Some mornings you just wake up and feel like shit. This is one of those crappy mornings and I'm afraid it's going to signal an even crappier day. After all that falling down ski slopes yesterday and all that physical exertion in inadvisable places last night, I am really stiff and tense. My muscles are screaming.

I was going to go for a massage when I hit the spa today, but I'm now rethinking the wisdom of this plan.

I have a big old arm splayed out across my stomach, and I gently slide out from under it so I don't wake its owner. Now, here's a question - I don't want to strut around nude (even when I'm by myself I feel weird about that) but I don't want to do all the bending and stretching required to put clothes on. It's going to hurt. The drawer thankfully slides out quietly, and I manage to grab some panties and a shirt; I have no claims to modesty in front of this guy any more so this should suffice. A glance at the clock tells me it's nearly ten in the morning, and I'm surprised nobody has called or bashed my door down wondering where I am or he is. I know my phone was definitely on, and that thing is always set to loud so I can hear it even when it's buried in my bag.

It really, really hurts trudging into the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. I know that I'm only stiff because I just woke up and that muscle usage will in fact ease the pain overall, but right now it hurts like a mother. My usual morning Clinique routine is a little rushed but that's mostly because I want to go sit somewhere and not move again, ever. I do the cleansing and the toning and the moisturising, but I take a little longer over cleaning my teeth because along with muscle pain I have cotton mouth this morning. Probably from all that making out I was doing.

I've barely spat and rinsed before I hear a slow shuffling behind me, and I figure I must have woken Justin up or something. It was a pretty dumb idea having him sleep here really. I know there have could easily have been paparazzi lurking at this resort and when you move between these cabins, you're out in broad daylight; it's not like hotel corridors where we can just post Randy and Tiny at either end and have them scare the dudes away. I mean, there haven't been any paparazzi, but that's not the point - with Hollywood you always have to remember that there could be, even if there aren't. He looks bleary eyed and even with the shortness of his hair you can tell one side of it has been plastered to his head by the pillow.

"Morning, Chels." He mumbles rather than speaks as he gives me a loose one-armed hug around my shoulders, and drops a kiss on my head. He reaches past me and steals some of my cleanser, though naturally he doesn't bother with the rest of the regime. You might think he would, being Hollywood, but some guys have too much masculine pride.

"Morning," I mumble back. We're a perky pair this morning.

"You sleep okay?" He asks.

"Like a log until I woke up and realised how sore I am. Snowboarding disagrees with me."

"Maybe that whole spa idea you had was a good one, give you a chance to rest up before we drag you back out."

"Why couldn't we have gone to Hawaii?"

He chuckles and gives me a dopey, half asleep smile before pulling me into a hug. He's still very warm from the sheets, and it'd be very easy for me to fall back to sleep right here against his chest… or at least it would if he didn't have that morning after sex smell. Will used to call me crazy but I swear you can smell sex on somebody if you're close enough. It's kind of musky and a little ripe - kind of thing best washed away in a shower if you ask me. Still, Justin's morning hug is overall a pretty comfy place and I'm fighting to keep my eyes open.

"But snow's pretty."

"Snow sucks. And it gives me bruises."

"Well a spa won't give you bruises so just go and do your facials and shit." He lets out a big, loud yawn before kissing the top of my head again and letting go. "I guess I better go get my ass back to my cabin and shower and stuff. What time is it?"

"Gone ten."

"Shit, we slept late."

"Little wonder," I say without realising how dirty it is. He gives a little snort and smirks before wandering back in the direction of his clothes. We… well… it didn't exactly stop with the rug. You could call me a wanton harlot and at this point in time I wouldn't have much of a come back.

