Behind the Scenes

by Christina C Jones

  A knock at the door reminded me though, that Pierre didn’t really do ignored calls. If he was worried about me, he was going to just show up.

  Which… was honestly a great quality.

  It was exactly the kind of thing that made him so endearing, what had made him so hard to resist. But the fact was… I still had no clue what we were doing, if either of us were thinking this was something long term, what either of us was even expecting, or wanted from this.

  Sure, Nubia and Des had both encouraged me that I didn’t have to define anything before I was ready, but… that was a little more difficult when the possibility of a baby was thrown into the mix.

  What the fuck was I supposed to do?

  I didn’t want to leave him worrying at the door, so I got up and answered it.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, as soon as I let him in the front door.

  “You’re not supposed to be over here,” I reminded him, which he immediately brushed off.

  “I was worried about you when you didn’t answer your phone. Especially knowing you had to go to the doctor today. Are you good?”

  “I’m fine,” I assured him. “Just not feeling very well. Cramps, nausea, and I’m… just exhausted.”

  He cringed. “Oh, shit. Is that… something normal, or…?”

  “Yeah, it’s nothing unusual.”

  It wasn’t.

  Loren had told me to expect all of this.

  “Do you need anything? Need me to fix something for you, or—”

  “No,” I shook my head. “It’s really sweet of you to offer, but I think I just need to be alone, and get some rest.”

  Pierre stared at me a moment, like he was searching for a clue I wasn’t telling him everything. Obviously I wasn’t, but I must’ve been doing a good job of hiding it on my face, because he nodded, then pulled me into a hug.

  “I’ma sneak out,” he said, planting a soft kiss against my lips. “Text or call me if you need me for anything, okay?”

  I nodded. “I will.”

  Once he was gone, I pulled off my sheets, changing them before I climbed into the longest, hottest shower I could stand. Afterwards, I thawed and heated some of the Chinese food Laurel had stashed in my freezer when she ran out of room in her own, then climbed into my fresh linens.

  To eat, cry, and think about exactly where I’d gone wrong.

  26

  Logan

  I went to Des about it.

  I knew if I couldn’t count on anyone else to talk good sense into me as far as all of this went, she would. Only…after I sat down across from her in her office and explained everything that had happened, she didn’t exactly give me the answer I was expecting.

  Her exact words were, “Okay, so… I’m not exactly sure what you’re saying is the problem?”

  Those words, from her, made my eyes bug wide.

  “You don’t see the problem with me being unexpectedly pregnant, by a client, who I’m not actually in a relationship with?”

  Des rolled her eyes. “You were so worried about that man you cried and called his sponsor, but you’re not in a relationship with him. Bullshit somebody else, Logan.”

  “Okay not officially in a relationship with,” I conceded. “We haven’t actually had that conversation.”

  “So it sounds like you need to do that then. There’s a baby on the way, so it seems pretty pressing now,” she laughed.

  “Des, this isn’t funny.”

  “No, it actually kind of is, because I’m not sure what it is you’re expecting from me or what you want me to say. I am quite sure you already have your mind made up as to what you’re going to do, so why don’t you tell me what it is you need from me?”

  I only had to think about it for a second because I’d been thinking about it all night already.

  “I need you to tell me I’m not crazy.”

  I truly didn’t need any convincing one way or the other as far as whether or not I was keeping this baby. The issue was, the decision I’d made wasn’t based even remotely on any sort of logic.

  I’d thought through the pros and cons of this situation from every possible angle, and what I’d arrived at didn’t make any sense.

  Neither I nor Pierre needed a life changing occurrence of baby magnitude, when both of us were already going through such major transitions. Not only were we not individually prepared for something like a child, I didn’t see how even it made sense for us as a unit.

  Like I’d just explained to Des, we hadn’t even had the let’s be official conversation yet.

  But here we were with a decision to make.

  A decision I had already made, for better or worse.

  “Well that’s easy,” Des said. “You’re not crazy. Lo… honey, you’re in this transitional period of your life, where you’ve come to this place of rejecting everything you thought it was gonna be. You were gonna marry Les, and have a kid two years after the wedding, and then another two years after that. And then maybe, if you don’t have a girl and a boy, one more for one last shot. And definitely a dog. But… that’s canceled now. Your life isn’t going to look like that, and it doesn’t have to. Why wouldn’t you embrace something like that?”

  “Because it doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense. My feelings for Pierre, wanting to keep a child that is going to completely disrupt my career—”

  “You know it doesn’t have to?” Des asked, cutting in. “It’s literally my job to see the best possible scenario from something that could be a complete disaster. Logan, think about it like this. Just a week or so ago, you were telling me how you think you might want to make some sort of shift to your business, right? Well this could be a great time for that. Having a baby is going to force you to slow down some, and yeah there’s going to be some sleepless nights and some stress and some vomiting and all that, I’m not discounting that. But you’ve been really hustling with your business for several years now. Maybe it would be good for you to get a break and do something else. Like having a baby. And by the time you’re ready to go back to work, there’s a good chance that you’ll have more clarity on what you want to do. You’ll have to have more clarity on what you want to do because you’ll be a parent, and you’re going to have to figure out the balance.

