" The world comes to life
And everything's bright
From beginning to end
When you have a friend
By your side
That helps you to find
The beauty you are
When you open your heart
And believe in
The gift of a friend. "
'The Gift of A Friend' - Demi Lovato
************************************
Emily had finished her last shift finally and Kali had kindly helped her to pay half of the taxi fayre home, as Emily was smothered in gifts and cards.
As she was struggling to get out of the taxi outside her building complex, Bryce was coming down the front steps. He looked up from buttoning up his suit jacket and saw Emily struggling with a particularly large gift bag whilst also trying to coralé a cluster of balloons which didn't seem to be going all that well from what he could tell.
It also didn't help that it was a particularly blustery day and the wind kept whipping blonde tendrils of hair in her face, obscuring her vision in the process.
"Emily! What are you doing? There's no way you're going to be able to manage all of that on your own. Here, let me help you."
"It's OK. I was going to get one of the bell boys to help me with everything. I don't want you to be late for wherever you're going."
"Trust me, I won't. I was only going to meet a friend for coffee."
"Oh really? I just finished my last shift today at the coffee shop I work at."
"Oh, is it that time already?" Bryce looked at her, taking in the size of her bump. "I take it you're due soon then?" He reached out to take the large giftbag from her hand.
She hoisted up her handbag onto her shoulder and bent to pick up a small one whilst wrestling with the collection of balloons and followed Bryce inside.
"I'm about 30 weeks now, so about 6 more weeks to go, but the doctor has said my baby is big for how many weeks he is, he's long as well so he's going to be tall. James is tall so it figures."
"Do you ever see or speak to him? You guys made a great couple."
They made their ways over to the lift.
"No. I don't do either. Although I've tried. Believe me, I've tried. James has a new girlfriend. She's a complete bitch. She's the one preventing me from getting in touch with him. I know she is."
The lift pinged to announce its arrival at her floor, and the doors slid open.
"What about you and Shannon?"
"No...I-I ended things with him. I'm flying solo at the moment." Emily shrugged, opening the door to her apartment.
"I'm sorry to hear that Emily, you seem like a lovely girl."
"What's the saying? God loves a trier." She sighed. "Would you like to come and see Alex's nursery? It's just about done now. Well, it certainly will be now I've been gifted all of this stuff."
Bryce laughed. "Sure, I'd love to see Alex's nursery. Is that the name you've decided on?"
"Yeaha. It was that or Theo, but I don't know."
"Well...you could always save that for baby Number 2?"
"Jesus...don't. I haven't had this one yet." She walked through her lounge and down the corridor to her nursery and switched on the light.
"Oh it's lovely Emily. You've done an incredible job. Did you do all this on your own?"
"No, my work colleague Kali has a friend who's an interior designer, so she helped me as well, but I picked out the colours and chose the theme. I was gifted a beautiful baby blanket by the creative director of Gucci, Alessandro Michel, and it gave me the idea for the woodland/mythical creatures theme. Here. Isn't it gorgeous?" She handed Bryce the linen blanket and he looked at it.
"It's gorgeous Emily, you're very lucky. I wish you all the best anyway." He handed it back to her and checked his watch. "I better get going if you don't mind?"
"No, of course I don't! Thank you for even taking the time out to help bring all this up for me." She gestured at the mountain of gifts that were around the room.
"It's no problem. If you need anything, anything at all. Just come and knock on my door."
"Thank you Bryce. That means a lot. I need to get ready myself anyway. I've got a dinner to go to."
"Oh nice. Where are you going?"
"No idea." She laughed, "Shannon's brother Jared is in town. He surprised me by showing up to my surprise babyshower."
"Jared Leto?"
"The one and only." She sighed. "His mother Constence is here too. She came along with him."
"Good. Bad?" Bryce questioned, making his way back to her front door.
"Good. I think. I only met her briefly earlier, but she seems a lovely woman, very friendly and forgiving. She brought along a lovely cake for me."
"Oh, well good luck. We should catch up sometime, properly. If you'd like to that is."
"Sure. That would be nice, Bryce." She smiled and gave him a hug which he returned before leaving.
************************************
**At The Resturant Later**
"So Shannon told me that you lived in Louisiana for sometime. What was it like there? That's once place I've always wanted to go to." Emily was sat in an upmarket restaurant in Anchorage with both Constence and Jared.
