“J.C.!” a shrill voice screamed.
JC rolled his eyes before turning towards the stairs and calling, “What?” he yelled before sipping his coffee.
Footsteps hurried down the stairs and towards the kitchen where he was standing calmly. “What do you mean you’re going by yourself?”
“I mean, I am going to the premiere by myself….meaning without a date.” He stated bluntly.
Lisa flipped her blonde hair and pulled down the oversized shirt she was wearing so that she wasn’t completely exposed. She had tried to get JC to stay in bed with her this morning, but he wasn’t up for it. He had to go to some meeting with some new PR girl and was abandoning her once again for his career.
“You’re never here...we never spend any time together….and now you’re going alone to the one thing that we could do together!” She yelled.
JC winced and sighed. He knew this was coming but he had tried to prevent it as much as possible. “Look, Lisa, you know I like you, but I just...we just….we’re great as friends but the couple thing just doesn’t work for us.”
Lisa’s eyes widened. “What do you mean it doesn’t work for us?! It was working for us last night!”
“That’s not exactly what I meant.” He said before turning and rinsing out his cup and putting it in the dishwasher.
“Then what did you mean?”
“Lisa, think about it. When was the last time you and I actually had a conversation that went deeper than ‘What did you do today?’?”
“JC…” She whined and strode toward him in an attempt to lure him back. “Baby, you know, how much I care about you.”
JC stared at her in disbelief. “Rriiiight. Well, unfortunately, I just don’t see this working out so why don’t you stay and take a bath and have some breakfast, but then I’d appreciate it if you leave.”
“Are you serious?”
He nodded. He knew it was a cold thing to say but if Lisa was like any of his past few flings breaking it to her easy wasn’t near enough to make her understand. “Just lock the door behind you, okay?”
She nodded, close to tears.
“Look, we can still be friends. I’ll call you, but I gotta go because I’m gonna be late. You can even keep my shirt.” He said and kissed her cheek before he was gone leaving her standing in the middle of his kitchen, dumbfounded.
JC didn’t even flinch as he backed out of his driveway and put on his sunglasses before turning to drive across town. He didn’t flinch because he was used to girls like Lisa. They always said they cared that he was never there, but they didn’t. As long as they could stay in his house and use him for publicity it really didn’t matter to them where he was, what he was doing, and probably even who he was doing. Yes, he’d known Lisa for a long time and thought she really was a great person, but she often confused his celebrity and the real him and he was getting to the age where he didn’t want to be with a person just to be with them. He wanted to have a relationship that meant something. He hadn’t had one of those since Bobbie.
She was okay. He definitely loved her, but she grew tired of following him around the country. That was another thing he needed….a woman to understand that his music was well….his life.
JC pulled into the WEG parking lot and walked inside only to be greeted by the nineteen year old girl who worked there Shelley. Shelley was what one might call….obsessed with JC and for the life of him JC could not figure out why.
“Hey, Shelley.” JC smiled to be courteous, but didn’t stop as he walked through the office back towards Johnny’s office. Just as he turned a corner, he almost tripped over something tiny.
Once he had righted himself he looked back to find it wasn’t a something but a someone tiny he had almost tripped over.
There standing in the hallway looking up at him doe-eyed was a cute little girl that he had never seen before.
JC squatted down to get to her eye level. “Hello there.” He said to her and brushed a finger down her cheek.
The little girl giggled and pushed away from him which only resulted in her falling flat on her diaper-padded butt. This of course only caused her to laugh even more.
JC reached down to pick her up then stood up himself. “Who are you? And better yet…who do you belong to?”
The girl only looked at him and said “Hi.” quietly
“Ok, we’ve established ‘hi’. Now, I’d like to think that I know everyone here pretty well and I know them well enough to recognize their kids but I’ve never even seen a picture of you, cutie pie.”
“Bye bye?”
“You wanna go somewhere?”
“You bye bye?” she waved her little fingers then pointed to the poster above them
JC turned to look at it and realized it was from the cover of their No Strings Attached album.
He laughed a little in awe of how smart this girl was and she couldn’t have been two years old. “Yeah, that’s me ‘Bye Bye Bye’.” Just as he was about to ask her another question a young woman came hurrying around the corner only she turned away from them not towards them.
“Vanessa!” She yelled. “Vanessa!”
JC looked from the little girl whose eyes lit up at the sight of the woman and realized this was probably her mom. “Uh…Miss? Did you lose something?” He asked as he walked toward her.
She stopped in her tracks but didn’t turn around. Her shoulders sagged. “My daughter…my mind.” She said with tears in her eyes.
JC stepped up behind her and said, “Well, I don’t know about your mind, but I think can assure you that your daughter is safe and sound.”
Salina whirled around and exhaled at the sight of her daughter. “Oh Vanessa!” She cried and quickly took Nessa from JC’s arms and hugged her tightly. “Don’t ever leave like that again!”
Vanessa just looked at her mom. “Mama!”
Salina hugged her one more time and kissed her cheek before turning back to JC who was smiling at both of them. “Thank you so much! I don’t even know what happened I was putting her blanket on the floor and then I turned around and she was gone. It was my fault, I guess, for leaving the door open….”
JC cut her off. “Don’t worry about it. Glad I could help. I’m JC by the way.”
Salina’s eyes widened. “Oh no! Mr. Chasez, what a way to make an impression. I’m Salina Cortez your new Publicist.”
“Nice to meet you, Salina, and as I said before it’s no big deal. Call me JC or Josh which ever you prefer.”
“Ok, Josh. Uh…since you’re here do you want to follow me back to my office and we can get started?”
“That sounds like a great idea.” JC said right before Vanessa started to whine and wiggle to be put down.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Story Tags: boyfriendjc jc justin hospital tabloids joey chris lance solojc
