Chapter 3:

The next morning Annie was checking her email in her office checking when the front desk called.

"This is Annie," she answered.

"Annie- you have a visitor."

"I don’t want any visitors Becky, and I know I have no appointments this morning," Annie whined over the phone.

"Sorry hun, I tried to stop him, but he’s already on his way to your office."

Annie groaned into the phone, "Thanks Becky."

"No problem," Becky said as both people hung up the phone.

Just as Annie hung up her phone, someone barged into her office.

"Good Morning!" Justin announced.

"Why are you here? Go away!" Annie mumbled.

"Well it’s good to see you too! I have a few hours until Jess’s flight gets in, sooo I was hoping to take you to brunch. I’ll even pay," Justin smiled, taking a seat in a chair across from Annie’s desk.

"And what would you do if I said no?" Annie asked.

"Then I’ll just chill here until the flight gets in," Justin smirked leaning back in the chair, and putting his feet on Annie’s desk.

"Boy! Get your feet off my desk!" Annie said, pushing his feet off her desk.

"So you’ll go to brunch with me?"

"I have meetings this morning J, so no"

"No you don’t. I overheard you tell the front desk person that you had no appointments this morning."

Annie slightly cursed the heavens at that moment, "I’m not getting out of this huh?"

Justin just smiled back at her. "Nope! So, let’s go!"

"Fine! I’ll go to brunch with you since you said you’d pay. I just need to stop by the newsstand on the way," Annie said grabbing her bag, this would be the perfect time to ask about the article.

"Okay," Justin said, grabbing Annie by the shoulder and walking out of her office together.

Annie knew she was going to have to answer questions from some of her co-workers when she got back. Sure, they’ve had their fair share of celebrities come in to the firm, but none of them were this close to the employees, well that she knew of. In the back of her head, she was thinking that she should take the rest of the day off.

As they were making their way outside, Annie stopped by the newsstand to grab something.

"Thanks Tony," Annie said as she put what she got in her bag and met up with Justin.

"So what’d you get?" Justin asked.

"Just a little something," Annie said, as they walked down the street.

"You know, I was hoping you’d be in a better mood this morning, especially if you got laid last night," Justin smiled.

Annie stopped in her tracks.

"I knew this was a bad idea," she said turning around to head back to work.

Justin looked and noticed Annie wasn’t next to him. "Oh come on! I was just kidding."

"I’m going back to work J"

"No, you’re not. Your coming with me," Justin said, grabbing her arm and pulling Annie in his direction.

"Errrr!" she grumbled.

When they got to the restaurant, they were seated in a booth, and quickly placed their orders.

"Okay, so why exactly are we here?" Annie asked taking in the smell of her coffee.

"To have breakfast, and for me to kill time before going to the airport," Justin smirked as Annie just looked at him.

"I know that smirk, and something tells me that I’m here for something other than breakfast."

"Can’t I just take my best friend out to breakfast?"

"Only when you normally want something or have been drunk or…" Annie continued.

"Fine- I got your point, but I do have a question for you."

"As do I – so here’s the deal, you get to ask one, and then I get to ask one? Deal?" Annie asked just as their food arrived.

"Deal, but I go first."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Go."

"Why Scott Wyatt? Is he that good in bed?"

Annie threw one of her biscuits hard at Justin, who just caught it in return and started eating it.

"Really going for the jugular huh?" Annie said, as she pretended to stab herself in the jugular. "Well I know for sure is that he’s better than you!"

Justin rolled his eyes as Annie smirked at him, and then grabbed his chest. "Oh that one hurt."

"Oh did I bruise your ego there?"

Justin sat up a little more, a little hurt by her comment but he quickly shook it off. "Nope not at all, but in all seriousness what’s the story with you and Scott?"

"We just started talking at Jamie’s birthday get together, and he was coming out of a bad breakup, and I was going through the divorce and so it just happened," Annie shrugged. "So there’s the answer to both questions. Now it’s my turn."

"Okay, shoot," said Justin, stuffing a piece of toast in his mouth.

Annie started digging in her bag, "Hold your tighty whities! Oh found it!"

Annie pulled out the magazine she bought earlier, and found the page she was looking for and shoved it in Justin’s face.

"Why? Why? Why?"

Justin grabbed the magazine from Annie.

"First off, that’s 3 questions, and at least they found a decent picture. You should probably be thankful that they didn’t find your junior year photo with the broken nose," Justin laughed.

"Yeah, the broken nose you caused- cause that would have been soooo much better," Annie rolled her eyes, and leaned back in the booth. "Just answer the question Timberlake."

"Fine. They were asking who/what was the inspiration for ‘That Girl’ and I told them I wrote it after watching ‘Guess Whose Coming to Dinner’ and how the movie kinda reminded me of a girl from my childhood, and that she was also part of the inspiration. That’s it! It’s not like I mentioned your name or anything."

Annie just rolled her eyes. "Well they didn’t need a name, since they kinda figured it out anyway, cause there’s a fucking picture. Plus we weren’t anywhere close or similar to ‘Guess Whose Coming to Dinner.’"

"Well, we kinda were in a sense."

Annie just gave him a weird look. "What do you mean? The movie was about a black doctor who is engaged to a white woman, and they to meet her parents. How is that anything like us?"

"Not in the race sense but…"

"Oh you mean in the money sense? Like how you grew up in the wealthy part of town and I grew up in the poor part of town?"

"Yeah kinda in that way."

Annie started throwing creamer cups at him, "You’re fucking insane!"

"Stop it!" Justin said catching a few creamers that were thrown his way. "So there’s your answer, I just can’t answer the photo question, but it looks like it’s from Instagram. So does this mean it’s back to my being turn to ask a question?"