I don't quite know what it means, to tell you the truth. I'd be an idiot to deny there's chemistry (I mean, no shit) and I do get along great with him. It's just odd to me that I don't feel more jitters or have butterflies around him, like you expect to when you have a crush. I guess that means I don't have a crush, would be the obvious answer, but then it's kind of weird to me that I have so much chemistry with a guy I don't have a crush on. After Will I had some casual sex I have to confess, but I always had at least some form of thing for the guy. With Justin I don't feel that at all, I'm just comfortable with him. Still, there's a lot to be said for comfortable; I enjoy Comfortable's company and Comfortable is not at all bad in the sack. What I am having right now is the classic worry of what precisely it is he thinks about all this and if we're on the same page or I'm doing something cruel here, bringing up hopes or something like that.

Sex is complicated - whoever dreamed this up as the best method of procreation was a total idiot. I bet it's the same idiot who decided on the whole periods and giving birth thing too; I heard Lisa's stories of contractions and stitches and that was pretty effective birth control in itself. Maybe that's the answer to teen pregnancy, have somebody go around and tell them how brutal childbirth is in really graphic detail.

Speaking of my sister, I keep forgetting to call her. And I mean honestly forgetting, not the 'oh I'm sorry I forgot' kind of forgetting I do when it comes to my mother. That kind of forgetting is what normal people call 'avoiding your mother like the plague.' I hope they allow cell phones in the spa, because just sitting for twenty minutes with those mud packs on your face is kind of dull without somebody to chat to.

"Chelsea?" He walks back into the room, fastening his watch, and I'm stunned at how quickly he got dressed.

"Mmmhmm?" I respond distractedly as I wonder where I left my shampoo. I think I need a shower as much as he does, maybe some hot water will wake my muscles up.

"You okay?" He asks as he slips his arms back around my waist and his eyes meet mine in the mirror.

"Any reason I shouldn't be?" I turn the question back on him.

"I'd hope not." The kiss he lands on my cheek is a little more lingering, and my hands squeeze his in response. I'm not quite sure what's going on between us right now, but I must admit the intimacy is nice. Much as I preach about loving the single life, I do miss this part sometimes. "So I don't know how long you'll be in the spa or whatever but the dinner reservation is for six. We want to get out of there early… just in case of paparazzi."

"Cool." I nod, knowing what he means. Sophie sometimes does that, eating either really early or late to avoid the rush times when paparazzi might figure her to be at a restaurant. Of course they get tipped off, but with any luck they're caught on the hop and by the time they've scrambled to get there she's gone. As I already said, even in situations like this where you're pretty sure there are none around, you still have to be careful just in case. "I don't think even I can spend that long in a spa."

"I thought all women could?"

"Vicious lie spread by freaks who do spend that long in there. They need an excuse."

"Hmm." He gives a chuckle and squeezes me around the waist one more time before turning and leaving, calling a 'see you later' back to me. I'd have responded in kind if I wasn't too busy wincing - sore muscles plus being squeezed equals not good.

***

Good Southern food (even if not in the South), good company, the slopes were great today and I got really well laid last night. Life is good.

There's something about that cold air and the fresh Alpine scent that really invigorates me. I love being a beach bum and surfing and everything, but I always find that where that chills me out snowboarding kind of wakes me up and energises me. I think it's good for the soul, breathing in real fresh air and not the smog filled crap that passes for it in LA. I love being in the mountains. Chelsea is obviously suffering, God love her, but she seems to be in better humour after her day at the spa. I don't think she'll duck out on us like she did last night, there's a little more social interaction going on tonight on her part.

And not just with the crowd… she let me be, dare I say it, affectionate with her this morning. This may be related to the fact that the night before was way more sex filled than the last one, I don't know, but right now my arm is draped loosely over the back of her chair and she hasn't kicked me for it yet so I'm going to just leave it there. She's not giving me any big 'it's okay to ask me on an actual date' signals, but that doesn't concern me so much as it did last time. Part of that is because Trace is right, I was acting like a total woman over that shit, and the other part is that I've finally come to my senses. I have realised that the way to deal with this chick is to be a little more laid back. It'll be weird for me because I've always been the guy who likes to just kind of dive on in there, but whatever.

