A Little Bit of Truth (Little Bits) (17 page)

He hasn’t called and he hasn’t texted. I haven’t called him either, nor have I texted him. My lioness is winning, she doesn’t want to back down. I’ll give it another day, if he hasn’t called by then, I’ll call him.

By the end of the day
I’m completely spent and ready for bed and there has still been no call from Jacob.

It’s now the next day and I’m on my lunch break. If you can class three in the afternoon as a lunch break that is. There should be something between lunch and dinner, like you have brunch for breakfast and lunch.

Dunch
. Linner. Dinch.

Nah, that sounds like an STI.

He still hasn’t called. Time to put my pride aside and calm the tide. I’m rhyming in my head, must be nervous.

It’s ringing, still ringing… “Yeah?”

“It’s me,” I clear my throat and shift in my seat. “So, I just noticed, on the newest version of Office, when you type, the word
fuck
is recognized and no longer has a squiggly red line under it. I wasn’t aware the word fuck was in the dictionary. What do you think?”

I listen to his breathing for a moment before he finally talks, “Is this you telling me you want to fuck?”

Shit, I guess I can see why he’d think that but that’s totally not the aim I was going for. “Actually that was my attempt at an ice breaker.”

“You’d need the Titanic to break the ice that’s standing be
tween us two Marie.”

I can’t help it, I laugh,
“That’s kind of funny I guess. No, actually it’s mean and not something you should joke about, especially since it was the ice that broke the Titanic.”

He only sighs, “What’s your point Marie?”

My point? Oh right, my point. “I’m sorry for saying what I said, I didn’t mean it.”

“Did you go out with Kev?”

“No, I was too grumpy, it had nothing to do with you saying you didn’t want me to go and had everything to do with the fact that you walking out in the middle of an argument pissed me the hell off. But you’re my best friend, I’m over it. I miss you. Let’s do something tonight,” I ramble. Stupid brain.

“I’ll send you money for the bill.”

“The bill?”

“Yeah, the phone bill you’ll be expecting after this call.”

What? “What?” I laugh nervously. What’s he getting at?

“I’m in London Marie, I left yesterday morning.” My heart just stopped.

“And you didn’t call to say goodbye?” my voice is monotone, as if tasting the words. He didn’t call to say bye. Who does that?

I can almost hear him chewing his lip. “No, and now I’m thinking that was a shitty thing to do.”

Scoff, “Really? Well, yeah I guess it fucking is.”

“Marie…”

“Go fuck yourself,” I press the end call button and throw my phone away from me, it lands on the ground with a thud but looks relatively unharmed.

Fucking asshole! It rings. I ignore it. He didn’t even let me say goodbye. What is that?

I get that I pissed him off, but I’m not going to see him for at least four months! Maybe longer. This movie shooting business isn’t an overnight thing. What a cock! I want to punch him but I’d have to fly to England to do that and it doesn’t seem worth the effort.

I stare at my phone for long minutes, every time the call goes through, Marie ignores it. Stubborn woman. Frustrating woman. Who can blame her? I should have listened to myself and said bye to her. She’ll never forgive me for this. So she said something stupid, who cares?

What I’ve done is way worse. I’m not going to see her again for months. Maybe I should send her a flight ticket. I should do something.

“You’re on in five,” someone shouts at me through my trailer door. Dammit. I send her a quick text.

Jacob
:
I’m sorry.

Because I can’t say anything else, there’s no excuse for what I’ve done. None whatsoever. What was I thinking? I was so certain she’d go out with Kev just to spite me. Although I’m not even sure why this would bother me at all. I don’t know this Kev, I don’t know the nature of their relationship. Maybe it’s the way he spoke to me that has pissed me off.

This excuse is weak at best, it’s ridiculous. It’s not like I can say, “Marie, I left without saying bye because I thought you were with another man. One who you’ve made clear is just your friend and you have no reason to lie about that, so yep. I fucked off like a prick.” This will never work.

I know the real reason is what I just said and the fact I wanted to get a reaction out of her. This is another stupid excuse because if I’d done that to Maya then I would’ve gotten the same reaction. Marie is my friend and no matter how badly we’ve fought, she’s still my friend and was – at the time I left for London – my lover. She deserves better from me.

What makes me feel even worse
on top of the major worse I already feel, is the fact she called to apologize for what she said. Then she probably thought (when I dropped the Titanic joke in there, which was completely inappropriate) that I was talking about the ice she created upon insulting me. I actually said this because I knew that what I’ve done has probably put a fucking mountain of ice between us.

She’ll never forgive me. Never. I’m such a fucking idiot!

“Jacob, on in two.” Great, just great.

Beth smiles at me from the sidewalk of the set we’re filming on. I give her a nod and quickly read through my lines one more time. I have them down to a T, but it’s always good to refresh.

Beth slides up close to me, reading over my shoulder. Her rose scented perfume is making my nose itch. Then I feel her arm wrap around my waist. I know we’re supposed to be pretending we’re together, but right now I need her to not touch me. So I pull away and head to the place the director wants me, we’ve already been practicing all morning, I think we’re set. Now it’s time for the real thing.

“You could at least pretend to find me attractive,” Beth hisses as she passes but I ignore her. I’ll be pretending soon enough when I’m kissing her for the film. Other than that, I have no interest in this stupid fake ass relationship anymore. I know I have to do it
, but right now there’s only enough room for one female on my mind and she doesn’t want to speak to me.

******

Why do people pace when they’re waiting impatiently for something? Is it just to help pass the time?

