"Thank you so much for your time today, I'll keep you posted with all big updates. Once again, I really believe that we're making a huge difference here and you're all a part of it," I say to the remaining women in the apartment after the second day of shooting the interviews. They were all done now so I was showing all of the rest of the women out of the apartment before we started cleaning up all of the equipment and left over snacks.
They all file out of the apartment, shaking hands or hugging me on their way out and telling me that I'm doing a good thing here by bringing Sebastian to the light.
Once they're all gone, Scott, Jasper, Abby and I start putting all of her equipment away so that she can leave.
"So I'll have the video done by the end of the week," She says as I'm folding up the tripod that she'd been using all day.
"Alright. I'm going to call the school tonight to schedule a meeting with them for next Wednesday, and I'll show it to them then. That way, if they don't do anything about it, we have time to show it at the film festival," I suggest.
"Isn't that blackmail, Jo?" Jasper asks me with raised eyebrows.
"No, because I'm not going to be like 'fire him or it'll go public', I'm just going to ask them to fire him but I'm not going to tell them about the film festival. That's not blackmail, I don't think. Noah said that it'd be okay," I explain to them. "I think that it'll work out."
"It will work out," Scott confirms.
"He's right. You'll totally kick ass," Abby agrees with a laugh as she zips up her black camera bag and then I hand her the tripod that is completely folded up and hidden in its black cloth bag. "Anyway, make sure that you keep me posted. It's been fun working with you."
"Right, you too. Thank you so much for your help," I tell her gratefully as she starts to leave the apartment.
"Of course. Good luck, Jo," She chirps just before disappearing out the door.
"Okay, now that that's all over with, all we can do now is wait for Abby to finish editing. We have all of the paperwork finished and filed away, so once I make the call to the office to plan an appointment, we can all go to the movies or something to celebrate," I say, pulling out my laptop and sitting on the couch between Jasper and Scott as I pull up the school's website to get the phone number of the office that, for some reason, is open on Sundays.
"We should go see that space movie, with the weird dragon things," Scott suggests quickly and when I give him a weird look, he just shrugs. "It seems cool."
"As you wish, King Scott," I giggle, not letting go of the whole prom king thing from yesterday. It's not like being prom king is some huge embarrassing thing, I just love to tease him about it and I love the idea of him being so popular that he won prom king, even if it was his ex-girlfriend's doing.
"Let it go, Joey," Scott sighs with a roll of his eyes, obviously not actually upset about me teasing him.
"What?" Jasper wonders, clearly not understanding the joke.
"It's nothing," Scott says quickly but I'm not going to let him get away with it that easily.
"It isn't nothing, Scotty, don't be so modest," I say with a small laugh. "I went to dinner with him and his parents yesterday and his mother enlightened me on Scott's high school life."
To get me to stop talking, Scott leans toward me and starts tickling my midsection, wrapping one arm around my waist so that I can't escape.
"He was prom king," I finish my story through giggling gasps as I thrash around on the couch, trying to get free of Scott's tickling. Once the cat is out of the bag, he releases me again and I give him a teasing glare. "It's adorable."
"It isn't adorable," Scott argues.
"It's adorable," I say with more emphasis as I stand up from the couch with my phone ready to make the call to the office. "Anyway, I'm going to go upstairs and make this call and then we can go to the movies."
I hurry upstairs before Scott can pull me back into a tickling match because I'm painfully ticklish and I will definitely lose. Once I'm safe in my room, I call the school and the secretary sets up an appointment for me on the Wednesday after this one with seven members of the Board of Governors of the Art Institute of Atlanta, including the chairman, which is a big deal. She'd been happy to oblige when I told her how important this information is and that I needed to talk to as many of them as possible right away.
Once the appointment is made, I politely thank the secretary and then I hang up and go over to my mirror to make sure that my hair and makeup look okay. As I'm fixing some loose strands of hair, I can hear Jasper talking downstairs and me, being the little eavesdropper that I feel like being right now, I snoop closer to the edge of my room, blocked by the hanging blanket, to hear what he's saying. Perhaps he's talking about me down there.
