Bad Boy Boxset

by JD Hawkins

  “I just don’t want to see you walk into a wall of hurt.”

  “I know,” I say, grabbing one more long sip of coffee before putting my mug into the sink. “But I’m not sure I can stop.”

  When I’m not being mistreated at my main job as costumer on the set of Dominique’s procedural cop show, I take on odd jobs for photographers and artists. It’s a nice change of pace, and picking out outfits for photoshoots is way more challenging and interesting than making sure none of the actors have labels showing on their suits (you’d be surprised).

  The photography studio’s already set up when I get there, a simple backdrop, and after saying hello to Bjorn the photographer and his multiple assistants, I make my way back to the dressing room. There’s already a positive buzz in the air, the kind that happens when the person being photographed is someone the assistants are genuine fans of. Today’s it’s a young, hot musical starlet that just won a Grammy. She’s a pretty big deal.

  Which is why I’m surprised to find her alone in the dressing room when I get there.

  “Hey,” she says, as I step inside.

  “Hey,” I reply, her smile so sweet I feel compelled to smile back.

  “I’m Haley,” she says, moving toward me with her hand outstretched. I take it and we shake, and instantly I know we’re going to have a great time today.

  “Jessie.”

  She stands in front of me looking a little awkward, despite the fact that she’s already dressed to kill in a worn leather jacket and skinny jeans.

  “Are you the make-up artist, or the hairdresser?” she asks nervously, tugging at the end of one of her crazy curls.

  “Nope. I’m the costumer. Though you look pretty fantastic already.”

  She laughs nervously. “I think I’m wearing this in about ninety per cent of my pictures, so you’re pretty welcome to do as you please.”

  “Well,” I say, sliding my backpack off my shoulder and onto a seat as I move toward the racks, “let’s see what we’ve got to work with.”

  “So long as it’s not a latex dress and spike heels,” Haley says, and I flash her another smile to show my appreciation that she’s not as stuck-up as most rock stars I’ve dressed.

  I flick through the clothes on the rack for a while and she comes up behind me slowly.

  “Um…”

  I turn to face her, and notice that she’s hovering nearby, flashing me an embarrassed smile.

  “What’s up? Do you not like any of these?”

  “It’s not that.” She clenches her hands together and twists them as if she’s wrestling with herself. “I hate asking, but I was in such a rush this morning, and there aren’t any other girls here except some of the assistants and they’re all running around for Bjorn right now and it’s kind of an emergency at this point so...do you maybe have a tampon I could borrow?”

  After growing more and more nervous at her discomfort I finally break into a laugh at the last word, and put a hand on her arm to show I’m cool with it.

  “Sure! Of course. God, I thought you were going to tell me you’d forgotten to wear underwear or you wanted me to run out and buy you alcohol,” I say, as I go back towards my backpack. “Or…worse.”

  “Does that actually happen?”

  I stare at her without any humor. “All the time. But I draw the line at illegal substances.”

  She laughs and follows me back to where my bag is. “I’m sorry. I told my boyfriend to get me some last night while I was holed up working on a new song, but I guess he forgot.”

  “He was probably embarrassed.”

  She looks at me with a glint in her eye. “It would be a first,” she says, insinuating a whole lot.

  I smile and open my bag, fishing around in the mess inside, then slowing down, then stopping, then going cold.

  “What’s wrong?” Haley asks slowly.

  “I don’t have tampons,” I say in the slow monotone of someone shocked out of the moment.

  “That’s cool. Really. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I haven’t needed them.” I put a cold hand against my suddenly hot cheek and look over at Haley slowly. Her face is confused at first, but then the penny drops and she gasps, bringing her own hand over her mouth.

  “Maybe you’re just late?” she suggests.

  “Maybe. But maybe not. I’m never late.”

