I have decided that my life sucks right now. Between this movie, the tabloids, and existence in general, my life sucks. That makes no sense, I'm Justin fucking Timberlake. My life is supposed to vary between pretty darn okay and awesome.

We're on yet another late night shoot with me and Sophie doing our sneaky journalist thing, and it's cold. It's fucking California and it is cold, how does that work? Well actually I know how that works - it's all the wind and rain machines they got going. I'm soaked to the bone and they don't even heat the water. They just throw cold water at you and then yell at you if you have the temerity to shiver during a take. Shooting wraps in a week and I'm really grateful because this experience has not been great for me.

I feel ungrateful even saying that. This is my first big budget movie and my first shot as a leading man, I should be grateful. I'm being paid a not small amount of money (though not as much as Sophie or Elliot since they're more established than me). It's just… it has totally sucked! Even without all the tabloid drama and shit, I really haven't felt too great about this shoot. The dailies are all coming out fine so it's not like the movie itself is turning out bad, but I have just hated this experience. I haven't made any real friends on set, except maybe Sophie and at a stretch Chelsea, I really haven't been getting on with the director and everything has just felt like this huge effort. I need like two dozen takes to get anything right according to him and it can't be good for my reputation. Like, when I was on set for Alpha Dog it was a hard hitting movie and a real nasty subject but I had a blast with everybody and Nick loved me as an actor. This time around I'll be happy to quit.

Though then I have to do this frickin' club tour. I'm bone tired and I am so not in that zone, but I really don't have as much push with the label as people think I do. It's now extra difficult because Trace has just turned around and told me he can't go with me. There are some issues going on with William Rast and that's his primary project now, he was only reprising his assistant role as a personal favour. I get it and I'm letting him go without a fuss. He's my best friend; I wouldn't pull any diva crap on him. But it's awkward because I promised Rachel the time off and she's knee deep in crap at the moment, I can't be the asshole who makes shit more complicated for her.

Trace isn't even here tonight so I'm pretty much alone during takes. I was going to hover around Sophie like a bad smell (or a big old loser who has nobody else to hang with) but she seems to have disappeared. So I'm crowded around a portable heater in front of my trailer, wrapped in a blanket and feeling pretty sorry for myself. The tabloids ran yet more speculation about my woman beating self today. They think I was cheating on Monica with Sophie and that I hit her because she found out. That's so dumb - I won't even walk down red carpets with my girlfriends these days, why the fuck would I do a major movie with one? Oh, and also, I'm not a woman beating bastard.

I look up at the stars for a moment, sighing, and when I look back Chelsea is walking over to me. I'm seriously coveting the big fleece jacket she's wearing, but it probably wouldn't fit me anyway. She's in glasses, which I've never seen her wear before, and her hair is all on top of her head in one of those messy buns. She's also carrying a clipboard, so I'm guessing this is about business. Oh joy - I love business.

"Hey Justin." She gives me a weak smile and pulls up a seat next to me. "How're you doing?"

"I'm freezing. You?"

"Exhausted. I hate night shoots."

Chelsea and I are beyond pleasantries at this point. It's not because we're close or anything; we've kind of come to this mutual understanding that we're not really friends but we're in the same boat here. I guess you could say we're more comrades. In a way it's kind of nice that I can be around her and the two of us can just say whatever we're honestly thinking. We're never going to spill our innermost thoughts but if I feel bitchy I don't have to hide it in front of her. In a weird way, the fact that she's so disinterested makes me trust her - unlike the other personal assistant types around here who are all way too interested. Makes me think they want something out of me.

"Oh well, only another zillion takes to go."

She gives me a critical looking over which makes me fidget. "Do you need another blanket? That one's gotta be getting soaked."

"No, I'm fine," I dismiss it with a wave of my hand. "So what's up?"

"Actually Trace passed me some papers for your tour and asked me to go over them with you," she tells me to my surprise. "He's been on the phone to fashion people all evening, he said he wasn't going to be around any more?"

