Justin’s driveway, 1:49 pm

I inhale and allow my lungs to fill with smoke before I pull the cigarette from my mouth and exhale. Buckley starts to shit behind one of Justin’s flower beds. He’s been gone almost a week now and I’m sure he’s having a blast with his girl, fucking and drinking and surfing and doing absolutely nothing. And I can’t say I’m not jealous. But at the same time being alone on a beach would probably be the worst thing right now. I hate fucking being alone and being alone in this damn house is pretty bad. At least I’m in LA. At least I have a few friends hanging around, and now that I’m back from tour, they’ve have been calling me up almost everyday to go out, get lunch, something.

And then there’s the line. I’ve got a couple meetings next week. I’m a little nervous, but I’m confident. Next week will make or break me and let me know if this thing is really going to happen or not. The pieces are in production now and should be delivered tomorrow to review. I need a name. God, do I need a name. I just don’t think “Ayala Clothing” is punchy enough.

All this shit’s happening. The calm of a tour being over has set in, the onslaught of friends and the normality of every day life is starting to creep back.

I could give a fuck.

She called me earlier today. I laughed. After last night I couldn’t help but laugh. It’s sad really. She’s so lost and pathetic. I don’t know how I could have ever been turned on by her strength and bad-assness, because it’s all a fucking joke—all just one big act that she played on me. She’s nothing but a sad little bitch, a pathetic loser who gave up and can’t even look me in the eye, can’t even be true to herself.

She proved that to me last night.

And I shouldn’t give a damn and I shouldn’t care. I’m over her. I’m done. I can’t deal with this any more.

There are plenty of girls out there that are hotter, sexier, more put together, easier, laid back, silly, girly, fun. There are plenty of girls out there that would want to date me. I might not be Justin fucking Timberlake but I’m a pretty cool guy. I’m a good guy, and my southern accent could get any one of these fucking Hollywood bitches in my bed in a snap.

But…

I don’t want a Hollywood bitch.

I still fucking want her.

Why do I still want her?

Maybe I have some sort of weird hero complex and I want to save her from herself or something. Maybe because part of me is still holding on to that girl I used to know. The confused, complicated, contradictory Courtney was a hell of a lot more bearable than this broken down, fake one she keeps showing me now.

I finish my cigarette and stomp it out on the ground of Justin’s driveway before the dogs can come over and smell it and burn themselves. It’s not 5 seconds after I’ve moved my foot and Buckley’s there smelling the stub. Then Brennan starts to bark. Buckley chimes in and I stare through the opened gate at the end of Justin’s driveway and see her small, navy car pull up slowly.

The dogs are barking, foaming, rabid almost at her car door, but when she opens it and they stick their heads in, they realize they know her, they quiet down, their tails start wagging. I guess, somehow, they missed Courtney even though she never really showed them much affection on tour.

She steps out, patting them away, shades over her eyes, stretch pants, t-shirt, more comfortable than I’ve ever seen her. More comfortable than in her pajamas on a tour bus.

She looks sloppy but somehow put together.

When she shuts the door she moves the sunglasses off her face and looks at the house cautiously saying, “You sure he’s not going to find out I’m here and hunt me down.”

I roll my eyes and cross my arms over my chest. Typical. “Nice. Hello to you too, Courtney.”

“Sorry.” She cringes and I see her crumble right before me.

I can only sigh and turn. “Let me finish walking them and I’ll put them in their kennel, and we can go inside.”

“His house?”

“No…” I stop and look at her. She acting like this is the first time she’s been here and that we are sneaking around. If Justin asks, I have no problem telling him that she came here. What the hell? “The guest house. God, chill out.”

“Are you mad?” I bite my lip and snap my fingers twice to get the dogs to follow me. I walk away from her, pretty much like I always do. Maybe that’s my problem. But I don’t stop. The dogs are at my feet, following me as I open the small gate besides Justin’s house to get into his backyard. Their kennel is there. I kind of feel bad putting them up for periods of time but they aren’t used to being inside the guest house, and lately I’ve found myself sitting a lot outside in Justin’s back yard, reading and writing down my thoughts and being gay as hell. I let them hang out and lay around and play the yard until they tired out. Sometimes I’ll take them inside Justin’s house with me and we’ll all nap on the couch and watch TV.