  “If you’re going to be spending time away from your child… I know you, Logan,” she grinned. “You are going to be as efficient about it as possible, and doing something that isn’t what you really want to be doing? That’s not going to compute for you. Besides that… it’s not like you’re a kid. You’re thirty-three years old. Please, don’t let my unmarried, childless ass come across like I’m rushing you, but… it is time for you to be thinking about this. And just from a vanity standpoint, you could do a whole lot worse in the baby daddy department than Pierre-fucking-Perry. You’ve always kept a good-looking man on your arm Logan, but that one? Goddamn. This is going to be one pretty ass child.”

  Shaking my head, I couldn’t do much other than laugh at that.

  Every point Des was making right now was completely valid, but I kept coming back to how ridiculous it was that… it didn’t even matter.

  None of the points for or against this pregnancy were weighing on me more heavily than the fact that it simply… felt like it’s what was supposed to be.

  Just like when Pierre had described his decision to break his celibacy that first night we met.

  Just the natural next step in our path.

  And this was even more terrifying than that had been.

  I couldn’t keep avoiding being around Pierre.

  He already knew something was up, but I so typically kept things close to the vest anyway that it was easy enough to convince him everything was fine without me having to tell an outright lie.

  Everything wasn’t fine though.

  It wasn’t fine at all, and no matter how I tried to justify it, the fact was that I wasn’t being honest with him.

  Which really wasn’t usually how I got down.


  If I didn’t want to talk about something, I would say that. I knew how to use my words, well enough that I could simply make it clear that a conversation was necessary, but it needed to happen at another time.

  With Pierre though, there was no way I could put that kind of pressure on him, not with everything else that was already going on. And so I convinced myself that not talking to him about the pregnancy was really for his good, instead of my own.

  I’d have to answer for my own bullshit soon enough, but it wasn’t going to be now, when we had this huge trip to LA next week. We were filming episode eight now, and then taking a break and doing the wrap up episodes when everybody got back.

  This was with the understanding that based on audience reception, something might change. Or at least that’s the story they were going with in order to look responsible to the network. I knew that the story was what it was and neither Nick nor Pierre was going to touch it based on the fickle fancies of the American general public.

  They were the ones who’d made Sienna Sparks a star.

  Before I exited my car to show my face on set, I gave myself a bit of a pep talk, mentally preparing for whatever new stresses I might find.

  Pierre had been okay since speaking with his sponsor, but that only accounted for the added stress of the premiere episode. Sure, that was off for review, but in the meantime, we still had the regular stresses of a hopefully hit show to make.

  With any luck, nothing had gone wrong today.

  I didn’t have it in me to handle it.

  The lack of urgent messages on my phone gave me some hope about that, but I knew all it really meant was that no one was trying to add anything additional to my plate. So it was with a bit of caution that I went ahead and made my way inside.

  And of all the things I expected to find… it was not Pierre, looking very handsome, very laid-back, very cozy, right at home with the same assistant bitch that had been looking for him the other day in his face.

  All smiles on both sides.

  I’d laughed about his reaction to seeing me with Trei, but now that the shoe was on the other foot, I could admit to understanding him better.

  I didn’t like that shit.

  Especially as I watched ol’ girl lean in a little too far, wearing a top that was cut a little too low, putting her abundant breasts right in Pierre’s face.

  I’m not saying he seemed exactly thrilled about it, but he certainly didn’t seem bothered either. Then she put her hand way too high up on his thigh, and I saw red as my feet immediately started propelling me a bit faster.

  “I could really use a laugh right now too,” I said, breaking up their little joke session, since neither of them had noticed me walking up. “What in the world is so funny? I feel like I need to hear it too.”

  Skank-sistant looked annoyed at my sudden presence, but then she shot a smirk in Pierre’s direction. “Inside joke,” she quipped, and then walked off after giving Pierre a little wave.

  “Okay what the fuck was that about?” I asked, feeling how irrational I sounded as the words left my lips, but whatever.

  Right now, in this moment, I didn’t like how watching that exchange had made me feel, so I would be that.

  “What was what?” Pierre asked, his expression telling me he was genuinely confused, which was fine, because I was more than willing to explain.

  “Well, let’s start with how comfortable you are with her tits in your face, continue on to how she brushed me off, and we can land on you having inside jokes with this bitch.”

  Pierre’s eyes went wide, and he grabbed my hand, leading me off to a slightly quieter portion of the set. “Aiight, I don’t know what’s going on with you lately, but I know something is. How about you just tell me what’s up instead of us talking around this?”

  “Don’t try to change the subject. Why is she so comfortable in your face?”

  He shrugged. “I want everybody on set to be comfortable talking to me,” he explained. “And we were laughing about some stupid meme she sent me on Instagram, that’s all.”

