[fic] For Me, It Isn't Over (1/2)
Title: For Me, It isn't Over (1/2)
Author: badboy_fangirl
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Young Americans
Pairings/Characters: Hamilton/Jake, with appearances by Scout, Bella, Will and OFCs. There are guest cameos by Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa. (Yeah, I don't know how that happened, either.)
Warnings: none
Word count: ~7400
Summary: It's been ten years, but some things never change.
Author's Notes: This is the long-promised sequel to Away, With My Heart. It has been beta'd in part by the lovely sarcasticcheese, whose helpful suggestions probably kept it from being a total trainwreck. I still think it's kind of a wreck, but I have to get it off my laptop and posted before it drives me crazy. I've just accepted that it's going to be much longer than I initially anticipated, thus the posting occurring right now. Plus, I just wanted to use the banner that arabian made for me. She offered to put the name of the story on it, but I didn't want anything mussing it up. So pretty. *pets*
Additional A/N: Yes, the title is lifted from Adele's "Someone Like You," which, if you listen to while reading this, will totally put you in the right mood. You know, nearly suicidal. Happy Saturday Night!
Summer 2010
(Bella will say, Sometimes he's an insufferable ass, but most of the time, he's still Hamilton, underneath it all.)
(Jake isn't sure she believes that, but then she sees for herself.)
New York City is one of those places that is either your home, or it isn't. Jake, having lived there on and off her whole life, never feels more at home than when she's back under the lights. She loves this city like she should love her mother, but that's because it's been more constant in her life than anything else, especially her mother.
At least, that's the conclusion she came to in her therapist's office a few years earlier. Now, when she steps out of the taxi and sucks in the smoggy air, it's just what it should be. Where she belongs. Being back in the city for the first time in more than a year reminds her so much of the fact that this is really where she wants to be.
"There she is!" She hears Bella's voice before she sees her and turns just in time for one of her oldest friends to come flying at her, calling her name. They embrace and Bella squeals like they're fifteen all over again, jumping around so that Jake has to as well or she'll lose her grip on the skinny blonde.
Scout is much more demure, leaning in to kiss her cheek, rubbing her arm in an indication that they don't need to hug, which is just fine with Jake. It's a little awkward to meet up with people you knew a long, long time ago, but because of Facebook everyone still thinks they know you so well.
That's kind of not fair of Jake-she has seen Bella several times over the years, more than anyone else, and they do speak on the phone on a fairly regular basis, too. She also attended Scout and Bella's wedding two years earlier in Martha's Vineyard. She stops herself, recognizes the distance she's trying to put between them and thinks Dr. Foster would be particularly proud of her in that moment. She's learning, finally, after so many years.
Bella is her friend; Bella is not pretending anything, Bella is not going to suddenly leave her hanging high and dry. (Really, of the two of them, the one most likely to do that is Jake, though she's getting better.)
"Come on, they've got our table ready, and Will's inside waiting for us!" Bella enthuses, her arm hooking through Jake's. They go in the restaurant, a Chinese place Jake has never been to called Butai, and there's Will, looking all grown up, and somewhat political. He kisses her cheek like Scout had, and introduces her to Amelia, his fiancée. They all get situated at the table as the server brings them glasses of water. After they've ordered some drinks, everyone peruses the menu, and Amelia asks, "So, Jake is short for Jacqueline? Will mentioned it when I said I'd never met a woman named Jake."
Jake exchanges looks with her old friend. Will's eyebrows go up as if to indicate that he's leaving the explanation to her. She repeats what she's told people for over ten years now. "It was a weird phase I went through when I was 15. It stuck, and here I am."
Amelia nods, and then asks, "And your boyfriend? Where is he?"
"Millie," Will says, looking slightly embarrassed.
"It's okay, Will," Jake says. "I'm single. No biggie." They're sitting towards the back of the restaurant, and just as Jake smiles at Amelia to show her that she really doesn't mind being asked, a ripple of sound flows through the room.
Bella stretches her neck around a pillar blocking their view. "Someone famous must have come in," she says. She looks back at the group, smiling conspiratorially. "I love New York City!"
"No way," Scout breathes as he stands up. "Hamilton made it."
Jake's seen those movies, the ones where time freezes for some reason-or maybe it wasn't ever in a movie at all, it was just Zack Morris on Saved By the Bell reruns who could freeze time-but nonetheless, she hears Scout's words, sees the panic on Bella's face, and then from across a very crowded and busy New York restaurant, she sees him. Not on a magazine cover or on a television screen, not spread across some billboard like the universe was purposely shoving him in her face in some kind of neener, neener, this is what you're missing joke. For the first time in almost ten years, she sees Hamilton Fleming in the flesh.
(In whatever form, he's more gorgeous now than he ever was at fifteen, and when they were fifteen, she'd been positive she had never seen anything more beautiful.)
Bella turns to her, spewing rapidly, "He said he couldn't come, I swear to you. He said he was really sorry and he couldn't make it! I swear to you I didn-"
"Bella, it's okay," Jake says. She wraps a hand around Bella's arm, squeezing it reassuringly.
Maybe it's Bella freaking out that allows Jake find some sort of Zen within the whole thing, but as he walks towards them, shouting, "Scout! Will!" she might as well be back at Rawley Boys with her hair slicked back and her breasts trapped under a corset. She's just pretending, she's just messing with her mom, she's just meeting Hamilton Fleming for the first time.
She can do this. Nothing fazes her.
He stops and greets a bartender (taps knuckles), the hostess (kisses her cheek), and then winks at some random woman before he reaches their group. Bella stands up as Scout and Hamilton pound each other’s backs and then Will's introducing Amelia all over again. When his eyes fall to her, they linger.
Not in recognition, however.
As he hugs Bella (So great to see you!), he gives Jake that smile, the charming one that he's perfected over the years. "Who's your gorgeous friend?" His words are directed at Bella, but he moves around the table so he's directly across from Jake. He reaches his hand out to her, obviously expecting her to reciprocate, and she just stares at him because she really can't believe he's pretending he doesn't know her. It takes her a moment to realize that even he isn't that good of an actor; if she's honest, she does look a lot different than the hipster tomboy he lost his virginity to a million years ago, and, unlike him, she hasn't become so famous that her picture has been everywhere whether he wanted to see it or not.
Bella giggles and says, "Hamilton, it's Jake. Jake Pratt, from Rawley, remember?"
Jake extends her hand as understanding flows over his face. What saves the whole thing for her is how his cheeks fill with color; it's a relief that some things never change. "Holy shit," he breathes as her fingers slide over his and she grasps his hand in a firm handshake.
"Long time, no see, Hamilton," Jake says. (She couldn't be any cooler, and she suddenly knows five years of therapy have been worth every last dime she spent on them.)
His gaze narrows for just a split second and then he draws her hand to his lips, kissing it gently, and she can literally see him pull out his *flirty* eyes because his whole demeanor changes. "It has been a long time, and you look amazing. Like the finest wine, you only get better with age, Jake."
This is where her facade starts to tremble on its shaky foundation because while the smarmy charm of it all turns her stomach slightly, the sincerity in his words draws her up short at the same time. Before she can formulate a response, Will and Scout start laughing, and Hamilton's eyes swerve to them. "You are such a schmoozer," Scout barks, and the grin that breaks out over Hamilton's face takes her back like nothing else could.
Summer heat, heartfelt kisses, and blue eyes full of adulation; Third Eye Blind, Matchbox Twenty, and the world's most depressing movie The Perfect Storm (which she still watches once a year just to bawl her head off)-there were only six months of her life that had Hamilton's stamp on them, but ten years had yet to take the sheen away.
All of her firsts-first love, first sex, first heartbreak of her own doing.
"Look at her!" Hamilton says now, gesturing at her. "Don't tell me that you guys weren't like, how'd she ever pass for a boy? when you saw her again. Holy hell."
Her own cheeks flame at these words, and she shakes her head so that her hair slips forward a bit to cover her face. Again, she tries to say something in her own defense, but Amelia repeats, "How'd she ever pass for a boy?" and the story starts, and all she wants to do is excuse herself, find a cab, and get the hell out of there.
Bella's hand finds hers under the table, squeezing her fingers hard. Then she interrupts when Hamilton takes a breath. "Enough about all that. Sit down so the waiter will come take our order!" (Bella knows. She's been the one support all these years, the one person with whom Jake's been totally honest. Well, Bella, and her therapist, of course.)
Scout meekly sits down next to his wife, and the rest follow his lead. Hamilton's eyes snag Jake's again, and while the light of laughter still exudes from his gaze, there's something more, too. A touch of seriousness, some kind of sizing her up. She looks away first, studying the menu like her life depends on it. She doesn't glance up again until the waiter returns.