Jared had requested a secluded booth as he really wasn't wanting the attention right now, although, inevitably the odd Pap would be sniffing around.
"Yeah, Shan and I were born in Bossier City and we lived there for our earlier years, didn't we Mum?"
Constence turned and smiled at her son.
"We did. We lived with my parents. My father was in the airforce, we unfortunately moved around a lot, but for the first eight years or so of Jay and Shan's lives we lived in the South. My maiden name has Cajun origins."
"That's so interesting. I don't really know much about my family. I'm an only child. Mum died when I was young, my Dad's an alcoholic. I-I don't really have any contact with him anymore. But my surname, Kapinski, it has Russian origins, no surprises there." She laughed and sipped at her water.
It was then that she felt a hand on her leg from under the table and coughed, choking slightly on her mouthful of water. She flickered her gaze discreetly to the side and caught Jared looking at her.
"Are you OK, Emily? Do you need a pat on the back?" Constence asked her, concerned, seemingly completely unaware as to what was unfurling, when she saw Emily choking on her water.
"No. No I'm fine. Thankyou." She replied dabbing at her eyes with her napkin. "I'm just going to the bathroom. Excuse me." Emily lightly pushed Jared's hand from her thigh before pushing her seat out from under the table.
"Here, Em...let me help you." Jared offered, getting up out of his seat and helping to pull out her seat for her. "Can you manage, or would you like my help walking you?"
"Erm..." She managed to stand up.
"Jared, help Emily to the bathroom." Constence told her younger son.
"It's fine. Thanks. I can manage."
"Emily, let him help you. I know what it's like."
"Ok. Sure." Emily smiled at Constence.
"This way, Madame." Jared teased, holding out his arm to her.
"Stop it, you dork." Emily swatted him on the arm and laughed.
He smiled down at her and they made their ways to the back of the restaurant where the bathrooms were.
"I missed this. I've missed you." He bent his head down closer to her and told her.
Emily didn't know what to say, so just smiled up at him, before going into the bathroom.
Upon her return, she found Jared typing away on his phone, he looked up when he saw her appear.
"Everything OK?" She asked him, seeing how pensive he looked.
"Oh, er...yeah. Just the usual. Some of the Press have caught on that I'm here."
Emily rolled her eyes at what he said.
"Exactly." He laughed.
"To be honest, I'm surprised there wasn't anything published sooner."
"Did Shannon ever tell you about what was printed not long after you left our tour?"
They made their ways back over to the table.
"No...we erm...haven't talked all that much since I came back, although he did phone me the other day."
"There were a couple of articles published, I don't know where or how they found out, but there were a couple published about how Shannon wasn't your baby's father."
"Urgh! I don't know where that came from. Shan and I didn't talk about that much, obviously."
"He took it pretty badly, the press followed him around for a while."
Emily looked down and chewed her lip. She felt terrible for him after hearing this.
"Does he know you're here now?" She asked Jared.
She saw Jared's usually stoic composure slip and she could see him starting to blush slightly.
"Jay!" Emily sighed once she realised what his response probably meant. "Why haven't you told him? I've already caused enough problems between the two of you. I don't want anymore."
He pulled her seat out for her again, helping her sit back down, before pushing the seat back in.
Constence smiled at her from across the table. "Everything OK?"
"Yes, fine thankyou. Just at that stage of my pregnancy where I have to pee a lot."
"Oh believe me. I know all about that." She finished off her glass of wine. "Jared. If you don't mind I think I may excuse myself. I think the flight took it out of me a little. I'm not as young as I used to be and these long haul flights seem to catch up with me far more quickly."
"Long haul? I-I thought you lived in LA along with Jay and Shannon?"
"No, no my dear. I live in New York."
"Wait! What? You flew all the way from New York to Anchorage just to come to my babyshower?" Emily questioned her, completely in shock that Constence; who didn't even know her, would make the effort to do that.
"I am going to pop by and stay with Shannon and catch up with some friends. Don't look so shocked my dear." Constence laughed, reaching across the table to pat Emily's arm.
She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin and stood up.
"It seems the two of you have a lot to catch up on."
Emily saw her looking between herself and Jared, then giving him a quick wink before making her way around the table to where Emily sat.
"It's been so wonderful to have finally met you, Connie. I'm sorry it wasn't sooner."
