He woke with a pounding headache and the smell of eggs making him want to puke. He opened his eyes to find Cameron sitting on his bed, holding up a plate of breakfast. He groaned and closed his eyes once more.
“What are you doing here?” he mumbled.
“I thought you might want some breakfast after the night we had,” she said, a sweet smile on her face.
“That’s not how this works. You’re not supposed to sleep over.”
“You weren’t complaining last night.”
“I was smashed last night. You should just go.”
“But I made breakfast…”
“And it’s making me want to vomit.”
“Fine,” she said, getting out of bed and slipping into her jeans. She had a pout on her face. “You know, maybe you should just delete my number from your phone. I don’t think I’ll be picking up anymore.”
“Ok.”
“Argh!”
Her scream echoed down the hall and he heard his front door slam. He suspected he’d have to clean the breakfast off the floor later but for now, he pulled the covers up and tried to go back to sleep. He’d carried on a casual affair with Cameron to fill the void. It’d been a couple of months since he’d last spoken to Johanna. After the baby shower she’d stopped answering his phone calls. He’d been pretty rotten to her but she’d been pretty rotten to break up with him for no real reason. They could have worked through it but she’d been adamant that they couldn’t be together. Thinking about it all just made him want to sleep more, so he did.
He’d just gotten back from filming a movie and had a few days of filming left for another one. After that he’d figure it out. Maybe take some time off. He felt himself drifting back to sleep when Trace knocked on his door.
“Go away T. I need to sleep.”
“So I take it you finally ended things with Cameron?” Trace said, plopping on the end of the bed. “Probably for the best, seeing as you didn’t care about her at all.”
“I didn’t end anything because there was no beginning. Besides, she’ll be back. She’s attached.”
“Don’t call her J. What you need to do is get your act together. You leave tomorrow for the last bit of filming and then you gotta get your shit straight. You think Joey’s going to come running back to a guy who is wasted more often than he’s sober and banging every chick he meets?”
“Joey doesn’t want me anyway.”
“I wouldn’t want you in this state. Get up, take a shower, pack your bags and get your head right. Don’t show up not knowing your lines. You’re not a movie star, they don’t need you.”
“Fuck off.”
“No, you need someone to knock you down a peg. I already talked to Johnny and he agrees. No more working, unless you’re in the studio, until you get it together. Your image can’t take any more hits.”
He was left with very little choice. He got up and showered, packed his bag and drank some coffee to sober up. He spent the day reviewing his lines and dodging calls from his mother and Johnny. He went through the next month in the same manner, acting professionally at work obligations but drinking away the days he was alone. He avoided Cameron, though she didn’t seem to catch the hint, and once his work obligations were done, he called Johnny and told him to tell everyone he was taking time off.
In his weakest moments he called her. Sometimes she’d answer and let him speak, other times he pleaded with her answering machine.
“This should be our time Joey! No work, all I want to do is spend my days with you, loving you. You won’t let me. How could you break us? How could you just walk away?”
Most of these calls were followed up with others apologizing and begging for forgiveness. Trace bore the brunt of his actions most days, doing his best to be a faithful friend and babysitter. When he got the call from JC to speak to Oprah’s people about the babies, he agreed, if only to make Mollie happy. He shaved, got himself put together and arranged for a camera crew and producer to come to his house and ask some questions.
It was quick to shoot and the show was airing two days later. They wanted to be sure to get the story out before the babies arrived. He settled down on the couch to watch the episode when it aired, having managed to make it to the afternoon on only caffeine. It was nicely done and showed his friends exactly how everyone around them saw them: effortlessly in love. He always looked at JC and Mollie as the perfect relationship. They understood each other from day one and rarely fought. They weren’t constantly showing PDA but there were subtleties in the way they looked at each other or touched each other that suggested an intimacy that others aspire to have. They had hard times but above all else, they always had each other. If push came to shove, you know they’d both give up their dreams to make the other happy but what made the other happy was watching them pursue their dreams. They were the perfect balance.
He told Oprah’s people as much when they asked him to describe Mollie and JC. Of course, his comments were interspersed with those of his fellow bandmates and Johanna and JC’s family. Johanna looked good. Part of him wished she looked sad. Make up works wonders though as it did for him. His dark circles were magically gone and his complexion was bright again. He loved watching her speak about Mollie, something that made her happy. She used to smile like that with him.
They had asked him about Johanna and their working/friend relationship was discussed. So when they asked him how he thought he would be good or bad at being a sort of uncle to the babies.
“I’ll probably be a pushover. I’ll babysit but it’ll end up being, when Auntie Joey says no, Uncle Justin says yes,” he said, chuckling as he thought of him and Johanna wrangling 5 kids. “She’ll be amazing with them but she’s gonna kill me when I have them all calling her Auntie Joey.”
“He said that? Well, it sounds pretty accurate,” Johanna said, a huge smile on her face. “But that’s just the roles we’ve fallen into. He’s the superstar who has all the fun and I’m the assistant who has to play bad cop sometimes. They won’t be calling me Auntie Joey, no matter what he says. It’ll be Auntie Johanna.”
“When your family is so far away, how do you plan for caring for all of these babies?” Oprah said, in a chair facing JC and Mollie on a couch.
“You know, we live near so many of our friends. Friends are the family you choose, and I think we’ve got some pretty great ones,” Mollie said, smiling.
“I think so too.”
They cut to some montage footage and as the show came to an end, his cell phone beeped. He grabbed it, expecting to see a text from Mollie but being surprised when it was Johanna’s name on his screen.
‘Auntie Johanna’
He smiled, thankful that she reached out. It was a small step towards reconciliation and it reminded him of Trace’s speech. He needed to clean up his act. He needed to be a man Johanna deserved and right now he wasn’t acting like much of a man at all. He decided to leave Los Angeles for a while. He called Timbaland and headed for Virginia. He needed to write. Something told him Timbaland was the guy to go to. They’d had such a good time writing and recording “Cry Me a River” and he needed to have a little fun while he did it. Something to get him back to himself.
Johanna was right. They’d been too wrapped up in each other to live independently. Yes, he had his career but he’d been doing it for so long, it was second nature. He needed to take time to breathe. No deadlines, he wasn’t even going to tell the label that he was working on anything until he felt like there was an album there. He wanted to explore music, find things that made him genuinely happy and excited. He needed to figure out who Justin was with, no pun intended, no strings attached. No group, no girlfriend, no label input. He needed to do some soul searching. He didn’t want this to be a heavy record because he was in a heavy place. He just wanted to make music that moved him.
Timbaland was excited to get to work when Justin called. He agreed with Justin’s reasons and had time in his schedule to play around. Justin packed his bag and closed up his house. He wasn’t sure when he’d be back in LA, it’s become something of a sore spot for him. He caught the net flight out and managed to slip into Virginia undetected. When he got to Tim’s, it was late so he followed the directions around back to his pool house, finding the key under a rock. He let himself in and dropped his bags at the door. He found the bed and climbed him, discarding his jeans on the floor. His exhaustion was catching up with him and he planned on catching up on sleep while he was here, especially because he preferred to write at night.
Just before he turned out the light, he grabbed his cell phone and hooked it up to the charger. He remembered Johanna’s earlier text with a smile. He typed a quick response.
‘Goodnight Auntie Joey.’
He set his phone down, not expecting a response but getting one just a few seconds later.
‘Asshole.’
He chuckled, knowing she was teasing. It dinged again.
‘Goodnight Uncle Justin.’