(Even then, she doesn't let herself really look at him, not for long. He's like the sun, he burns her retinas.)
Hamilton Fleming, the next big thing. Hamilton Fleming, breakout star. Hamilton Fleming, America's favorite sidekick. Four seasons on a number one show, various critically acclaimed supporting roles in films, and a print campaign with Calvin Klein had given him more success then any one person really needed or deserved.
And yet-sitting in a Chinese restaurant with three people who knew him really well in his youth, a woman he's never met before in his life, and the one woman he would have given his left nut to see again just to rub his success in her face-it feels like it's not enough.
So after he gets a few drinks in him, some other entity takes over, and he pulls a very willing waitress onto his lap as he tells some outrageous story about the nightlife in L.A.
(It's all true, but his audience looks less than impressed as he name drops various actors and actresses, and brags about how they avoided arrest because of how famous they are. Well, one member of his audience in enthralled, because Stacy-the-waitress keeps squirming against him like she's trying to give him a hard-on, but it's not working.)
He slaps the waitress' ass and shoves her to her feet so he can excuse himself to use the restroom. Once alone in front of the urinal, he can't escape the self-loathing that assaults him. He's not sure what he expected in coming here, but it wasn't to see Jake Pratt. It wasn't to be gutted like she only dumped him yesterday, not nine and a half years ago, it wasn't to look at her with her shoulder length hair, and her lightly applied make-up, and her casual grin as Bella tells the story of the toast she offered at their wedding that he'd been too busy to attend.
"Hey, man, you fall in?"
Hamilton's head jerks up as Scout comes to stand beside him, and he realizes he stopped peeing a few minutes before; he's just standing there, his junk hanging out and his head all messed up, again, some more, because of a girl with a guy's name.
Before he responds with more than a half-hearted laugh, Scout unzips his pants and says, "I would have told you she was gonna be here if I thought you were gonna show. When you said you'd be working and there was no way it would work out, I figured there was no point in telling you it was a mini-reunion."
Hamilton's tempted to ask him who he's talking about, but he figures he's already made a big enough ass of himself for one evening. So he shakes his head and moves over to the sink to wash his hands. "It's cool. It was a surprise, but nothing I can't handle."
Scout chuckles. "Yeah, probably helps that half the room is drooling after you, anyway. Can't hurt to let the one that got away see all that."
"Hey," Hamilton says, sharp enough that as Scout finishes his business, he turns to face him. "We were fifteen, and it's been a fucking age, and Jake Pratt isn't the one who got away. Between you and Bella eyeing me like I might go nuts, I've had it. It's no big deal, okay?"
Scout holds up his hands in surrender, but his expression says he doesn't buy it, so Hamilton reaches over and starts angrily pulling paper towels from the dispenser. The problem is they were there, for the aftermath. They remember him when he was wrecked, when he could hardly function, when he almost flunked out of his junior year of high school because he was so bent on a girl who tossed him aside like he didn't matter. He'd freaked his parents out so much that they sent him off to a counselor. It had never been as bad as they feared, but he had been sad. Deeply sad, in a way that he hadn't been sure that he could ever be happy again. The best thing that had happened to him during that time was the random email that had come from Jake's mom almost eight months later; she had sent his head shots on to some modeling agency in New York and they wanted to meet him. That had been the beginning, and by the time he was applying to colleges, all he wanted to do was act, and despite his father's protests, he enrolled at New York University's acting program in conjunction with the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, and the rest was history.
Right now, he wants to punch a wall, or go up to the top of one of the nearby high-rises and scream his lungs out, but neither of those things are going to happen. He takes a deep breath, and tries to center himself. "We just wrapped early tonight, so I thought I'd see if I could catch you guys. And I'm glad I did. It's great to see everyone, even Jake."
Maybe that's the worst part of it. Seeing her again feels good. Feels better than half the stuff he has going on in his life right now. He still has bitterness inside him over all that, but he can't deny the other emotions rioting through him. He's a workaholic, shooting a movie on his hiatus time from his television series, as he's done every other hiatus he's had. It's been a while since he felt anything that wasn't fabricated for the cameras.
He and Scout rejoin everyone back in the dining area, but as they're approaching the table, Jake is standing up, obviously getting ready to take off. He feels panic shoot through him and it takes all of his willpower not to demand that she stay right where she is.
"...have an early interview," she says to Bella. "So I should get home, get some good sleep."
He grabs what's left of his drink off the table and tosses it back, but doesn't sit down. "You still live on the upper east side?"
Her eyes jerk to his and she nods. He didn't mean to bring all that back, that week they'd spent there, mostly naked, totally in love. It would hurt him more if he couldn't see it all in her face, too, but since he can, he feels a little bit justified. History is history, but it lines the space between them, and neither of them can escape it. It hasn't even entirely formed in his head, but he finds himself saying, "I have a driver waiting outside, and we're headed that way. Can I offer you a ride?"
She hesitates, and Bella nudges her with her elbow, which he's not sure if that's encouragement or not, but he tries not to look like everything he is depends on her answer. "No thanks, Hamilton. That's really nice of you, but you should stay, hang out with everyone."
The way she says it irritates him, because the words are right, but the tone is not. It looks like she's being generous, but she's really just avoiding having to spend anymore time with him. He nods, looking away to flag the waitress down. "I need a refill, sweetheart," he purrs. He turns his head just in time to catch Jake and Bella exchange an eye-roll and the fury nearly bursts from him. There had been a lot of that, back then, Jake finding him silly or immature or ridiculous.
He never got over it and he knows that. Scout knows it, Bella knows it, hell, Jake probably knows it thanks to them, but he can't show it, even if it fucking kills him, which with his pulse throbbing in his temples, he might just have an aneurysm right here, right now.
He takes a deep breath, and tries to draw in some of his yoga instruction to calm his blood, but it just keeps building the longer he stands there waiting for his drink, watching her say goodnight to everyone else. Letting her walk away feels as wrong as that phone call had when she told him she'd met someone else.
It clobbers him then. This is his chance for closure; this is the moment he never got at fifteen. And as someone who has had nothing but good fortune befall him, he knows he has to seize it, even if she doesn't want to let him.
Her eyes meet his, and he can tell she's trying to decide if she has to hug him the way she has everyone else (even Will's fiancée). Stacy reappears with his drink and he gives her bottom another pat before setting the glass down. "My driver can take you wherever you need to go. I insist," he says when her mouth opens. "I'll just introduce you, and he'll take you home. No reason to pay for cab when you know me."
He flashes the smile that has never failed to get him whatever he was aiming for, and she crumbles, just for a split second. But it's enough. "Okay, okay! As long as I'm not dragging you away from the party," she says, gesturing at their friends.
"I'll be back in a minute, guys," he says, but he never takes his eyes off Jake. He puts his hand on her shoulder, gently guiding her through the restaurant. As they step out into the sticky air, he waves to his driver, Gordon, who is sitting in a stretch limo across the street. They jay-walk quickly and Gordon rolls his window down as they approach.
"What's up, Mr. Fleming?"
"This is Jake Pratt, Gordy. Gordon Jackson, Jake." He waits while they shake hands and then explains, "She's an old friend. Can you make sure she gets home safely?"
"Sure thing, Mr. Fleming. You want me back here after that?"
Hamilton nods. "Yeah, we're just having a nightcap or two, but I'll be ready to head out shortly."
"Sounds good," Gordon says, starting the car up as Hamilton slides his hand down the small of Jake's back, and she moves as he directs.
Pulling the passenger door open, he's surprised when she turns to face him instead of just jumping in the car. "This is really nice of you," she says, and she sounds as confused as she looks. It's much preferred over that moment earlier when she gave him the brush-off. Of course, it probably helps that he's sending her away from him, he's sure, but somehow it stings less.
There's been this low-grade fever in him all night, ever since he realized he was face to face with a fantasy he'd had too many times to count, but it spikes now, erupting from his lips in a completely unguarded way. "It's the least I can do," he says, backing up a step. "Gotta make you regret that break-up call, one way or another, right?" He grins again, thankful for too much alcohol so his remorse can be postponed until tomorrow.
Her mouth drops open, and he's assaulted by the thought too quickly to even process it sanely. She was always a pretty girl, but that womanly aspect that only comes with age just seems to flow out of her now. She was angular at fifteen, but now with a bit more weight on her, she's lush in all the right spots. It makes his hands itch, but he reminds himself what this is. A final goodbye, something he's needed to say for almost ten years.
