Okay, I didn't have enough time to find a person for Octavia but if you have someone, comment here :)
This chapter is dedicated to btwitssurina for the cover at the topic. Go check out her stories, she writes the best justin bieber fanfic (Deal) so go read that.
Chapter Three: "I Breathe, Mind My Own Business On This Planet, And You Hate Me?"
"WHY?" I ASKED as we walked on the sidewalk. People passed by us on either side but that wasn't the focus. My eyes loomed over the architecture of the place with awe for my character and a little awe for myself.
I always forget how beautiful the buildings in Milan were. I always forgot how beautiful the buildings in the country were. The friends I had here, specifically Giulio who had grown up in this city, always took me to different places while I was here, never failing to leave the essence of surprise.
Now that I had been living here for a little over a month and was going to continue living here for the next couple, I was getting used to being in a completely different place. However, I did miss home a little bit.
But home meant three places: my childhood home, where my mom and dad were, and my bed and the memories of my old friends rushing back to hit me as if none of us ever stopped talking one day.
Home also meant Los Angeles, where life, most of my career actually, was. Where miles and miles upon traffic occurred when driving anywhere and the lifestyles of my friends would be judged by outsiders.
But then there was New York, where my closest friends were.
It was the city that never slept and that was probably why I was drawn to it more than any of the other places I had lived. I could recall the times I'd drag my friends out at 3 AM wanting to go find fun wherever it took us. That usually left some of them cranky the next day but it would always be worth it. I think it was the traits in me or my Gemini mentality that allowed me to get sick and tired of places so fast because I would find the need to get out of my surroundings whenever I could. But I wanted to go back to New York. Soon.
"Maybe because I never found a reason to care," Jake said, and we looked at each other. Me, with the expression of confusion evidently yet not so evident on my face and him, his eyes on the ground before looking up at me through his lashes.
"And cut!"
I shot Jake a smile and two thumbs up. "Nice."
He ran a hand through his hair and sucked in a breath through his teeth making a hissing sound. "Would've been better if I didn't have Giulio bearing holes at the side of my head."
"What?" I turned my head around and sure enough, Giulio was staring at Jake while someone spoke to him on the side.
His stare was hard. It was so intense, I was certain that he would've gone up to Jake and done something drastic like punching him if I weren't beside him. Giulio caught my eyes as the person beside him continued the conversation. He nodded at whatever they were saying while giving me a finger wave and a soft smile. Idiot. I almost walked over to him but held myself back.
"Whatever you two got, sort it out, eh?" Jake looked at my hair, inspecting the afro that my hair was combed out into. He reached a hand towards it then paused, looking at me for permission in his eyes. I nodded and felt his fingers fluff my hair a little bit. "The breeze." He explained.
"Thanks. But maybe he'd be fine if he knew you were in a relationship." I pointed out.
"Maybe he'd be fine and chill the hell out if he knew that I was gay." Jake grinned at me and I smiled back at my friend.
But I knew Jake wasn't going to tell Giulio. Not because Giulio was homophobic, he wasn't. But because Jake just didn't care.
He didn't have to come out to the people around him. He just felt that everyone should stop assuming he was straight. It was none of their business. I didn't even make it my business when after I had known Jake for a couple of months, I saw him kissing a guy when he was supposed to be moving along with me to the next party. I had tapped him on the shoulder and he broke off the kiss, giving me a smile. I gestured towards the man he was kissing, "Finished?" I had asked him. Jake grinned, and we never had to talk about his sexual orientation. It was just implied that he had an attraction to men and after time I had noticed that it was only men.
Sexuality was a spectrum, but my traditional parents would make a face or comment something disgusting at anything that didn't fit their lifestyle. It sucked but there was no changing their mindsets. It was how they were raised. Especially my mother. My father is starting to become a little more open-minded. But living in Canada, their comments reduced and now they stay quiet. That's what I wanted because why be homophobic when you can just be quiet? I said that all the time when I was a teenager, not just from my own irritation but because my sister, Naomi, is bisexual.
