(no subject)
that has to crawl
demi lovato (demi/wilmer valderrama; past demi/joe jonas)
r, 3000 words
titled by the genius bell x1 ("snakes vs. snakes") and betaed by the gorgeous gigantic
Demi doesn't date Wilmer, but she does fuck him.
Demi doesn’t date Wilmer, but she does fuck him.
It’s not pretty or particularly nice and he doesn’t whisper sweet nothings in her ear when he comes, but he doesn’t stare at the scars on her wrists either, and he’s quiet when they separate, letting her go easily. They don’t cuddle, he doesn’t tell her he loves her, but a week later when he texts to ask if she wants to go to Pinkberry, she can’t think of a single reason to say no.
They take separate cars. She’s not afraid of them being seen together, it’s just that she has such little patience these days, and being trapped in a confined space with someone she doesn’t have a lot in common with sounds like torture.
Still, when they sit, he tells her she looks beautiful. She hasn’t washed her hair in two days and there are dark circles rimmed under her eyes from all the sleeping she isn’t doing, but it still makes her blush, and she ducks her head to hide it. She mumbles, “Thanks,” under her breath and doesn’t look at him until he kicks her under the table. The, “What?” gets startled out of her, and Wilmer laughs as he says,
“You know, this is the part where you’re supposed to tell me I look good too.” She can’t tell if he’s serious and that’s half the fun, because when she laughs this time, it’s genuine.
“You look pretty too, Wilmer,” she says, ignoring the fact that she’s giving the room a show when she leans forward and cups his cheek. “You’re just the prettiest freaking princess ever.”
“Say ‘fuck’,” he teases, brows raised. “I dare you.” She rolls her eyes, but bridges the gap between them and kisses him right on the mouth.
“If you’re looking for shock value,” she mutters against his lips. “I just did you one better.”
;;;
The press is ...well. It’s pretty bad. He’s twelve years older than she is, he’s a playboy, he’s been linked to some of the most troubled actresses in Hollywood. ...Oh, wait. If you replace the Hollywood with Disney, she’d fit right in. Plus, after a highly publicized stint in rehab, she’s pretty sure nothing could drag her down further.
She’s expecting the sit-down with her mom, walks around on eggshells for days after the first videos leak to TMZ, but nothing comes, really. Nothing but, “Just. Please. Be careful, Dem.” She’s not sure if it’s a sign of trust, or maybe that she’s pushed things too far already. She doesn’t spend too much time at home, lately, so it’s not like she has time to find out.
She’s expecting Wilmer to shy away too. After all, no one else has hung around, not after everything; but maybe he needs more press attention, or maybe he just likes her lame jokes, but he keeps calling, and eventually she answers.
“I want to take you to the beach,” he says when she picks up on Saturday. It’s late enough in the day that the sun is a dusky ball of gold hanging smack dab in the center of the sky. Demi hasn’t gone to the beach in ages, not since before she left for treatment, and she’s all set to say no, until she speaks.
“I don’t,” she says, then stops, considering. “Would you believe me if I told you I don’t have a bathing suit?” They’ve moved since last summer and even though LA is warm all year round, Demi’s not really one for exposing that much skin. She’s sure she has something, somewhere, but it’s packed in a box in storage, probably, too reminiscent of a past life for her to consider rifling through.
“I would not believe you,” Wilmer says, and she laughs again, bringing her hand up to cover her face. She kicks the sheets off the bed, coming to stand in the middle of her room as she considers a plan of attack.
“I really don’t!” She says eventually, when he doesn’t budge from his original notion. She laughs at his arguments, blushes when he calls her beautiful again and wonders how someone like him got to a point like this one. “I’ll make a deal with you,” she says. “I will go to the beach with you.” She rifles through her closet, her drawers, through the tangle of things that now comprise her life and manages to dig out a plaid pair of shorts. “I used to be an actress,” she adds. “I can sit on the sidelines and pretend that cheering for you while you belly flop on your boogie board is the most exciting part of my day.”
“Sweetheart,” he says, his Miami accent filtering through with his words and making her laugh again. “It will be.”
