Studio 3, 2:45 p.m.

I know I shouldn’t, but what the fuck? It’s finished. Finally fucking finished and that calls for a celebration. I can’t believe the guys came in here like they did, with champagne bottles and girls and fun stuff. Crazy mother fuckers. But it’s fucking finished, and I don’t really know why I’m sitting here at the controls still recording. Tim says we need a moan or a sex “yeah” for the single. But what would he know? He’s making out with Jess right now. We’re gonna see how it works, though. And then I’m gonna have to call this party short, at least on my part. Trace told me to keep my afternoon free, that he had some big plans for us.

I wonder what that crazy bitch has in store.

“So, what do I do?” I look up, take a hit from the joint Craig rolled for me earlier and smile at Shauna. She’s such a ditz. Cute, but ain’t got nothing on my woman. Still, the guys are trying to force her onto me and I’m sorry, I ain’t into that. “Just say ‘yeah’ into the thing.”

“What thing?”

I laugh. “The microphone.”

“Pretend it’s Justin’s cock.”

I roll my eyes.

“Just say ‘yeah’ and pretend that J-man here is fucking you doggie style.” Everyone laughs and she giggles and winks at me. I just I cut up. I tell you, these kids are crazy. They don’t even know what’s going on. They know I’m seeing someone, but I haven’t told them who yet. I know Tim worked with her on her new album and I know he might shit his pants if he finds out. Plus, I don’t want them thinking I’m with her just cause she apparently ‘does chicks, too’. She’s doesn’t. I know that for a fact. I mean, it’d be hot if she did. But I’d rather just have her to myself. Hell, by this point I’d just rather have her. I know it’s a bastard thing to say, but I really really hope she lets me have sex with her. I know she’s got some standards or something, but damn. She’s hot and I can really see myself going, going the love route for her ya know. And her body is just too damn fine for me not to be able to see it all naked. Maybe if she doesn’t wanna have sex I can at least get her to strip for me or something. I bet she’ll do it if I go down on her. Shit, I bet she’d be squealing and moaning and I bet she tastes...

I shake my head. I can’t be thinking that kind of shit with all the fellas around and them trying to force these girls on me. They’re both pretty hot, not really my style, but hot none the less. Me thinking about sex with Mere ain’t gonna help this situation at all. I probably need to call her soon. I’ll call in a bit. Make her smile a little bit, talk dirty to her on the phone like I did a couple nights ago. It was hilarious and hot. I started saying all this shit about how hot she was and how good her kisses were and she kept telling me to stop talking but I could tell she liked it. Especially when I whispered to her that I wanted to touch her, like…touch her. She got all quiet on the phone and told me she’d call me back the next day.

Ya know, I gotta wonder if she went and…took care of things. Ok, Justin. You gotta stop this. I shake my head, but she doesn’t go away. I’m still thinking about that tight little body of hers. But ya know, yesterday when I called her she sounded weird on the phone, like worried and anxious or somethin’.

I hope she’s not gonna be someone that can’t handle long distance relationships. ‘Cause then this shit ain’t gonna work. And that would suck.

“Shauna, just say ‘yeah’ when I point to you, alright?” She nods and I turn the track on. I gotta admit, this song is a jam. I can’t help but dance when I listen to it. I take another hit and laugh a little about how it makes me feel. Craig always brings the best fucking weed when I record with him. I stand up and jive a little with Scottie. Then I turn it up louder and get ready to point to Shuana.

I point to her and she does it perfectly. Girl sounds like she’s getting laid real well! Oh shit, she just grabbed her tits. I flick the music off and we all yell at her and she laughs. She’s a crazy chick. I turn and to look at Tim who’s laughing with Jess, “Did you see what she just did?”

He nods and I laugh and look up at the door.

“Oh…shit.”