  17

  Nate

  Nothing’s better than the fuck you shouldn’t be having. The girl you’re supposed to be professional around. The guy your parents warned you about. The one that happens in a public space, where anyone might catch you. The illicit fuck. The secret fuck. The forbidden fuck. The fuck that’s wrong on so many levels, but which is so irresistible none of that matters. My advice, loyal viewers? It’s always worth it. Even if it goes up in flames.

  It’s a trendy café in a nice part of town. The kind of area in which the girls take good care of themselves, and dress every morning like it might be the day they get spotted by a talent scout. Even so, I notice Jessie a mile off, her hotness radiating on a level beyond anyone around her. Almost more than visual, so fucking sexy I can sense her. All I need to do is trace the guys taking second glances and the women green with envy.

  She’s sitting outside on the café’s shade-dappled patio in jean shorts and a torn vintage rock band tee shirt, her favorite outfit. Mine too. I step past the hostess and move toward Jessie, smiling as she notices me. She leaps out of her chair and throws her slender arms around my neck, kissing me on the lips before I can stop her, hard and hungry.

  I push her away quickly and start glancing around.

  “What are you doing?” I whisper, quickly sliding down into a chair.

  “What’s the matter?” she says, frowning as she sits opposite me.

  “Someone could see us, Jessie. You know better than that. Shit. Sitting out here in the open, being as hot as you are, kissing me like that – it’s almost like you want us to be found out. Is that what you want?”

  She sighs and pouts a little, playing with the straw of her frappucino so she doesn’t have to look at me. I wait for her to speak, and when she doesn’t I call over a waitress to order a coffee.

  “Why did you call me to meet here anyway?” I ask, once the waitress is gone. “You know that if your apartment is occupied we can always go to mine.”

  She finally looks at me but her face is still stony.

  “I wanted to talk,” she says, with a little harshness in her voice.

  “Okay,” I nod, sympathetically. “I’m cool with that. What did you want to talk about?”

  She drops her gaze again to her straw, though this time it’s because she can’t make eye contact with me, not that she won’t.

  “Is something wrong?” I ask.

  “No,” she mumbles. “I just…”

  She trails off, leaving the unsaid hanging in the air. I smile a little and lean forward.

  “Lorelei told me you were trying for the house again. Is that it? Did they turn you down a second time? She said you reapplied for a bank loan but you expected another rejection. There are other banks, though. I’m sure someone will approve you.”

  Jessie sighs and brushes her hair aside.

  “Trying to buy the house was a stupid idea.”

  “No,” I reply instantly. “It’s sweet. It’ll be a hell of a lot of work fixing it up, but how many properties these days come with a tree house?”

  She laughs a little, her lips widening into a deep smile that starts to fade instantly. Something about her is different. Jessie could never hide her emotions, they come to the surface of her smooth skin in flickers and shades, like smooth stones beneath the rippled surface of a pond. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve spent so long staring at her, studying her, appreciating every inch of her, but it’s obvious that she’s troubled.

  “It’ll happen,” I continue. “Even if I need to arm wrestle Kyle into co-signing.”

  “No…” she says, back to playing with her straw. “I
t’s not that.”

  I ignore her protests. “Maybe you could talk to him about it when he gets back. He might really be into the idea. You know he’s always after what’s best for you.”

  Suddenly her eyes immediately lock onto mine, this time with a little narrowed steel.

  “So it’s okay for me to lie to him and have him help me buy a house?”

  “Whoa,” I say, leaning back in my chair as if blown back by the comment. I wait a moment for the waitress to set my coffee on the table, and as soon as she’s gone I lean in again. “Is this really not about the house? What else is going on?”

  “Nothing,” Jessie says, looking down again.

  “You can’t lie to me, Jessie,” I say soothingly. “Tell me.”

  “I…I don’t know. Maybe we should just tell Kyle, get it all out in the open. I think maybe it’s time to come clean.”

  I try not to look like I’ve just witnessed something horrific, and only half succeed.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Nate—” she says, leaning forward to stop me from losing my shit.