"It's no worries. I want to swap numbers with you, Emily, if you'll allow me to? I'm worried about you being on your own for your last few weeks of pregnancy."
"Oh, I'm not on my own, I have my friend Kali, who you met earlier, there for me, but I would love to swap numbers with you."
************************************
Constence had left in a cab to go back to the hotel that Emma had booked for both Jared and Constence.
Emily and Jared had both seen her off safely before Jared turned back to Emily.
"Will you come on a short walk and then come back with me to the hotel? I have a present for your babyshower that I want to give you. It's nothing much, but Mum and I were in a bit of a rush earlier so we sent our luggage on ahead to the hotel." He looked at her as they stood outside the restaurant together, and casually slipped his hands into the pockets of his trousers.
"I think I can manage a short walk. It's such a nice evening, it would be a shame not to."
Tying her light coat slightly above her baby bump, Emily slowly led Jared down to the seawall where it would be less crowded and where he would be less likely to be recognised.
"So you've lived here your whole life then?" He questioned, scuffing his shoe at a small rock.
"Yep. Born and raised. I mean, I've moved around Alaska a little bit, but I've always lived in the state. So where else have you lived besides LA and Louisiana?"
"We lived in a hippie commune in Colorado for a while and also Washington DC. Can you ever see yourself leaving here?"
They paused at a bench that overlooked a particularly scenic spot.
"Never say never." Emily replied with a grin. "Jay. I have to ask, what happened between you and Shan after I left the tour? Shannon was livid once I told him everything. I'd never seen him that angry before."
"We had a bit of a scrap, but its nothing that hasn't happened before."
Emily bit her lip. "I'm so sorry Jay."
"Don't be. It's just as much my fault. And I don't regret any of it." He softened his eyes and reached out to remove some hair that had become stuck to Emily's bottom lip, before running the pad of his thumb over it, moving his hand eventually to cup her cheek.
They both found themselves leaning in at the same time and catching one another's lips in a chaste kiss.
Pulling away, Emily ducked her gaze shyly from him.
"Sorry." Jared told her, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.
"I-I just don't want any expectations Jay. I'm about to have a baby and enter a whole new chapter of my life. Alex needs to come first and I'm not going to have time for a relationship if I'm honest."
"It's fine Emily. I totally get that 100%, it's partly why I've been so reluctant to have one myself for so long, because I always have so many projects and meetings going on. I-I'll always make time for you though Emily."
"Thank you for understanding Jay. I really appreciate you being here and for your friendship. It means more than you'll know." She reached out and took his hands in hers and held them, stroking them softly with her thumbs.
"Come on. I want to give you your present." Jared grinned and stood up, pulling Emily up with his hands as he did so.
"If you've bought Alex any of those hideous mismatched socks you wear, they're going straight in the bin, I can tell you that much."
"Well...Thanks a lot."
************************************
**Back at the hotel**
Jared let them both into his hotel room.
"Very swish!" Emily told him, looking around the room, coming to sit down on the bed as Jared crossed over to his case, rummaging around for Emily's present.
There was a ping and Emily heard her phone go to announce a new message.
She pulled it out of her bag and looked at the screen.
'1 Message - Shannon'
"You never told me you were having a babyshower?"
"Even I didn't know I was having one, Shan"
"But my brother did???"
Emily sighed deeply, which drew Jared's attention to her.
"Everything, OK?"
"Yeah, it's fine. Don't worry."
"I had no idea Jay knew! He surprised me. Like I said. Even I didn't know I was having one, Shan." She shoved her phone back in her bag.
Jared found what he was looking for and crossed back over to Emily, sitting down on the bed and handing her a thin box.
She frowned questioningly at him.
"Well open it then."
Emily lifted the lid and found some tissuepaper which she pulled undone. Underneath, she found a beautiful book entitled.
'Reasons Why I Love My Mummy ❤️'
Turning to look at Jared, Emily had a hand over her mouth, completely in shock and lost for words.
"Jay. I-I..."
"You like it then?"
Emily flicked through it and could see photos of her that had been taken whilst on the tour with Thirty Seconds To Mars.
There were captions underneath each one reading:
-'I Love my Mummy because she's goofy. '
-'I Love my Mummy because she has a beautiful smile.'
-'I Love my Mummy because she's generous.'
-'I Love my Mummy because she's kind-hearted."
It went on and finally ended with.
-'I Love my Mummy because she's a warrior. "