I blink, thinking maybe this weed has something extra in it. But she’s still there, eyes huge, looking all cute and fine. Where the fuck did she come from? She stares at me and slowly the room gets quiet. I look around and they’re all staring at her or at me. Oh shit, I don’t wanna have to deal with this, with them asking question. I wonder how long she’s been standing there.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

She licks her lips but doesn’t move from where her back is plastered against the wall. "I, I came to surprise you."

“Oh…” Well I guess that makes sense. I hope she didn’t hear them talking all that shit to me and Shuana. I don’t wanna fight this early in our relationship or whatever. I don’t really have the energy to do it right now, anyway.

“Sorry." Why she saying that? I mean, she wanted to surprise me. She fucking did. I shake my head and hand my joint over to Scottie before walking towards her. It’s weird. Why is she staring at me all shocked? Hello, I’m supposed to be the one all surprised not you, girl. I watch her look around and see her eyes lock onto something. She sucks in a breath and stares at me. I glance to see what she was looking at.

It’s just Craig lining up some coke.

I look at her.

Oh shit. Oh fuck no. Don’t tell me she’s one of those goody goodies. Don’t tell me she’s about to freak out on me.

I softly say to her, “Just give me a few minutes. I’ll meet you outside.”

She just stares at me and then someone yells, “Oh shit, Justin. That’s who you’re fucking?” Everyone starts to laugh, but I don’t and she don’t. She just stares at me with that same damn deer in headlights look. God, stop it! It’s annoying me. This isn’t good. I don’t wanna fight with her, but I’m starting to get a headache and I’m starting to get tired of being in this studio.

“You owe me a Benjamin J-money! I told you I'd figure it out!" I wanna tell Scott to shut the fuck up. And I almost do, I almost turn around and tell him to go eat shit and then take Mere outside and talk to her. I think she needs me to explain some shit.

“J baby, who's the cutie?" I feel someone’s hand rub across my shoulders and it gives me chills. And then I see Shauna there. She keeps her hand on my shoulder. I try to shrug it off. "Oh shit, it’s that Meredith girl. Join the party sweetheart."

I’m thankful when she goes to sit on Craig’s lap and starts doing some coke. Meredith’s just stares at them and gulps. This sucks ass. “Look, just go wait outside. I’ll be out in a minute.”

She licks her lips and continues to stare at them. Don’t tell me she’s never seen anyone do that before. She’s been in this business for a few years. She should know what goes down. “What are you going to do?” She whispers and looks at me like she’s scared.

I reach and open the door behind her, for her. “I’ll just be out in a minute, alright?” She takes in a breath, goes out the door and shuts it behind her. This is just fucking great. Now I’m gonna have to explain to her about all this and I shouldn’t have to. So what? We were having a party. It’s her fault for busting in like she did. She should be able to handle herself. It’s not like we were gonna force her to try anything.

And it’s not like I was gonna do any hard core shit. Just get a little high and then go out with Trace. Oh…now I get it. Trace was in on this. She was the plan for this afternoon. I scratch my head and go sit at the controls for a second to collect my thoughts.

Someone sits beside me and I see Tim next to me, staring at me. “Why didn’t you tell me you were dating short stuff?”

“It just started.” I shrug. “I didn’t want to make it a big deal.”

“She looked kinda freaked or upset.”

I nod and rub my hands over my face. Maybe this party thing was a bad idea. But it’s not like I had a choice! They just busted up in here with all this shit. They forced Shauna on me and when I told them I was taken they went crazy and forced her on me even harder. But I’m passed all this fucking random chicks. I got my own girl now.

“You might wanna go find her before she gets more upset.”

“Yeah, guess so.” He’s right, so I stand up, shake my head, trying to get rid of this feeling of being high. That’s the only problem that I can find with it. It takes forever to come down and get back to where everything’s clear. I mean I love the feeling, but I can’t handle it right now.

I go out the door, walk out and find her sitting in this lounge area where there are couches and a TV and a fridge and a little sink and shit. The TV’s on, some courtroom show, but she’s not looking at it.