  “Come clean about what?” I say, struggling to keep my voice down. “That we’re jumping each other at every opportunity? How? ‘Hey Kyle, we just wanted to tell you that we’ve been fucking like rabbits on Viagra while you’ve been away, okay? See ya’. How exactly do you see that conversation going, Jessie? ’Cause I have a pretty clear idea of what will happen, and it’s not pretty for anybody.”

  She folds her arms and sits back. I turn away from her and gaze out onto the street, where people are passing to and fro, engaged in their own conversations, laughing and smiling. Eventually I feel Jessie take my hand. She’s holding it gently. I turn back toward her, knowing it’s a gesture supposed to calm me, to remind me of who we are and the closeness we’ve built, but all it does is make me realize how different we are.

  “I just don’t see how we’re supposed to go forward,” Jessie says, softly. “How can we if we’re constantly sneaking around like this?”

  I pull my hand away slowly from her grasp. Panic rises in me, fast and all-encompassing. This feels like it’s coming out of nowhere, and for no reason that I can fathom. We’ve been clear with each other since day one that this was never going to be serious, and now I’m getting blindsided by committed relationship talk.

  I preface what I say with a consciously light-hearted laugh, hoping it’ll bring us back to friendly terms, but when the words come out they still sound heavy and hard. “Go forward? Jessie, there is no forward. I don’t think about the ‘forward’ – not when it comes to sex. I think about the now, that’s it. About what’s going to happen here, today, at this—”

  “Stop!” Jessie interrupts so loudly virtually everyone else on the patio steals a quick glance at us. She takes a breath and leans in, projecting her voice. “Don’t give me another one of your ‘big man’ speeches. I’m not in the mood for it, and this isn’t the time.”

  I try to steady my emotions. It feels like all the lust and passion between us is going sour, turning into a kind of resentment, a sense of dislike. This is exactly why I don’t do relationships. This kind of ugliness is inevitable. I pull back, stop myself from letting the anger rise to the top, from letting whatever the weird turn our relationship took the moment I arrived take me somewhere we can’t return from.

  “Look, Jessie,” I say, my voice as gentle as I can make it, “I don’t get it. One minute you’re telling me that we can do this. That we’re two adults who can be responsible for themselves. I thought we were on the same page. Now you’re talking like we’re a long-term couple, like we should be thinking about the future.”

  “Things change.” Jessie presses her lips into a thin, hard line, and I can tell I’m not getting through to her, that my words are falling on deaf ears.

  “What changed? Tell me. What?”

  She looks away, and I see her shiver. She folds her arms again, but this time it’s less a defiant gesture, and more a self-comforting one. I wait for her to talk, but instead she seems to go still, to fall inside herself, until I feel like all I’m looking at is a lifeless shell.

  “Jessie,” I say, after a while, and she slowly turns to face me, as if coming awake from a thousand-year sleep. A soft, tragic smile plays itself upon her lips.

  “Nate. I always knew you were good at bullshitting, but I never realized you were so good at lying to yourself, too.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means that you don’t even understand your own feelings.”

  “Feelings? What feelings? Why are you making something that was so simple and clear-cut into something messy?”

  “This was messy from the beginning, Nate. All relationships are messy, you just can’t handle that.”

  “This isn’t a relationship!” I say a little too loudly, before smiling myself back to earth. I take a moment and laugh a little, shaking my head, the way bad sitcom actors do at the end of a show. Only this time a credit roll isn’t going to save me. “This is not a relationship. We just happen to be old friends – good friends, who started fucking each other and enjoyed it enough to keep doing it. That’s all.”

  Jessie laughs derisively. “That’s pretty much a relationship, Nate. We’ve spent every possible moment together for the past few months.”

  “That’s not a relationship,” I insist, feeling my blood run hot. “You know why? Because a relationship has a future. A relationship turns into a commitment, turns into a marriage, turns into kids. Turns into misery, obligation, and all the other XYZ. And that is not somewhere I ever want to be in danger of heading. What did you really think this was?”

