Sitting cross-legged on the bed, Renee pulled her glasses off with a weary sigh. She hadn’t even realised she needed reading glasses until she had tried to peruse the huge stack of papers Marcia had dumped on her and found she had to squint. She’d just assumed the glasses case in her purse was some pair of pop star shades or something – she certainly had a lot of those. Yet again she was too preoccupied with Justin, who had been plaguing her thoughts ever since he had walked into her dressing room unannounced and she had learnt he was her honey.

Maybe that was because Justin was the only one presenting her with any real problems. Her staff, while all nice enough, seemed to have this respectable distance thing going on, it was all very professional and provided she didn’t act like a crazy woman, they noticed nothing new except the odd spacey moment where she would forget something normally regarded as rudimentary in the life of Renee Anderson, mega star. She had finally plucked up the courage to phone her mom and had been so relieved to find that talking to her was just the same – it was only the ‘so what have you been up to’ answer that was really any different. So it was just Justin who had to know his girlfriend was behaving strangely on some level. Thankfully he hadn’t seemed to notice yet and he certainly wasn't treating her any differently, but unless she got her act together soon, he would be noticing.

“God damn you, Timberlake, why are you making this so difficult?” She pushed her hands through her hair – the colour of which she was amazingly enough starting to like – and sighed to herself.

“May I make a suggestion?”

Renee nearly fell off the bed in shock. She gave a slight yelp before managing to recover herself and sit back up straight. She looked in the direction of the voice to find an amused Claire leaning against the dresser. The woman really needed to stop popping up out of nowhere like that. Then again, it wasn't exactly like she could knock.

“And where were you when I needed you?”

“Sweetie, I’m sorry but it’s your life, you gotta live it and you just have to learn to… live and learn.” Claire shrugged. “Besides, I am not at your beck and call. Even if that was allowed, I wouldn’t do it because hey, I’m my own chica here.”

“Not allowed?” Renee asked, pulling her hair back into a ponytail and reaching for a hair tie to secure it.

“I’m dead, if you hadn’t noticed. I’m not supposed to be here and the only reason I am is to stop you completely screwing up. So, you got three guesses as to why I’m here.”

Groaning out loud and lightly smacking her hand against the comforter, Renee, rolled her eyes. “I’ll take Hot Musician Boyfriends for two hundred.”

Claire snorted, amused. If nothing else, she had always laughed with this girl. “Ding, ding, ding. I know you’re an upstanding kind of girl who doesn’t kiss on first dates and everything but you need to speed this up because pretty though he may be the man’s not stupid. That whole underwear thing was a disaster.”

“You saw that?”

“Heard of it.” Came the explanation. “I don’t see anything because that would mean watching your every move and no thank you. I just get told when you’re not doing so great and sent to fix it.”

“Okay.” The blonde sighed, not liking that plan. So that meant she’d only see her friend when she was lousing everything up. That was just great. “So, oh wise one, advise me.”

“Girl…” Claire shook her head, striding across the room to sit on the bed next to her. “You gotta loosen up. Come on, hit me with it.” She gestured with her hands, inviting the tirade. “What’s your issue?”

“God.” Renee flopped backwards, stretching out on the bed and knocking a few papers to the floor with her feet. “I just… I know I’m screwing it up Clara but I can’t help it, I don’t know how I’m supposed to act around him. Every time I do or say something I wonder if that’s how she would have said it and every time he touches me I get this weird feeling in my stomach and I don’t know how to react, like whether she’d kiss him or whatever and it’s just weird. I don’t even know him and I’m supposed to step into the shoes of this girl he went out with for three years?”

“But that’s you. She’s you. It’s all Renee Anderson.” Claire pointed out, frowning, not quite getting what Renee meant.

“She’s me up until freshman year of high school.” Renee said quietly, looking into her best friend’s eyes and it suddenly hitting her that this was the girl who had been dead and snatched from her life. Was there some alternate reality where that hadn’t happened? “Then we got all different.”

“But obviously it was something you both had in you, right?”

“I guess.” She sighed. “But I never even met Justin until a couple of days ago, how do I pull this off?”

“You’re real preoccupied with Justin.” Her ghostly companion noted shrewdly, narrowing her eyes at her. “I thought you’d be bugging me about dance routines or interview technique or your finances or something.”

“But I can find all that stuff out easy enough.” Renee shrugged. “I can dance and sing anyway and I can fake that but I can’t fake my entire personality and that’s what I gotta do with him. Speaking of which though, what the hell was that little black and white montage I had yesterday?”

“Oh, yeah, I checked that ‘cause I didn’t know what the heck that was all about either.” Claire disclosed. “It’s kind of like a little emergency thing the people on high do when you look like you’re really getting in trouble. It’s only emergency though. They’re just showing you the other Renee’s memories so that you don’t make some huge mistake or whatever.”

