Deranged Delusions

6. The Force of a Great Typhoon

I spent the whole day not worrying about Justin and his shit. I think today has been the most relaxing day of my entire life. After rushing from Justin’s house in a fury, I drove straight to the beach and jumped into the ocean not caring that it’s the second week in December and the water is fucking freezing. I was cleansing myself of the complete crap I had to deal with for three years and now I feel reborn. I feel like I’m a part of the second coming of Jesus or something. I feel alive.

The first person I called was Neal and I thought he was going to start singing to the heavens. I guess he kept his true feelings about me working for Justin hidden for quite some time, because he went off for half an hour about how much of a jumbo douche bag was and how happy he is that I’m not working for him anymore. But needless to say he’s excited.

The good mood continues to escalate as I swerve through traffic blasting “We Are the Champions” with all of Bentley’s windows down. I’m singing with Freddie at the top of my lungs and garnering a few worried looks from fellow drivers but I don’t care at all. This is the kind of attitude that I could never have while working with Justin. I never had time for myself let alone time to feel carefree or drive around with all my windows down and act like complete fool.

I’m heading home at the moment. I promised Neal earlier that I would stop by in the morning to have an early celebration before he went to go check on one of the bars he would be servicing that night. So right now I’m going back to the apartment that I share with Melissa, hoping I can avoid the awkward conversation that I know will surface once I walk through the door and get myself settled.

She’ll want to talk about it of course. Before I started dating Neal we would always discuss our trysts with members of the opposite sex and while some of them were a little too graphic for words, we would still laugh about them in the end. But this time is different. I do not want to hear how good (or bad) Justin is in bed and I don’t want to hear about how he tossed her to the curb as soon as I left the house. I know he’ll be pissed about the bike and all and he’ll probably send me a bill but I’d love to see him try and get a cent out of me. The man has more money than Midas and he should be able to get a damn bike fixed with his own funds. And it was his fault in the first place.

I park my car in the garage below our apartment and grab my purse before heading inside. I have no idea if Melissa is home yet because her car is in the garage and I know she didn’t drive to Justin’s house last night. I guess if I hear her sobs coming from her bedroom I’ll know if she’s back or not.

Of course I hear something much worse when I walk in through the kitchen door.

“Don’t put that there,” a female voice giggles and I have the sudden urge to vomit. Why can’t I escape these two? Sitting, no wait, sprawled out on the couch are Justin and my roommate, and I can’t tell where his legs end and hers begin. They are completely conjoined together and his shirt is hanging haphazardly around his neck, Melissa struggling to yank it around his head.

This image alone is enough to make me want to seek therapy for a week but then I see Justin’s tongue poke around Melissa’s ear and that’s when my eyes bug out of my head and I take a step back so I can take refuge in the kitchen. But I don’t see the small table behind me that Melissa and I use to set our car keys on and I knock over what I’m guessing is Justin’s set of keys. They clank to the ground and I hear Melissa’s squeal of surprise followed by Justin’s groan of protest as he reluctantly yanks his half naked body off my best friend.

“Oh my,” I manage to stutter lamely before I turn tail and rush back into the kitchen. I don’t even want to think about what I just saw and I’m about five seconds away from gouging my eyes out with a fork or some other kitchen appliance. The last thing I need is to close my eyes when I’m talking to Melissa about something and picture my now ex-boss practically dry humping my roommate into oblivion.

And as if on cue, the last person I want to talk to comes sauntering into the kitchen as if crummy apartment life is all he’s ever known. He pulls his shirt over his body, shielding a toned chest and stomach from my hard gaze. If he were any other person I would probably tell him to keep the shirt off so I could keep gazing but I’m not going to stroke his ego and I’m not going to talk to him…I refuse to talk to him…

“I left my Christmas shopping list on your door,” he explains as he heads over towards the fridge. I don’t know what gave him the idea that he could eat my food and talk to me as if this morning never happened.

“Last time I checked, I don’t work for you anymore,” I say scathingly and I almost want to slam his head into the now opened refrigerator. So much for not talking to him, good job, Walters.

“Now we both know you didn’t mean that this morning, and I’m willing to overlook your little tantrum,” he explains while he pulls out a carton of my rather expensive soy milk from the fridge.

“I meant every single word, Timberlake and if you don’t get the hell out of my sight there’s going to be a repeat showing of this morning only this time, it’ll be your car I’m practically destroying…” I don’t mean that really. The whole Knocking-the-Bike-Over-Incident was a total accident that I took full satisfaction out of but he doesn’t know that, and I’m not going to tell him I didn’t do it on purpose. He chugs my milk and pulls the carton away from his lips before he looks at me and smiles.