She looks kind of disappointed by that. I'm oddly narked by this, I have to say. I mean, he tells her what's going on with my fashion label and forgets to mention it to me? Well, okay, our fashion label, but still… I'm a part of it and she's not. On another note, I'm intrigued that she seems disappointed by his absence. Especially so after that whole wedding conversation I listened in on. It was actually pretty funny, when the invitation arrived it was a day she'd brought her mail to set with her and thus when she opened it there were witnesses; she gave me and Trace the Cliff Notes version of the story. Next Trace announced we were going to have a bonfire - he threw the fucker in an ashtray and flamed it. Seemed to cheer Chelsea up.

"Yeah, some shit's come up and he needs to be there so I'll be without a PA for a while."

"Can't you just hire someone as a stop gap?" She asks as she starts rifling through, looking for where to start.

"Well I could, but… I like to have people I know," I finally say after a pause. I don't want to go into spiels about not hiring strangers when that's exactly what she was to Sophie when she was hired.

She actually surprises me when she nods and looks like she thinks that's wise. "Understandable, especially right now. Still, it'll be a pain in the ass I imagine."

"Fuck yeah," I run my hand over my slightly too stubbly for my current role cheek. I can't wait to get off this set so I can buzz my head. "Especially on tour, I need somebody to organise my schedule and shit. I guess I'll just have to ask my mom. I don't normally like to though because she's got all the management crap to do."

She nods again, and a little strand of hair flops into her eyes. I notice they're brown - huh. I thought they were blue. Guess her contacts were coloured.

"C'est la vie." The lucky bitch is warm enough that she actually unzips her jacket. A pair of dog tags dangles loose and they actually look genuine instead of those diamante encrusted fashion type ones. "You'll manage though. Your cousin's due back soon, right?"

Not right actually, Rachel will still be away for a while, but I'm more interested in the tags and I reach out to pick them up. Thankfully they're hanging low enough that my hand doesn't brush her boob or anything awkward like that, and I read the name 'Johnson.'

"You were in the Forces?" I ask.

"Do I look elderly to you?"

Oh - the date of birth on these is 1924. Oops. "Ahh, sorry. Grandfather?"

"Yep," she replies. "He joined up in '42. He was actually a year too young at the time but he lied about his age."

See, this is probably the deepest thing I know about Chelsea, bar that overheard conversation with her ex. "You close?"

"We were," she nods. "He dies when I was fifteen and my grandma gave me these and my sister his medals."

"You got a sister?" I ask.

"Lisa. Ten years older than me and current baby making machine. You?"

I was about to make a James Brown Sex Machine joke, but then I decide it'd be inappropriate so I just answer the question. "Only child. My father remarried though and I got two half brothers."

"Cool." Then, all business as ever, she pulls out the piece of paper she wants. "So, if I read all this stuff right, you got two weeks to rehearse with the band and hash out a set list with them for the show. Do you not work it out in advance?"

"For the bigger tours, sure. We have to because there's so much choreography and staging to work out," I tell her. "For these little club gigs it's just me and them and a mike, so we just work out what we feel like playing."

"See that sounds cool, like you can just do whatever it is you feel right now instead of planning out all the time."

I'm interested by what she just said for two reasons. One is that it's an opinion on something, not something I get from her a lot, and the second is that she sounded a little bit… bitter, maybe? I'm not sure; I really can't read this girl at all. It's weird that I can't, I'm normally pretty good at that. It's weirder when you compare her to Sophie who I have got down pat (and by the way, I think she wants me - Sophie, not Chelsea). Also, I kind of agree with her, much as I love my big arena tours.

"Anyway, back to the point." She starts looking back through the notes. "Trace has booked you two days off before rehearsals start and if you're anything like Sophie you'll spend them asleep… then you have the rehearsals and there'll be a couple of magazine interviews for you but they'll just stop by rehearsals so it won't require moving you around or anything. You start the tour in Anaheim and you're confirmed for Vegas, Orlando, New York and Chicago and another couple of shows pending. There'll be local radio to do in each town and your manager guy…"

"Johnny," I inform her.