It’s moments like those when I miss Courtney, when I think back on being on tour, Justin and Mere gone doing stuff with each other or on stage, and me having to take care of the dogs and Courtney with me…

I open the kennel and the dogs go in obediently. When I shut the door I hear her call my name from behind me. “Trace…”

She standing there with tears in her eyes, her sunglasses on top of her head, her arms over her stomach like she’s cold…just staring at me.

I shake my head and finally let it out and say to her, “You pushed me away, and I’m sorry I didn’t fight it, but you fucking broke my heart. I don’t see you for like 2 or 3 weeks and then bam you’re back, calling me up, asking me out…so I’m thinking hell yes, maybe she got her shit together, maybe she’s ready to talk to me…maybe that’s all she needed was space and time. But last night you acted so fucking fake with me. You completely just ignored…everything. And now you’re here, paranoid. God, if I had known you were gonna be like this I would have met you somewhere else. Or not at all.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re always sorry Courtney. You’re always so fucking sorry.”

The pitifulness in her eyes is gone for a second and a flash of the strong, pissed off women I used to date is there. “If you’re going to just get on me like you’re my father, I can leave.”

So I pick at it, hoping she’ll show me that fire again. “Then leave. I’m not going to try at this if you aren’t either.”

But she gives up, again. “Fine…” she says and turns and leaves.

I sigh and wait a few minutes and walk back out of Justin’s back yard, around the front of his house to the guest house. She’s in her car, engine on, looking down at her phone and I ignore her.

I ignore her because I can’t handle this up and down any more without any breakthrough.

Last night I was thrilled when she called me up and we were going to go out. Go to a place that’s neutral ground, have dinner, talk about what happened. I determined I wouldn’t be mad, I wouldn’t get on her, I’d just let her talk and tell me what happened. I said I would be considerate, honest, but open with her and I wouldn’t jump on her or blame her.

I was going to be fucking mature for once in my god damn life.

She shows up in a dress, make up, hair done, flirting, as if nothing had fucking happened. As if she had turned into one of those Hollywood bitches over night. The entire dinner we said nothing of substance. I wasn’t going to talk to her about anything if she wasn’t going to bring it up. And she didn’t bring it up. She talked about the food, the weather, about, hell I don’t know, some TV show she had been watching.

But not even about herself or what she had been doing or what she wanted to do. She not only ignored our problems and what happened with us, but ignored everything else as well.

And so when the bill came I paid, told her I had something to do and left. I fucking left her at that restaurant and when she called out my name and looked at me with those damned eyes I just shook my head and told her to call me when she was really ready to talk to me.

So she called me this morning. I was livid, I was pissed, I wanted to tell her to fuck off.

She asked if she could come over and I said yes. I don’t know why I fucking said yes.

I need another cigarette. What time is it? 2 pm, that’s not too early to start drinking is it?

I put my hand on the door and as soon as I turn it I hear her engine stop, the door slams shut and she calls out, “Dammit Trace, this is hard for me.”

I turn and look at her. She stops 5 feet in front of me and I say, “And it’s not for me?”

She continues to stare at me and I open my door and hold it open, telling her silently to come in. She does and stands there in my living room as I close the door. It’s a little messy. I’m still working on getting my laundry cleaned from the tour and there’s a couple baskets around and there are empty beer bottles on my coffee table. I sigh and start to pick up the bottles and walk over to the kitchen.

“Ya know, it’s fucking hard for me too, Courtney. Think about it. I have to just stand here and literally watch you pull away from me for no reason. God, we were never perfect, we never will be. We’re not gonna travel off to some private island and like be Mr. and Mrs. Romance, and I’m fucking ok with that. Because what we could have, despite how fucked up we clearly both are, could be so fucking amazing. But you don’t want that. Cause it’s hard work, because you have to put effort into it and you’re tired of trying. Well maybe I am, too.”

