2 Weeks Later
It's one week until my birthday. It always felt gloomy on my birthday because March in Chicago meant snow or slush and nothing else. But this year, I was surrounded by sun and palm trees and sand. It was a new feeling. Plus, I had a boyfriend who loved me dearly and couldn't wait for my birthday to come up.
"29 isn't that big of a deal," I told Joe while we were eating lunch at a fast food place. I liked going to places like this because it was quick and the meals were just really good.
"It's the first birthday we're having together as a couple. Of course, it's a big deal." We each took a couple more bites. "What do you want to do for it?"
"I don't know. I would like to go back to Vegas at some point for a couple of days. So maybe that?" I was grasping at straws. Vegas was always so beautiful lit up by all the lights at night. It was like Christmas all the time. Since I was a designer, I loved seeing all the saturated colors. The last time I went was when I was 21. I went with Gio and we did a lot of sightseeing and some gambling. But, I liked looking at all the lights and going on rollercoasters more than gambling.
"Oh my god. We could take a road trip to Vegas. It's not that far. Like 3, maybe 4 hours. Would you like that?" He was excited before realizing he had no idea if I would enjoy a road trip.
"Yeah," I said after thinking about it. "Yeah, I would like that. We can listen to some music on the way and stop whenever we wanted to see some sights along the way. That could be a lot of fun!" I was getting very excited. An idea that was a shot in the dark turned into a fantastic sounding vacation.
"Plus, we would be in the land of bad decisions." He winked at me and I giggled slightly before kicking him under the table. He gasped and his eyes got wide. "Maybe I could see you drunk. I've never seen it. I want to know what you're like. I bet you're a sloppy drunk."
"Why would you want to see that then?" I cocked my head at him.
"Cause. I would want to take care of you and have you sloppily fawning all over me. Telling me how much you love me while slurring your words. It would be great! But, only if you would want to get that drunk, of course."
"Yeah, we'll see," I replied. I never drank that much and have only gotten blackout drunk once. I was at a party and I had gotten kind of drunk, but then I got super thirsty and just kept drinking this drink that didn't taste like it had alcohol in it. I just kept drinking and drinking until I woke up in my bed the next morning with no recollection of the night before. After that, I pretty much stopped for a couple of years.
We finished our food as we talked about plans for the Vegas trip. We had decided that we were going to stay at the MGM Grand (as my suggestion) and we were going to go to some national parks around the area (Joe's suggestion). I liked seeing National Parks as long as I didn't need to hike anywhere.
Over the next week, we planned our trip. We looked at fun things to do. Places to see and go. We looked up all of the amusement park rides in all the hotels, along with many cool places we could spend time. I was getting very excited. I hadn't been there in years, but it was one of my favorite places to go.
When the day finally arrived for us to leave (the day before my birthday), we packed our suitcases into the back of his car and put ourselves into the correct seats. Joe offered to drive the whole way because he found driving for that long very peaceful. I had packed lots of CDs and music on my phone to play through the whole ride. I was the DJ and he was the driver. We also had snacks with us in case we wanted to eat something but didn't want to stop. We started driving and I rummaged through the CD folder I brought. Joe looked over and chuckled.
"You're such a nerd. I love it." He chuckled a little more.
"What? I like music."
"I know, honestly. Who has a CD folder anymore?" He looked over at me and raised an eyebrow over the sunglasses he was wearing.
"I do. And I'm very proud of it thank you very much." I pulled the folder into my chest giving it a hug as I spoke. I looked through the folder and found a CD of Electric Light Orchestra's greatest hits. "Do you like ELO?" I asked trying to emerge the CD from the plastic casing.
"Yeah, I do. But I think I only know a couple songs."
"Yay! I get to introduce you to some." I popped the CD in and took out the Queen one that Joe had kept as learning material for his movie. I held it up and looked at him.
"It's a CD, not an entire folder. There's a difference." I laughed as I put the CD away and started the ELO one. As we drove, we were singing along to the lyrics of Mr. Blue Sky and Strange Magic. There were a couple others that Joe didn't realize were by them, but there were also a good amount of songs that he didn't know. By the time the CD ended, he had asked to hear a couple of them again, even some that he had heard for the first time.
I kept putting in different CDs like Meatloaf, the Temptations, Simon and Garfunkel, and The Beatles to keep our minds busy. When we were about 3 hours into the trip, I looked back over at the Queen CD. I had one in my folder as well, but I wanted to know more about the one I took out earlier.
"What songs are on here?" I asked.
"Most of my favorites, but a lot of John Deacon based stuff. So, either songs that he wrote or ones where he has a great baseline in."
"Are there some obscure ones one here?" I hadn't heard the CD all the way through. Joe would turn it off before I could hear anything of importance.
"Yeah. I hadn't heard them till I started researching him."
"Perfect. I want to listen to it." I put the CD back in and started from track one. It was, of course, Another One Bites the Dust. As we were singing along to some of the songs, Somebody to Love came on. "This is my favorite one," I spoke quietly.
"Me too." He replied. "It always has been." He then told me about his Queen 'journey'. He told me that he liked Queen when he was younger, but didn't start to appreciate them until he got into college and on. He loved them and his love for them only grew over the years until he got asked to do this movie. He started researching and started to love them more and more. I told him that my journey was pretty much the same. I loved the Beatles in high school and Queen in college. I was reintroduced to them after they were one of my favorite bands as a child and I fell in love with them again. There was something so electric in their music style that was hard to resist. However, I wanted to know more about the Queen movie.