They didn't know that.
I pushed aside my family based thoughts, looking up at Jake and squinting my eyes when the sun decided to grace us with its rays of danger. "He has nothing to worry about because we're not anything."
"Really?" Jake looked surprised. "I thought something was going on there at your little dinner. You know?"
"What do you mean?" I asked confused, looking down at my outfit. My character was to wear high waisted jean shorts and a halter top. I wanted to take this look for myself considering Addison, the main character had good taste despite being 'quirky' as the writer made her out to be.
"When you sat on his lap," Jake said. "The man looked like he had been waiting for that moment his entire life. Could've flaunted you right then and there thinking 'I have THE Octavia. Someone get this on camera. She's mine'."
I laughed, shaking my head. "We've been together but, like, that's it. I don't want a relationship." With him.
"It's a 'friends with benefits' type of thing?"
"It's a 'friends with benefits' type of thing," I confirmed. I started backing away, knowing that the next set of filming was between Giulio, Jake, and a couple of others. Not including me. "But just a friend thing. That's it." I assured him.
Backing away, I bumped into AJ, the director. He had a certain look on his face that let me know I wasn't going to go home anytime soon. For a movie that was about two hours, he wanted to make it as perfect as possible and up to par with his vision. AJ was one of the best people to work with and it helped a lot. Despite him being not far off from my age, he had qualified experience.
In the middle of AJ and I's conversation, my eyes wandered over to where Caleb was sitting. Today he had no sunglasses in sight which was a first for the week. I heard him claim that he wanted to make sure no one saw the black eye and right now it seemed to be nonexistent on his face. The only evidence of that black eye ever being there was the smallest bruise that was barely noticeable from a distance.
In the middle of AJ explaining the next scene to me as everyone started setting up for filming, I watched Caleb run his hand through the waves of his brown hair as he spoke to one of the extras. He was wearing pants and a black shirt. How he wasn't sweating I didn't understand, but the black on his skin color made him look-The girl was leaning over his chair as she whispered something in her ear. She giggled and his hand slid down to rest on her back.
I blinked, looking back to AJ and nodding at what he said. "I'll be in my dressing room."
He twisted the hat that was on his head so that it was backward. "I'll call you in when we're ready." I gave him a smile as he handed me my script and started walking towards the trailers set up on the other side. I didn't expect to see Jake in the trailer I shared with him. I could have had my own but everything was better when Jake was involved.
But of course, the one person I haven't said a word to the entire day decides to acknowledge me as I try to gain some peace and quiet.
Caleb Henderson just had to intervene with me simply trying to get from point a to point b. "Wait up." I heard him yell as he jogged to catch up with me.
"Hi, Caleb." I didn't bother glancing at him, keeping my eyes on the package in my hands. During the past couple of days we've been filming, Caleb and I have had a few creative differences when it came to the script. He didn't know anything about those creative differences because I kept it in my head. I held my thoughts to myself, holding back a little bit of my pride, and just went along with what the script said.
However, the petty side of me let the little changes I had noted and highlighted with the brightest colors be known whenever Caleb was around me and I had a feeling he had spotted them the first time I had brought my script in.
As for speaking to him about Angie, I never had the chance to do it yet and she had forgotten all about it since she was caught up with her own job. However, yesterday she had managed to catch me before I left to remind me to talk to her "future husband" about her.
Now, I had to engage in conversation with Caleb, not him trying to talk to me when it was clear I didn't want to go near him.
But maybe it was the whole Keith thing that day that had left me irritated at everyone and maybe I had focused all that energy onto him to give him a horrible first impression. Plus, if he was going to be around Angie, I was going to have to end up tolerating him and not just for the sake of this movie. Angie said to give the guy another chance and I might as well.
Here we go.
"You're not even going to look at me?" He asked, and I changed up my attitude fast.
