Big Bang: Hopeless Places 14/15
Jared wakes to a man he doesn’t know clapping in his face. He takes in the camera slung over his shoulder and tries not to be disturbed that they were taping in his sleep. He sits up and rubs his eyes. “I’m up, I’m up.”
He wishes he could go back to sleep. He doesn’t want to have to face today just yet.
Cowboy and Kitty’s beds are both vacant so Jared lets himself be dragged down to a conference room on the floor below them.
There’s people bustling all around him and lights constantly being flashed in his face. It’s a lot for a guy who hasn’t even had breakfast yet. He says he’s hungry to a passing woman and manages to get a stale bagel pushed into his hands minutes later. Jared had no idea show business was so demanding.
People he doesn’t even know are dabbing stuff onto his face and plucking at his eyebrows. Every time he tries to take a bite of the bagel someone returns with a brush to blot around his mouth and smudge gloss on his lips. Jared sits stock still and accepts that the whole surrendering your body thing came with the job.
Despite his almost zen state Jared almost loses it when someone yanks his head back and starts going at it with a straightener. There’s only so much a man can take. The people must notice that he’s had enough because right away he’s pushed out onto a green screen facing the man with the clipboard from the first day.
He sits down at the single stool in the centre. “Is someone finally going to explain to me what’s happening?”
“We just have a few questions, they’re good for commercials and what not.”
Jared nods, he knows the routine. Only this time he isn’t talking to a blinking red light, there’s about twenty people just standing around watching him and a huge camera in front of his stool.
“Shoot,” he says.
“Is the experience on “Chance at Love” anything like you expected it to be?”
Jared laughs, taking a deep breath before answering. “It is and it isn’t. I knew coming into this that I was attracted to Justina, but I never knew that I’d be so into her as a person. I wasn’t expecting that kind of a connection.”
It’s a bunch of garbage, he’s heard the same stuff a million times on different reality shows. Figured it would work just as well here.
“Do you think the friendships you’ve formed here will continue after the show?”
Jared smiles, of course they want to talk about Cowboy. “Yeah, that’s another thing I never saw coming. I don’t know how I would have survived this without Cowboy, we’ll stay friends for sure.”
They ask a lot of questions, the majority of them Jared gives some bullshit stock answer. After that they take a bunch of pictures and send him on his way.
He catches a glimpse of Cowboy on his way out, wearing his hat and freckles concealed with make up. The other man winks at him, smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Jared remembers the first day he saw him, before he knew him at all. He was causing trouble with the girls, laughing louder than everyone else.
They’re going to win this money, both of them. And then they’re going to run off together somewhere where no one’s going to follow them with a camera again.
Jared smiles back at Cowboy and walks out the door.
The crew won’t let him go back to his room, instead corralling him into a hallway with three chairs. A redheaded girl wearing a headset walks in, texting for a moment before looking up at him.
“Elimination is in half an hour. You wait here and when the time comes your name will come up on one of these three screens.”
There’s three doors, three screens.
“If a twin picked you they’ll be in the room when you go in, if they didn’t the room will be empty. You can make your decision once you enter the room.”
Jared nods and there’s a rush of static from the woman’s headset. She finishes off quickly, “No talking to the other contestants. Good luck.”
Jared has to listen to the spiel twice more when Cowboy and Kitty come in to sit on the other two chairs. Each time it gets harder to hear. He can’t imagine walking into an empty room at this point.
He wipes his damp palms on his jeans, willing himself not to look at the man beside him. Jared goes over what he’s going to say if Justina’s standing in there in his head. He’s thought it over a thousand times but he doubts he’ll be able to say it right if he has to. Jared’s on his way to a full blown panic attack when one by one the screens turn on. At first there’s nothing but white, but then their names pop up in pink bubble letters.
Cowboy, the first screen reads. Kitty’s in the second. Jared has the third.
They all stand up, Cowboy giving him one last look before adjusting his hat and opening the door. Kitty strides in purposefully, walking with a confidence Jared doesn’t feel himself. He waits for a moment outside before gathering up his courage and turning the door knob.
