The next morning, I awoke to the light from my windows shining in my eyes. Instead of flinching it away, I turned over and just smiled as I slowly woke up. I could still imagine and 'feel' Joe's kiss on my cheek. The warmth that shot through my body when his lips touched my face was something I wouldn't be able to forget for a while. I sat on the edge of my bed and checked my phone. I don't usually check my comments, but I thought that I should today. Most of the comments had questions about my new living situation. Was I in an apartment or a house? How far away from LA was I? How did it feel to be living on my own instead of with a roommate? Pretty good questions from a comment section that usually bashes my voice. I have been known to do a stream where I answer any questions that people have and I hadn't done one in a while. This seemed like the perfect time, and people most certainly had burning questions that they wanted to ask me.
I opened twitter and I tweeted, "Q&A Livestream in two hours! Bring some zingers." I close my phone and got dressed. I put on some skinny jeans with a couple of rips in them along with a dark gray Nintendo sweater that was very warm. I liked keeping my apartment colder than normal because it reminded me of the cold of Chicago. Either way, I had decided to kill some time before beginning the stream and so I looked at Joe's IMDB one more time. Was there something in here that I could watch? I scrolled through all of his acting credits and I realized just how long he had been acting for. He was consistently acting even before Jurassic Park, and other than that one movie when he was a kid, I had no idea if he was even a good actor. I suppose he had to be if he kept getting all of these awesome parts.
Then I saw it, The Pacific. It almost stared me down. I had told Gio that I wouldn't watch it, but I wanted to. I wanted to support my friend and now I wanted to watch the guy I liked in it as well. It seemed like enough of a reason to watch a show. I found the full series online and sat down to watch the first episode. For most of the episode, it centered around a character that wasn't Joe and Joe wasn't anywhere to be seen. Where is he? I thought to myself, He got second billing on IMDB. He has to be a big part of this series. Then, right before the episode ended, I saw him. His character was getting checked by a doctor in order to determine if he goes into the Marines. When he appeared on screen, I gasped. It's a feeling that I had never felt before. I know that I have been friends with an actor since we were in high school, but seeing someone who I knew on screen in a pretty big TV show was something new entirely. He also looked a lot younger than he did now. He is still really cute, but just a different kind of cute.
He was only in the episode for about 5 minutes, but I already liked him. I had a habit of falling in love hard with actors I knew I would never meet, so this was dangerous. I knew Joe in real life and I would see him again, hopefully. If I fell in love with him like I had for many other actors and he doesn't feel the same way, I could embarrass myself in front of him. Rejection and embarrassment are truly the scariest experiences in the world.
I checked my watch and I only had about 20 minutes before I said the stream would begin. I closed my laptop and walked into my music room. With my desktop finally on, I began setting up the stream. And when the moment came, I clicked to make the stream live. Slowly, people began entering the stream and started commenting every variation of 'hello' that you can imagine.
"Hey everyone! Welcome to the first LA Q&A stream!" I read some of the chat but it was still just a bunch of 'hellos'. I guess I should keep talking then. "So I thought that we could start with some questions and then maybe I could play some songs for you guys if we have time. We'll see what happens, but I have a feeling that you guys have a lot of questions." I keep reading the chat as I speak, and I see the first question. "Ok, here we go. How does it feel to live in LA? Well, it's fun so far. I haven't met any big celebrity or anything like that, but I like it here. Well, I like it right here, in my apartment, and my friend's apartment. The traffic sucks, but that's just something I'll have to get used to. I did see someone ask on my video if I was in a house or an apartment, and I'm in an apartment. I don't have enough money to buy a house yet."
I keep reading the comments and answering some questions. Insignificant ones like how I feel about living on my own and things like that. Then, one comes in that I didn't think anyone was going to bring up. "What do you miss about Chicago?"