"I'm just saying that I'm really kinda protective of her," Jasper's saying and I immediately assume that he's talking about me.
"Yeah, I've noticed," Scott says, clearing his throat a bit. "And I think that it's really cool of you. How you look out for each other."
"Right, well this is me looking out for her, so it's nothing personal," He says and I want to stop him from saying whatever it is that he's about to say but for some reason, I don't. I just sit there in my room and listen to the conversation going on in the living room.
"Okay..." Scott trails off curiously.
"She is a gorgeous human being inside and out and you better not hurt her. She's a magnificent creature and you know more than anybody the kind of hell that she's seen. But she could still rule the world if she wanted to because she has more confidence in her pinky than most people do in their whole lifetime. She's like a unicorn, and you better not hurt her. I love her to death and I won't let anything happen to her."
There's a long silence after that and I'm about to head downstairs to break up the silence down there but right before I take the first step down the stairs, Scott starts speaking.
"I know that you want me to tell you that I won't hurt her," He begins and I remain silent, wondering what he's about to say. "But I can't. Maybe I will hurt her. Or maybe she'll hurt me. That's kind of part of the guessing game that is a relationship, you know? You just never know what's going to happen. I mean, I can't imagine ever letting her go because you're right- she's absolutely gorgeous and magic and amazing and I don't think that I'll ever let her go but you just never know. All I can promise is that I will try my absolute best not to hurt her but that's about it."
"Wow. That's deep, man," Jasper mutters, obviously taken by surprise by Scott's response and honestly, I'm a bit surprised as well. "You know that she can probably hear what we're saying right now."
"Yeah, I kind of figured," He sighs. "That's alright."
Jasper doesn't respond and I think that it's because he's thinking about Conner now. Last week, they had that dinner like Jasper said that they would but it didn't go as well as I was hoping. But it didn't go as badly as Jasper was worried about. From the vague details that I've gotten from Jasper over the past week, they're still friends but the romance is on pause right now while they both figure some stuff out. Seems complicated to me.
"Okay, movie time," I say, quickly trotting down the stairs with a bright smile on my face as I pay dumb to the conversation that I just heard, even though they just said that they knew that I was listening in on it. "I'm getting the biggest popcorn that they have, I'm so hungry."
"We just ate a little bit ago," Scott reminds me with a little laugh as they both stand up from opposite ends of our small red couch so that we can leave.
"I know that, but I'm hungry again. So much working and stressing has got me starved," I explain, rubbing my tummy for emphasis. "And I have a 100 Page project due next week too, so that sucks."
"What's that?" Scott asks.
"Oh, I have to do that too, in my intro class," Jasper confirms with a nod as we're all walking out of the apartment to go downstairs to Jasper's truck. "It's where you pick your favorite book and flip to the 100th page and then you have to illustrate what's happening on that page. It's pretty cool."
"But so difficult," I whine. "I don't even know what book I'm doing yet and I have to figure it out by tomorrow afternoon."
"I'm doing Shakespeare. It's not my favorite, but it's easy," Jasper says with a shrug. "What about something Dr. Seuss?"
"Dr. Seuss doesn't write books that are over 100 pages long," I point out. "It's fine though. I'll figure something out. Scott's thinking about joining a club soccer team."
"No, I'm not," He shakes his head at me. Jasper's driving the truck and I'm sitting in the passenger seat with Scott sitting in the back with his head poking through the middle space between the two front seats.
"Why not? You should," I tell him.
"Because like I told my mom, I have class. And I want to spend time with you too, so there's that," He says. "And it's just kind of time consuming."
"Do you know their practice schedule?" I ask him with raised eyebrows.
"No."
"Well, then you don't know how time consuming it is," I tell him. "Look, I just think that you really love soccer and that you should do it if it's what you love. At least get a copy of their schedule and if it's too much then it's too much. Or at least try it for a few weeks and if you don't like it, then stop. But it's worth a shot, right? Plus, I think that I could get some really awesome shots of you on the field."
"The ones in the yearbook weren't good enough?"
I shrug. "They were amateur and blurry. If I took pictures of you playing soccer, you would almost be able to taste the sweat on your forehead."
"That's disgusting."