;;;
They don’t fuck on the beach, because Demi is an exhibitionist, sure, but she’s not so far gone that the little kids frolicking in the sand don’t give her pause. In his car, though, later-parked high above in the hills, looking down on the waves smashing against jagged rocks, twisted up and terrible in their beauty-she sinks herself down onto him and digs her fingernails into his neck.
“Is it true what they say about you?” He hisses, and she wants to laugh but doesn’t, hiding her smile against his shoulder. She works her hips against his, groaning at the pressure starting to build in her thighs and nips at his neck, his chin, the underside of his throat.
“I don’t know,” she says eventually. She can’t read her own press anymore, even when it’s good. It makes her dizzy; the heady feeling of seeing herself in the news, in the paper-on tv-it hasn’t dissipated, not even a little bit, but it’s what got her started the last time, too much exposure and too little time to be herself. There’s always been a line, but she doesn’t know where it lays in the sand anymore. “What do they say about me?”
His backseat is roomy, green leather seats with a sunroof that’s been opened just for the occasion. Somewhere in her bag, discarded in the front seat, she can hear her phone ringing. She ignores it in favor of pressing herself tighter against him and closing her eyes against the onslaught of sunshine.
“Did you really punch that girl in the face?”
Her eyes snap open and when she rears her head back, it’s to find him staring right at her. She’s not surprised by his question. She’s more surprised that it took him so long to ask.
“Did you really cheat on Lindsay Lohan with Hilary Duff?” She worries at her lip to hide her smile, but it gets harder when he grins back at her.
“You can’t answer a question with a question,” he says, and rolls up his hips, hands pressed to her waist and leaving thumb shaped bruises on her skin. She’ll recognize them later in the mirror, because his hands are so much larger than hers. The marks he's left tell an entirely different story.
“Oh,” she says, tipping her head back to laugh. “Look at that. I just did.”
He kisses her. To shut her up, probably, she thinks, but she kisses him back too, hands pressed to either side of his face, enjoying the feel of his stubble against her cheeks. It makes her feel alive, the minuscule sting of it, and it helps that he holds her closer, too, one of his hands pressed up against her back, sliding up her tank top and fiddling with the clasp of her bra.
“Am I ever gonna get this off you?” he asks, pulling away, and she smiles with all the bravado she’s got.
She says, “I don’t know. Are you ever gonna try?” and leans back far enough to tug it off herself.
;;;
Demi knows erratic behavior. She’s lived through it, thrown herself into it, worked toward it and come out the other side fighting. She knows erratic behavior, but when her mother sits her down to talk, with big, serious eyes and nervous twitches, she knows that this isn’t it.
“Dem,” her mother says, voice low and pleading. She sounds so much older now than Demi can ever remember her sounding before. She’s spent her whole life listening to the hum in her mama’s voice, but it’s different now, edged with the kind of sadness only wayward children can bring. If there’s anything she has to be ashamed of, it’s that.
She bites at the corner of her mouth to keep from crying out and takes a minute to just stare at the window. The sky in Los Angeles is overcast and cloudy, an unfriendly, pewter gray taking over everything in sight. Demi closes her eyes against it, breathing deep like the classes in treatment taught her, finding her core and trying to elongate it. She breathes and breathes and breathes, then says, “Mama, I’m fine,” when she turns around, smiling as big and as bright as she can without breaking apart.
Her mother hasn’t been her best friend in a while; in years, but Demi looks into her eyes with the crows feet edging around their corners and fiercely wishes she could find the words to make that true again.
“That boy,” her mother says, sounding every inch the southern stereotype she isn’t. She laughs for a second, low and honey-sweet. It doesn’t last too long, but Demi hears the release in it anyway; the relief. “I’m not even sure I can call him a boy anymore.”
Demi wrinkles her nose and says, “Mom, this isn’t even about him,” because it isn’t. Wilmer hasn’t called in days, but she hasn’t called him either. It isn’t that kind of thing. “There isn’t even a ‘this’, I promise.”
Her mother closes her eyes, all traces of her smile gone. “Demetria,” she whispers, and her voice drops, like it’s lost half its steam within one little word. “You said that to me the last time.”