"Right, Johnny is looking into doing that whole Best Buy thing that you apparently did last tour, only as more of a meet and greet than the album preview. I'm guessing you just turned up at the store, said a little bit and smiled?"

"Pretty much, plus a little Q and A session." I tried not to groan out loud, but I hate meet and greets.

It's not that I'm ungrateful and don't want to see my fans, it's just… I always feel like I let them down. I mean, it's just me. I'm there and I scrawl my name and I say hello. That's it. When I perform I feel like I'm giving them an experience, at these meet and greets I'm just some dude who happens to be there. I know that's all they want, just to meet me and say hi, but I can never think of a decent response to all the stuff they say to me. They plot and plan what they're going to say if they ever meet me for years, and I can't think of anything better than 'thanks' to say back.

I think Chelsea caught that, but she doesn't mention it. "I have a note here to go through your rider with you, ask if there's anything you want changed."

"Okay," I nod. Thankfully some feeling is starting to come back into my feet (thank you thermal socks) and I keep flexing them as she begins.

"Sodas, candies, chips, fruit, water, Grey Goose vodka, Jack Daniels, sofas for eight, TV, coffee table, X-Box and games…"

Okay, why when she starts listing all those things at that lightning speed does it sound like I'm a spoilt brat? Believe it or not, I have one of the less demanding riders in the business. I like my creature comforts, sure, but I don't insist on freebies for an entourage of thirty. I knew one starlet who shall remain nameless who never needed to buy any expensive make up or face stuff because she insisted on a full stash being supplied everywhere she went. Sad thing is people only make these demands because they know some sucker will supply.

But yeah, back to my point, how come Trace and Rachel do this with me all the time and they never make it sound like she does? I bet Sophie's rider is just as bad. Now she's finished the list (which sounds much lengthier than it ever has before) and she's looking at me expectantly.

"Umm… nix the X-Box. I don't need it." I have some new shit I can plug into the TV anyway, I'll never miss it.

She makes a mark with her pen and then hands it to me. "You also just need to sign off on those. Trace said they're just about that meeting you guys went to last week, your lawyer checked them and said they were solid."

You may think it naïve to sign off on something you haven't read, but I was in the meeting where we hashed this all out. Once that's done, it gets put into legalese and my lawyer just checks it over to make sure nobody has snuck anything in there that I didn't agree to. You can always tell all is well when I get the papers this quick; when there's an issue my guy can spend weeks thrashing it out. So I scribble my name by the marked points and hand them back to her.

"Oh, and he gave me the list of friend and family tickets to be saved." Chelsea passes that to me, her wonderfully warm fingers brushing my still cold ones.

I chuckle when I see it. "I see you took the liberty of adding you and Sophie to Anaheim."

She smirks. "Sophie took the liberty via me."

"Didn't have you down as a JT fan," I tease her. She doesn't rise to the bait though, as usual all her attention is on those papers as she puts them back in order and then stands up.

"I don't really listen to you. Anyway, that was all for now but if he sends me any more packages I'll let you know."

"Okay, thanks Chelsea."

"Sure."

She waves me off without even looking at me and I'm sitting here feeling oddly deflated. I was hoping she'd stick around; I didn't want to be on my own again. Chelsea can be awkward company but right now I'll take that over none at all. That said, she has miraculously managed to make me feel about two inches tall without even attempting to. Maybe I'm just being paranoid because of the tabloid shit; it's making me read insults into everything.

I just… ugh. When did I become the guy nobody likes? Normally when rumours like this come up it lasts all of a few days because people don't believe that of me. Heck, sometimes that's got me off the hook for things I did do wrong. So why when I'm being accused of some of the nastier shit I've ever been accused of are people looking to believe it? Nobody seems to want to be around me lately, the few who do can't be around me right now because they got other problems and I'm left here to sit and brood. I don't brood well. Some guys look all tortured and dark when they brood and chicks dig it - I look pre-adolescent.

I'm a woman beating hack actor whose director doesn't like him that can't even hold onto a PA. This whomps.