"Intriguing," I correct him with a small laugh.
"You sound so pretentious, Jo," Jasper interjects with a small laugh.
"I can be pretentious when I have to be," I say, shrugging. "Anyway, just think about it, alright? We can work something out with our schedules, I promise. I'll go to all of your games, stop by some of your practices if I have to. It'll be fun. And I really want to see you play, but that's just a completely selfish reason."
"Okay," Scott sighs. "I'll really think about it."
"Good," I grin at him.
"You know, I know a few people from my intro class that used to play soccer," Jasper says. "We can probably put together a game sometime."
"That'd be so much fun!" I cheer at that bright idea. "We could totally get a game together. Scott, we should do that. Could you get some of your friends to come too?"
He nods as Jasper pulls the truck into the theater parking lot that's not as busy as I had expected it to be. Granted, it is a Sunday night but that still counts as a weekend in my book. "Yeah, I know some guys that would go for that. We can use one of the practice fields on campus or something."
"I'm suddenly so excited about this," I tell them both with a huge grin. "I'm totally going to kick your ass, Scotty."
This makes him laugh as we all get out of the truck and start walking the short distance to the entrance of the building. "I thought that you said that you can't play soccer."
"I can't," I admit, wrapping an arm around his waist. "But I'm still going to kick your ass. I don't know how, but it's going to happen."
"That doesn't make any sense," He sings teasingly as all three of us walk into the theater and I'm about to go toward the box office when I see two familiar heads of red hair standing by the wall of the building, playing one of the claw machines. Haven, with darker auburn hair is giggling to the side as the taller red headed boy is trying to win something from the machine. Felix.
I hadn't spoken to Felix since the day that Sebastian had hit on me or whatever it is that he did. He's still in my classes but he just doesn't try to talk to me or call me or anything anymore, which is nice because he was very annoying back then and I'm glad that he's found better things to do with his time. I'm slightly off put by the fact that these better things include Haven.
"Oh, hey, there's Haven. I told her that we were coming," Jasper says, motioning to my (our?) friend and then instead of going to the box office, we head over to the claw machine. "Isn't that the photography guy that you dislike?"
"Felix. Yeah," I sigh. "I don't know, I haven't talked to him in a while."
"Jo, hey!" Haven calls to me when she sees us approaching her.
"Hey," I respond, warily eyeing Felix before saying, "I didn't know that you two were friends."
"Oh, yeah, kinda," She shrugs, glancing over at Felix and then shrugging. "We talk sometimes."
Felix then loses the game by missing the teddy bear that he was going after and then turns to look at me with a half-smile. "It's nice to see you too, Jo. It's been a while."
I don't remind him that I see him every day in class, I just don't talk to him. "Right, well this is my boyfriend, Scott, and you've met Jasper, I think. And then this is Felix," I politely introduce them because I honestly can't remember if Felix has met Scott or not so I'm just going to introduce them just in case.
"Wow," Felix says with an amused smile. "So you really weren't lying about that boyfriend thing."
"I really wasn't lying," I assure him and even though I want to be annoyed, I kind of laugh for some reason at the memory of Felix not believing me when I told him that I had a boyfriend. "Did you guys get your tickets yet?"
"No, we were waiting for you guys," Haven says with a shake of her head. "Anyway, I was telling Felix about the film festival and how you did a collab sort of thing with one of the film students so you'll be in the festival. When is the actual festival again?"
"Well, first of all, I might not be in the festival at all," I remind her as all five of us finally start making our way to the box office to get our tickets. "It depends on how Wednesday goes. But the festival is three weeks from yesterday."
"What's the film about?" Felix wonders.
"It's about Sebastian King," I inform him. Jasper buys his ticket and then Haven. "And how he lost his job."
"He lost his job?" Felix raises his eyebrows at me, looking extremely shocked before looking away so that he could pay for his ticket.
"Not yet. But he will," I start to pull my money out of my pocket to pay for my ticket but Scott quickly snatches the twenty dollar bill from my hand before I can give it to the employee behind the window and gives me a look.
"I'm paying," He tells me.
"I can pay, Scott," I sigh.