His intent gets a little lost when she suddenly looks more uncertain, and she shakes her head, turning her eyes away from him. She mutters his name under her breath as one hand reaches up to tuck her hair behind her ear. He grabs her hand as it descends and leans in, placing a soft, unplanned kiss on her mouth; as he pulls back, he just barely grazes his tongue over her bottom lip, and she takes a small breath that cracks his chest wide open. "So many years to think of what I'd say in this moment, and all I've got is 'Bye, Jake.' Guess I needed to say that for nine long years."
Hamilton steps back again and she sinks into the backseat. He shuts the door and moves forward a few steps to tap Gordon's window. The jovial black man gives him a thumbs up, and Hamilton turns, darting his way through some light traffic to get back across the street.
He glances over his shoulder just as the car draws away from the curb. The tinted windows keep him from knowing if she's watching him.
(He only does stuff like that because he's so crazy about you, Bella will say, her eyes dancing with mirth.)
(That doesn't make it okay, Jake will respond, even though it's more thrilling than annoying if she gets right down to it.)
Gordon lowers the divider window between the front of the limo and the back. "Address, Miss Pratt?" he asks.
She's sitting there, stunned, her fingers trying to capture the feel of Hamilton's mouth on her lips, and she jerks her head up when she sees the driver looking at her in the rearview mirror.
She rattles off the apartment address, the one her mother moved out of permanently years ago now, the one Jake gutted and redecorated the summer she started therapy. As she spilled her guts to Dr. Foster little bit by little bit, the apartment became such that no one could ever tell an actress who had neglected her kid for her career had lived there. Gordon punches the info into the GPS, and then asks, "You want privacy, or you want to chat?"
Jake can't help the smile that afflicts her face. "Used to be a cabbie, right?" she asks.
Gordon laughs. "That obvious, huh? This is a better gig, 'specially if you can get loyals like Mr. Fleming. But, yeah, I used to drive taxi." Jake chews on her bottom lip, trying to decide what she'd prefer when Gordon continues, "You're not the normal type Mr. Fleming puts in the car. 'Course he always accompanies them, too, and usually the window stays up, if you know what I mean."
Jake snorts. "I can imagine. There was a waitress in the restaurant who all but gave him a lap dance. I suppose he gets that wherever he goes?"
"Pretty much," Gordon confirms. "How do you know him?"
"We went to high school together. Just had an impromptu reunion."
"Huh. Well, that explains it, I guess. A true, old friend, then."
Jake nods, but finds herself looking away from his knowing eyes. He's fishing, and she's not stupid, she had a celebrity for a parent, after all. "You aren't going to sell this story to TMZ, are you?" she asks.
Gordon laughs heartily. "With what he pays me? Hell, no. I don't do stuff to piss off my best customers. Besides, Hamilton brings me other business. He's not someone I'd sell out."
"He pays you? You don't work through a limousine company?" she asks.
"Oh, no, I work for GroundLink, but he always requests me. Trusts me, to, y'know, not sell stories to TMZ." They both laugh a little as he gives her a wink. "He's a big tipper, and, like I said, he tells his friends about me, and they request me, too. He's a good kid."
Jake sinks more comfortably into the plush seat, nodding her head. "Yeah, he always was. A good kid, I mean. Back when I knew him, he was the best person I'd ever met."
"You haven't stayed close through the years?" Gordon asks.
"Oh, no, we lost touch about ten years ago. Well, really-I broke up with him," she confesses. "I was living in France at the time, so it just didn't work out."
Gordon makes a humming sound. "Young love. So precious. So fragile."
Jake feels her eyes prick slightly, and her throat grows tight. She doesn't say anything, and the robotic voice of the GPS instructs Gordon to take a left on the next street. This whole day had been so different than she expected, and the thing she can't figure out is whether it's good or bad. She never let herself think about what it would be like to see Hamilton again, and that hour in the restaurant had been positively awful. The way he talked, the asinine adventures, his self-deprecating-but-not-really manner, and the girl-the girl sitting in his lap like it was story time and she couldn't get enough had made Jake feel like she was watching one of his movies. It hadn't been the guy she knows, he had to be acting, because she had never seen him like that before. But the longer it had gone on the sicker she felt about it-the more she feared it wasn't an act, that this was who Hamilton is now.
She much preferred him in her memory if that were the case.
But Gordon, the cabbie-turned-limo-driver had dispelled all that with just a few words. And maybe Hamilton's face; all the earnestness she remembered about him had been in his gaze as he said goodbye to her-maybe that had given her a glimpse too, of who he really is.
It's so unlike her to give anyone the benefit of the doubt, but Hamilton had always existed in this place of purity in her memory. Regardless of what was said about him in the tabloids (not that she reads that stuff), she had always held on to what she had known-who she had known, and that's it, plain and simple. In thirty seconds, he'd showed her he was still that guy, underneath it all, just like Bella said.
But really, the problem is, she still loves that guy.
In fact, she'd never loved anyone else, because every time she tried, he was there, this perfect reflection no one could possibly measure up to-not even, it seems, himself. Of course he's not perfect, of course he'd be an ass, he's rich and famous with the world at his feet, and she's the girl who dumped him. Was he supposed to be strictly magnanimous when she had been the one who did what she did? She'd known then how much she'd hurt him, and she could see the remnants of it in his face tonight-a sort of tender ache flashing over his expressive features. And yet, his final act had been one of kindness. (Of goodbye.)
She pulls her cell phone out and calls Dr. Foster's office. It's late, and the answering service picks up so she just leaves a message, which is all she expects to do at ten o'clock at night. She needs to see her therapist right away though if she's going to survive this whole thing without emotionally imploding.
Damn Hamilton Fleming and his perfect eyes and his stupid face. She sat through dinner stealing covert glances, seeing for herself up close and personal that he's still ridiculously good looking. He'd had his ears pinned back at some point-she'd noticed that years ago when she tuned into his TV show from time to time. So he'd managed to make himself flawless, and she hated him just a touch for that. But it also reminded her, even more forcefully, that everyone, no matter who they are, and what they've achieved, has insecurities and hang-ups, and not everyone goes to therapy over it. Jake had, though, and she has tools now. Ways to get through stuff like this without self-destruction. (She hopes.)
After she disconnects her call, Gordon's eyes catch hers in the mirror. "Everything okay?" he asks.
"Yeah," she lies. "Yeah, everything's great."
When he drops her in front of her apartment, he gets out to open her door. "If you ever need a ride, just let me know. Any friend of Hamilton Fleming is a friend of mine."
Jake nods and thanks him. He reaches for her hand, slips his business card into her palm. "You're special, you know. He put you in the car, but he didn't come with you." Jake just stares into his kind brown eyes; she doesn't have words, wouldn't know how to use them even if she did. He squeezes her palm between both of his massive hands, holding her in place when she tries to turn away. "I mean it. If you need a ride. Call me."
Thanking him again, she finally gets away. She kicks her heels off just inside the building door so she can run up the stairs easily instead of using the elevator. She's breathing hard by the time she hits the third floor, but that's the point.
She'll tell Dr. Foster tomorrow she knows she can't outrun it, but she sure can try.
Two days later, Hamilton is scheduled to appear on Live with Regis and Kelly. He pretty much hates this gig because Regis, while a very nice guy, has never watched Live Wire and he feels like he has to try and explain the plot to a fairly complicated supernatural cop show every time he comes on. A synopsis in a few words is just not possible, so as a general rule, he flirts hard with Kelly, and distracts the old man from too many scripted questions neither of them is interested in discussing.
(On the other hand, he's never been more grateful for a busy schedule that makes it nearly impossible for him to dwell on the ache that's settled in his chest since Tuesday night.)
"What brings you to New York?" Kelly asks, blushing prettily after he's commented on her rocking legs. (What? Girl is hot, it would be less than gentlemanly if he didn't mention it.) They've already discussed the explosive season finale that aired a few weeks earlier without him having to rebuild the wheel.
"I'm actually shooting a film here, but I'm not allowed to talk about it all, so don't ask. It's a Scorcese picture, and that's all I can say." He flashes a smile at the crowd and gets a few woot, woots from the ladies on the front row.
"Okay..." Kelly says, smirking. "How about hot spots? Where do you love to go when you're in the city?"
He rattles off the names of a couple nightclubs that he sometimes frequents (but hasn't this trip at all) and at the last minute finds himself raving about the Chinese place he'd been at with old friends a few nights before.
"Who were these old friends?" Regis asks.
"Just some people I went to high school with. I attended a boarding school in Massachusetts, so these were the people I spent day and night with for about three years. Lots of history! It was fun, and the restaurant was really great. It's one I go to often, but they picked it on a fluke."