"What do I miss?... Everything. I miss everything. The city, the suburbs, the theaters, the people, the feeling of being in the city, everything." I could feel myself getting emotional. I loved that city, but this city had opportunities. And Joe. Thinking about him made me smile. "But, I like it here too. Just, not as much yet. It's still a bit of a fresh wound so to speak." I kept smiling at the thought of Joe. Just seeing his face in my memory was enough to make me blush now. After a significantly long pause, I looked back at the camera. "What else?" A couple people were remarking on the pause, but I just ignored them. 'How's your friend?' One of them asked.
"Oh, he's good. He's always good. I swear, he's more optimistic than me, and that's saying something." At the mention of Gio, people asked for his name. They wanted to know who this mystery friend was. They also started asking if we were a couple. "Ok, I see that people are asking if my friend and I are a couple, and we are not. Uh...You're not going to get his name, so just drop that. We've been friends since high school, so if we were going to date each other, it would have happened by now. And also he is very gay, so it's not gonna happen." I laughed through the last sentence. I knew that Gio didn't care if I described him like that. Once, I had introduced him as gay to a friend of mine and he acted overly flamboyant just to make a point to the person we were talking to. He's very comfortable in his sexuality; it's one of the things I love about him.
I kept answering questions about which music I was going to be doing soon and what my plans for the channel were. It had been about an hour, and I was getting tired of seeing the same questions in the chat. Questions I had answered earlier in the stream, but latecomers still wanted to hear the answers to. Suddenly, my phone began to buzz and an unknown number popped up onto my screen. Could this be Joe? I thought.
"Hold on a second, guys." I picked up the phone and spoke, "Hello?" I tried to speak in my softest, prettiest tone just in case it was him.
"Hey. How are you? It's Joe from the party." He was acting like I hadn't remembered him. I smiled very wide and realized I was still on camera.
"I'm good, but could you hold on one second?" I smiled through my words. I could feel myself beginning to blush at the sound of his voice.
"Yeah, of course." I put the phone down and hit the mute button. I turned toward the camera.
"Guys, I gotta go. Sorry about the short notice, but I have to take this. I'll see you guys soon, bye!" I waved at the camera as I clicked a button to end the stream. Once I knew for sure that the stream had ended, I cleared my throat and moved into my living room. I pressed the unmute button and pulled the phone up to my ear. "Hey, sorry about that. How are you?" I was back to my soft voice again. I had hoped that a calm soothing voice would be more inviting to him.
"I'm doing very well. I hope I didn't interrupt anything."
"No, you didn't. Just doing a little bit of work was all." It wasn't a complete lie, I just needed to stop talking to about 9,000 people in order to talk to one person.
"Oh? What kind of work? Recording some songs?" He seemed interested but at the same time, delivered those lines in a joking manner.
"Just brainstorming some new ideas and answering some comments." There was a slight pause between us. I knew it wasn't anything I had said. Maybe he was trying to work up the courage to ask me something. I didn't know, so I just helped the conversation along. "I had a really good time at the dinner party yesterday." I smiled. Even though he couldn't see me, I still felt shy.
"Me too," He responded in an almost breathy voice. It was soft and low and could have made me melt once again. "That's actually why I called. I wanted to ask if you wanted to go to dinner with me sometime. If you don't want to go, that's also fine." He seemed very nervous, quickening his pace when I didn't answer right away.
"Joe," He stopped just as soon as he heard me talk. He seemed to be waiting with bated breath. "I would love to go out with you." If I couldn't stop smiling before, I definitely couldn't stop now.
"Great," I could hear his smile through the phone, as well as his nervousness melting away. "I'll pick you up. How about tomorrow at 7?"
"That works perfectly," I replied.
"Awesome, I just need your address. Just text this number with it." I could still tell he was smiling.
"Ok, I'll see you then."
"Bye, Julie."
"Bye, Joe." I hung up and flopped down onto my couch. I got so excited that I started shaking. Vibrating, almost. I have never fallen for a boy this hard. He was so amazing that I still couldn't believe he was interested in me. Our date was going to be special, I know it.