"With what money?" He wonders, hiding my money in his wallet before handing the lady a credit card and asking for two tickets.
"Okay then, weirdo," I mumble giddily, kissing his cheek as the lady hands him both tickets and he slides one to me.
"You're going to try and get Sebastian fired just because he fired you?" Felix wonders incredulously. "That sounds incredibly dramatic of you, don't you think?"
"He fired me?" I repeat with wide eyes. "He didn't fire me. I quit. Did you try for the job?"
"I did, actually, when I heard that he fired you. Or that you quit, apparently," Felix explains. "I called his TA to ask about something and she'd told me that he fired you. Anyway, I didn't get it."
"I know that you didn't get it," I say with a small nod. "Because you don't have boobs."
"Now, I'm intrigued. What are you talking about?" He asks as we move toward the concessions stand.
"I'm talking about the fact that Sebastian is a pervert, which is why I quit, because he tried hitting on me," I explain. There's a pause in the conversation as we all order our food and drinks—Scott again insists on paying for me, which is sweet and hilariously masculine of him. I don't object too much though, because he took my money so there isn't much that I can do about it anyway.
"Wow. That's... unexpected, I guess," Felix says. "But if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. He has a lot of power in the art industry and he has continuous access to hot college chicks who want to make it big in the art world. That does suck that he's so slimy though."
"It does suck," I agree with a small sigh as we walk into the actual theater with one of my hands holding my popcorn and the other one interlocked with Scott's warm hand.
Inside of the theater, I'm sitting between Scott and Haven so I find that this is the best time to ask Haven about what's up with her and Felix.
"We're just friends," She insists when I ask her in a subtle whisper. "I mean, we're flirting so it might go somewhere but for now, we're friends. And I was hanging out with him when Jasper texted me about the movie, so I just brought him with me. I'm sorry, I know that it was kind of rude but I didn't think that you'd mind since you haven't really talked to him in a while."
"I don't mind," I assure her. "I'm just curious because you seem to like him."
"I do. I know that he bothered you a lot, but he's really sweet to me and really funny too," She explains. "Are you mad?"
"I'm not mad," I say with a small laugh. "Just surprised is all. As long as you're happy, that's what matters. It's not my decision to say who you date or who you like. I'm happy for you. Really."
"Thanks," She offers me a relieved smile and then our conversation is cut short when I feel Scott's hand grip my knee. I turn to look at him and I see that he's not looking at me, he's just watching the commercials that are playing on the screen in front of us. He lifts his hand off of my knee and I realize that my twenty is now resting on my leg where his hand had been.
"You're weird," I whisper to him. "The guy doesn't always have to pay, you know."
"I know," He nods. "I just want to sometimes."
"I love you a whole lot," I say, leaning over and kissing his cheek. He turns his head at the last second though, and instead of kissing his cheek, our lips press together in a lingering kiss.
"If you start making out during the movie, I'm going to scream," Jasper says, leaning over to give me a warning look. "Really loud too, we'll probably all get kicked out."
"We're not going to make out during the movie, Jas," I say with a roll of my eyes. Granted, ever since Scott and I had started having sex, we'd been a bit more... attached. Kissing more with other people around- modestly, of course, but it was still awkward sometimes- and just generally being a lot more handsy with each other. Which is why I can understand Jasper's suspicion that we'd make out during the movie, but we're not that sex-crazed. "And don't pretend like you've never made out with somebody in a movie theater, you're not an angel."
"Not with my friends around," He counters.
"David Moore," I scoff, reminding him of a boyfriend he had senior year and he most definitely did make out with that kid with me sitting right beside him and it was the most awkward thing ever, especially since it was just us three that went to the movie so I was the biggest third wheel ever. "When we went to see that weird cartoon movie."
"We didn't—" Jasper starts to object but then his face flashes with recognition before he starts to smirk at the terrible memory that obviously isn't so terrible for him to remember as it is for me. "Oh yeah. Okay, point made. But still, I'll scream."
The lights go down and the previews start at that moment, so I just give Jasper a teasing glare without even dignifying his claim with a response.
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Song: Endlessly Green River Ordinance
Picture: Fan cover by The_BookMobster