“Lo-ho…” he starts and I can feel the infamous Justin Timberlake whine coming up to bat.

“Don’t call me that. I hate that stupid nickname and quite frankly I hate you. Now put my soy milk away before things get really nasty.” And as if to egg me on, he takes another gigantic gulp of my milk before he puts the now empty carton in the sink.

“You don’t hate me.”

“You wanna make a bet?”

“Walt, you don’t want to make me angry,” he threatens and I roll my eyes as I walk over to the sink and snatch the empty carton in my already shaking hands. I went from Queen of the World a few hours ago to Pissed off Penny and I’m about to transform into Rampaging Rita if he doesn’t get the hell out of my face.

“I’ve seen you angry, Justin and it’s nothing compared to what I will do to you if you dare raise your voice at me in my own house…”

“I wouldn’t exactly call this a house. Roach Motel, maybe. House, no.” Oh he really is an ass wipe.

“Get the hell out,” I say softly as my fingers dig into the soggy carton.
           
“Sorry, the last time I checked you didn’t invite me here. I can stay as long as I want,” Justin taunts and I swear I took a trip back to fourth grade because the schmuck actually sticks his tongue out at me before he runs a hand over his growing stubble.

“Well I don’t have to stay here and listen to your degenerate bullshit,” I state loudly before I chuck the carton at his head. He ducks and the soggy mass smacks into the wall behind him. He lets out a yelp of protest as I turn around to the small counter that doubles as a desk and grab my purse and car keys. “Hopefully you’ll have enough decency to replace my milk although I doubt it.”

After I grab my keys and purse, I turn to go and I know he isn’t going to stop me to drop on his knees to give me a thousand apologies about how he’s wrong and a bastard and he should be castrated and lynched for all the crap he’s put me through. But no, Justin Randall Timberlake goes above and beyond the call of duty of being Commander of the Assholes.
           
I’m about to open the door that will lead me to Bentley Lexus, my salvation, when his hand lands on my shoulder and wheels me around to face him. My blue-green eyes gaze into his blue ones and he gives me that smarmy grin I hate before he hands me a piece of paper.

“I swear to God if this is your Christmas list…” I start to say but he shakes his head and bites his bottom lip, which is kind of sexy…

Oh my God, Lauren. Shut the hell up.

“Nope. It’s the bill.” What the hell is he talking about? He notices my confused look and he chuckles a little bit before he leans back on his feet and clears his throat, an annoying habit that he has, which is one other thing I cannot stand about him. “You know someone has to fix that dent in my wall and the scratches on my bike.”

Oh hell to the fuck no.

I take the piece of paper from his hands and look at it for a moment. And almost instantly thirty-five hundred dollars is staring me in the face. There is no way on God’s green earth that I am paying that much money when he usually puts that much in some random stripper’s G-String. No way.

“Well, get that checkbook out!” he snaps and I shake my head as I slowly, and deliberately rip the bill in half before I let it fall to my feet. I catch a quick, satisfying look of his face, which is contorted in disbelief before I turn around and head for Bentley not really caring if the bastard eats me out of house and home or dry humps my best friend well into her golden years.

I’m still free and that’s all that matters.

***

My mom always told me that if you want something bad enough, you’d go the extra mile to get it. You know, you want that awesome car when you’re sixteen and so you’ll work your butt off at some crappy fast food place for a year until you make enough money to actually buy that car. She also told me that you wouldn’t miss something until it’s gone. I never really had the chance to miss Cameron because I smoothed over that gaping hole with a few parties and now I have Melissa to keep me company.

But right now I’m missing Lauren Walters and it absolutely kills me to admit that.

I’m not missing her in the hopeless romantic sense of ‘Oh my I can’t believe she’s gone because now that she is, I realize I’m hopelessly in love with her and I have to get her back,’ and I’m not missing her friendship because we never had that to begin with. No I’m missing her for the sole fact that she was the only person who ever got anything done around this place.

Trace is doing okay. He’s getting pretty tied up with the whole William Rast line and I’m not pushing him to help me out with my shit. If there’s one thing you don’t want to do, its piss Trace off. He might be short, but the little leprechaun can pack quite the punch when he’s on the warpath. Trace is almost as bad as Lauren, but that’s a different story.

Because of Trace’s involvement with the clothing line, he hardly had time to help me get my Christmas list together and so I had to put my dick between my legs and go ask Melissa for help.