It's weird how chicks are different like that. Britney and Monica always wanted the big overblown cliché gestures, Cameron wanted big overblown but more offbeat gestures, and Chelsea seems to back off from anything that even looks like a come on. I think she's the kind of girl you'd have to have been dating a good long while before she'd be cool with you doing that.

Why am I thinking about this when there's gossip afoot? They've all kind of turned in on Chelsea wanting details on Sophie and it's funny as hell watching her trying to worm out of it without just telling anybody to fuck off. It means she's dishing a lot more than I'd have ever thought she would.

"You're trying to tell me she's never done anything?" Nick snorts loudly. He's a little cynical about Hollywood folk, comes from having seen a few too many after parties at my side.

"Nope." She shakes her head. "It's not out of any moral thing, she's just a total hypochondriac and she's into all that 'my body is my temple' stuff. She has trouble with red meat, never mind that kind of shit. Besides, her father would kill her."

Okay… much as I love my friends, I really hope they don't talk so loudly about my drug taking in public restaurants. Chelsea's bright red, and I can tell by the furtive way she looks around that she's worried who might overhear her.

"You'd be one to talk, man." I throw her a bone and try a little diversion. "How many joints did you used to get through a night?"

"About as many as you." He gives me the finger before gulping down another bite of his pecan pie. We all gorged ourselves on ribs and steaks and all the rest of the good stuff, now we're on Granny's Home Desserts (not my Granny, that's just what it says on the menu).

"Seriously though," Rachael likewise chows down on her pie between words (apple, not pecan). "I mean, she's gorgeous as Hell and all that but you can't tell me she's as nice and down to earth and all that shit as she comes off. Come on, tell me, she's a bitch right?"

"What, so does that mean I'm not how I come off in my interviews either?" I ask.

"Oh you come off as a cocky ass bitch and we all know you are one of those."

Thank you, dear Cousin. I guess I set myself up for that, so I flip her the bird Nick style and laugh along with everybody. Apart from anything else, I can be kind of cocky. Just between you and me it's usually a big old front because I'm uncomfortable, but don't tell anybody I said that. All we celebrities have our own masks to put on when interviewers are making us uncomfortable. With some it's the baby faced playing dumb, with some it's the winning smile like nothing you could ever say would bother them, and with others it's the bad ass who doesn't give a shit anyway. For me, it's pretending I'm so confident a brick would bounce off me like water off a duck's back.

That's all bullshit, of course. I mean, all the whining I privately do about this woman beating rumour is in stark contrast to my public 'they can write all the crap they want' stance. As much as I think of myself as pretty real, as far as celebrities go, even I have to admit to regularly participating in the spin and the image working and shit. In a weird way, you have to do it in order to be true to yourself and keep some private part of you together and functioning - because if you let them see a weakness they'll use it to break the shit out of you. How backwards is that? You have to lie in this business in order to keep your true self honest and intact.

"Come on Chels, spill." Rachael gets back on topic.

"Well…" Chelsea's face screws up like she's not sure what she's expected to say in response to that. "I mean I guess she has her moments, but… I don't think she's any worse than most actors. I mean, if you're around them enough you'll find out what I mean, they all kind of act out these public personas too but you meet them and the resemblance between that and the way they really are is only kinda passing, if you know what I mean."

"I mean, yeah. Know what I mean?" I mock her over-dependence on the phrase.

"Shut up." She gives me a sharp poke in the bicep.

Matt Morris is another musician friend of Justin's, a nice but pretty laid back and thus taciturn dude. He's got an unusual gleam in his eye. "Go on, what's the most diva shit she's pulled?"

"What's the most diva shit Justin's pulled?"

"Late to an interview because he didn't like the car they sent to pick him up and made them go get another." That was Rachael's contribution.

I thought she was using me as a diversion tactic there, but Chelsea just grins, laughs and dishes. "That's nothing. She once had a private jet going from Zurich to London diverted because she decided they needed to go pick somebody up in Barcelona. Wasn't even her plane."