Regis listens to this, but there's an odd expression on his face, and he asks, "Were there any old girlfriends among these old friends?" He elbows Hamilton gently, as if he knows something he couldn't possibly know.
And it's not like Hamilton's drunk so he has absolutely no excuse when he finds himself answering that question. "Actually...yeah."
Kelly awwws and looks towards the audience, giving some woman out there a conspiratorial isn't he adorable head tilt.
"The one that got away?" Regis asks.
Hamilton can feel his face flushing as he flashes back to that moment in the men's room with Scout. The denial that had jumped so easily from his lips evades him now; there is an odd kind of freedom that floods his body when he starts nodding his head. "Yep, the one that got away. The one who totally broke my heart, in fact."
The crowd now joins in with Kelly and her awwwing. "I bet we'd find a lot of ladies in this audience who wouldn't let you get away, Hamilton," she says. "How about it, girls?" she shouts and the studio audience grows loud for a several seconds.
Regis claps him on the back and asks, "Any chance of rekindling that old spark?"
Regaining his normal self-deprecating manner for stuff like this, he responds with, "Doubtful, Regis. She seemed wholly unimpressed with me. But that's okay," he says, turning his face to the crowd, several of whom have shouted things at him now like she's crazy, Hamilton! or you can spark me anytime! "It's good to be reminded you can't always get what you want, you know? Keeps you humble." The wink he tosses out to the crowd hardly looks humble, he's sure, but he suddenly can't shut up about it anyway, and it's all he's got to give it a spin.
Regis' hand on his arm draws him up short, though. "Wait just a minute. Are you saying that this girl-your high school sweetheart-is someone you'd like to reconnect with and she's not interested?"
Hamilton looks into the curious faces of his interviewers, imagines his agent backstage wondering what the hell this is all about, and then Jake's in his mind's eye-the place she's filled up to dimming his sight to anything else for the last 48 hours-and he figures he's got nothing else to lose. He's humiliated himself for far less important reasons in the past, and regardless of the goodbye he said the other night, what he wants-more than anything-is another shot. "It's crazy, right?" he says, bringing Regis and Kelly in on the whole thing, like it's a private conversation. "She shut me down when I tried to finagle some alone time. Plus, she's the one who dumped me, you know, back in high school. So, you know. There's only so much rejection a man can take. Am I right?" he asks and the audience actually boos.
He can't wipe the shit-eating grin off his face. This will be viral in a matter of hours. The only way Jake won't know about it is if she suddenly leaves for a third world country.
He's never loved the idea of celebrity more than he does at this moment.
(The only reason to run is to make him chase you, Jake, Bella will say. After everything, is it really necessary to torture him like that?)
On Friday morning, as Jake leaves her apartment building to go for a run she barely gets out the door when she sees three photographers lying in wait. At first she looks around, wondering who in the world the paparazzi could be stalking on her block, and then she sees a cameraman and some female reporter just ahead of her on the sidewalk. "Jacqueline Pratt?" the woman asks, and Jake pulls herself up short, stopping dead.
Her mother died almost six years ago, and when that happened there had been some of this. She'd been in Europe at the time, and she didn't return to the States until almost a year later, so by then nobody cared anymore about a middle-aged theater star whose life had been cut short by a tragic car crash.
So Jake knows, this can't be about that. Not this many years down the line. She also knows not to answer anything, especially when she has no idea what it's about. She shakes her head negatively, but remains silent and when she tries to dodge around the reporter, the woman asks, "Are you dating Hamilton Fleming?"
That stops her in her tracks in a whole new way. "What?" pops out of her mouth before she can stop herself.
"There are reports you were at a restaurant in downtown Manhattan earlier this week with him, and then he gave an interview where he commented on a former flame he had dinner with. Is that you, and would you like to comment on it?"
The woman sticks the microphone right in Jake's face, and her instinct is to shove it away, so she does. She backs up, looks at the photographers across the street who are obviously snapping pictures, and her confusion hits an all-time high. How in the world did they know who she was and where she lived? Even if someone saw her at the Butai on Tuesday, how did they figure out who she was?
Instead of giving in to the more insistent questions the woman starts asking, Jake turns around and heads right back into her building. She runs up the stairs to the apartment and grabs her cell phone. Finding Bella's name in her contacts list, she waits for her friend to pick up her phone.
"Jake!" Bella says warmly. "What's up?"
"Are you guys still in the city?" Jake asks.
"No, we came home yesterday. What's the matter?"
"I just wondered if you'd had any run-ins with the paparazzi? Apparently going to dinner with all of you and Hamilton the other night has somehow put me on their radar. There are like three photographers, and a TMZ reporter or something, outside my apartment right now."
"Oh, my God. Are you serious? That's crazy. And no, no, we didn't see anyone, not even that night. Hamilton was good enough to drive us to the hotel too, but other than a couple of fans asking him for autographs we didn't have any-wait, what?" She stops talking and Jake can hear Scout in the background, though she can't understand his words.
"Just a second, Jake," Bella says a moment later, and then she must put her hand over the mouthpiece because Jake can't hear anything. Almost a full minute of silence cuts on her nerves before Bella's voice comes back. "Um, Jake?"
"Yeah?"
"Scout says you should Google Hamilton on Regis and Kelly, and then you'll understand."
"Regis and Kelly?" Jake asks, completely baffled.
"You know, the morning show?"
"Yes, Bella," she says with barely restrained sarcasm. "I know what Regis and Kelly is, but what does it have to do with the paparazzi?"
"Just Google it. Then call me back, okay?"
A few minutes later, sitting in front of her computer, Jake seethes with rage. She doesn't find it cute, she finds it completely irritating. Hamilton and his sexy smile, Hamilton and his *flirty* eyes to Kelly, Hamilton and his fucking getting the audience to boo her because she didn't want to be another notch on his belt? God, if she could get a hold of him right now, she'd probably punch him in the balls.
As it is, she picks her phone up again, but it's not Bella she calls.
On the set of his current movie, Hamilton has to continually pinch himself. He's working with one of the most famous directors in the world, and he's learning so much about the craft that he could honestly just quit everything else and follow Marty around, gleaning everything from a genius.
Like today? He didn't have any scenes to shoot, but he came down anyway, just to watch the guy work. Sometimes he thought maybe he'd rather write and direct himself; it was more fun behind the scenes, and there was less exposure. Even he got sick of seeing himself everywhere, and besides he knows it won't last forever. Eventually his path will reach a plateau, and he'll have to reinvent himself or find some project he doesn't believe in as much just to get his name back out there.
These are things he's seen happen to people all around him, and he knows: fame at such a young age can really mess with you. It's messed with him, after all. He's had things handed to him for a long time, and he knows he doesn't deserve it. But it's hard to keep his head out of the clouds when there is so much excess. The fact that he has at all is only because of his parents; they've never been sucked in to it, and whenever he goes home, he's treated just the same way he always was. He's loved, but he's not indulged, at least when he's back in New Rawley.
When things have wrapped for the day, he's lingering at the Craft Services table, just hoping he might get a chance to chat with Marty. His phone buzzes in his pocket and he pulls it out to see Gordon's name on the touch screen. He answers the call because it's so rare that his driver phones him. "Gordy! Wassup?"
"I'm waiting out back for you. I need you to come out here."
"But...I didn't order a car for tonight. Did the schedule get messed up? I'm on my own today."
"No, I know you didn't order a car, but I need to see you," Gordon says, and the serious tone of his voice suddenly worries Hamilton. He's known this man for a couple of years now, knows his history, his family situation, and though they've never had anything but a work friendship, if the guy ever needed help, Hamilton would be the first in line.
The fact that Gordon's asking for anything makes him certain something terrible has happened. "I'll be right out," he says.
As he says goodbye to some of the crew, he jogs to the actor entrance, the place that leads to the private alley where cars generally wait for their passengers. He sees Gordon standing in the open door of his limo, and right beside him, leaning back against the black car, is Jake.
A ripple of shock goes through him, and he suddenly realizes he hasn't thought about her constantly today. It was like once he pulled that stunt in the interview and sent it out to the universe, he became free.
All the same, it so surprises him to see her with Gordon that he does a double take, and when he looks back at the chauffeur, the twinkle in the man's eye makes his heart soar. But then his eyes reconnect with Jake's face, and any elation he might feel quickly dissipates. He forces his lips into a smile anyway, determined to play this off to his advantage. "What are you doing here?" he asks, and his voice holds none of the bravado he's going to need to get through this.
"We need to talk," she says, totally calm.