;;;
The thing about last time-the thing Demi would really like to note is that she loved Joe. It’s not-it’s not his fault, what happened, and she blames him for a whole slew of things, but not for that. He was easy to be around. Easier to be around than even Selena, sometimes, and that was the strangest thing, especially when sometimes Demi was sure that Selena was all she had.
Joe laughed at her stupid jokes, and he took twice the time in hair and makeup as she did on set, and when she sang for him for the first time, Joe actually sat back and listened, actually said, “Dem, you’ve really got something,” even though they’d known each other all of thirty minutes and she wasn’t even sure they’d be friends.
She remembers that kissing him for the first time didn’t feel like kissing her brother, even though she said it did, making a show of wiping at her mouth with her hand and making faces. He’d just smiled down at her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and said, “You call that a kiss, DDL?”
He’d made her laugh and she wasn’t ever sure that he believed her when she’d said, “You wish, Jonas,” nudging at his hip with her own to keep the mood light.
She hadn’t expected him to keep on texting after shooting wrapped, and she hadn’t expected them to stay friends, even though that’s not quite what they were. Not really.
;;;
She stays away from the Disney scene as much as she can while still under contract. She and her mother have a sit down with Steve to discuss the future of the show, and Demi stays as quiet as she possibly can when everything having to do with the meeting they’re having and the room they’re in is about her.
“Dem,” he says, and she lifts her head, trying to project anything other than sullen at him, because she’s not. That’s not who she is, she’s just tired. She’s always so tired and not even the break has helped that (even though it’s helped most everything else). “Do you want to move forward with the show?” He asks her gently and Demi tries not to grit her teeth in frustration, but it’s hard.
“I don’t think I can,” she says, voice dropping low. She feels her stomach constrict with nerves, because this show is all she’d ever wanted and now she can’t even bear the thought of doing it.
All in all, it takes less than an hour to remove her from the proceedings. Demi thought she’d feel lighter, but she doesn’t. She feels exactly the same.
;;;
She’s taken up smoking. She doesn’t tell her mom or Dallas, and she certainly doesn’t tell Madison, but it’s something she likes doing. She likes the way the smoke burns in her throat, and how Wilmer seems to chase the taste when they kiss.
They don’t talk for a week, but Demi doesn’t stop smoking, sneaking out onto the balcony outside her bedroom and exhaling into the night, finally breathing for once once the sun is down and the only light around her comes from the stars.
;;;
He calls her on a Wednesday. It’s late enough in the day that she should be awake, but she’s not. She’s sleeping off a night’s worth of bad dreams; never-ending hallways and family members with no faces. She dreams of getting up on stage and having no songs to sing, no memories of the words she’d written and no voice to sing them with.
She wakes up because the ringer on her phone is so loud, and when Wilmer says, “Have breakfast with me,” she’s too freaked out to say no, even though it’s the middle of the afternoon.
“I’m going out for breakfast,” she shouts on her way out. She doesn’t wait to hear if anyone’s heard or to answer any questions. It’s easier that way.
Wilmer’s waiting for her at the beach holding two breakfast burritos and a tray of coffees from The Coffee Bean. It’s in the low 80s, but he got her a hot latte anyway, and she smiles when she sees it, smiles as she gets closer to him.
“Thanks for the drink,” she says, settling next to him.
He grins at her. “Thanks for breakfast,” he says, and nudges their elbows together.
“You bought it,” she says. “I’m just visiting.”
He rolls his eyes. “Thanks for eating next to me, then,” he says.
Demi smiles. “You’re welcome." She takes a bite of the burrito as he hands it over, the cilantro popping on her tongue. “This is delicious,” she says, swallowing her food down and wiping at her face.
“It’s just a breakfast burrito. It was probably frozen before they sold it to me.”
She shrugs. “When you get used to throwing everything up for so long it’s pretty amazing when things actually manage to taste good.” She takes another bite of her food, taking care not to spill onto the hood, and only looks up at him again when he’s been quiet for too long. “What?” she asks. “Something on my face?”
“I would’ve never pegged you for an eating disorder girl,” he says. Demi flinches when he touches her face, but doesn’t push him away. He’s not a dick about it, anyway. Not really. “You look good just how you are.”
She smiles at him, using all her teeth and leans in, touching his face the way he’s touching hers. “I hope you know,” she says, dropping her voice as she scoots closer. “You’re never seeing me naked again.”