I turned to look at him, slowing my walk down to a stop. Sure, enough there was that smile on his face and I noticed him glance at the script in my hand that was partially open. He flickered from my face to the package, no doubt noticing the number of sticky notes sticking out of the script. "I see you are having thought about a lot of things in here."
I sucked in a breath, pursing my lips. A part of me felt bad because I knew that this was his work and I didn't want to insult him. But there was no way I would insult him. Overall, the story itself was really good and it left me with excitement to be doing a movie in the genre I wasn't naturally fond of. "Just a little bit."
I didn't miss the little pause in the atmosphere of our conversation as his eyes stayed on the script before looking back up to me. "Want to share that with me?" He gestured towards the script and I noticed the sleeve tattoo on the arm he had reached out with.
"You know what? Let me finish going through the whole thing one more time and when I do that I'll show you what I think and probably fix on the screen."
He made a face then winked at me. "You're interesting, aren't you?"
It was the wink that made me frown. Yeah, it was at that moment I confirmed that I was naturally irritated of him. I tried.
"Goodbye, Caleb."
"Wait, wait." He caught up to me again as I walked towards the room. I opened the trailer door and of course, he had to follow me through it, closing it behind him.
For Angie, I told myself. But if I was going to bring her up, it had to be subtle. I racked my brain trying to find a way to have a conversation with him before he could start one. I'm not sure how I would handle having him ask a question about donuts again.
"I actually have a question for you," I told him, taking my shoes off before heading over to the couch and crossing my legs.
"Yeah?" He took off the Nike slides on his feet, leaving them by the door beside my shoes. He had that small smile on his face, crossing his arms.
"You're the first screenwriter I've seen that is actually on set, you know? Why is that?"
"I get that a lot," He made a face, settling down next to me and helping himself to a banana on the table in front of me. "AJ, obviously your director, and I worked on this story. We had other people, other writers here, and there to help with parts of it but it was AJ's vision and my writing that held the most part. So, when production began, he thought it seemed fit to allow me to see the production of our story come out. He wanted me to give him key pointers and such too."
"Makes sense," I said, flipping through the script and grabbing a highlighter.
But of course, I couldn't have even a second of peace because he continued talking. "So, what can I learn about Miss Octavia without finding on Wikipedia?"
That left me stunned. I recovered quickly, narrowing my eyes at him. "You searched me up?"
"Never said that," He smoothly defended, taking another bite of the banana. "Only that I know you're on Wikipedia. In case you haven't noticed, you're kind of famous. Famous people usually pop on wiki."
I flipped the highlighter in between my fingers over and over again. "Well, since you can find the basic facts on Wikipedia like where I grew up, schooled-"
"It's rather obvious you didn't grow up in Italy." Caleb pointed out.
"It was my non-Italian accent that gave it away, right," I said dryly and Caleb let out a little chuckle at my sarcasm. "Yeah, I noticed that about you too," I mentioned.
"I'm Canadian." He said.
My eyebrows shot up in a little shock. "Same."
"Really? Glad we have something in common." He took a bite out of the banana after flashing me a toothy smile. "Have you been to Italia before?"
"I have." I quipped, deciding to replace my highlighter with a pencil instead.
"You're settled in LA, though?" He asked, chewing and looking around. His eyes scanned the entire room from the clothing rack on the side to the dressing mirror on the other. I watched him get up and over to the chair in front of the mirror. He spun in it letting out a fake 'wee' before stopping. He looked down at the makeup brushes but didn't touch them, just merely observed.
"Yeah," I flickered my eyes up at him as he came back to sit next to me on the couch. "You?"
"I have a place down there because of a couple of old friends," He shrugged. "But I rarely use it."
"So, you have a place down there that's collecting dust?"
"What are you doing with your house then?" He asked.
"My brother is staying down there for business."
"Point made."