I dump all the beer bottles I managed to hook around my fingers roughly into the trash and stand there, trying to tell myself to breathe deep. Fuck, this woman gets to me. And, it’d be so easy, so much better if she didn’t, if I could just say, fuck you and let it go.

I was able to let Elisha go. Yeah, it took a while and yeah I was messed up by it, but I was able to fucking let her go…

I finally turn and see her sitting on the tip edge of my couch. There’s something there in that look, she still seems pitiful, run down, hell, broken down, but she’s staring right at me, and that’s a lot more than I can say about last night.

She opens her mouth and speaks slowly to me, as if she’s trying to think through her words and not let her emotions take over too much. “I know how hard this is for you, but you have to understand, I’m sitting here knowing that I made a mistake, so many mistakes, that there’s no one else to blame for this, us right now, besides me. And to know that if I want you back, cause I do…” She sighs and I see her eyes well up and it’s the first fucking time she’s been real to me, really real to me since this whole fucking ship started to sink. “God I do, to know that I have to fucking like…beg… to get you back….that fucks with my mind, Trace.”

I shake my head and walk over to her, picking up the basket of unfolded but clean laundry and dropping it to the floor so I can sit in the chair by the couch. “When did I ever make you beg? Last night was the first time I saw you in two and a half weeks Courtney. The tour’s been over for more than a week now. I’ve been back here, hanging out, playing with Justin’s dogs every day and you call me yesterday and I fucking…I was so fucking excited. I thought finally you were ready to talk. But you didn’t talk last night. You sat across from me at the dinner table and acted like nothing had happened, you fucking giggled and shit and was asking me about my food and stupid shit that I know wasn’t on your mind. You sat there and were afraid to talk to me.”

She’s still looking right at me and part of me wants to smile, but I don’t. “Do you blame me? Cause you know I don’t have a good excuse.” She laughs bitterly and sits back against the cushions. “You know it’s just the same old shit Trace, me with my issues, me thinking I have everything together when I don’t…me taking everything out on everyone else. That’s what this is all about, I fucked up. And I don’t know what to do to make it better. I just want it to be over with. I want everyone to forget that I’m a fucking mental case and just…go back to how it was.”

I stare at her and realize how much she wants this to work. Maybe I made the mistake these past two weeks, maybe I let myself believe that she was no good, that she was pitiful, maybe I wanted to think that so I couldn’t blame myself for anything. But I knew that she wasn’t as strong as she put on from the beginning, and at the same time I knew how stubborn she was.

And deep down I think I’ve known this whole time that the one thing in the world she’s needed, even though she would lie about it, kick and scream and fight it…she needed me.

I lick my lips and get up from where I’m sitting. My mouth is dry and my heart is beating fast when I sit down beside her and look at her. She looks scared of me right now, and cowers back a bit. “You want to go back to when you were still fucked up and not talking to me? God Courtney, this whole thing. I want it to be good, I want it to work, and we had some fantastic moments and there were times that you really opened up to me. But for the most time it was just about us fucking each other and sneaking around. And yeah that was fun…but…” I look down at her lap and her hands are put together, shoved in between her thighs. I want to grab her hand so bad, and just…I just want to touch her.

It’s been so fucking long since I touched her. I didn’t even get to hug her last night. I wanted to so fucking bad.

I suck in a breath and look away from her. “But I want more than that…and I want more than that from you.

And it’s like whenever we would get there, whenever an argument would come up or a time when we really could work through it and be a couple and be stronger on the other end of it…you gave up, gave in. You’d distract me and yourself with sex and you’d laugh it off as no big deal, claim you had too much shit going on with Meredith. “

“I’m trying Trace; I guess that’s just not good enough.”
I laugh and look at her. She looks like a little girl right now. I hate it, I hate how complicated she is. How I don’t understand one damn thing about her.

Yet…I still…

I shake my head and keep my thoughts on the conversation and not my emotions. “No you’re not. You’re not trying. You’re going through the motions. You want this to be easy—for me to just smile and take you back, but that’s not gonna solve anything and in a month we’ll be right back here miserable.”

