Love's a fragile little flame || Jenlisa Adaption

Chapter 4

The first time 18-year-old Jennie saw her face splashed across tabloids and celebrity gossip sites, she wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

Okay, not literally. (Though that's what she told anyone who would listen.)

What she really wanted to do, for a brief and tumultuous period, was quit the business.

She just wanted to make music. She was okay with performing as an entrée into the producing arena. But what she was not okay with, was her private life being up for grabs, open to public consumption, used as revenue-driving clickbait.

Intellectually, she understood that some level of public scrutiny came hand-in-hand with fame. She'd just naively thought that it wouldn't happen to her.

She's boring. She likes sweatpants and staying in and going to bed at a reasonable hour.

Which is exactly what she wants to tell the assembled mass of paparazzi that has been camping out near the set ever since she and Lisa were photographed at that club.

It's a different group from the local Boston media photogs who had snapped a few pics when they first started filming. The security detail says these guys are from New York, sent up here specifically to cover the Untitled Julliard Project and some DiCaprio film that is also shooting in town.

So that's great.

Naturally, the fan accounts have been having a field day with all the Content™. Jennie can't go on Instagram without seeing some random shot of her and Lisa just standing around between takes, paired with flailing, emoji-riddled captions about '#jenlisa'.

When Jennie calls Mino to complain, he's not exactly sympathetic. He goes on and on about how he and the rest of her team are loving the publicity. The studio PR flacks are happy too, since it's generating great buzz for the movie.

"Chill out, hun. I don't see the problem, " Mino tells her when she tries to protest. "Just enjoy it."

Jennie almost hangs up on him.

Mino may not see a problem, but she does. Several problems, in fact.

Primarily, her problem is that none of this is anyone's business.

It's also embarrassing, since in the original photos in question she was clearly drunk.

And since it's true.

It'd be one thing if it was some completely fabricated rumor. The fact that it's real — that the whole world knows about it while she hasn't even grappled with how she feels — makes her skin crawl.

And on a more practical level, there's the problem of the laser focus directed at her and Lisa while on set.

Which means they have to start sneaking around.

(Which is actually kind of hot.)

*

If Lisa has any hangups about this whole thing, she doesn't let it show.

"They've always said the craziest stuff about me," she says with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I swear, no one believes half of what the gossip sites write anyway. Try not to worry about it so much, Jen."

*

But Jennie does worry about it.

She also worries about this thing between her and Lisa. Before they'd hooked up, she'd written it off as just a crush, but now...

Well, now she doesn't know.

Jennie can't have a crush.

(Or feelings.)