I go and sit by her after pressing power on the TV. She smells good. Damn, and her legs are all tanned and smooth. I smile. She got pretty just for me. I lean into her and start to kiss her, but she pulls away. “Oh come on now girl, you know you want it.”

She just stares at me for a minute and sits up. “Not right now.”

“What?” I glare at her. What the hell is she trying to pull now? She’s not making any sense. I try again, this time pulling her against me and kissing her neck like I know she likes. She squirms and I hold her tighter, laughing a little. Her skin’s soft and she feels good.

“Get off me, Justin!”

I let go of her and watch her. She sits on the far end of the couch and looks away from me, her legs are crossed and her arms too. She’s totally pulled away from me right now and I don’t understand it. “What’s got you all closed off? It was just a party.”

She still doesn’t look at me and glances down at her nails and picks at them. “I didn’t know you partied that hard.”

I laugh. She’s gotta be joking. “It was just some weed.”

She looks at me and I hate the look she’s giving me. It’s disapproving and it’s unattractive. “Didn’t really look like just some weed Justin. Is this what you do when I’m not around? Drugs and sluts.”

I shake my head. She has no right talking about Shauna and Jess like that. Ok, so they might be a little easy, but whatever. “You don’t even know them.”

She bites her lip and glares at me. She’s acting like a child. She can not be serious right now. “She was all over you. I knew you could party, but I didn’t know…I didn’t know you did…” She sucks her bottom lip in between her teeth and doesn’t look at me and doesn’t finish her sentence. It’s pissing me off, this, however she’s acting. I mean, get over it! I wanna hang out with her, but she just wants to yell at me and be pissed cause of something I couldn’t control. And I stopped partying with hard shit a while back.

“I haven’t done coke in year or so.” I say to her.

Her eyes bug out at me and she stares. “You’ve done it before.”

So maybe I shouldn’t have said that but I’m trying to be honest. I’m not like a drug addict. I like to get high every now and then, but the hard shit I’m not a big fan of. I mean I’ve tried it, but it’s not that big of a deal and I honestly didn’t like it all that much. But she’s just going to have to get over it. I mean, sometimes I’m around people doing harder shit than just alcohol and weed. If she wants to be with me, well she’s gonna have to get use to it. She’s being all Miss Priss, all uptight and goody goody and I can’t handle people like that.

She just needs to chill.

“Why are you acting like this?”

“You’re…” She shakes her head and sounds like she’s gonna cry. Don’t even try that. “I thought you were different.”

“You thought I was different?” I laugh and stand up. It makes me dizzy for a second, but I get my bearings kind of quickly and point at her. The bitch has pissed me off now! What did she think I was? What did she expect? It’s not like we know each other that well. Damn, I thought she was a little more laid back than this! I thought she was more mature, but nope, she’s just like every other damn girl I meet. “You thought I was different! I thought you weren’t so naïve about this shit. I thought you actually knew something. But ya know what? You’re just a stupid little girl, aren’t you? Acting all shy and innocent about this shit. Either you’re putting on a front or you really don’t know anything about what you’re dealing with. I want a woman who’s mature, Meredith. Not some little girl who freaks out when she’s in a situation she’s not use to. And I don’t want some girl that’s terrified of sex.”

She narrows her eyes and stands up close to me. “Excuse me?”

“Well you are.” I shrug and then mock her. I’m serious, this “I’m not ready” crap she was pulling in New York annoyed me. I wanna get down and all she wants to do is kiss. Please. “That’s why you’re all always like ‘not yet, let’s wait.’”

She shakes her head and starts to cry, covering her face with her hands. Oh great, now…now she’s gonna try and make me feel like shit. “You’re not supposed to be like this.”