She gets that defensive bitter laugh back. “So it’s a lost cause then? All of this was just a waste and pointless.”

“Dammit Court…” I don’t think. I don’t stop myself and I put my hand on her shoulder. She looks at me and I stare at her and say, “Calm down…please.”

“I can’t calm down,” she says, still staring at me, body tense under my hand. “Meredith was right you’re…you’re not perfect, Trace but you are the best guy I’ve ever dated. You’re the first one that’s really cared about me…that…that honestly…”

She stops herself but I need to hear it. I know what she’s going to say. I tighten my grasp on her shoulder and lean in, begging her, “Say it...”

She swallows hard and I find myself not being able to look away from her. I don’t know but hearing her say it to me might make all the difference.

That’s a horrible way to think, huh? That’s not…not plausible.

“You’re someone I can love not because of who you are or because I feel like I’m supposed to or because you’re this perfect person that I feel is so better than me.” I’m still hanging on, waiting for her to really say it, without going around it. “You’re…despite how fucked up and different we are, I feel deep down that if I just wasn’t such a mental case, if I didn’t try so hard to act like I had it together, if…if I wasn’t so afraid of breaking down every now and then…we could have something really good. We could be that perfect couple.”

She starts to cry and I just stare at her, dropping my hand from her shoulder, my heart breaking as I look at her. I don’t know what’s happened. What went from us being horrible, her fake, me angry at the world. And now, all I care about in the world is her.

I never stopped caring.

She sniffs and wipes at her eyes with the back of her wrists. “I’m just so fucked up and it’s not fair to you because I know you have shit going on as well and here I am unable to handle my petty shit.”

I reach for her hand and hold it tight, scooting closer to her and saying to her, trying to get her to look at me.

“We all have baggage Courtney and everyone handles it differently, it doesn’t matter how big or small. You just…you pretend to handle it, you push it away or cover it up and act like you’ve dealt with it…or either you don’t deal with it at all and fucking go into hiding.”

Suddenly she leans forward, her hand that was warm and holding back at mine just lightly is now covering her face along with her other hand, and she’s leaning over her knees, whispering out, “I was so scared Trace.”

“Why…”

“Everything.” She pulls her hands from her face and sighs, still leaning forward. “I was scared of what happened to Meredith. I felt it was my fault. I was scared of Justin, but I was mainly scared of you because I knew I had…” She pauses and looks right at me. “I had fucking fallen in love with you Trace and I knew I was going to screw it up.”

I suck in a breath and feel my heart beat fast. I say slowly, “So you purposefully pushed me away so you wouldn’t fall any deeper.”

“I don’t even know why I did the things I did. I guess, in a way, I was getting everything I wanted, a job, a boyfriend I really did want, a life I wanted…and I just felt like I had to be too hard with it, act like it was this fragile thing because I knew it was too good for me. The past year or two of my life had been hell. I never thought my life could be as good as it was. So I pushed too hard and didn’t push hard enough and I just fucked everything up myself. I could have lightened up on tour. Yeah I’m anal about stuff, and I can act a bitch sometimes and be over powering. I do have a problem with trying to make myself feel better than other people.”

“But you’re not that person and you know it…and you know that I know it. And that’s why I had such a hard time this summer battling between you and Justin because I just knew that if he saw the girl that I really saw when you were alone with me, I just knew that he would lighten up. But dammit Courtney, I’m not excusing him being an ass to you all summer, but you fueled it, you never gave him a reason to really like you.”

“I don’t even care about him.” She shakes her head.

“But you should. You should care about how you present yourself to people if you want to be in this business. You confuse everyone, you confused him, I know you confused Meredith, and me. You were two people at all times, a harsh, bitchy, over bearing PA, and other times you were sweet and sensitive and funny. It makes people question you and who you really are. Makes people not believe the sweet side of you when most of the time you’re so cold.” She sniffs again and looks away from me, opening her eyes wide not to cry. Her arms are over her chest and she looks so mad right now, so fucking defeated. “I’m not trying to hurt your feelings,” I say weakly.

“I know.”