He stumbles for a moment when he steps into the room, shutting the door loudly behind him. Justina’s standing dead centre, a huge grin on her face.
“Hey, sugar.” She says.
Jared feels like he’s going to puke. “Hey,” he says.
“So now you have a choice. Me.” She gestures down her body. Jared follows her hands, clinging dress, shapely tanned legs, barbie perfect face. Any guy would be crazy to say no to her. “Or the money.”
Jared notices for the first time a silver case beside her. His eyes dart over once before looking back at her. Justina’s still smiling, so sure of herself.
“So what’s it going to be?” She says.
Jared runs his hands through his hair taking a shaky breath. She must know him well enough to recognize it as a nervous habit because the smile drops off her face in an instant.
“Look, Justina, there’s something I’ve got to tell you.”
Jared clutches the silver case close to his chest as he climbs in his last limo. He avoids the eyes of the producer sitting across from him, trying to stop his hands from shaking. The man is staring at him intently, tapping his fingers against the window. Finally he smiles, “You know the case is a prop right, there’s nothing in it.”
Jared laughs nervously, putting it down on the seat. “Uh, okay.”
The man leans forward, putting his elbows on his knees. “Don’t worry kid, you’ll get the money. And hey! You’ve set us up for a perfect second season.”
Jared looks away, staring at the highway. “Yeah.”
“So look. The finale doesn’t air for another two weeks, so you can’t tell anyone what happened. Got it?”
“Two weeks? Why?”
“All that filler stuff you did, perfect for hyping up ratings. They’re going to be through the roof with a finale like this.”
The man smiles, shark-like, and Jared feels his stomach turn. They pull up to the airport and the man steps out of the car, straightening his suit. He hands Jared a one way ticket to San Antonio and claps him on the back, “Nice doing business with you kid.”
Jared nods, shaking out of his stupor to go grab his bags from the back. He’s about to walk into the airport when another limo pulls up. He watches another man in a suit get out, followed by a frazzled looking Cowboy.
The camera man still on him hisses, “You can’t talk to him, lets go.”
Jared ignores him, pretending to be rooting for something in his duffle. He waits until Cowboy spots him before going inside.
He feels Cowboy’s shoulder brushing his as they stare up at the flight board. “I’m taking off in ten minutes,” the other man says.
Jared looks up. “Mines in an hour.”
He hears a boarding call for Richardson over the intercom and fights the urge to scream. “Your name, you said you’d tell me your name.”
The camera man stands in front of him, shaking his head. And Cowboy keeps moving further away.
Cowboy smiles. “I’ll find you. How many Jared Padalecki’s can there be out there?”
And then he’s walking away, face disappearing in the crowd.
Jared gets the cheque in the mail a week later. After he’s spent seven days screening calls from his Mama, sister, neighbor and everyone else on the planet asking him what happens. He sits at the kitchen table, stroking Harley and staring at it slip of paper. He’s never seen that much money at once before.
Jared jumps when the phone rings. He should just ignore it. It’s an unknown number and he doesn’t want to talk to someone he’s never met about the show. But getting the cheque has messed with his nerves a little, and he goes with his first instinct and picks it up.
“Hello?”
“You get the money?”
Jared’s heart speeds up immediately. “Cowboy, that you?”
“‘Course it’s me. I got mine this morning.”
Jared picks it up, feeling better than he has all week. “Yeah, I got it.”
He hears Cowboy whistle, “You ever had that much money before?”
“Nope.”
“I can’t believe we fucking did it,” the other man says.
Jared laughs. “Me either.”
“So what did you tell her?”
“You can’t tell anybody. Ever,” Jared sighs.
He can hear Cowboy moving, wonders what he’s doing. “Why, it bad?”
“Sorta.”
“C’mon Tex, I won’t laugh.”
Jared smiles, he will too. “Told her I was gay.”
There’s a long moment of silence after which Cowboy laughs for two minutes straight. “You what!”
“I told her she was great and all, but I’m full on gay. So it wasn’t going to work.”