“Could they fill in the last three years of my so called relationship? ‘Cause that would be great.” The reply was gloomy and despairing.

“You know what I think?”

“No Clara, but you are my cosmic spirit guide or whatever so please tell me.”

“Oh no, this is a friend thing.” Renee felt a cold shiver flood through her when Claire reached up to stroke her hair. She couldn’t feel the movement but still she felt something strange and it made every last hair on her body stand on end. “If you need to get to know Justin, stop wasting your time trying to pretend you already do and get to know him. And stop pretending to be the other Renee. Just be you. I mean you have like fourteen, fifteen years in common, you can’t be that different right?”

“God I just had to go and make this stupid, irreversible wish, didn’t I?” She held her head in her hands. “Now all I wish is that I had my own life back. Compared to this mess, college is looking pretty good right now.”

“Oh shit, NOW?” Claire suddenly yelled up to the ceiling for no reason at all. “Crap. I hate you people.” She turned back to Renee. “I’m sorry sweetie I’m out, apparently I already told you everything you need to know.”

“Why can’t I just call you when I need you?”

A sad smile was her reply. “Because that’s not how it works. You’ll be fine, Ren, I promise. I’ll look around, figure out some way I can help.”

Before Renee could make any response, she’d dissolved again. She hated it when the girl did that. If you tried not to pay attention to the fact that she couldn’t touch things and that she walked through walls, you could almost forget that Claire wasn’t flesh and blood, living and breathing. But when she’d just go poof it kind of felt like she was being taken away from her all over again. That and of course, having her around more often would be a big help as far as her ‘oh my god this isn’t my life’ dilemma went.

Still… maybe she had a point. Whoever this person was, the woman she had become in this reality, she couldn’t be that different. And if she was… well… everybody changed, right? Maybe she didn’t have to fit completely into somebody else’s clothes. Maybe the clothes could be altered or maybe she could lose a little here and there and the whole wardrobe metaphor was already getting old in her head but still, maybe it was a thought worth having.

Taking a deep breath, she picked up the phone and after checking her cell phone directory, dialled a number.

***

“Hey.” Well, he had to say that this was a little bit of a twist, the fact that he was now standing in Renee’s room after being let in by Quentin, her bodyguard. He’d found her sitting on the bed in her pyjamas, looking pretty cute actually. But she hadn’t called or made so much as a peep about the fact that he had split straight after rehearsal and Justin hadn’t exactly been expecting a request to come hang out with her. It seemed she hadn’t noticed he was kind of avoiding her a little. The idea had been to give her some space to realign whatever it was that was out of sync in her head and to give him a moment to step back and observe her, see if he could put his finger on what was making him feel so strange around her lately. “I gotta say baby the bed socks are hella sexy.”

“You like?” She looked up from whatever it was she was looking at. “They’re Agent Provocateur.” Renee poked her tongue out at him and despite himself he made a little chuckle.

“Okay I had that one coming but you know normally you like going in there.”

“As evidenced by the couple hundred pairs of panties I seem to have packed for my stay of a week.” She laughed too before launching into her pre-rehearsed story. “Nah, I just wasn't in an underwear zone and if you haven’t noticed I’ve been kinda blonde lately. My head’s all over the place.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” Justin crossed the room and sat down on the bed next to her, kicking off his sneakers before picking up her hand and playing with her fingers. “Is everything okay?”

“I just got a lot going on.” She shrugged, hoping to gloss over it effectively enough to placate him. “I’m cool. I just need to get this performance over with and then back to business and I swear you’ll get your normal girlfriend back.”

“The one who’s sane?” He teased, giving her a smile. His eyes practically twinkled; she had never seen a human being do that before. God he was cute. She didn’t blame herself for her past crush on him because the boy was hot.

“Yeah. I hear she’s cool.” Renee dared to give his hand a squeeze back. This was okay; she was doing fine so far. She just needed to convince herself that she could do this and spend time with him and not feel horribly uncomfortable or like she was bringing Justin to the verge of dumping her. It had occurred to her that there was a possibility she would never feel like he was really her boyfriend and the spark that he and other Renee had wouldn’t be replicated with her, in which case she probably would have to break up with him but for now she just wanted to maintain the status quo and give everything in this new life of hers a chance before she went turning it upside down. After all, there was no way out of this little wish she’d made so she would have to live with the consequences. “In the mean time I’m weirdo girlfriend and you gotta put up with me for a bit.”