Everybody totally cracks up in disbelief at this, and I have to say I'm kind of amazed. Sophie, when I was on set with her, seemed like a pretty normal person. She was a little Hollywood, but then she's in that industry and nobody can be in that industry without getting a little touch of it. They try and tell you otherwise, but it's true. The trick is that some of them manage to keep it at just that little bit and so still pass the grade as human. But until Chelsea came to work for me I really had no idea how demanding Sophie could be, and I have to say it has totally put me off. A lot of it is probably that I've become pretty defensive of Chelsea, but the other part of it is just disbelief that I clocked the woman so wrong to begin with.

"Nice." Rachael snorts out. She has to take a sip of water to try and bring herself back under control.

"She sounds like a total bitch," Nick comments. "How the fuck do you deal with her?"

"She's not actually a bitch." Suddenly, she has a more philosophical look on her face and she looks a little sad. "She can be high maintenance but she's not a nasty person. She's always looked after me. Unlike some I've worked for…"

I'm so busy wondering how Chelsea can have Sophie painted as a total brat one moment and a decent, three dimensional person the next that it takes me a moment to realise everybody's looking at me. "Hey, what did I do?"

"Left me behind to die in a burning building and how long did it take you to work out I was missing?"

I meet Chelsea's brown eyes and there's an evil little twinkle in them. My middle finger has already been overused today so I just calmly stick out my tongue at her and dig back into my cobbler.

"Well maybe if you hadn't managed to go that long before remembering to use your phone, then maybe you could have called somebody BEFORE it died…"

"Dude, when was this?" Matt asks laughing.

"Oh, you remember that show of his where the venue caught fire? They all left me behind in their rush to save their own asses and I had to walk back. So much for women and children first!"

"Hey, women always come first with me."

Everybody just stares at Nick for a minute, wondering whether that was an intentional innuendo or if he just totally stuck his foot in it. You can tell we're all thinking the same dirty thought by the stunned looks on our faces. Then Chelsea breaks and cracks up, which sets the rest of us off. Nick answers my question by folding his arms and sitting back with a smug grin, not the slightest bit embarrassed by what he knows we all inferred.

Good food, good company, good laughs, life is good.

***

I'm not sure how Chelsea and I ended up being the last of the group walking back together, but we did. I think she was just walking slower than everybody else and I naturally fell into step with her. Everybody else is visible but out of earshot in the difference.

If I might say so, she looks pretty cute bundled up in her big old winter coat and her snow boots. There's a bright pink scarf twisted around her neck and she looks very small and girly. The thought I'm currently having is a total hunter gatherer throwback I'm sure, but it makes her look all vulnerable and in need of my protection. Maybe that's just because when she's not in those heels she lives in she's a lot shorter than me; before we came out here I was teasing her that she wouldn't survive long in a place like this where she can't possibly wear them. Heh - Chelsea doesn't need protection, that's a laugh. One thing you can say for the more stand offish type, they're independent.

It's still kind of weird to me that I've gone for her. She definitely can be stand offish, and I normally like the more bubbly type. Apart from an obvious penchant for blondes, I can't say Chelsea fits my 'type' at all. Maybe I'm finally entering my experimental phase.

"So, you back on the slopes tomorrow?" I try to fill the silence. It's a surprise when she shakes her head.

"Nope."

"You going to spend your day being a loner again?" I can't help it, my voice was chock full of blatant disapproval.

"No, I'm going to spend my day being a girl. Rachael and I are going to go abuse our plastic in town."

"Oh. Okay then." I feel a little sheepish and I catch her smiling wryly at me, like a mother to her chastised son. In a very disturbing and I-hope-not-Oedipal way she just reminded me of my mother. "Do you really hate snow that much?"

"Yes," she answers immediately.

"Why?"