Wilmer laughs. “Fair enough,” he says, and that's that.
;;;
She’s a mess when she runs into Tiffany at Vons, on a cereal run in just leggings and an oversized sweatshirt. Tiffany’s dressed to the nines, of course, hair perfectly curled and coiffed, and she smiles like she’s genuinely happy to see Demi, letting out a little shriek and dropping her phone to rush close, stopping just before she’d normally push in for a hug, perched almost on the balls of her feet.
“Demi,” she breathes, barely holding back her grin. “Dem, you look so great.”
Demi resists the urge to look down at herself. She says, “Thanks, Tiff. You too,” and leans forward into the hug, bridging the gap. She tries not to touch people if she can help it, but Tiffany smells warm and familiar, and Demi holds on a little longer than she expects herself to.
“What’re you up to?” Tiffany asks, tilting her head. It’s a motion that’s familiar; Demi’s seen her do it a million times on set and in character and for a second, it’s like being back there. Demi feels her throat close up.
She coughs and says, “You know. Hanging out.”
Tiffany nods, steamrolling right over the fact that on the magazine rack behind them there’s a grainy picture on the cover of US Weekly of Demi and Wilmer kissing at Pinkberry. “That is just great,” Tiffany says, the wattage on her grin going up.
Demi wouldn’t buy it if they hadn’t been around each other for almost two years straight. There’s genuine and polite and sweet, and then there’s too sweet. Demi’s always believed that people that earnest aren’t to be trusted, but Tiffany keeps proving her wrong.
They hug again before going their separate ways, and to her credit, Tiffany doesn’t say what Demi’s expecting. She doesn’t say, “We really miss you, Dem. It’s not the same without you.” She doesn’t ask, “Why didn’t you come back? The entire show hinged on you. We needed you there,” even though it would be justified.
She just says, “I got a new cell number. Let’s exchange now and go out for mani-pedis in the next few weeks, okay? It looks like I have hobbit feet right now. Thank god it's boot weather.”
Demi laughs, even though she wasn’t expecting to, and says, “Sure,” probably surprising them both.
demi lovato (demi/wilmer valderrama; past demi/joe jonas)
r, 3000 words
titled by the genius bell x1 ("snakes vs. snakes") and betaed by the gorgeous gigantic
Demi doesn't date Wilmer, but she does fuck him.
Demi doesn’t date Wilmer, but she does fuck him.
It’s not pretty or particularly nice and he doesn’t whisper sweet nothings in her ear when he comes, but he doesn’t stare at the scars on her wrists either, and he’s quiet when they separate, letting her go easily. They don’t cuddle, he doesn’t tell her he loves her, but a week later when he texts to ask if she wants to go to Pinkberry, she can’t think of a single reason to say no.
They take separate cars. She’s not afraid of them being seen together, it’s just that she has such little patience these days, and being trapped in a confined space with someone she doesn’t have a lot in common with sounds like torture.
Still, when they sit, he tells her she looks beautiful. She hasn’t washed her hair in two days and there are dark circles rimmed under her eyes from all the sleeping she isn’t doing, but it still makes her blush, and she ducks her head to hide it. She mumbles, “Thanks,” under her breath and doesn’t look at him until he kicks her under the table. The, “What?” gets startled out of her, and Wilmer laughs as he says,
“You know, this is the part where you’re supposed to tell me I look good too.” She can’t tell if he’s serious and that’s half the fun, because when she laughs this time, it’s genuine.
“You look pretty too, Wilmer,” she says, ignoring the fact that she’s giving the room a show when she leans forward and cups his cheek. “You’re just the prettiest freaking princess ever.”
“Say ‘fuck’,” he teases, brows raised. “I dare you.” She rolls her eyes, but bridges the gap between them and kisses him right on the mouth.
“If you’re looking for shock value,” she mutters against his lips. “I just did you one better.”
;;;
The press is ...well. It’s pretty bad. He’s twelve years older than she is, he’s a playboy, he’s been linked to some of the most troubled actresses in Hollywood. ...Oh, wait. If you replace the Hollywood with Disney, she’d fit right in. Plus, after a highly publicized stint in rehab, she’s pretty sure nothing could drag her down further.