“Courtney…” She won’t look at me, and I realize now she really is defeated. Whether it’s me or that guy she used to date or some other weird issues I don’t know about, she just wants to give up. The world is out to get her in her mind, and hell maybe it really is.

But…but I still…

I lean in closer and stare at her face even though she’s not looking at me.

“I love you, too.”

Our heads almost knock because of how fast she whips around. She’s staring at me now, eyes narrowed, looking as if she’s annoyed, as if she doesn’t believe that I could say that to her. But there’s fucking hope in her eyes and I can see myself reflected in her.

“I know it’s a bad time to say it and I know you probably don’t know why of all times I say it now, but…I’m being so harsh on you and saying this shit to you because I love you. If I didn’t, if I didn’t care, I’d just say fuck it. I would be dating someone else by now. It’s like after Elisha, I knew I could go out and easily get a fuck buddy or a new girlfriend that just made me feel better about myself, but I didn’t…because I still loved her and despite the fact that she had already started dating and moved in with someone else less than a month after we were broken up, I still had hope. I still thought maybe I could get her back. I made my mom postpone all the wedding plans she had made, but I made sure to tell her not to cancel them because I still fucking had hope. It took a while to get over her and right before I met you, I was starting to. I was still struggling but I was ready to go get my hot little busty blonde to fuck me at night and keep my mind off shit and keep me company. God, Justin and I both were. We had talked it up in New York. Said that we were going to meet some hot models in a club or something. But then he heard Meredith was in town and got all fucking pussy whipped. And then you called me about your “client”.

I pause and look at her as she’s staring off into space.
“And part of me didn’t know if you were serious or not. I still didn’t really believe you were how you were until I really met you, until you came to Justin’s room with Meredith and embarrassed her in front of everyone. I had to get to know you. It was like a fucking magnet. I was just standing there hugging Meredith and I looked your way and I had to find out more. It was that immediate. I’m not saying I was in love with you then, but…but dammit Courtney, I don’t get interested in girls easily. I’ll have fun with them, I’ll fuck around, but there’s only been two other women in my life that have really held my interest and intrigued me and made me …made me fucking lose my breath…”

She staring at me now, her mouth open, eyes focused but tears threatening to spill from her eyes. She blinks and they fall. “And you’re one of them…and I don’t want to let you go, because unlike Elisha, I know you are trying, and I know this is so hard for you. When Elisha broke off the engagement I fooled myself into thinking she was just scared of marriage, but deep down I knew she was tired of me, ready to move on. When you pushed me away, I guess that’s what frustrated me so much, what pissed me off, and kept me away…cause with Elisha I called her, I fucking annoyed the shit out of her begging her to come back. With you… I knew you wanted me back, I knew you weren’t tired of me and you weren’t ready to move on. I knew you were just scared of this…”
I pause and take a breath and completely lose my train of thought. I can’t even remember everything I just said.

I sigh and mumble, “God, I don’t even know what I’m saying.”

She cracks a smile at me and whispers, “You’re saying all the right things.”

“It’s going to be hard, Courtney. And I’m not saying we’re gonna get back together and be perfect or that it’ll even work out in the end. I’m gonna need time, and I don’t think we should just latch back together and spend every moment with each other. I think you still have a lot of shit you need to figure out about yourself before we really start this back.”

“But you want to start it back?” She seems so fucking amazed right now. She had giving up, she had lost hope, and she was fucking grasping for me, trying. Yeah she might not have known how to go about it, but going out with me last night, coming here today, that’s fucking trying. After vanishing from me, just leaving without a real reason, she’s back and she could have so easily just kept her pride and moved on to some other job and some other man, easily. So fucking easily. But she didn’t. She dwelt on it, pulled herself into this hole and now she’s trying to dig herself out of it, not just for herself, but for me.

For pathetic ass me…

“I want to try…” I say.

“But we should take this slow,” she says cautiously.

I nod at her. “I think we should take this very slow.” She staring at me, smiling and I can’t help myself and I move my hand to her face and wipe away a few of her tears. I know, I know that it’s ridiculous to say ‘we should take the slow’. I know that it won’t happen. I know we won’t be able to hold back and we’ll be back in my bed soon, maybe not today or tomorrow, but soon.