She was more than willing to oblige and we actually got all that shit done. I had no idea what to get her so I settled for the quickest way into a woman’s heart and to a gratitude fuck – I gave her jewelry. And can I just say the sex after that really was mind blowing.

Don’t get me wrong; things with Melissa are going great! I simple adore her and think she came into my life at just the right time. Sure I was just getting over Cameron and the main reason why I hooked up with her in the first place was because I didn’t want to go home to an empty bed, but Melissa has really turned out to be a keeper. My family loves her and Trace has given his stamp of approval so I guess she’ll be in it for the long haul.

But I have a certain flaw when it comes to dating women. My mom actually pointed it out to me when things with Britney started to go down the toilet. She told me that when I get involved with someone I end up loving them too much and it suffocates them to the point where they have to back away and have their space. And that space ends up being the end of the relationship. It happened with my first love, with Britney, and I’m sure that’s what happened with Cameron too even though it seemed like she broke up with me because I was being flirtatious with some big busted bimbo at one of my parties.

No, I’m going to give Melissa her space because I kind of want this relationship to work, in some weird and uncanny sort of way. What started as a ploy to get Lauren overworked and upset actually turned out to be something positive for me, which is just strange because my genius plots always turn over in my favor. 

See how I sort of need Lauren back in my life? She makes things work and she gets them to work now instead of ‘I’ll do it after Big Brother is done.’ My schedule is shot to shit and I have no idea what I’m doing in five minutes let alone next week when I know I have studio time. I bet you Lauren still has all my appointments in her little blue date book that she keeps with her at all times.

I’d call her and ask her when my stuff is but seeing as she hasn’t even muttered a hello to me since our last run in almost two weeks ago I’d rather not. I’m at her apartment just about every week but I don’t make an attempt to talk to her and she gladly stays out of my way. I kind of miss making fun of her all the time and ganging up on her with Trace but I guess I have to accept the fact that she quit and move on.

Wait a minute, what the hell am I saying? I’m Justin Fucking Timberlake and I can get whatever the hell I want, and that includes getting an ex-assistant to come back under my jurisdiction.

I just have to formulate the proper plan and then she’ll be begging to work for me again.

“Earth to J. Are you listening to a word I’m saying?”

“Apparently not, dumbass because I would have already given you an answer,” I bite back as Trace throws a pillow in my direction. He rolls his eyes and flips me the bird as I rub my eyes and train my gaze on my vertically challenged friend. “What do you want?”

“Well what time did you have to be in the studio tomorrow?”

“Christ, Trace. I thought you were supposed to follow that stuff. You know, seeing as you are my assistant and all…”

“Sorry man, you know I’m going through that rough patch with Elisha right now,” he says apologetically and I know he’s going to start off into his bitch and moan tangent with how he doesn’t understand why Elisha doesn’t want to hold off the wedding for another year while he gets the clothing line under his belt and films a few more movies.

Yeah, okay, Trace has a fiancée and all that and that’s great but I don’t pay him as an assistant for him to talk about his relationship problems. That’s for the time I like to call ‘Best Friend Time’ and right now isn’t a good place to have that moment. I need to figure out studio time and I don’t want to call the studio because I had to call them last week for my schedule and I don’t want to sound like a complete and totally idiot. Besides, since when did the recording artists themselves start to call measly secretaries for their schedules? That’s for the assistant to take care of.

But that’s right, the one assistant who did an honest day’s work doesn’t work for me anymore and the one that does is currently trying to figure out why his betrothed doesn’t want to hold off on a year when she’s already been planning the wedding for months.

And I just used the word betrothed. Jesus, Timberlake who are you, Shakespeare?

“You do realize that Lauren would leave all her personal problems at the door when she was on the clock, right?”

“And you do realize that you’re talking about Lauren way too much for your own good,” Trace interjected and I threw him an incredulous look.

“Am not,” I fight back, “I’m just saying that you should live by her example.”

“Sure, whatever. I know I’m a better best friend than assistant but you need to get over this whole ‘Lauren Quit’ thing. She doesn’t work for you anymore, she’s done…”

“No she isn’t,” I refuse to believe that. The only reason why she quit was because she caught me in bed with her best friend and roommate, and maybe because I fucked up her whole promotion thing, but that’s it. Sure she might call me the Anti-Christ but she loved working for me, she just never wanted to admit it. But Lauren is missing it now let me assure you.

“That’s cute,” Trace coos, “You miss her.”

“I don’t miss her,” I deny, “I miss the good service I got when she was around. I don’t miss her at all.”

“Whatever J, keep telling yourself that.”

Okay fine pipsqueak, maybe I will.

***