She’s expecting the sit-down with her mom, walks around on eggshells for days after the first videos leak to TMZ, but nothing comes, really. Nothing but, “Just. Please. Be careful, Dem.” She’s not sure if it’s a sign of trust, or maybe that she’s pushed things too far already. She doesn’t spend too much time at home, lately, so it’s not like she has time to find out.
She’s expecting Wilmer to shy away too. After all, no one else has hung around, not after everything; but maybe he needs more press attention, or maybe he just likes her lame jokes, but he keeps calling, and eventually she answers.
“I want to take you to the beach,” he says when she picks up on Saturday. It’s late enough in the day that the sun is a dusky ball of gold hanging smack dab in the center of the sky. Demi hasn’t gone to the beach in ages, not since before she left for treatment, and she’s all set to say no, until she speaks.
“I don’t,” she says, then stops, considering. “Would you believe me if I told you I don’t have a bathing suit?” They’ve moved since last summer and even though LA is warm all year round, Demi’s not really one for exposing that much skin. She’s sure she has something, somewhere, but it’s packed in a box in storage, probably, too reminiscent of a past life for her to consider rifling through.
“I would not believe you,” Wilmer says, and she laughs again, bringing her hand up to cover her face. She kicks the sheets off the bed, coming to stand in the middle of her room as she considers a plan of attack.
“I really don’t!” She says eventually, when he doesn’t budge from his original notion. She laughs at his arguments, blushes when he calls her beautiful again and wonders how someone like him got to a point like this one. “I’ll make a deal with you,” she says. “I will go to the beach with you.” She rifles through her closet, her drawers, through the tangle of things that now comprise her life and manages to dig out a plaid pair of shorts. “I used to be an actress,” she adds. “I can sit on the sidelines and pretend that cheering for you while you belly flop on your boogie board is the most exciting part of my day.”
“Sweetheart,” he says, his Miami accent filtering through with his words and making her laugh again. “It will be.”
;;;
They don’t fuck on the beach, because Demi is an exhibitionist, sure, but she’s not so far gone that the little kids frolicking in the sand don’t give her pause. In his car, though, later-parked high above in the hills, looking down on the waves smashing against jagged rocks, twisted up and terrible in their beauty-she sinks herself down onto him and digs her fingernails into his neck.
“Is it true what they say about you?” He hisses, and she wants to laugh but doesn’t, hiding her smile against his shoulder. She works her hips against his, groaning at the pressure starting to build in her thighs and nips at his neck, his chin, the underside of his throat.
“I don’t know,” she says eventually. She can’t read her own press anymore, even when it’s good. It makes her dizzy; the heady feeling of seeing herself in the news, in the paper-on tv-it hasn’t dissipated, not even a little bit, but it’s what got her started the last time, too much exposure and too little time to be herself. There’s always been a line, but she doesn’t know where it lays in the sand anymore. “What do they say about me?”
His backseat is roomy, green leather seats with a sunroof that’s been opened just for the occasion. Somewhere in her bag, discarded in the front seat, she can hear her phone ringing. She ignores it in favor of pressing herself tighter against him and closing her eyes against the onslaught of sunshine.
“Did you really punch that girl in the face?”
Her eyes snap open and when she rears her head back, it’s to find him staring right at her. She’s not surprised by his question. She’s more surprised that it took him so long to ask.
“Did you really cheat on Lindsay Lohan with Hilary Duff?” She worries at her lip to hide her smile, but it gets harder when he grins back at her.
“You can’t answer a question with a question,” he says, and rolls up his hips, hands pressed to her waist and leaving thumb shaped bruises on her skin. She’ll recognize them later in the mirror, because his hands are so much larger than hers. The marks he's left tell an entirely different story.
“Oh,” she says, tipping her head back to laugh. “Look at that. I just did.”
He kisses her. To shut her up, probably, she thinks, but she kisses him back too, hands pressed to either side of his face, enjoying the feel of his stubble against her cheeks. It makes her feel alive, the minuscule sting of it, and it helps that he holds her closer, too, one of his hands pressed up against her back, sliding up her tank top and fiddling with the clasp of her bra.
