to the studio, where Jeff, Rachel, and Caleb were staring at her as if she were going to explode at any minute. “What the hell is wrong with them?”
“They’re barely functionally retarded. I’m not sure you will make it four hours in there.”
“Oh god…”
“Listen. I know you’re not really anything with Justin, at least not yet, but how do you feel about discussing it on air?”
“Discussing what?” she chuckled uneasily.
“Whatever you want, babe. I mean, whatever it is, everyone agrees it would be good radio…”
“Fuck, is that where we are now?”
“If you’re okay with it. I’m going to ask Justin as well, obviously, but… yeah.”
Now she understood what Justin meant about people losing their shit whenever he or his name was in the vicinity of anything. Now his best friend was pimping him for listeners? “Maybe I should go back home,” she sighed lightly.
“It is honestly whatever you want, Nadia. I don’t want to pressure you into anything.”
“Yeah. I’m gonna go,” she announced dryly. “We can talk about this tomorrow.”
“Nadia…”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Take a car home, at least!”
“Have a good day, Kristin.”
All she could think was if this was what she had to look forward to, she might have to seriously reconsider being anything with Justin. This wasn't quite what she pictured when she'd left Kristin's engagement party with him. And now that night seemed so far away. What had she gotten herself into?
Author's Chapter Notes:
Hi, all! So sorry for the disappearing act. It's been a busy couple of weeks and I really wanted to edit this chapter because I kind of hate it, but I just haven't. So... try to enjoy it lmao. The next few are better, I think. Ahhhh, I'm a mess. But thank you guys, as always, for reading!
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