“Well how am I supposed to be Meredith? I’m not some perfect guy! And I’m not just gonna wait around and change myself to be with you.” I yell at her and she just sits back down and wipes at her face and looks to the side, not looking at me. Well, well fuck that! She’s spoiling my fun! Ya know, I was gonna invite her to join in, but clearly she’s too uppity to want to have fun with me. I bet she just wants to look good for her album. She probably doesn’t even give a shit about me. “Ya know, I was having a damn good time and you have to come down here and spoil it acting all high and mighty. You’re not better than me.”

I cross my arms and wish I could either have that joint back and get high some more or completely clear up so that I can think right. I’m a little dizzy and my head’s clouded and there’s this ringing in my ears. And she’s just gonna sit there and cry and it…it’s making me feel sick.

She shakes her head and says quietly, “Do you hear yourself?”

I go and sit down in a chair and stare at her. She doesn’t look at me, just sits there and cries silently. I hate this. I hate this so much. I just want her to go away and leave me alone and stop making me feel like shit. “Ya know, if you wanna stay and have a good time, please, feel free. But if you wanna freak out and act like your acting now, like some stupid little naïve uptight bitch, then go and leave. I don’t want you around.” She turns and stares at me. I stare back at her, mocking that stupid little glare she’s sending me. I laugh at her. She’s being absolutely ridiculous right now. “That Courtney bitch is having way too much influence on you. You weren’t this uptight in LA. I noticed it in New York but I just thought you were stressed. I guess I was fucking wrong.”

She shakes her head, grabs the purse by her feet and stands up. “You just ruined everything.”

She starts to walk away form me and I don’t want her to. She’s not supposed to leave. “Fuck, I ain’t ruined shit!” I yell at her. I try to stand up out of my seat, but I can’t move.

I just watch her disappear and hear her call back to me, “You’re an asshole.”

I hear a door open and then close and figure she must have left.

Shit.

She left.

Well, fuck her. Fuck her getting all mad at me and crying. Fuck her and her, her smile and laugh and all that shit. And tellin’ me she liked me in New York. Ya know, fuck her looking beautiful and shit. Fuck her coming down here to surprise me and to spend…spend some time…

Oh fuck.

I lean forward and feel like I’m going to puke. My head is throbbing and I start to realize what I just did. Don’t tell me I just did what I just did. Don’t tell me I let her walk away and let her feel horrible. Why did I do that? Why am I such an idiot?

I stand up and start to pace. What the hell was that? What the hell was I thinking? I, I knew how she was, I knew who she was. I knew she couldn’t handle stuff like that. I know she’s not all that experienced in the world and, and here I go making her feel like crap about it. How could you be so stupid! I smack my fist into my palm and sit back down and put my head in my hands. I’m not going to be able to fix this. I’m not gonna be able to make this work now. And it was just starting, it hadn’t even really begun.

And I know, I know that girl likes me, I know she really cares for me, genuinely, or at least she did. I just, I just got so mad ‘cause I knew, I knew we were gonna fight and I knew when she saw all that crap that she was going to think twice about me and I didn’t want her doubting me. I’m not this great person that she thinks I am. I fuck up. I’m probably gonna hurt her at some point. I guess it’s good that I went ahead and got it over with.

And ruined everything in the process.

I gotta fix this. I, I just have to. I have to find a way to get this to work. It’s...it’s only been a week, a fucking week since I first kissed her and, and now I’m ruining it. I pull out my phone and get up and pace through the hall. She doesn’t answer and I don’t expect her to. I don’t leave a voicemail knowing I’ll just, I’ll just sound pathetic. So I just pace some more trying my damndest to figure out what I’m going to do.

What the hell can I do?

My phone starts ringing in my hand and I look anxiously at the caller id. Thank God. My head’s starting to clear up a bit. That migraine isn’t going away, though. It’s Trace. Good, Trace. I’m going to need him.

I answer the phone, “Thank God you called.”

“What the fuck did you do?”

Shit. I suck in a breath and lean against the wall. “Did she call you?”

“What the fuck did you do?”