  Suddenly Jessie drops her face into her hands, her body shaking with emotions. All of my anger immediately goes cold, turning into the uncomfortable chill of regret and guilt.

  “Jessie…” I say, moving towards her.

  “Get off me,” she hisses, as I put my hand on her shoulder, causing me to flinch backwards. She pulls her head up out of her hands, and though she has the trembling lips and redness around the eyes of someone on the verge of crying, her face is stern and confrontational. The face of someone whose pride is bigger than their distress. “You’re an asshole, Nate. You’ve always been an asshole. And my problem is that I’m too forgiving when it comes to assholes.”

  “Jessie…”

  “You know,” she starts, as if breaking down and losing control is finally allowing her to find the words to express all her pent-up anger, “I had such a crush on you when I was a kid. For so long you were the guy I wanted, the guy I dreamed about. But that’s all you are – a dream. I should have kept it that way. Because none of this is real.”

  “Wait,” I say, as she stands up quickly and roughly shoves her backpack over her shoulder, “Jessie…”

  “Don’t worry,” she says, pausing only for a second as she steps past me towards the street, “I won’t tell Kyle. God! My brother was right, I really do have terrible taste in men.”

  I reach out to grasp her hand and pull her back but she’s already gone, striding away into the street on her long legs, fast and determined, as if a second longer with me would kill her. I watch her, and with every step she seems to grow more confident that she’s right, that she deserves better than what I could ever give her.

  And the truth is, I agree.

  18

  Nate

  I’m no stranger to conflict, to being the villain. Working in the entertainment industry, you learn to develop a thick skin and a cool head. You develop the ability to keep on going even when you get screwed over, and you figure out how to bounce back even stronger.

  But it’s been a week since Jessie walked out on me, and the feeling that I’ve just fucked things up doesn’t seem to be going anyway. If anything, it feels even more like I might have made a huge mistake. I guess that’s what they mean when they talk about hindsight being twenty-twenty.

  I get to work and try to throw myself into the stack of project
s on my desk, pulling out a script that I was supposed to choose a lead for, but the words on the page look like bricks in an impenetrable wall, blank and imposing. Within seconds I’ve spun my chair around to look out the window and wonder why the fuck Jessie hasn’t called or even texted me yet, even just to yell. I think about where I’ll go after work, tell myself that all I need is an amazing blonde and something a little kinky to blow the cobwebs off, to clear my head. The second I start thinking about it, however, the blonde transforms into Jessie, and the kinkiness into the soft warmth of waking up beside her. I shake the idea out of my head like a wet dog.

  I take out my phone and check it, even though I’m sure Jessie still hasn’t messaged me. Somehow it makes me smile, a brief remembrance of how stubborn she is that makes me feel close to her for a split second. Then again, I’m just as stubborn. This isn’t so much a waiting game, where both of us hope for the other to break first – we both know we aren’t going to change our minds. There’s no chance at reconciling this.

  I log into my Bad Boy e-mail account and my phone starts blowing up with messages. I’ve gone on another unintentional hiatus and haven’t posted a video for over a week now, so the fans are restless. I skim through the messages: Requests for certain topics, words of encouragement, people wondering if they’ve met me in real life, death threats from jealous boyfriends and girlfriends. It’s the same old thing, just more of it.

  It’s a cheap kick though, a pathetic kind of satisfaction. Nonetheless, I grasp it, desperate for any kind of positivity or fulfilment to distract me from Jessie. I spend a few minutes reading messages and soon find myself feeling the pull of making a new vlog. It’s a strange kind of desire, almost like sex, a build-up of tension, the desire for some sense of release, and then the sense of contented relief that comes after.

  I open the video camera app and point the lens at myself. Just my shirt, tie, and the well-cut lapels of my suit in frame, my office window glaring bright light behind me – it’s less sexy than wearing nothing but my boxers, but it still says enough.