"Well…" Chelsea stuffs her hands on her pockets, before taking a quick look skywards. It's a clear night, which makes it totally freezing but extremely beautiful. The stars are amazing out here. "I say it's because every time I go near snow I pick up some kind of war wound. My mom says it's because Grandpa indoctrinated me with his own hatred of the stuff."

"Really?" I ask. "Why did he hate it?" "I never knew, I think maybe his squad or platoon or whatever it's called was stationed somewhere cold once." She shrugs.

"You still sore from yesterday?" Sometimes, I find it hard to find a good thread of conversation with this girl. It's not that she won't answer me, it's just that she's always so succinct and to the point about everything that it kind of leaves you feeling like a topic's exhausted before it's begun. In a way I like that about her - that she doesn't just babble about pointless shit - but in another I find it really irritating. It makes it hard trying to connect with her.

"Not as bad, but I bet after I go to sleep it'll send my muscles back all stiff. Though maybe it might help that I won't spend half the night fighting for the duvet." She kind of walks into me, a sort of full body nudge before stepping back and giving me a teasing smile.

I take it that means I'm not welcome back? Fuck it. Or maybe it's not so 'fuck it' as 'good idea, slowly does it.' I'm not sure. All the signals I got earlier really encouraged me but this is like somebody threw ice water in my face. This chick is so hot and cold…

"Are you suggesting I'm a duvet hog?"

"No, I'm outright telling you."

"Well you're a wriggler." Yes, my comeback is lame but it's all I got. "The whole point of being asleep is that you're supposed to be still. You must have kicked me about three times."

"Sorry." Jovially she links her arm through mine, and silence falls between us again.

You know, sometimes I wonder about this woman. She's pretty good at working me up and then stepping right off, and occasionally I feel like it's just one step forward two steps back. Last night was pretty wild, if I do say so myself, and normally after something like that coupled with the previous time I'd feel pretty damn confident that a girl liked me.

Many a woman I'd accuse of game playing, all that hard to get shit and whatever, but when I try to level those accusations at her they fall flat somehow. Chelsea just isn't that type; she's so damn straightforward about everything. She's demonstrated time and time again that she'll just treat me like anybody, isn't cowed by my fame or under any delusions I'm anything but a plain old man. If I try to accuse her of playing games it just seems ludicrous somehow, but she's blowing so hot and cold I'm damned if I can work out what the fuck else is going on. Maybe she's not even sure, but in the meantime I'm confused and I loathe being confused.

Her phone goes off (amazing that she's got any reception), and without unlinking her arm from mine she digs into her pocket and pulls it out to check her text message. I, being tall and at a vantage point, can clearly read it. It's got Sophie's name on it and says 'how's the skiing,' so I don't know why Chelsea is looking so weirdly at it.

"How the fuck does she know?" She asks me. I know she's asking me because she's looking right at me, but I think I've missed something here.

"Know what?"

"That we're skiing."

"You didn't tell her?"

"Nope. Just that we were on vacation."

"Well," I answer grimly, "either she's spying on you or the photo agencies are spying on me. Survey says?"

Chelsea hurriedly unhooks her arm from mine and jams her hands in her pockets, going rigid. As much as she perplexes me, the atmosphere was still pretty comfortable until that text message. Now it's just evaporated.

"Guess my 'no paparazzi will ever guess' spot wasn't so great, huh?"

"Hey…" I would have hugged her or done something reassuring if I wasn't so self conscious. Damn cameras spoil everything. "Wherever you picked, somebody was going to rat us out eventually. Heck, I think we did well to make it two days."

"I hope nobody saw you this morning," she mumbles under her breath.

When she says that, she doesn't mean 'on the slopes.' I hope nobody saw me coming out of her cabin either. Of course, that wouldn't have been a problem if somebody had seen me enter it thirty minutes earlier, but an all nighter will raise eyebrows. I'm kind of worried now, to be honest, because until she got that text message I was certain that they hadn't found us yet… but clearly they already have and they've managed to be uncharacteristically stealthy.

Fuck it.