I slide down it and sit on the floor, hitting the back of my head against the hard surface. I fucked up. I admit that and now I just want someone to come beat me in the head and rid me of my misery. “Ruined it. Fucking went out of my head, man. I…I gotta fix it. I don’t know how. But I have to Trace.”

It’s quiet for a moment and I hear him suck in a breath and ask me, “You actually told her she was being a bitch?”

Shit, I didn’t even realize I did that. God, now I don’t even remember half of what I said. “I fucked up man. She came in and I was shocked and the guys were having a party and she was flipping cause there was coke and some girls there and, and, now she hates me.”

“I think she has good reason to!” It’s weird. Trace is angry with me, disappointed and normally he doesn’t interfere with this stuff unless I ask him to. I mean, I’m gonna ask him to, but, but he knows I fucked up and I think whatever she told him, whatever I did, well now he thinks I’m an asshole, too!

Maybe it’s ‘cause I am a fucking asshole. And I don’t deserve someone like her. Maybe I should just move on. “Do you know how much work she’s put into this?”

I had been tapping the floor in a nervous motion but I stop and suddenly that urge to vomit comes back to me full force. “Into what?”

“God Dammit Justin! She’s been planning this all week, so have I. She fucking rented out a nice ass beach house in this private neighborhood for us to hang out when you weren’t working. She’s got shit planned. Hell, I was in the middle of packing up our shit to move it over there, but she called me and told me that you weren’t welcome there anymore and that if you even tried to show up she was going to have Teddy kick your ass!”

“Fuck.” I’m beyond being an asshole. I’m the bad guy now and there’s nothing to forgive me for that.

“Yeah, fuck.” He laughs and I can picture him shaking his head and thinking that I’m the biggest fool. I am the biggest fool.

“You gotta do something Trace.” I feel myself start to get emotional and pinch the bridge of my nose. She’s perfect. She’s…she’s everything I want, beautiful and smart and kind and real and genuine and funny and she sees me and gets me and I made her feel like she didn’t understand me, like she was beneath me. She should have smacked me and told me to go fuck off, but she didn’t. She just sat there and couldn’t stand to look at me and she cried. And now I’m crying and I look like a pussy and I don’t care. “I…I wanna be with this girl.”

“Then fucking act like it Justin. What the hell were you thinking?” I know it’s pathetic but I burst into tears. I really wanna be with this girl. I like her a lot and now I’ve ruined it and…and now I’m gonna be alone again and I was fine with being alone when I didn’t have anyone but, but now there is someone, someone I want so bad. She’s the only one I want and I don’t want to be with out her. I can’t be, not when it’s got the potential to be so damn good.

I sniff and hear him ask, “Are you high?”

I cough and rub my eyes. I’m a mess, I’m a fucking mess. “A little.”

“Jesus Christ Justin.”

“I wasn’t planning on it, they just brought it.” I wipe my nose with the bottom of my t-shirt and run a hand over my face. I hope one of the guys don’t come out here and see me. That’d be embarrassing. But I deserve it. I deserve to be humiliated.

“You always get this irrational.” He mumbles and then sighs, “Look, I’ll come get you in a bit and we’ll talk and figure something out. I’m supposed to have dinner with Courtney tonight, anyway. I’m sure she’s gonna be real pleasant when she finds out what you did.”

I clear my throat. I know I’m being irrational, I just wish I could stop. I wish I had stopped before. I wish when she had entered I had gone right to her and kissed her and took her away and spent time with her. But instead I freaked out. She was freaking but I fucking freaked out, too. And I treated her horribly and now, now I’m sure she never wants anything to do with me again. “Do you think she hates me?”

“Justin, that girl…” I hear him sigh again and he says, “That girl has been practically in love with you since she met you. I hope it works out but I can’t promise you anything right now and I can’t work miracles. You fucked up and you’re gonna have to deal with that.”

“I’ll do whatever I have to.”

“Just sober up, I can’t stand it when you get this emotional about shit.”