And I can’t say that I wouldn’t mind that. I miss her, and I miss her body.

And as fucked up as we are, there were moments like that, like right afterwards when it was just me and her in bed, breathing, smiling, sometimes laughing, sometimes talking, sometimes just falling asleep…those were the moments when she really showed me the real Courtney, when I could really be myself with her, when nothing else in the entire world mattered.

She looks tired and worn down and pale, and thinner than normal, but she looks beautiful to me, and now, now that we’ve at least started this process, at least got it out there and now that I know I just need to stick by her and not let her give up on us, I know we can start to move on, we can start working on us.

And she can start working on herself.

“Have you and Meredith figured out what you guys are going to do?”

She sighs and shrugs her shoulders a little bit. “She pretty much left it in my hands, and I know she’s got a break now, but she’ll be promoting two singles back to back next month, and after that I think she’s working on a solo tour. I don’t know Trace, I just…I’m gonna talk to Angie next week and talk to her about all this. I don’t want to quit, but maybe if another arrangement can be met, where maybe Angie needs more help at the office and we can look to really get someone to help Meredith. She even suggested Megan coming on. Maybe the best friends trick really is the way to go.”

“Yeah, maybe…” I shake my head and look at her. “But it can get weird at times. I mean Justin and I are all over it. We’re cool as hell and we always will be, but…it can get dramatic sometimes.”

“I’m starting to get the feeling that when you work for a pop star it’s dramatic no matter what.”

I smile at her and lean back against the couch beside her. “Be thankful, we got slightly normal ones to deal with.”

She smiles and then laughs quietly and it puts me at ease. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand us at all. I don’t get how I can go from being so frustrated at her and wishing she would just leave me alone to loving her and never wanting to let her go. And I don’t understand how she can go from being broken down, to here now, sexy and smiling, or from being confident and brave to completely scared and hiding. I don’t get it.

And I don’t fucking care.

Right now she’s sitting beside me, our shoulders pressed against each other, the couch forcing us to lean into each other just a bit, staring at the blacked out TV in front of us. And it’s perfect.

Suddenly somehow it’s all made right again.

And ya know, maybe it never really went wrong, maybe I still have my own issues. I know she has hers but maybe I can get better, hell I wanna get better for her. I want her to get better for me and for herself, and I want to see if this really can work.

I want to try this without pop stars and tours and issues and drama. I want to see if me and Courtney Dawson can actually be friends and actually do this without doing what we do, fighting and fucking.

God though, do I miss the fucking.

I laugh to myself a little and shake my head. After all this bull shit I’m still a fucking perv.

“Can…” I look over at her and she’s biting her lip still staring in front of her.

“Ask.” I demand.

She takes in a deep breath and moves her eyes to mine. “Can I hang out with you today? I just…I kind of miss just being lazy with you.”

“I’d like that.”

It’s quiet and finally she cracks a smile at me and says, “We’re gonna be awkward and weird all day, aren’t we?”

“Maybe a little,” I laugh. “But…I don’t care.”

“I don’t either.”

We smile at each other, like fucking teenagers who are just waiting for their parents to leave the house and leave them alone for the evening.

“I think there’s a City Confidential marathon on A & E.” I say

And before I can do anything else she’s reached forward, turned on the TV and relaxed back in the couch.

Nothing happens and I don’t expect it to. We sit there for an hour and then another, just watch TV, me slouched against the couch and her curled up to the arm rest, her feet in my lap.

Normalcy. Finally fucking normalcy. It might not be romantic and hell, I don’t even really know if we’re back together like that, but it doesn’t matter, cause she’s with me and we’re not fighting and I feel comfortable with myself.

And that’s the thing. I don’t know what it is, even when she makes me crazy, even when she confuses the hell out of me, there are moments like this. Moments where I don’t think there’s anyone else in the world, not even my fucking mom, who could make me feel as comfortable as I do when she’s lying beside me.

It’s like fucking finally being home.

And somehow, suddenly, I don’t have a worry in the whole damn world.