  “Oh so she’s in your DMs now too? Is that what we’re doing? I insist on the social media to help you with your business and you want to use it to play around with other women?”

  Unreasonable.

  Yes.

  I knew this.

  But the train wreck had already started, and I couldn’t stop it.

  “Hey,” Pierre shook his head. “Look, what I’m not about to do with you is have you acting like this when what I’ve heard from you is you’re not trying to define anything, you don’t know what we are. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not trying to press you about anything, but what I’m not going to stand here and take is this kind of bullshit when you’re not even trying to be serious with me.”

  “I’m not trying to be serious?!” I asked, outraged that had even come out of his mouth with what I’d been processing over the last few days. “You’re not… I’m not… That is so unfair for you to even say,” was what I settled on, but it apparently wasn’t good enough.

  “It seems fair as fuck to me, shorty,” he countered shaking his head. “You’re decisive about everything else. Any other thing that’s put in front of you, you’re making choices on the spot. Rolling with the punches, calling quick plays. That shit is your specialty Logan, your whole expertise. But I’m supposed to just be good with you coming in my face talking about some other bitches this, other bitches that, when you can’t even be real with me about what this is. I’m not about to do that with you.”

  “How am I supposed to define it when I don’t even know,” I responded. “I don’t even know who I am when I’m with you, and you think I’m supposed to know what I’m doing? My life has been upside down since I met you. All the ways I governed myself before, the shit isn’t working anymore, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to react to that. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. You want to throw in my face that I’m decisive – yeah, when it comes to taking care of everybody else. When it comes to making sure the people I care about are good, yeah, I can do that. But when it comes to me? I…I don’t fucking know, okay? For whatever reason, I can’t make the same rules apply. And it’s terrifying. So it’s not that I don’t want to be able to give you some answer, to give you some type of certainty. I can’t even give it to myself!”

  “Nah,” Pierre shook his head. “I’m not accepting that. I think you can. I think you know exactly what you want, and I think it’s right in your face waiting on you to claim it. You’re just scared of it.”

  “Is that not what the fuck I just said?” I asked, tacking a mirthless laugh onto it for… hell I didn’t know what I was laughing for because there wasn’t shit funny.

  I was just stressed, and confused, and… really sure about something it felt crazy to be sure about.

  And that something was not just the baby.

  “Why are you scared?” he asked, leaning in to get in my face, but not actually touching me. “You know me, shorty. What do you think is going to happen?”

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen, and despite everybody doing their best to assure me otherwise, that is exactly the problem.”

  “So you’re gonna let that rule you?” he asked. “You’re about to let that drive you? I didn’t realize you were a punk like that, Logan.”

  “I’m not a punk, fuck you,” I replied.

  “Then prove it. Or what? You’re scared you’re gonna lose or something?”

  “I don’t lose.”

  “Then, like I said… prove it.” Pierre shrugged, giving me this disbelieving smirk that set off inexplicable rage.

  Rage I released by practically diving at his face to press my mouth to his – he was right there with me too, catching me around the waist to pull me close.

  “I don’t want that girl in your face,” I murmured against his lips, once I’d pulled away from a bruising sort of kiss I’d taken while basically hanging from his neck to be in the right position.

  “
Why should I care about that?” he asked, giving me that same smirk again. “I know you’ve got it in you… just say it.”

  “Because you’re taken,” I practically growled, then kissed him again.

  Damn shame there wasn’t anything she’d given him nearby for me to make him cum next to.

  The sound of Nick’s voice calling Pierre back to set reminded me of where we were, throwing instant ice water on my completely ridiculous feelings. I’d never chalk this up to some type of pregnancy hormone thing, but it was certainly some kind of stress induced fight or flight reaction I couldn’t otherwise explain.

  And I hoped I could get away with never speaking of it again.

  Which… of course wasn’t about to happen.

  Once we were wrapped for the day, Pierre asked me to go for a ride with him, reminding me of the day we met, for a whole different reason than what had brought it to mind for me just hours ago.

  He spent the first several minutes of the ride teasing the life out of me, and I took it, because I had been admittedly – as the kids probably didn’t say anymore – bugging.

  And even though I had claimed – even just to myself – that I couldn’t explain it, deep down it felt like I did know what it was.

  The stress of keeping something that would affect us both in such a major way to myself.

  I… was going to have to find the right time to tell him.

  “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something,” he said, squeezing my hand as we pulled up to a light. “The show is about to wrap within the next few weeks. Which means… your contract is going to be up.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. I was really expecting to go past that little deadline, but you put in the work, and you made it.”

  “We made it,” he corrected, returning his gaze to the road so he could pay attention while he drove. “Been a busy ass six months, huh?” he asked. “A lot of changes, a lot going on.”

  You have no idea.

  “Yeah. Exactly that. Are you already thinking ahead to what you’re going to do next, or you thinking about taking a break?” I asked, trying to gauge what his plans were against one of the possibilities Des had laid out for me.