"That meeting on Valentine's Day with your agent, was that about the Queen movie?" I asked. I turned the music down so we could talk at a normal volume while still having the music going.
"Yeah, um" He replied. He seemed nervous like he never intended to talk to me about that meeting. "He wanted to see me about the casting that had been announced."
"I thought they knew that already. Like late last year." I was confused. Joe had known he was going to be in the movie when we met. And although we had talked about who we wanted in the other roles, we both knew they had already been cast.
"Well, it turns out that none of us knew for sure that we were going to be in the movie. I guess it wasn't a sure thing until then."
"So, it was possible that you weren't even going to be in the movie?" I was extremely confused now. What made this casting process so complicated?
"Correct. It was really strange. Remember when I told you that filming would be delayed till April." I nodded. "Well, I guess when they announced that, they also announced that they would be recasting. So, all of the people, including me, who had been told we were cast in the movie, all had to wait and see if we were going to be recast. Thankfully it didn't happen and it was confirmed that I was going to be in the movie." I had purposefully not looked at any casting rumors for this cast. I didn't want to get my hopes up for this exact reason.
"So, who did they recast? It had to have been someone or else they weren't going to announce that they were recasting." I was into it now. I needed to know and I was shocked that Joe hadn't told me any of this. Joe took a deep breath. "You don't need to tell me if you don't want to, I'm just curious-"
"Freddie." He said while never taking his eyes off the road. "They recast Freddie. Apparently, the guy they had didn't get along with Brian and Roger so they recast him." I let out a quick breath.
"Who would be stupid enough to make Brian and Roger so annoyed to kick him out of the movie? Who would want to do that?" I was looking at the road now too. I couldn't believe that someone would be that cocky and annoying to have this movie taken away from them. There was a pause between us. "Who was the actor?" I asked looking at Joe again. "Is it anyone I would know?" Joe nodded.
"Yeah," He looked at me and chuckled. "Sasha Baron Cohen." He looked at me again for my reaction.
"Oh. Really? That's who they were going to have play Freddie? Strange." I thought about it for a minute. "I mean, I guess he looks a lot like Freddie, but that's all he has going for him."
"You don't like him?" Joe asked.
"No, not really. I never found him that funny and in some of his more serious roles, I could never take him seriously. Plus, in my opinion, he can't sing which he should know how to do if he's playing a music god." Joe let out a quick breath.
"Well, then I'm glad he's gone if you don't like him. Good riddance." I chuckled at his remark. "But," I looked up at Joe. "The new guy can't sing either. Like actually can't, not that it isn't good, he just can't." He was smiling as he talked.
"You know who they cast?" He nodded his head. "Who? Come on, you have to tell me now." I turned my body to face him. I was too excited to hear all this news from the source.
"I don't know if I should," he teased. I hit his leg and he pretended to surrender to me. "Ok, ok, I'll tell you." I rolled my eyes at him. He laughed again straightening in his chair. "It's Rami."
"Rami?" He nodded. "Rami Malek?" He nodded with more vigor. I started smiling really wide and hitting my hand on my leg. "He's such a good choice. I can't wait! I'm so excited!" I started speaking in a high pitched voice. I couldn't keep my excitement in. I loved him in everything he had been in. I started telling Joe all about the stuff I had seen him in. "He was in Night at the Museum and that movie was really good, and he was in Mr. Robot which was such an amazing show. Plus, he was in Larry Crowne which is such an underrated movie that I love to watch." I kept rambling about how much I liked his acting. I pretty much listed everything he had been in and I couldn't help myself from rambling.
"I take it you like his work," Joe joked. I stopped myself and took a deep breath in.
"Yes," I spoke, trying to calm down.
"Do you want to meet him?"
"Excuse me?"
"Do you want to meet him?" He articulated his words more so I would understand him. Then, I remembered that Joe was in The Pacific with him. It was the only thing I hadn't mentioned.
"The Pacific," I whispered as I threw my hands over my mouth, completely shocked and ashamed that I had forgotten about that amazing show for even a second. Joe nodded. "You still keep in touch."
"Yeah, I see him quite a bit actually. I'll invite him over for parties and stuff and we talk on the phone sometimes. We keep up with each other's work. It's great. He's great." I was smiling even wider. "You didn't answer my question though."
"Yes," I replied. "A million times yes."
"Now, you aren't going to leave me for him right? This isn't like a weird one-upping thing where you leave me when a better guy comes along?" We were stopped at a red light. He had gotten off the highway while we were talking. We were almost there.
"Never," I responded, unstrapping myself and reaching my hand to find his inner thigh. I rubbed back and forth with my hand while I kissed him on the cheek very quickly. I pulled my hand and face away as the light turned green. I could tell I riled him up a bit.
"You're lucky we're in the car because I would have wrestled you onto a bed right then and there." He shook his head and stuck his eyes back on the road.
"Well, why don't you when we get to the hotel?" He looked between me and the road a couple times before speaking.
"Goddammit, I love you." He said in a low tone while I laughed and turned the radio up again. This was going to be a fun trip.