“So when you said hang out did you mean like actually hang out or what you usually mean when you ask me to hang out at this time of night?” Justin joked, half serious. “Because no offence baby but I’m dog tired and the only reason I didn’t tell you to fuck off when you called earlier is ‘cause you’re my girl. If you’d been Trace I would have reamed your ass out and gone to sleep.”

Renee really couldn’t help laughing, and considering that he’d just made a sex reference, that was progress. Of course that might have been because for once he wasn't seemingly suggesting that they should have it. “Burning hunk of love or whatever that you are, Justin, it’s late and I’m tired too; I just wanted to spend some time with you. Besides, if I was gonna seduce you this would not be my outfit of choice.”

“Birthday suit?” She slowly turned her head to look incredulously at him but he merely smiled innocently. “Just trying to give myself a visual here.”

“Well if you want a visual you can get your mind out of the gutter and help me choose this bunch of photos for the web site. I need ten.” She leaned over and poked him in the ribs with a finger before passing him various sheets of pictures. They had been top of the big pile of admin Marcia had so kindly dumped on her. There had been a bunch of glossy six by tens for her to autograph for a giveaway, she’d had to cast her eye over some itineraries and press statements, and apparently her web site was getting a new lay out and she needed to decide which of her latest publicity photos should be used.

“God… why do I get the feeling Playboy is going to see these and up their offer again?” Justin whined, looking at the pictures. Some of her in a not very long leather skirt, halter neck and boots, some of her in tight, low riding jeans and a slashed shirt, others of her in a short, backless dress. Of course he understood that sexiness was part of her image and everything but the girl didn’t wear a lot in some of the shots and Playboy were extremely persistent in their offers. Call him selfish or chauvinistic or territorial or whatever but as far as he was concerned the only man who should be seeing her naked was him. Okay, or a medical professional in exercising any necessary treatment on her, but that was the only concession he was making.

“First of all there is no way in the world they’re ever gonna come up with enough cash to make me do that and are the pictures really that bad?”

He looked up into Renee’s eyes and was slightly startled by the expression he saw there. It was the kind of vulnerability that Renee didn’t tend to show a lot, especially when it came to her career. She’d kind of developed an outer shell when it came to such things, passed it off, even though he knew it bothered her sometimes when people branded her image dirty or slutty. Now she looked… bothered. There was a concern there that he didn’t often see from her. She was usually so determined and single minded about everything… was it bad that he kind of liked this?

“No baby girl they’re great.” Justin brought her fingers to his mouth and kissed them. “You look beautiful. I’m just gonna kill anybody who even attempts to get you nekkid for a shoot. Or at all.” He added as an afterthought.

“Sure. You can have what’s left of them after I’m done.” Renee shuddered at the thought. “No nudity for me, thank you very much. So anyway, which ones do you like?”

“You could have like a mix of the jeans and the dress.” He mused. “Something more formal and something more casual.”

“I guess.” She made a face before pulling her glasses off of her face and tossing them on the nightstand. Justin watched her closely, enthralled. Maybe he was hallucinating but he even thought there was something a little different in the way she moved lately. He’d seen her do that a million times but somehow… no, he was being stupid. It was Renee, there was no deep connotation behind her taking off her glasses. “Remind me why I have to make these decisions?”

“Because you’re a pop star baby.” He grinned condescendingly at her.

“Like you’re not.”

“Hey! I’m RnB, woman, and don’t you mistake it.”

“Delude yourself all you want, darlin’.” Renee patted his knee in an equally patronising manner. In actual fact, she was not only doing fine, it was good even. She was having a conversation with him and God help her it was almost fun except for the small remaining edge of ‘for God’s sake don’t fuck up’. “You’re pop. Really cool edgy pop but pop all the same. Let’s face it; we’re both pawns in the game babe. Or maybe rooks or bishops or something but we ain’t King of the board.”

“If I wasn't so tired I would make you pay for that comment. I am not pop.” He sat up long enough to get his arms around her waist and pull her back with him as he flopped down again. “And I’m not a pawn in the game either sweetheart. Neither are you. We both know there’s gotta be some sacrifices sometimes and that you can’t always get your way against the record company or whoever but we’re in charge of our careers. I mean look at your first single off this album, right? Did they want you to release that song?”

“No…” That was a total guess.

“Exactly. But you went and kicked some ass and made it happen. That’s not a pawn, Ren.”

“I did kick some ass, huh?” She smirked falsely, having another slight moment of doubt after her big confidence hit. It was going better – it was definitely going better – but she wondered if she was ever going to learn to read him the way he seemed to be able to read her. Maybe Claire had been right and there was enough of the other Renee in her to give Justin a jump-start on the whole thing but she was playing trial by fire here. She just wondered if she should have known he’d start giving her a pep talk if she sounded down on herself for all of two seconds.