“Am I ever gonna get this off you?” he asks, pulling away, and she smiles with all the bravado she’s got.
She says, “I don’t know. Are you ever gonna try?” and leans back far enough to tug it off herself.
;;;
Demi knows erratic behavior. She’s lived through it, thrown herself into it, worked toward it and come out the other side fighting. She knows erratic behavior, but when her mother sits her down to talk, with big, serious eyes and nervous twitches, she knows that this isn’t it.
“Dem,” her mother says, voice low and pleading. She sounds so much older now than Demi can ever remember her sounding before. She’s spent her whole life listening to the hum in her mama’s voice, but it’s different now, edged with the kind of sadness only wayward children can bring. If there’s anything she has to be ashamed of, it’s that.
She bites at the corner of her mouth to keep from crying out and takes a minute to just stare at the window. The sky in Los Angeles is overcast and cloudy, an unfriendly, pewter gray taking over everything in sight. Demi closes her eyes against it, breathing deep like the classes in treatment taught her, finding her core and trying to elongate it. She breathes and breathes and breathes, then says, “Mama, I’m fine,” when she turns around, smiling as big and as bright as she can without breaking apart.
Her mother hasn’t been her best friend in a while; in years, but Demi looks into her eyes with the crows feet edging around their corners and fiercely wishes she could find the words to make that true again.
“That boy,” her mother says, sounding every inch the southern stereotype she isn’t. She laughs for a second, low and honey-sweet. It doesn’t last too long, but Demi hears the release in it anyway; the relief. “I’m not even sure I can call him a boy anymore.”
Demi wrinkles her nose and says, “Mom, this isn’t even about him,” because it isn’t. Wilmer hasn’t called in days, but she hasn’t called him either. It isn’t that kind of thing. “There isn’t even a ‘this’, I promise.”
Her mother closes her eyes, all traces of her smile gone. “Demetria,” she whispers, and her voice drops, like it’s lost half its steam within one little word. “You said that to me the last time.”
;;;
The thing about last time-the thing Demi would really like to note is that she loved Joe. It’s not-it’s not his fault, what happened, and she blames him for a whole slew of things, but not for that. He was easy to be around. Easier to be around than even Selena, sometimes, and that was the strangest thing, especially when sometimes Demi was sure that Selena was all she had.
Joe laughed at her stupid jokes, and he took twice the time in hair and makeup as she did on set, and when she sang for him for the first time, Joe actually sat back and listened, actually said, “Dem, you’ve really got something,” even though they’d known each other all of thirty minutes and she wasn’t even sure they’d be friends.
She remembers that kissing him for the first time didn’t feel like kissing her brother, even though she said it did, making a show of wiping at her mouth with her hand and making faces. He’d just smiled down at her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and said, “You call that a kiss, DDL?”
He’d made her laugh and she wasn’t ever sure that he believed her when she’d said, “You wish, Jonas,” nudging at his hip with her own to keep the mood light.
She hadn’t expected him to keep on texting after shooting wrapped, and she hadn’t expected them to stay friends, even though that’s not quite what they were. Not really.
;;;
She stays away from the Disney scene as much as she can while still under contract. She and her mother have a sit down with Steve to discuss the future of the show, and Demi stays as quiet as she possibly can when everything having to do with the meeting they’re having and the room they’re in is about her.
“Dem,” he says, and she lifts her head, trying to project anything other than sullen at him, because she’s not. That’s not who she is, she’s just tired. She’s always so tired and not even the break has helped that (even though it’s helped most everything else). “Do you want to move forward with the show?” He asks her gently and Demi tries not to grit her teeth in frustration, but it’s hard.
“I don’t think I can,” she says, voice dropping low. She feels her stomach constrict with nerves, because this show is all she’d ever wanted and now she can’t even bear the thought of doing it.
All in all, it takes less than an hour to remove her from the proceedings. Demi thought she’d feel lighter, but she doesn’t. She feels exactly the same.
;;;
She’s taken up smoking. She doesn’t tell her mom or Dallas, and she certainly doesn’t tell Madison, but it’s something she likes doing. She likes the way the smoke burns in her throat, and how Wilmer seems to chase the taste when they kiss.