Before I knew it, the script was taken from my hand and my irritation rose. "Caleb, are you-"
He closed the package, tossing it onto the table next to the fruit basket. "Why don't you like me?"
"Is a must to like you?"
"We're going to be spending a lot of time together." He leaned back into the couch, closing his eyes.
"That doesn't mean anything," I told him, reaching for the script. "I've worked with people who have wronged me, talked shit about me for years and the second we're done acting, I pretend they don't exist. If I can do that with them, I can do that with you."
He opened one eye to look at me but didn't move his position. "But I haven't wronged you or talked shit about you. So, what's the real reason?"
"You're just so..." I trailed off, the right reason not coming in my head.
He waved his hand, both eyes open now. "I'm so..."
"You're just so you."
"So, it's me." He stood up now, disbelief written all over his face. A part of me was wondering how no one has ever found him annoying before.
I could see why people liked him. In a matter of days, I noticed that Caleb, besides being very attractive, was friendly. He talked to everyone, being able to get comfortable with people easily. He was used to people liking him.
Unfortunately for him, I was the exception.
"Yes, it's you. What else?"
"So," Caleb held a breath, looking like he was struggling to find the right words to say. But there was literally nothing to say it wasn't that serious. Just because I wasn't as fond of him as everyone else was doesn't mean I had to be. Just because I wasn't buddy buddy with him and was posting pictures, tagging him and saying, 'everyone look at my best friend', didn't mean that I had to be.
Caleb held up a finger then brought it back to his lap, he repeated his action again before coming to his conclusion of what he said. "I breathe, mind my own business on this planet, and you hate me?"
I sighed. Hate is a strong word. "It's not like that."
But Caleb didn't look like he was finished. "I just breathe, I exist, I live, and you automatically find a switch in your system that says that you dislike me."
Seriously, let him be the actor since he had a thing for the dramatics.
"No, it's not-"
"You dislike me."
I took the script and hit him lightly in the thigh with it. He yelped, rubbing his thigh. It wasn't even that hard. "Oh my God, Caleb! That's one reason."
He looked confused, putting an arm around the couch. "What?"
"You keep cutting me off before I can even continue explaining. You act like you already have me figured out. But you don't. Okay? You don't. That's just one reason."
"There's more." He stated with a dry look, rubbing his temples as he fully shifted to look at me.
"Of course, there's more. Listen for once, eh?"
"Eh?" He grinned, taking his hands off his head. "The Canadian jumped out."
"Shut up," He laughed, and I rolled my eyes. "I'm trying to tolerate you right now." For Angie's sake.
"I love being tolerated," He teased, that stupid smile on his face. "Tolerate me some more."
I raised my leg up, getting comfortable on the couch and holding up my script prepared to wack his thigh again. He laughed, holding a hand out to take it from me. "Relax, I'm done, I'm done. Sorry."
"Mmhmm." I pursed my lips, flipping through the script. I paused when I realized I didn't bring up my friend yet. "Caleb, you are single, right?" I assumed but it's been a couple of days since the incident of his black eye because of sleeping with someone who he didn't know had a significant other. Anything can happen in a couple of days.
Caleb narrowed his eyes at me, and there was a smirk on his face as if he really thought me disliking him was going to get me to go out with him. "Who's asking?"
You may be Caleb Henderson. Caleb Romero Henderson but you're not my type.
"It's a simple question to continue the conversation, idiot."
"Well, to the person that's asking, yes, I am single."
I lifted a shoulder. "I figured."
"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, looking a little offended.
"It means you don't seem like the type to be in a relationship. Just an observation but I could be wrong. You want to observe me, I'll observe you." I retorted.
There was a pause as I flicked through the script. It got strangely quiet for a good moment before I heard him speak again, "Who's asking?" He repeated.
"I have a friend," I said.
"You have friends?" he asked sarcastically. "I thought you just hated people you meet."
"No, that's special just for you."