“You made me proud baby.”

Shifting on the mattress, Justin gave a large yawn and settled comfortably on the pillow, cheek resting on top of her head. Renee for her part was lying awkwardly in his arms, which seemed to be encircling her quite firmly and without escape. On the one hand it was kind of nice to be cuddled, especially by a guy. And as an added bonus he was wearing the same cologne her sister’s boyfriend did… well, presuming in this reality her sister still had a boyfriend, but it was cool because she’d always liked the smell – in fact she’d got into the tiniest bit of trouble one time for asking Louise if it was alright to sniff her boyfriend. Honestly, she didn’t know what was wrong with her though because obviously this was a nice if slightly too horny guy. You couldn’t exactly fail to notice that he was hot either, so what was wrong with this picture? Why wasn't she just enjoying this? Did she just worry too much or was there some important thing that she was missing here?

“You tired, J?”

“Like I said, I was about to be asleep when you called.”

“Sorry.” She drummed her fingers lightly on his chest by way of an apology.

“That’s alright. I can drag my butt out of bed to spend some time with my girl, I’m selfless like that.”

Renee gave a small, slightly worried but genuine smile. “You just like saying you were in some sexy blonde’s hotel room.”

“Karmic reward.” Justin lifted his head from hers and moved down to catch her lips with his in a small, sweet kiss. Renee returned it and then pulled her head back, hiding it back in his chest where he couldn’t see the look on her face. She could be read like a book and she knew it – it was a royal pain in the butt, she could hide absolutely nothing. That wasn't the greatest thing in the world when she was sitting on such a huge secret. “I’m all nice to you and then I get to brag that I’m dating an FHM 100 girl.”

“Really, you are?” She tried to be sarcastic but actually she was dying for details. People really thought she was hot? “Good for you. Which number?”

“Well she’s number three on the list and number one to me.”

“That was the worst line ever, Timberlake. Really. That even beats the whole ‘I was destined to marry a pop star and I’ve decided it’s you’ proposal that weirdo gave me this morning.” She rolled her eyes. Her first freaky fan encounter – why was she so sure it wouldn’t be her last?

“Last time I ever compliment you.” He yawned yet again. “Do you mind if I crash here baby? I’m falling asleep on you here.”

“Uhh… sure.” Renee realised she sounded a little too hesitant and really it wasn't like she should have to think about the answer, he was her boyfriend. “Not like I ever complained before.”

“Cool.”

Her eyes nearly bugged out of her head when he extricated himself from her, sat up and promptly removed his shirt to reveal a set of abs she had only seen on the cover of Rolling Stone and paparazzi pictures of him on the beach or by the pool or whatever. Trying not to drool was exceedingly difficult. She couldn’t even remember the last time a guy had been this naked in front of her. That went double for when he proceeded to pull off his socks and pants and climbed under the covers in his boxers, scooping up the remaining papers on the bed and dumping them on the floor by his side of the bed. He looked at her expectantly and she realised that she was actually supposed to climb in with him - that was kind of the presumption.

Pulling back the sheets on her side, Renee turned off the light and clambered in beside him. She rested her face in the pillow, staring up at the ceiling for a moment before shifting onto her side and sighing softly as she turned away from him.

“Hey…” Immediately he was scooting over and though she couldn’t see his face if the tone of voice was anything to go by he was looking needy. “Why so far? Where’s the love baby?”

“Me and the love are over here ‘cause it’s comfortable.” She informed him. That was true enough, she always tended to sleep on her side… except, as she recalled, with the previous boyfriend she’d shared a bed with. Then she’d always tended to lie on her front, body shifted towards his side of the bed and her face turned in his direction. Could she not even sleep how she wanted now? “You want love you’re gonna have to come get it because it ain’t coming to you.”

“You drive a hard bargain, sweetness.” Justin gave a chuckle before pressing himself against her back and throwing an arm over her, smiling as he pulled her body into his and kissed her shoulder, spooning her. This had been a hell of a lot better. He was still pretty sure something was up but it would only be a matter of time before she told him, obviously she was dealing with it her own way and he’d learnt not to interfere with that. For now they’d spent what for them classified as pretty normal couple time (though perhaps the conversation had been a little short because he really was tired) and he was more than happy with that. “Goodnight baby. I love you.”

Unexpectedly (for her anyway) Renee twisted her head around and kissed him, a lingering kiss that lasted a good few seconds and took his hands to pull the embrace a little tighter before resting her arm over his. “I love you too.” A protective, masculine, Justin scented aura wafted over her and she lay awake for a good while longer as she bathed in it, listening to the sounds of his steady breathing, feeling the regular puffs of breath on the back of her neck, and wondering what it all amounted to.