Somehow that scares him more than anything else ever has.
...Part Two...
Author: badboy_fangirl
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Young Americans
Pairings/Characters: Hamilton/Jake, with appearances by Scout, Bella, Will and OFCs. There are guest cameos by Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa. (Yeah, I don't know how that happened, either.)
Warnings: none
Word count: ~7400
Summary: It's been ten years, but some things never change.
Author's Notes: This is the long-promised sequel to Away, With My Heart. It has been beta'd in part by the lovely sarcasticcheese, whose helpful suggestions probably kept it from being a total trainwreck. I still think it's kind of a wreck, but I have to get it off my laptop and posted before it drives me crazy. I've just accepted that it's going to be much longer than I initially anticipated, thus the posting occurring right now. Plus, I just wanted to use the banner that arabian made for me. She offered to put the name of the story on it, but I didn't want anything mussing it up. So pretty. *pets*
Additional A/N: Yes, the title is lifted from Adele's "Someone Like You," which, if you listen to while reading this, will totally put you in the right mood. You know, nearly suicidal. Happy Saturday Night!
Summer 2010
(Bella will say, Sometimes he's an insufferable ass, but most of the time, he's still Hamilton, underneath it all.)
(Jake isn't sure she believes that, but then she sees for herself.)
New York City is one of those places that is either your home, or it isn't. Jake, having lived there on and off her whole life, never feels more at home than when she's back under the lights. She loves this city like she should love her mother, but that's because it's been more constant in her life than anything else, especially her mother.
At least, that's the conclusion she came to in her therapist's office a few years earlier. Now, when she steps out of the taxi and sucks in the smoggy air, it's just what it should be. Where she belongs. Being back in the city for the first time in more than a year reminds her so much of the fact that this is really where she wants to be.
"There she is!" She hears Bella's voice before she sees her and turns just in time for one of her oldest friends to come flying at her, calling her name. They embrace and Bella squeals like they're fifteen all over again, jumping around so that Jake has to as well or she'll lose her grip on the skinny blonde.
Scout is much more demure, leaning in to kiss her cheek, rubbing her arm in an indication that they don't need to hug, which is just fine with Jake. It's a little awkward to meet up with people you knew a long, long time ago, but because of Facebook everyone still thinks they know you so well.
That's kind of not fair of Jake-she has seen Bella several times over the years, more than anyone else, and they do speak on the phone on a fairly regular basis, too. She also attended Scout and Bella's wedding two years earlier in Martha's Vineyard. She stops herself, recognizes the distance she's trying to put between them and thinks Dr. Foster would be particularly proud of her in that moment. She's learning, finally, after so many years.
Bella is her friend; Bella is not pretending anything, Bella is not going to suddenly leave her hanging high and dry. (Really, of the two of them, the one most likely to do that is Jake, though she's getting better.)
"Come on, they've got our table ready, and Will's inside waiting for us!" Bella enthuses, her arm hooking through Jake's. They go in the restaurant, a Chinese place Jake has never been to called Butai, and there's Will, looking all grown up, and somewhat political. He kisses her cheek like Scout had, and introduces her to Amelia, his fiancée. They all get situated at the table as the server brings them glasses of water. After they've ordered some drinks, everyone peruses the menu, and Amelia asks, "So, Jake is short for Jacqueline? Will mentioned it when I said I'd never met a woman named Jake."
Jake exchanges looks with her old friend. Will's eyebrows go up as if to indicate that he's leaving the explanation to her. She repeats what she's told people for over ten years now. "It was a weird phase I went through when I was 15. It stuck, and here I am."
Amelia nods, and then asks, "And your boyfriend? Where is he?"
"Millie," Will says, looking slightly embarrassed.
"It's okay, Will," Jake says. "I'm single. No biggie." They're sitting towards the back of the restaurant, and just as Jake smiles at Amelia to show her that she really doesn't mind being asked, a ripple of sound flows through the room.
Bella stretches her neck around a pillar blocking their view. "Someone famous must have come in," she says. She looks back at the group, smiling conspiratorially. "I love New York City!"
"No way," Scout breathes as he stands up. "Hamilton made it."
Jake's seen those movies, the ones where time freezes for some reason-or maybe it wasn't ever in a movie at all, it was just Zack Morris on Saved By the Bell reruns who could freeze time-but nonetheless, she hears Scout's words, sees the panic on Bella's face, and then from across a very crowded and busy New York restaurant, she sees him. Not on a magazine cover or on a television screen, not spread across some billboard like the universe was purposely shoving him in her face in some kind of neener, neener, this is what you're missing joke. For the first time in almost ten years, she sees Hamilton Fleming in the flesh.
(In whatever form, he's more gorgeous now than he ever was at fifteen, and when they were fifteen, she'd been positive she had never seen anything more beautiful.)
Bella turns to her, spewing rapidly, "He said he couldn't come, I swear to you. He said he was really sorry and he couldn't make it! I swear to you I didn-"
"Bella, it's okay," Jake says. She wraps a hand around Bella's arm, squeezing it reassuringly.
Maybe it's Bella freaking out that allows Jake find some sort of Zen within the whole thing, but as he walks towards them, shouting, "Scout! Will!" she might as well be back at Rawley Boys with her hair slicked back and her breasts trapped under a corset. She's just pretending, she's just messing with her mom, she's just meeting Hamilton Fleming for the first time.
She can do this. Nothing fazes her.
He stops and greets a bartender (taps knuckles), the hostess (kisses her cheek), and then winks at some random woman before he reaches their group. Bella stands up as Scout and Hamilton pound each other’s backs and then Will's introducing Amelia all over again. When his eyes fall to her, they linger.
Not in recognition, however.
As he hugs Bella (So great to see you!), he gives Jake that smile, the charming one that he's perfected over the years. "Who's your gorgeous friend?" His words are directed at Bella, but he moves around the table so he's directly across from Jake. He reaches his hand out to her, obviously expecting her to reciprocate, and she just stares at him because she really can't believe he's pretending he doesn't know her. It takes her a moment to realize that even he isn't that good of an actor; if she's honest, she does look a lot different than the hipster tomboy he lost his virginity to a million years ago, and, unlike him, she hasn't become so famous that her picture has been everywhere whether he wanted to see it or not.
Bella giggles and says, "Hamilton, it's Jake. Jake Pratt, from Rawley, remember?"
Jake extends her hand as understanding flows over his face. What saves the whole thing for her is how his cheeks fill with color; it's a relief that some things never change. "Holy shit," he breathes as her fingers slide over his and she grasps his hand in a firm handshake.
"Long time, no see, Hamilton," Jake says. (She couldn't be any cooler, and she suddenly knows five years of therapy have been worth every last dime she spent on them.)
His gaze narrows for just a split second and then he draws her hand to his lips, kissing it gently, and she can literally see him pull out his *flirty* eyes because his whole demeanor changes. "It has been a long time, and you look amazing. Like the finest wine, you only get better with age, Jake."
This is where her facade starts to tremble on its shaky foundation because while the smarmy charm of it all turns her stomach slightly, the sincerity in his words draws her up short at the same time. Before she can formulate a response, Will and Scout start laughing, and Hamilton's eyes swerve to them. "You are such a schmoozer," Scout barks, and the grin that breaks out over Hamilton's face takes her back like nothing else could.
Summer heat, heartfelt kisses, and blue eyes full of adulation; Third Eye Blind, Matchbox Twenty, and the world's most depressing movie The Perfect Storm (which she still watches once a year just to bawl her head off)-there were only six months of her life that had Hamilton's stamp on them, but ten years had yet to take the sheen away.
All of her firsts-first love, first sex, first heartbreak of her own doing.
"Look at her!" Hamilton says now, gesturing at her. "Don't tell me that you guys weren't like, how'd she ever pass for a boy? when you saw her again. Holy hell."
Her own cheeks flame at these words, and she shakes her head so that her hair slips forward a bit to cover her face. Again, she tries to say something in her own defense, but Amelia repeats, "How'd she ever pass for a boy?" and the story starts, and all she wants to do is excuse herself, find a cab, and get the hell out of there.
Bella's hand finds hers under the table, squeezing her fingers hard. Then she interrupts when Hamilton takes a breath. "Enough about all that. Sit down so the waiter will come take our order!" (Bella knows. She's been the one support all these years, the one person with whom Jake's been totally honest. Well, Bella, and her therapist, of course.)
Scout meekly sits down next to his wife, and the rest follow his lead. Hamilton's eyes snag Jake's again, and while the light of laughter still exudes from his gaze, there's something more, too. A touch of seriousness, some kind of sizing her up. She looks away first, studying the menu like her life depends on it. She doesn't glance up again until the waiter returns.