Caleb shot me a dry look. I think Caleb was at a point where he understood I wasn't going to get on his good side, so his attitude jumped out. "Take a joke, Octavia. Anyways, who's the friend?"
"Her name's Angie-"
"Cute name."
"Funny, she said the same thing about you." Match made in heaven, I sarcastically said in my head. Angie was a great person and I owed her a lot. Doing this didn't make me happy especially when it was Caleb, but he seemed like a good guy she could go out with.
His eyes lit up and he put his hands behind his head, my eyes going to the sleeve tattoo on his right arm. "So, you guys discussed me?"
"Not the point here," I tore my eyes away from his arm, looking back down at the script. "She thinks you're cute."
"I already like her." He clapped his hands.
I shot him a look. "You haven't even met her yet."
"She's friends with you, I'm sure she's your nicer half."
"Well, I never said I wasn't rude," I muttered. "Anyways, give me your phone. I'll show you her Instagram."
He did as I asked and when I handed him his phone back, he nodded appreciatively as his finger moved along the screen of his phone. "Wow."
"So, do what you player boys do and slide into her messages or something."
"Player boys?" Caleb asked, ready to get into an argument with me when the dressing room door opened.
Giulio entered, pausing when he saw Caleb. His eyes flickered from Caleb to me, his face softening. "Hey."
"Hey," I put the script on the table. "What's up?"
His eyes flickered to Caleb once again. "I was wondering if you want to go to a movie after this." He said it so nonchalantly, I almost forgot this is the excuse he used whenever he wanted to see me.
Accordingly, I wasn't the one it slid by either. Before I had the chance to answer, Caleb snorted. "Is this your code name for whenever you two wanna fück?"
Giulio narrowed his eyes at Caleb and I mentally groaned before he said anything. "Bye, Caleb."
"What?" Caleb whipped his head towards me, his pink lips parted. "You're kicking me out?"
"You were never invited in." I pointed out.
Caleb held my gaze for a second before breaking it off, the smile coming back to his face. "Tell Angie I'll be messaging her cute face tonight. Adios, Miss Octavia." He glanced at Giulio, his eyes scanning him as if he was sizing him up.
Comparing the two, Giulio was more built while Caleb was leaner, and Giulio was taller than Caleb as well but that didn't bother Caleb at all. He nodded as if he was content before saluting Giulio and walking out the dressing room, making sure to grab another banana and leaving.
Giulio raised an eyebrow. "He's interesting."
I shrugged, and Giulio glanced at me. "What's going on?"
"What's going on with him?"
He sounded jealous. Jealous.
For what? For what reason should he even be jealous of?
"Nothing," I made a face. "One, we're not even friends, I can barely tolerate his presence. Two, Angie's into him. She's into him without even meeting him yet."
Giulio laughed, whatever tense thought into his and evidentially leaving as he relaxed, leaning back on the couch. He threw a pillow on my lap and rested his feet on them, I shot him a look at his actions and he laughed. "That sounds like Angie."
"Yeah." I smiled.
"You know you didn't answer my question."
"What question?"
"Of a movie. Do you want to go watch a movie with me?"
"You need a better code for when you want me to sleep with you." I laughed, putting my script on the table.
"What do you want me to say? Uh, I need help remembering my lines, can you help me practice?"
"You realize you're an award-winning actor, right?"
"Not as award-winning as you and mine have only extended to Italian films, bella. However, no matter how big a person is they could always use the help."
"You want me to help you practice later?" I asked him.
He raised an eyebrow. "How about now? There's a lock on that door."
Giulio and I's friends with benefit's deal has lasted a long time over the years when I wasn't in a relationship or when he wasn't. A part of me remembered what happened days ago when he had confessed to me and was off about my feelings towards that. I probably shouldn't have proceeded, taking the pillow off my lap as he moved over and pressed his lips against mine.
This was just pulling Giulio's feelings along even with the clear rejection.
But I pushed that away from my mind because it seemed like he didn't care.