They don’t talk for a week, but Demi doesn’t stop smoking, sneaking out onto the balcony outside her bedroom and exhaling into the night, finally breathing for once once the sun is down and the only light around her comes from the stars.
;;;
He calls her on a Wednesday. It’s late enough in the day that she should be awake, but she’s not. She’s sleeping off a night’s worth of bad dreams; never-ending hallways and family members with no faces. She dreams of getting up on stage and having no songs to sing, no memories of the words she’d written and no voice to sing them with.
She wakes up because the ringer on her phone is so loud, and when Wilmer says, “Have breakfast with me,” she’s too freaked out to say no, even though it’s the middle of the afternoon.
“I’m going out for breakfast,” she shouts on her way out. She doesn’t wait to hear if anyone’s heard or to answer any questions. It’s easier that way.
Wilmer’s waiting for her at the beach holding two breakfast burritos and a tray of coffees from The Coffee Bean. It’s in the low 80s, but he got her a hot latte anyway, and she smiles when she sees it, smiles as she gets closer to him.
“Thanks for the drink,” she says, settling next to him.
He grins at her. “Thanks for breakfast,” he says, and nudges their elbows together.
“You bought it,” she says. “I’m just visiting.”
He rolls his eyes. “Thanks for eating next to me, then,” he says.
Demi smiles. “You’re welcome." She takes a bite of the burrito as he hands it over, the cilantro popping on her tongue. “This is delicious,” she says, swallowing her food down and wiping at her face.
“It’s just a breakfast burrito. It was probably frozen before they sold it to me.”
She shrugs. “When you get used to throwing everything up for so long it’s pretty amazing when things actually manage to taste good.” She takes another bite of her food, taking care not to spill onto the hood, and only looks up at him again when he’s been quiet for too long. “What?” she asks. “Something on my face?”
“I would’ve never pegged you for an eating disorder girl,” he says. Demi flinches when he touches her face, but doesn’t push him away. He’s not a dick about it, anyway. Not really. “You look good just how you are.”
She smiles at him, using all her teeth and leans in, touching his face the way he’s touching hers. “I hope you know,” she says, dropping her voice as she scoots closer. “You’re never seeing me naked again.”
Wilmer laughs. “Fair enough,” he says, and that's that.
;;;
She’s a mess when she runs into Tiffany at Vons, on a cereal run in just leggings and an oversized sweatshirt. Tiffany’s dressed to the nines, of course, hair perfectly curled and coiffed, and she smiles like she’s genuinely happy to see Demi, letting out a little shriek and dropping her phone to rush close, stopping just before she’d normally push in for a hug, perched almost on the balls of her feet.
“Demi,” she breathes, barely holding back her grin. “Dem, you look so great.”
Demi resists the urge to look down at herself. She says, “Thanks, Tiff. You too,” and leans forward into the hug, bridging the gap. She tries not to touch people if she can help it, but Tiffany smells warm and familiar, and Demi holds on a little longer than she expects herself to.
“What’re you up to?” Tiffany asks, tilting her head. It’s a motion that’s familiar; Demi’s seen her do it a million times on set and in character and for a second, it’s like being back there. Demi feels her throat close up.
She coughs and says, “You know. Hanging out.”
Tiffany nods, steamrolling right over the fact that on the magazine rack behind them there’s a grainy picture on the cover of US Weekly of Demi and Wilmer kissing at Pinkberry. “That is just great,” Tiffany says, the wattage on her grin going up.
Demi wouldn’t buy it if they hadn’t been around each other for almost two years straight. There’s genuine and polite and sweet, and then there’s too sweet. Demi’s always believed that people that earnest aren’t to be trusted, but Tiffany keeps proving her wrong.
They hug again before going their separate ways, and to her credit, Tiffany doesn’t say what Demi’s expecting. She doesn’t say, “We really miss you, Dem. It’s not the same without you.” She doesn’t ask, “Why didn’t you come back? The entire show hinged on you. We needed you there,” even though it would be justified.
She just says, “I got a new cell number. Let’s exchange now and go out for mani-pedis in the next few weeks, okay? It looks like I have hobbit feet right now. Thank god it's boot weather.”
Demi laughs, even though she wasn’t expecting to, and says, “Sure,” probably surprising them both.