(Even then, she doesn't let herself really look at him, not for long. He's like the sun, he burns her retinas.)
Hamilton Fleming, the next big thing. Hamilton Fleming, breakout star. Hamilton Fleming, America's favorite sidekick. Four seasons on a number one show, various critically acclaimed supporting roles in films, and a print campaign with Calvin Klein had given him more success then any one person really needed or deserved.
And yet-sitting in a Chinese restaurant with three people who knew him really well in his youth, a woman he's never met before in his life, and the one woman he would have given his left nut to see again just to rub his success in her face-it feels like it's not enough.
So after he gets a few drinks in him, some other entity takes over, and he pulls a very willing waitress onto his lap as he tells some outrageous story about the nightlife in L.A.
(It's all true, but his audience looks less than impressed as he name drops various actors and actresses, and brags about how they avoided arrest because of how famous they are. Well, one member of his audience in enthralled, because Stacy-the-waitress keeps squirming against him like she's trying to give him a hard-on, but it's not working.)
He slaps the waitress' ass and shoves her to her feet so he can excuse himself to use the restroom. Once alone in front of the urinal, he can't escape the self-loathing that assaults him. He's not sure what he expected in coming here, but it wasn't to see Jake Pratt. It wasn't to be gutted like she only dumped him yesterday, not nine and a half years ago, it wasn't to look at her with her shoulder length hair, and her lightly applied make-up, and her casual grin as Bella tells the story of the toast she offered at their wedding that he'd been too busy to attend.
"Hey, man, you fall in?"
Hamilton's head jerks up as Scout comes to stand beside him, and he realizes he stopped peeing a few minutes before; he's just standing there, his junk hanging out and his head all messed up, again, some more, because of a girl with a guy's name.
Before he responds with more than a half-hearted laugh, Scout unzips his pants and says, "I would have told you she was gonna be here if I thought you were gonna show. When you said you'd be working and there was no way it would work out, I figured there was no point in telling you it was a mini-reunion."
Hamilton's tempted to ask him who he's talking about, but he figures he's already made a big enough ass of himself for one evening. So he shakes his head and moves over to the sink to wash his hands. "It's cool. It was a surprise, but nothing I can't handle."
Scout chuckles. "Yeah, probably helps that half the room is drooling after you, anyway. Can't hurt to let the one that got away see all that."
"Hey," Hamilton says, sharp enough that as Scout finishes his business, he turns to face him. "We were fifteen, and it's been a fucking age, and Jake Pratt isn't the one who got away. Between you and Bella eyeing me like I might go nuts, I've had it. It's no big deal, okay?"
Scout holds up his hands in surrender, but his expression says he doesn't buy it, so Hamilton reaches over and starts angrily pulling paper towels from the dispenser. The problem is they were there, for the aftermath. They remember him when he was wrecked, when he could hardly function, when he almost flunked out of his junior year of high school because he was so bent on a girl who tossed him aside like he didn't matter. He'd freaked his parents out so much that they sent him off to a counselor. It had never been as bad as they feared, but he had been sad. Deeply sad, in a way that he hadn't been sure that he could ever be happy again. The best thing that had happened to him during that time was the random email that had come from Jake's mom almost eight months later; she had sent his head shots on to some modeling agency in New York and they wanted to meet him. That had been the beginning, and by the time he was applying to colleges, all he wanted to do was act, and despite his father's protests, he enrolled at New York University's acting program in conjunction with the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, and the rest was history.
Right now, he wants to punch a wall, or go up to the top of one of the nearby high-rises and scream his lungs out, but neither of those things are going to happen. He takes a deep breath, and tries to center himself. "We just wrapped early tonight, so I thought I'd see if I could catch you guys. And I'm glad I did. It's great to see everyone, even Jake."
Maybe that's the worst part of it. Seeing her again feels good. Feels better than half the stuff he has going on in his life right now. He still has bitterness inside him over all that, but he can't deny the other emotions rioting through him. He's a workaholic, shooting a movie on his hiatus time from his television series, as he's done every other hiatus he's had. It's been a while since he felt anything that wasn't fabricated for the cameras.
He and Scout rejoin everyone back in the dining area, but as they're approaching the table, Jake is standing up, obviously getting ready to take off. He feels panic shoot through him and it takes all of his willpower not to demand that she stay right where she is.
"...have an early interview," she says to Bella. "So I should get home, get some good sleep."
He grabs what's left of his drink off the table and tosses it back, but doesn't sit down. "You still live on the upper east side?"
Her eyes jerk to his and she nods. He didn't mean to bring all that back, that week they'd spent there, mostly naked, totally in love. It would hurt him more if he couldn't see it all in her face, too, but since he can, he feels a little bit justified. History is history, but it lines the space between them, and neither of them can escape it. It hasn't even entirely formed in his head, but he finds himself saying, "I have a driver waiting outside, and we're headed that way. Can I offer you a ride?"
She hesitates, and Bella nudges her with her elbow, which he's not sure if that's encouragement or not, but he tries not to look like everything he is depends on her answer. "No thanks, Hamilton. That's really nice of you, but you should stay, hang out with everyone."
The way she says it irritates him, because the words are right, but the tone is not. It looks like she's being generous, but she's really just avoiding having to spend anymore time with him. He nods, looking away to flag the waitress down. "I need a refill, sweetheart," he purrs. He turns his head just in time to catch Jake and Bella exchange an eye-roll and the fury nearly bursts from him. There had been a lot of that, back then, Jake finding him silly or immature or ridiculous.
He never got over it and he knows that. Scout knows it, Bella knows it, hell, Jake probably knows it thanks to them, but he can't show it, even if it fucking kills him, which with his pulse throbbing in his temples, he might just have an aneurysm right here, right now.
He takes a deep breath, and tries to draw in some of his yoga instruction to calm his blood, but it just keeps building the longer he stands there waiting for his drink, watching her say goodnight to everyone else. Letting her walk away feels as wrong as that phone call had when she told him she'd met someone else.
It clobbers him then. This is his chance for closure; this is the moment he never got at fifteen. And as someone who has had nothing but good fortune befall him, he knows he has to seize it, even if she doesn't want to let him.
Her eyes meet his, and he can tell she's trying to decide if she has to hug him the way she has everyone else (even Will's fiancée). Stacy reappears with his drink and he gives her bottom another pat before setting the glass down. "My driver can take you wherever you need to go. I insist," he says when her mouth opens. "I'll just introduce you, and he'll take you home. No reason to pay for cab when you know me."
He flashes the smile that has never failed to get him whatever he was aiming for, and she crumbles, just for a split second. But it's enough. "Okay, okay! As long as I'm not dragging you away from the party," she says, gesturing at their friends.
"I'll be back in a minute, guys," he says, but he never takes his eyes off Jake. He puts his hand on her shoulder, gently guiding her through the restaurant. As they step out into the sticky air, he waves to his driver, Gordon, who is sitting in a stretch limo across the street. They jay-walk quickly and Gordon rolls his window down as they approach.
"What's up, Mr. Fleming?"
"This is Jake Pratt, Gordy. Gordon Jackson, Jake." He waits while they shake hands and then explains, "She's an old friend. Can you make sure she gets home safely?"
"Sure thing, Mr. Fleming. You want me back here after that?"
Hamilton nods. "Yeah, we're just having a nightcap or two, but I'll be ready to head out shortly."
"Sounds good," Gordon says, starting the car up as Hamilton slides his hand down the small of Jake's back, and she moves as he directs.
Pulling the passenger door open, he's surprised when she turns to face him instead of just jumping in the car. "This is really nice of you," she says, and she sounds as confused as she looks. It's much preferred over that moment earlier when she gave him the brush-off. Of course, it probably helps that he's sending her away from him, he's sure, but somehow it stings less.
There's been this low-grade fever in him all night, ever since he realized he was face to face with a fantasy he'd had too many times to count, but it spikes now, erupting from his lips in a completely unguarded way. "It's the least I can do," he says, backing up a step. "Gotta make you regret that break-up call, one way or another, right?" He grins again, thankful for too much alcohol so his remorse can be postponed until tomorrow.
Her mouth drops open, and he's assaulted by the thought too quickly to even process it sanely. She was always a pretty girl, but that womanly aspect that only comes with age just seems to flow out of her now. She was angular at fifteen, but now with a bit more weight on her, she's lush in all the right spots. It makes his hands itch, but he reminds himself what this is. A final goodbye, something he's needed to say for almost ten years.