Must be, because I’m doing it right now.
While impatiently waiting for Maya to answer her phone, I don’t care what time it is there, I know I’m ahead by about five hours and it’s two in the morning but I need to speak to her so I can tell her to tell Marie to call me.

Unfortunately Maya doesn’t answer. Who can blame her? She’s probably pissed at me too.
Either that or she’s sleeping. Probably the latter, I know for a fact if Maya was pissed at me she’d let me know about it.

I’m overthinking things, what Marie and I have isn’t easily thrown away. She’ll forgive me and if she doesn’t I’ll make sure she does. With my wit, my charm and my obviously irresistible body.

Who the fuck am I kidding? I’m screwed. Completely fucking screwed.

“You know, with a face like that who needs a fire guard? All they have to do is snap a shot of your scowling face and slap it on the mantelpiece. Voila, no more burnt children,” Maya quips at me while slowly stirring sugar into her coffee. “You could sell them in your studio. Goldmine!”

I blink slowly and quirk a brow,
it’s far too early for this but I fire back anyway, “You’re not funny you know? You just think you are.”

“If I was trying to be funny I would have just
taken the photo and put it over my mantelpiece to keep Evelyn away,” she retorts.

I immediately snatch the little chub
by baby out of her arms and hold her at arm’s length, so her face is level with mine. Then she starts crying. “Way to have my back kid.” Then she starts laughing. “That’s better.” And now she wants to go down. I watch her crawl over to my DVD rack, take out a DVD, crawl over to her dad and start beating him on the chest with it when he lifts her up. “Is that normal?”

Maya shrugs, “She likes hitting him with DVD cases. We just leave her to it.”

“Stop it,” James snaps and scowls at Maya while prying the DVD from Evelyn’s chubby fingers. “What do you mean
we
just leave her to it?”

“She likes it,” Maya shrugs. “I think it’s the sound it makes.” She waves her hand
flippantly in the air. “Plus it saves me the job of beating him, she always knows when he’s annoying me.”

“If I’d
known having a child with you would’ve brought a miniature version of the devil into the world I might have rethought my marriage options,” James jests and blows a kiss to his: fiancée, ex-wife, woman, girlfriend, person… I have no idea what to label them.

Maya rolls her eyes, “
Puh-lease. You’ve been wooing me since I became legal, if the Pope had come to you and said the world would end if we married you would’ve still done it.”

“Christ you’re an arrogant bitch,” I laugh and wince when Evelyn gets James on his brow with the DVD case.

“It’s true, we’ve had one demon child, according to him,” Maya, being the mature person she is, sticks her tongue out at him and continues. “And yet he still wants more and he wants to marry me too.”

“I’m a sadist, that’s got to be it.” James sighs and puts Evelyn back on the floor. She screams, clearly not liking the fact she can no longer hit her father on the chest while making cute little baby grunting noises.

Maya’s face lights up with a smirk to rival all evil smirks, “I’ll tell you who’s a sadist.” Then she points at me with her thumb. What did I do? “She denies herself love pretending she doesn’t feel that way when clearly she does.”

I open my mouth to protest but James beats me to it, “Nah, she’s not in love. She’s in lust. If she were in love she’d be on a jet to England to beat some sense into that asshole.” His love for Jacob is well known, in case you were wondering I’m being sarcastic. He doesn’t mind Jacob but he’s hardly chumming up to him anytime soon. Although
Jacob is one of the Groomsmen at James’ wedding. Should be an interesting day.

“Or she’d be crying in her room, swallowing large amounts of whiskey and sending flowers and chocolates every two minutes,” Maya hisses to me
(referring to what James did when they broke up) but James hears her and scowls in her direction. She quickly recovered, “I loved all the flowers and chocolates baby. They rocked. I’m thinking of breaking up with you again, so I get more.”

His scowl darkens.

She raises her hands, “Jesus, can’t say anything without pissing you off.”

I snort and decide the window is a good place to look.

“Maybe you should say something nice,” James stalks toward her and places his hands on her hips. She tilts her head back, a beautiful smile on her face. I still can’t get over the fact my friend has a baby and is getting married for the second time. It’s madness. She looks so darned happy though, which is awesome obviously but still weird. “Like tell me how handsome you think I am.” He pulls her hips into his and presses his lips to hers.

“Or what a big di…” Maya is cut off by his lips pressing even harder to hers.

“Yuck,” I shudder and pick Evelyn up from the floor. “Come on kid. Let’s go take some pictures.”

“That woman needs a baby of her own,” Maya’s voice follows me out of the room. I choose to ignore it. I’m okay with her kids and maybe even
Summer’s when she has them, but not my own. I don’t want kids and that’s final.

“Little Maya!” my brother calls and suddenly the kid is gone
from my arms. He’s just walked through the door after meeting some old buddies in the city.

He starts flying her around the room while making airplane noises with his mouth. Sigh. “You’re such a kid.”

“Can you say fuck off Marie?”

My mouth drops open, “Are you seriously trying to teach the kid how to curse?”

He stops, Evelyn in one arm, his other now up and scratching his head, “That’s bad right?”

“You’re a moron,” I smack his arm and snatch her back. She giggles and goes straight for my hair. “Evelyn, can you say moron?”

“Momon,” she says with only two teeth in her mouth, her chubby cheeks swollen with a huge smile. Oops. “Momon, momon.”

“
It’s morrrrooooon,” if she’s going to insult people she should at least get it right.

“What the hell are you doing?” James shouts, clearly hearing me.

I throw the babbling kid at him and point at my brother, “He started it!”

“Lies!”

James glares at both of us and is about to say something but Evelyn cuts him off, “MOORMON!”

Eek. “I’m gonna…” and then I run.