“Dude, that’s awful.”
Jared realizes this. “Yeah, it sounded a whole lot better in my head. So what did you say tough guy?”
“Told him that our lifestyles were too different for it to work,” Cowboy says.
“Oooh. Smooth.”
“Shaddup.”
“I miss you.”
He can hear Cowboy exhale. “I miss you too, you giant girl.”
“Can we meet up?”
Another sigh. “Not until the finale airs. The guy in the limo told me if they caught us, they’d take away the money.”
Jared falters. “They knew about us?”
“Yeah. I’m guessing a lot of people did.”
“Shit.”
He can picture Cowboy’s shrug. The other man takes a long time before speaking. “You weren’t just saying that right? About the house and stuff.”
“Oh, you thought I was serious?”
“Fuck you.”
“I love you,” Jared says. He didn’t plan on saying it, sort of just came out.
“Love you too.”
Jared’s smiling so hard his dogs are looking at him sideways. “You do?”
“Duh.”
“What’s your name?”
Cowboy laughs again, “Tell you when I see you.”
Cowboy calls every day after that. It’s weird at first, both of them skirting around certian subjects before they realize no one’s listening in on them anymore. On Wednesday Jared finally asks the question that’s been bugging him for weeks.
“So, what happened when you brought the twins home?”
Cowboy laughs. Jared pictures him twisting his ring. “My, uh. My folks didn’t know I was into guys.”
“Wait, so what did you tell them when you went on the show?”
“Said that I had to say I was bi to get in.”
Jared shakes his head, “And when you came back with Justin hanging onto you...”
“Yeah they freaked out.”
“Shit.”
Cowboy laughs nervously, “Tell me about it.”
“Why didn’t you tell them?”
There’s a beat of silence, Cowboy hums. “I always sort of thought of guys for fooling around. I thought that I’d find a nice girl and settle down. Never pictured it with a guy. So I never really saw the point in telling them.”
“So why’d you go for Justin at all?”
“Well you liked Justina.”
Jared smiles, it feels like his first all day. “And?”
“And I liked you.”
“Right from the start?”
Cowboy huffs. “Right from the start.”
They plan to meet up at a gas station half way between both of them the day after the finale airs. Jared spends all week driving himself nuts. He tries not to leave his house after going to the grocery store and seeing a picture of himself on a magazine. That was weird. Besides, he’s not used to people recognizing him in the street.
He finds a re-run of the show on TV once, at two AM when he can’t sleep. It was one of the first ones. The maze, when Cowboy had run into the wall. He listens to Yo-Yo bitching about them in confessional, watches himself press a bag of peas to Cowboy’s face and wonders how the twins never realized they were getting played. It’s like an out-of-body experience, watching himself like that. Jared turns off the TV before they get to the date. He doesn’t touch it for the rest of the week. He stares at the ceiling the rest of the night instead.
He spends most of his time out in the garage, messing with his truck and worrying. So he has a lot of time to think. About Justina’s face when he told her, sad but knowing. Almost relieved.
He thinks about those first couple weeks, when there was so many people in the house they could do their own thing. When he was nervous to sleep in the same bed as Cowboy. Jared does the dishes by hand, even though he has a perfectly good dishwasher. He sings along to the radio and smiles to himself.
Jared can’t help but wonder if their relationship is normal. Well he knows to some degree that it’s not normal, but he wonders if it will survive in the “real” world. He doesn’t know what it will be like to be together without the pressure of having the money on the line or being found out. The last few weeks in the house passed in a blur, every moment he didn’t spend with Cowboy moved so fast he barely remembers it. He spent every waking second thinking about him. He imagined what they were going to do when they were alone and finally free of the peering eyes of the cameras. Now that it’s a reality what if what they had isn’t there?
Jared shakes the thought out of his head. He loves Cowboy, that much he knows. No matter how screwed up it is, he fell in love with a guy on a reality television show. And Cowboy loves him, so fuck it. Fuck how dysfunctional it is, they’re going to make it work.
Reunion