His intent gets a little lost when she suddenly looks more uncertain, and she shakes her head, turning her eyes away from him. She mutters his name under her breath as one hand reaches up to tuck her hair behind her ear. He grabs her hand as it descends and leans in, placing a soft, unplanned kiss on her mouth; as he pulls back, he just barely grazes his tongue over her bottom lip, and she takes a small breath that cracks his chest wide open. "So many years to think of what I'd say in this moment, and all I've got is 'Bye, Jake.' Guess I needed to say that for nine long years."
Hamilton steps back again and she sinks into the backseat. He shuts the door and moves forward a few steps to tap Gordon's window. The jovial black man gives him a thumbs up, and Hamilton turns, darting his way through some light traffic to get back across the street.
He glances over his shoulder just as the car draws away from the curb. The tinted windows keep him from knowing if she's watching him.
(He only does stuff like that because he's so crazy about you, Bella will say, her eyes dancing with mirth.)
(That doesn't make it okay, Jake will respond, even though it's more thrilling than annoying if she gets right down to it.)
Gordon lowers the divider window between the front of the limo and the back. "Address, Miss Pratt?" he asks.
She's sitting there, stunned, her fingers trying to capture the feel of Hamilton's mouth on her lips, and she jerks her head up when she sees the driver looking at her in the rearview mirror.
She rattles off the apartment address, the one her mother moved out of permanently years ago now, the one Jake gutted and redecorated the summer she started therapy. As she spilled her guts to Dr. Foster little bit by little bit, the apartment became such that no one could ever tell an actress who had neglected her kid for her career had lived there. Gordon punches the info into the GPS, and then asks, "You want privacy, or you want to chat?"
Jake can't help the smile that afflicts her face. "Used to be a cabbie, right?" she asks.
Gordon laughs. "That obvious, huh? This is a better gig, 'specially if you can get loyals like Mr. Fleming. But, yeah, I used to drive taxi." Jake chews on her bottom lip, trying to decide what she'd prefer when Gordon continues, "You're not the normal type Mr. Fleming puts in the car. 'Course he always accompanies them, too, and usually the window stays up, if you know what I mean."
Jake snorts. "I can imagine. There was a waitress in the restaurant who all but gave him a lap dance. I suppose he gets that wherever he goes?"
"Pretty much," Gordon confirms. "How do you know him?"
"We went to high school together. Just had an impromptu reunion."
"Huh. Well, that explains it, I guess. A true, old friend, then."
Jake nods, but finds herself looking away from his knowing eyes. He's fishing, and she's not stupid, she had a celebrity for a parent, after all. "You aren't going to sell this story to TMZ, are you?" she asks.
Gordon laughs heartily. "With what he pays me? Hell, no. I don't do stuff to piss off my best customers. Besides, Hamilton brings me other business. He's not someone I'd sell out."
"He pays you? You don't work through a limousine company?" she asks.
"Oh, no, I work for GroundLink, but he always requests me. Trusts me, to, y'know, not sell stories to TMZ." They both laugh a little as he gives her a wink. "He's a big tipper, and, like I said, he tells his friends about me, and they request me, too. He's a good kid."
Jake sinks more comfortably into the plush seat, nodding her head. "Yeah, he always was. A good kid, I mean. Back when I knew him, he was the best person I'd ever met."
"You haven't stayed close through the years?" Gordon asks.
"Oh, no, we lost touch about ten years ago. Well, really-I broke up with him," she confesses. "I was living in France at the time, so it just didn't work out."
Gordon makes a humming sound. "Young love. So precious. So fragile."
Jake feels her eyes prick slightly, and her throat grows tight. She doesn't say anything, and the robotic voice of the GPS instructs Gordon to take a left on the next street. This whole day had been so different than she expected, and the thing she can't figure out is whether it's good or bad. She never let herself think about what it would be like to see Hamilton again, and that hour in the restaurant had been positively awful. The way he talked, the asinine adventures, his self-deprecating-but-not-really manner, and the girl-the girl sitting in his lap like it was story time and she couldn't get enough had made Jake feel like she was watching one of his movies. It hadn't been the guy she knows, he had to be acting, because she had never seen him like that before. But the longer it had gone on the sicker she felt about it-the more she feared it wasn't an act, that this was who Hamilton is now.
She much preferred him in her memory if that were the case.
But Gordon, the cabbie-turned-limo-driver had dispelled all that with just a few words. And maybe Hamilton's face; all the earnestness she remembered about him had been in his gaze as he said goodbye to her-maybe that had given her a glimpse too, of who he really is.
It's so unlike her to give anyone the benefit of the doubt, but Hamilton had always existed in this place of purity in her memory. Regardless of what was said about him in the tabloids (not that she reads that stuff), she had always held on to what she had known-who she had known, and that's it, plain and simple. In thirty seconds, he'd showed her he was still that guy, underneath it all, just like Bella said.
But really, the problem is, she still loves that guy.
In fact, she'd never loved anyone else, because every time she tried, he was there, this perfect reflection no one could possibly measure up to-not even, it seems, himself. Of course he's not perfect, of course he'd be an ass, he's rich and famous with the world at his feet, and she's the girl who dumped him. Was he supposed to be strictly magnanimous when she had been the one who did what she did? She'd known then how much she'd hurt him, and she could see the remnants of it in his face tonight-a sort of tender ache flashing over his expressive features. And yet, his final act had been one of kindness. (Of goodbye.)
She pulls her cell phone out and calls Dr. Foster's office. It's late, and the answering service picks up so she just leaves a message, which is all she expects to do at ten o'clock at night. She needs to see her therapist right away though if she's going to survive this whole thing without emotionally imploding.
Damn Hamilton Fleming and his perfect eyes and his stupid face. She sat through dinner stealing covert glances, seeing for herself up close and personal that he's still ridiculously good looking. He'd had his ears pinned back at some point-she'd noticed that years ago when she tuned into his TV show from time to time. So he'd managed to make himself flawless, and she hated him just a touch for that. But it also reminded her, even more forcefully, that everyone, no matter who they are, and what they've achieved, has insecurities and hang-ups, and not everyone goes to therapy over it. Jake had, though, and she has tools now. Ways to get through stuff like this without self-destruction. (She hopes.)
After she disconnects her call, Gordon's eyes catch hers in the mirror. "Everything okay?" he asks.
"Yeah," she lies. "Yeah, everything's great."
When he drops her in front of her apartment, he gets out to open her door. "If you ever need a ride, just let me know. Any friend of Hamilton Fleming is a friend of mine."
Jake nods and thanks him. He reaches for her hand, slips his business card into her palm. "You're special, you know. He put you in the car, but he didn't come with you." Jake just stares into his kind brown eyes; she doesn't have words, wouldn't know how to use them even if she did. He squeezes her palm between both of his massive hands, holding her in place when she tries to turn away. "I mean it. If you need a ride. Call me."
Thanking him again, she finally gets away. She kicks her heels off just inside the building door so she can run up the stairs easily instead of using the elevator. She's breathing hard by the time she hits the third floor, but that's the point.
She'll tell Dr. Foster tomorrow she knows she can't outrun it, but she sure can try.
Two days later, Hamilton is scheduled to appear on Live with Regis and Kelly. He pretty much hates this gig because Regis, while a very nice guy, has never watched Live Wire and he feels like he has to try and explain the plot to a fairly complicated supernatural cop show every time he comes on. A synopsis in a few words is just not possible, so as a general rule, he flirts hard with Kelly, and distracts the old man from too many scripted questions neither of them is interested in discussing.
(On the other hand, he's never been more grateful for a busy schedule that makes it nearly impossible for him to dwell on the ache that's settled in his chest since Tuesday night.)
"What brings you to New York?" Kelly asks, blushing prettily after he's commented on her rocking legs. (What? Girl is hot, it would be less than gentlemanly if he didn't mention it.) They've already discussed the explosive season finale that aired a few weeks earlier without him having to rebuild the wheel.
"I'm actually shooting a film here, but I'm not allowed to talk about it all, so don't ask. It's a Scorcese picture, and that's all I can say." He flashes a smile at the crowd and gets a few woot, woots from the ladies on the front row.
"Okay..." Kelly says, smirking. "How about hot spots? Where do you love to go when you're in the city?"
He rattles off the names of a couple nightclubs that he sometimes frequents (but hasn't this trip at all) and at the last minute finds himself raving about the Chinese place he'd been at with old friends a few nights before.
"Who were these old friends?" Regis asks.
"Just some people I went to high school with. I attended a boarding school in Massachusetts, so these were the people I spent day and night with for about three years. Lots of history! It was fun, and the restaurant was really great. It's one I go to often, but they picked it on a fluke."
