Untouchable ~ A Jared Leto/MARS Fanfiction

Chapter Twelve

Constance rests her elbows on the table, her tea cup between them, and puts her chin on her folded hands. Her eyes gleam in the fading light. "I am looking at you, Lanie."

***

"Oh, shit."

The curse word seems odd slipping out of Constance's mouth, since I haven't heard her swear before. But at the same time, it covers the situation we're approaching. If spread extremely thin, that is.

Caught in bumper-to-bumper traffic on Beverly Boulevard and left with no other choice, Constance slows the Tesla to a crawl as we draw nearer to the visitor's parking ramp. A mob of people toting cameras and microphones are gathered at the entrance of it. More are lining the front of the hospital itself.

"Jared said to expect this." I shrink into my seat a little. "They probably know he's being released today."

"I think we'll have to go with Jimmy's suggestion and go around the corner to the service entrance. You and Shelby better get down. Most of the pap know my car. Damn it!" She picks up her phone from the console and taps something on the screen.

I slide down in my seat even further and in the back seat, Shelby does the same, even as she asks, "What's going on?"

Constance quickly glances in the rear-view mirror. "Remember what your mom and I talked to you about last night, about what to do when the people with the cameras come around you? Well, they're here, honey."

As we slowly pass by the bulk of the media, I'm bracing myself for Constance's car to be mobbed. As she said, the paparazzi know her car.When none of them break from the crowd and rush toward us, she and I glance at one another in surprise. 

Constance stares out my window, and then her eyes narrow just the slightest bit. "Oh. That's why," she mutters and gives a single nod. "Never thought I would say it, but thank you, Katia."

I quickly turn and look, craning my neck a little from my slouched position to peer outside. I give an involuntary gasp as I spy Katia Valkov surrounded by a circle of reporters and cameramen. "Are you freaking kidding me?" I murmur. "What the hell is she doing here?"

"Talking to the press. Keeping herself visible. Keeping up appearances," Constance answers, a slightly bitter edge in her voice. "Jared's going to be furious when he finds out about this. We'd better warn him when we get in there." She turns and stares straight ahead again at the stopped traffic in front of us, her hands gripping the wheel tightly. "I never could stand that girl. I have no idea why Jared played along with that whole charade after it blew up on him." She shakes her head. "It's not as though he needed to boost his profile."

I think of the way Jared looked in that unguarded moment after he threw Katia out of his room, the tears in his eyes that he wiped away the second he realized I'd come in. And the way he clung to me afterward. And then what followed. I squeeze my eyes shut. "I think...maybe...maybe he really did care about her."

Constance sighs. "Jared has very good instincts about people as a rule, but he's not always shown the best judgment when it comes to women, especially women in the business." The Tesla gives a little jerk as traffic begins moving again. "Dating and relationships for every reason except love are the rule rather than the exception in the entertainment industry. He's learned to play the game, but even though he hasn't said anything, I suspect deep down he's also been hurt many times by it."

We've left the bulk of the press behind, and Constance tells us we can sit up again. She then takes a right, and pulls into a driveway that leads down to a mammoth garage door. Jimmy's outside, standing beside it as it begins to yawn open. My breathing is easier as we drive into the underground service entrance, finding ourselves surrounded by forklifts and stacks of wooden pallets. Huge steel racks line two walls of the cavernous space, most of them filled with enormous corrugated cartons. In front of us is a three-door loading dock meant to receive goods from semi truck trailers. A smaller door for foot traffic is on one end. But today it'll serve as an escape door for a celebrity patient.