"Yeah, I guess," Annie sighed. "But I still have questions about this." She said pointing to the article.

"And you can ask those questions when it’s your turn," Justin smirked at her, while she just glared at him having some kind of idea what his next question would be.

"So what exactly happened between you and Brad? And how come Trace knew about it, but you couldn’t tell me."

Annie fell back in the booth, "Well Mr. Timberlake, that is actually 2 questions."

"So that just makes us even for the 3 questions you just asked. So what happened?"

Annie took a sip of her coffee. "I don’t want to talk about it," she mumbled.

"Annie, I’m sorry, but you have to trust me, you have since kindergarten," Justin said turning on the charm he knows that’ll get her to talk.

Thankfully, the server came over to fill both coffee cups, giving Annie a little more time to think about how she was going to approach the question, but she might as well give the most honest answer instead of trying to come up with an answer that he would see through.

"He was cheating for the last year," Annie said.

"Oh Annie- I’m sorry."

"It is, what it is," Annie shrugged.

"So what’s this about Trace finding him in bed with someone or something?"

"Yeah well… you know when I flew out to LA the day before Trace, when you doing the finishing touches for ‘Can’t Stop the Feeling?’ cause Brad was also flying out of town for a conference in Gainsville, and I just decided to leave at the same day as him, so we can go to the airport together, even though my flight was about an hour prior to his, but he had to run back to his office for something before my flight took off?"

"Yeah."

"Well I had left something at the house, and since I know Brad wasn’t home cause he had gone back to his office, I had Trace swing by and grab what I had forgotten, so he could bring it with him, and that’s when Trace found Brad in our bed with some graduate assistant girl from the athletic office. So there you go, like I said it is what it is," Annie shrugged.

"Oh, I’m sorry Annie. I wish you would have told me, so I could have punched him for you, but as you know I never really like the guy."

Annie leaned back admiring her best friend.

"Yeah I know you and Trace didn’t like him, but to be honest, I should have seen it coming."

"What do you mean?"

"Well with the late nights at work for the both of us, and the extended "conference" weekends that he was having, we’ve just been on the fritz for a little while that’s all," Annie said, taking a bite of what was left of her breakfast. "So a few weeks after I got back from LA, I filed for divorce, and it was finalized about 6 months ago. So there you go."

"So if I see him on the streets I could beat him up?" Justin asked a little too eagerly.

"Sure, I’m not going to stop you. Although he might show up at the show tonight- so you can probably have Joe kick him out."

"So then I should put your stuff under Sullivan?"

"Yeah, cause if you put it under Atkinson, then he’ll probably get to the tickets before I even get to the venue."

"Sounds good"

"Although… It might be fun to watch him try and get the tickets that are usually on hold and see him get denied in front of his date. Hmmm maybe I should leave early from work today."

Justin just looked at Annie and shook his head.

"Oh, can you put a note on the envelope saying that my drivers license still has Atkinson on it?"

"You haven’t changed your last name back?"

"I haven’t had fucking time, plus it expires next year, so why get a new one now?"

"True."

Then the server dropped the check off, as Justin grabbed his wallet to pay.

"Hey, why don’t you come with me to meet Jess at the airport?"

Annie started laughing, "Yeah, no thank you."

"Oh come on! Why not?"

"Because I have to get back to work, and she’s not the biggest fan of me."

"She likes you."

"No she doesn’t! Do you ever wonder why I wasn’t at your wedding?"

"Wait, you weren’t there? Because I know for sure I made sure that you were on the list, even my mom made sure you were on the list."

"Yeah nope. Got no invite. Your mom called after she got back and asked where I was and I told her that I didn’t get an invite. So I guess she went snooping around your place, and found my invitation in the back of some desk drawer, hoping to never be found. Plus, it wasn’t like I could afford to go anyway."

"We would have paid for you to come, and was my mom sure it was your invite?"

"Yeah, it had Brad and my name on it with our address. Plus, you know I would have never let you guys pay for me to go."

"Hmmm, I’ll have to talk to Jessica about it, and yeah I know you wouldn’t have let us pay for you cause you’re stubborn and always will be. Considering you were too stubborn to even join me on tour during your breaks at school."

"That wasn’t stubbornness, that was the need to work to cover the expenses that the softball scholarship from Michigan wouldn’t cover. So I spent my summers working on Mackinac Island during college, so there. That’s not being stubborn, that’s just helping my family out financially."

"Oh, you have your stubborn ways, even if you don’t know about it. Like I keep saying, I know you better than you think," he smirked, getting up from the booth, "Come on, let’s get you back to work," and heading towards the door.

"Fine I guess," Annie sighed, as she stood up grabbing her bag and went to go catch up with Justin.

As they were walking back to Annie’s office, she came up with an idea for that night’s concert.

"How easy is it to change your set list?"

Justin stopped in his tracks and looked at her.

"I mean, like the day of can you add a song?"

"Annie- it’s my show, I can change things on the spot if I want, granted Johnny and the crew probably won’t like it, but I could do it," he said, seeing the smirk on her face. "Wait, I know that look… what are you thinking?"

"Can you add ‘The Thunder Rolls’ and leave tickets at will call for Brad?"

"Sure," he slowly said, as they arrived at her office building.

"Thank You!" she said, kissing him on the cheek before heading towards the building. "I’ll text you later with what I’m thinking."

"Okay."

"Oh and the whole ‘That Girl’ conversation isn’t finished either!"

"Uh huh… Annie go to work, and I’ll see you tonight!"

Annie smiled at him, and this time it was an actual genuine smile. "Thanks Justy! Love ya!"

"Love ya too!" he said, waving as she disappeared among the crowd of people making their way into the building.