Regis listens to this, but there's an odd expression on his face, and he asks, "Were there any old girlfriends among these old friends?" He elbows Hamilton gently, as if he knows something he couldn't possibly know.
And it's not like Hamilton's drunk so he has absolutely no excuse when he finds himself answering that question. "Actually...yeah."
Kelly awwws and looks towards the audience, giving some woman out there a conspiratorial isn't he adorable head tilt.
"The one that got away?" Regis asks.
Hamilton can feel his face flushing as he flashes back to that moment in the men's room with Scout. The denial that had jumped so easily from his lips evades him now; there is an odd kind of freedom that floods his body when he starts nodding his head. "Yep, the one that got away. The one who totally broke my heart, in fact."
The crowd now joins in with Kelly and her awwwing. "I bet we'd find a lot of ladies in this audience who wouldn't let you get away, Hamilton," she says. "How about it, girls?" she shouts and the studio audience grows loud for a several seconds.
Regis claps him on the back and asks, "Any chance of rekindling that old spark?"
Regaining his normal self-deprecating manner for stuff like this, he responds with, "Doubtful, Regis. She seemed wholly unimpressed with me. But that's okay," he says, turning his face to the crowd, several of whom have shouted things at him now like she's crazy, Hamilton! or you can spark me anytime! "It's good to be reminded you can't always get what you want, you know? Keeps you humble." The wink he tosses out to the crowd hardly looks humble, he's sure, but he suddenly can't shut up about it anyway, and it's all he's got to give it a spin.
Regis' hand on his arm draws him up short, though. "Wait just a minute. Are you saying that this girl-your high school sweetheart-is someone you'd like to reconnect with and she's not interested?"
Hamilton looks into the curious faces of his interviewers, imagines his agent backstage wondering what the hell this is all about, and then Jake's in his mind's eye-the place she's filled up to dimming his sight to anything else for the last 48 hours-and he figures he's got nothing else to lose. He's humiliated himself for far less important reasons in the past, and regardless of the goodbye he said the other night, what he wants-more than anything-is another shot. "It's crazy, right?" he says, bringing Regis and Kelly in on the whole thing, like it's a private conversation. "She shut me down when I tried to finagle some alone time. Plus, she's the one who dumped me, you know, back in high school. So, you know. There's only so much rejection a man can take. Am I right?" he asks and the audience actually boos.
He can't wipe the shit-eating grin off his face. This will be viral in a matter of hours. The only way Jake won't know about it is if she suddenly leaves for a third world country.
He's never loved the idea of celebrity more than he does at this moment.
(The only reason to run is to make him chase you, Jake, Bella will say. After everything, is it really necessary to torture him like that?)
On Friday morning, as Jake leaves her apartment building to go for a run she barely gets out the door when she sees three photographers lying in wait. At first she looks around, wondering who in the world the paparazzi could be stalking on her block, and then she sees a cameraman and some female reporter just ahead of her on the sidewalk. "Jacqueline Pratt?" the woman asks, and Jake pulls herself up short, stopping dead.
Her mother died almost six years ago, and when that happened there had been some of this. She'd been in Europe at the time, and she didn't return to the States until almost a year later, so by then nobody cared anymore about a middle-aged theater star whose life had been cut short by a tragic car crash.
So Jake knows, this can't be about that. Not this many years down the line. She also knows not to answer anything, especially when she has no idea what it's about. She shakes her head negatively, but remains silent and when she tries to dodge around the reporter, the woman asks, "Are you dating Hamilton Fleming?"
That stops her in her tracks in a whole new way. "What?" pops out of her mouth before she can stop herself.
"There are reports you were at a restaurant in downtown Manhattan earlier this week with him, and then he gave an interview where he commented on a former flame he had dinner with. Is that you, and would you like to comment on it?"
The woman sticks the microphone right in Jake's face, and her instinct is to shove it away, so she does. She backs up, looks at the photographers across the street who are obviously snapping pictures, and her confusion hits an all-time high. How in the world did they know who she was and where she lived? Even if someone saw her at the Butai on Tuesday, how did they figure out who she was?
Instead of giving in to the more insistent questions the woman starts asking, Jake turns around and heads right back into her building. She runs up the stairs to the apartment and grabs her cell phone. Finding Bella's name in her contacts list, she waits for her friend to pick up her phone.
"Jake!" Bella says warmly. "What's up?"
"Are you guys still in the city?" Jake asks.
"No, we came home yesterday. What's the matter?"
"I just wondered if you'd had any run-ins with the paparazzi? Apparently going to dinner with all of you and Hamilton the other night has somehow put me on their radar. There are like three photographers, and a TMZ reporter or something, outside my apartment right now."
"Oh, my God. Are you serious? That's crazy. And no, no, we didn't see anyone, not even that night. Hamilton was good enough to drive us to the hotel too, but other than a couple of fans asking him for autographs we didn't have any-wait, what?" She stops talking and Jake can hear Scout in the background, though she can't understand his words.
"Just a second, Jake," Bella says a moment later, and then she must put her hand over the mouthpiece because Jake can't hear anything. Almost a full minute of silence cuts on her nerves before Bella's voice comes back. "Um, Jake?"
"Yeah?"
"Scout says you should Google Hamilton on Regis and Kelly, and then you'll understand."
"Regis and Kelly?" Jake asks, completely baffled.
"You know, the morning show?"
"Yes, Bella," she says with barely restrained sarcasm. "I know what Regis and Kelly is, but what does it have to do with the paparazzi?"
"Just Google it. Then call me back, okay?"
A few minutes later, sitting in front of her computer, Jake seethes with rage. She doesn't find it cute, she finds it completely irritating. Hamilton and his sexy smile, Hamilton and his *flirty* eyes to Kelly, Hamilton and his fucking getting the audience to boo her because she didn't want to be another notch on his belt? God, if she could get a hold of him right now, she'd probably punch him in the balls.
As it is, she picks her phone up again, but it's not Bella she calls.
On the set of his current movie, Hamilton has to continually pinch himself. He's working with one of the most famous directors in the world, and he's learning so much about the craft that he could honestly just quit everything else and follow Marty around, gleaning everything from a genius.
Like today? He didn't have any scenes to shoot, but he came down anyway, just to watch the guy work. Sometimes he thought maybe he'd rather write and direct himself; it was more fun behind the scenes, and there was less exposure. Even he got sick of seeing himself everywhere, and besides he knows it won't last forever. Eventually his path will reach a plateau, and he'll have to reinvent himself or find some project he doesn't believe in as much just to get his name back out there.
These are things he's seen happen to people all around him, and he knows: fame at such a young age can really mess with you. It's messed with him, after all. He's had things handed to him for a long time, and he knows he doesn't deserve it. But it's hard to keep his head out of the clouds when there is so much excess. The fact that he has at all is only because of his parents; they've never been sucked in to it, and whenever he goes home, he's treated just the same way he always was. He's loved, but he's not indulged, at least when he's back in New Rawley.
When things have wrapped for the day, he's lingering at the Craft Services table, just hoping he might get a chance to chat with Marty. His phone buzzes in his pocket and he pulls it out to see Gordon's name on the touch screen. He answers the call because it's so rare that his driver phones him. "Gordy! Wassup?"
"I'm waiting out back for you. I need you to come out here."
"But...I didn't order a car for tonight. Did the schedule get messed up? I'm on my own today."
"No, I know you didn't order a car, but I need to see you," Gordon says, and the serious tone of his voice suddenly worries Hamilton. He's known this man for a couple of years now, knows his history, his family situation, and though they've never had anything but a work friendship, if the guy ever needed help, Hamilton would be the first in line.
The fact that Gordon's asking for anything makes him certain something terrible has happened. "I'll be right out," he says.
As he says goodbye to some of the crew, he jogs to the actor entrance, the place that leads to the private alley where cars generally wait for their passengers. He sees Gordon standing in the open door of his limo, and right beside him, leaning back against the black car, is Jake.
A ripple of shock goes through him, and he suddenly realizes he hasn't thought about her constantly today. It was like once he pulled that stunt in the interview and sent it out to the universe, he became free.
All the same, it so surprises him to see her with Gordon that he does a double take, and when he looks back at the chauffeur, the twinkle in the man's eye makes his heart soar. But then his eyes reconnect with Jake's face, and any elation he might feel quickly dissipates. He forces his lips into a smile anyway, determined to play this off to his advantage. "What are you doing here?" he asks, and his voice holds none of the bravado he's going to need to get through this.
"We need to talk," she says, totally calm.
Somehow that scares him more than anything else ever has.
...Part Two...