Chapter 13
All Copyright Reserved – any breach of this is plagiarism.
(Hey sorry it’s taken me sooooo looonnngggg. I had flu and then a week later I got more flu! And an ear infection! Luckily, I’m better now but I swear I thought I was cursed or something – and right before Christmas aswell! I’m also revising for exams, so that’s why the chapters might be inconsistently uploaded- got to pass my exams!
But anyway, Thankyou for all your lovely comments that make me smile! I hope you all had great Christmassy Christmas full of cheer, and if I don’t end up uploading again until the New Year, HAPPY NEW YEAR, and GOODBYE 2010! Smile024 )
……………………………………….
Isabels pov
Five seconds later, after I realised that Ari definitely topped on my very short history of kisses I was startled by the sound track for ‘Jaws’ cutting the silence of the room like a knife.
Why do we always seem to be interrupted?
Then again maybe it was a good thing, seeing as my brains seem to dribble out of my ears when we kiss and I loose all coherent thought. Strangely, this seems to coincide with him being topless.
Hmmmm…
Ari chuckled at how startled I was and pulled out of my arms, patting the back pockets of his jeans before fishing out his blackberry. Still standing on my bed, I stepped back slightly from the offending Item which was still blaring the chords that will forever be linked with sh#t scary sharks that eat you.
“Trust you to have that as your ring tone.” I murmured smiling at him; Ari has always had really tacky ring tones. Trust me when I say tacky.
This is a major improvement on some of the ones he’s had……
He gave me a quick apologetic look as he muttered, frustrated “My agent. Again.”
Putting the phone to his ear. Promptly putting an end to the dreadful music and answering the damn thing.
With the mood completely killed I jumped off my bed and began picking up my pillows, which we’d managed to throw across the room. One pillow had narrowly missed a framed picture of the both of us when we were fifteen on my wall, taken on my birthday. I was leaning in to blow out the candles on the cake, laughing and Ari was standing next to me smiling down at me. His sandy blonde hair was longer then, he’d had to grow it out to his shoulders to play a surfer in one of his films. I hung it up because it was a rare photo where I thought I looked semi decent standing next to him as the candles illuminated our happy faces. Then again, I’d gotten used to the fact that famous or not, Ari was always going to turn more heads in a crowd than I ever will a long time ago.
In Hollywood they call it Charisma or Stage presence.
Most people would just call it being drop dead gorgeous.
I smiled to myself as I remembered how jealous I’d been that he got to hang out and learn how to surf in sunny Hawaii filming for two months while I was stuck in school.
He’d gotten back four days before my birthday and brought me back a purple surfboard, promising we’d go surfing on the beach in the summer. He taught me to surf in the end, even though I kept falling off my board and starting water fights rather than surfing.
I turned away from the picture, back to the bed holding the pillow. Ari was still standing on my bed with just his jeans nodding into the phone as he ran his unconsciously hand through his hair like he does when he’s thinking. I could see the round outline of the moon shining faintly behind my thin curtains in the darkness. He looked kind of odd standing alone, like a misplaced, half dressed mannequin on my bed; only he was talking into a phone.
“ Hey, what’s wrong? …Mmmm….Ok …..yes…..no….no not now…” A very muffled loud voice blared out of the phone in-between Ari’s silence –
Was his agent shouting or screaming down the phone?
Aris sighed “Why? ….. Well now isn’t exactly a good time; I’ve practically just gotten home… ”
I walked back over to Ari as he stood standing on the bed, put the pillows back at the headboard and picked up his crumpled t-shirt trying not to listen too much.
I glanced at the clock by my bed and the red digits glared back 10 : 43 PM.
What could his agent want to talk to him about at this time anyway?
Ari was still nodding on the phone looking more and more tense, his jaw clenched and the muscles on his back were taut. His beautiful, mysterious tattoo on his back was on full display.
I have to say that I really hadn’t expected Ari to get one, even drunk.
Tatoo’s weren’t exactly his style – for one he’s not a huge fan of needles.
Not to mention that he’d once told me that they can be kind of inconvenient if there in too much of a public area because they have to be taken out using Photoshop or covered up with skin makeup for movies.
Also he’d always told me if he got one it would have to mean something to him – not be just some random unknown drunken ramble in a foreign language.
Then again, if Ari was drunk enough to get a tattoo done and not remember what he asked for then I guess he wasn’t thinking too deeply at the time. Or at all.
I mentally half smiled and cringed at the thought of it being translated into something along the lines of ‘ I love Spiderman’ repeated over and over again. I could just imagine it on one of those tacky gossip magazines under the heading ‘what do the stars tattoo’s really mean?’
To be honest, it looked so beautifully designed that it almost wouldn’t matter if it did say that.
I quickly grabbed my pyjama bottoms I brought last month from my chest of draws and mouthed at Ari that I was going to change in my ensuite. Ari turned around, his crystal blue eyes showing stress and regret as he silently mouthed ‘sorry Ella Bear’ back and I tried to smile understandingly as I padded across my room into my bathroom.
As I got to the bathroom door I realised I was still holding Ari’s top and threw it back across the room at him, hitting his back.
After all, I didn’t want to steal ALL his tops …. Just sleep in them.
Ari quickly turned around and caught it with his free hand before it fell onto the bed.
Damn his good reflexes!
He looked back at me, holding the t-shirt in his hand and gave me a big Cheshire grin, his eyes lighting up. Ignoring the mobile for a second, he stuck out his tongue quickly in a childish response and whispered ‘Nice try Ella bear’ across the room before he put the blaring phone back to his ear.
I smiled back, resisting the urge to bite my lip, and took one last glance at Ari’s tanned back as he stood on my bed nodding into the phone before I closed the bathroom door.
I flicked on the bathroom lights, and squinted slightly under the brightness of the white tiled room. I sighed and leant back against the door for a second before I went over to the sink and washed my face by splashing it with cold water.
Damn his stupid Agent!
I chuckled softly at my reflection. My face was wet, my cheeks slightly flushed and my wide green eyes stared back at me as I murmured softly under my breath
“ You just kissed your best friend twice. And got interrupted twice.”
I could still weakly hear Ari’s voice and his agents muffled shouting through the closed door.
“ No. Can’t you re-schedule? …..why not? …. I didn’t know …I thought you said that wasn’t happening…. I thought we agreed not to…. No…”
Hadn’t his agent rung just before dinner?
I slowly took off my jeans, stepping into my dark purple and white polka dotted pyjama bottoms.
Somehow, I really hadn’t realised that when Ari became an A lister he’d be constantly called by his agent. Who, by the sounds of the muffled voice on the other line is very stressed man indeed.
Or was never taught about using an ‘inside voice’.
I looked back at my reflection in the mirror over the sink, taking a white hand towel off the rack and drying my face slowly.
I should have known he would be slightly more in demand then before.
After all, He was HUGE now, in terms of success and in terms of his photo being on movie billboards across the world. I guess it didn’t properly hit me because he’s always been my Ari who I text everyday and who always texts back.
His rising career hadn’t really directly affected our friendship in terms of communication. I could usually always get hold of him on the phone. Even with the time distance, we would text each other all the time.
Now I was going through some serious communication problems.
With questions running through my head I didn’t really know the answer to.
I mean, at some point Ari and I would probably have to have some sort of talk about what this means right?
About the fact, that to me, his kisses are the most addictive thing since chocolate?
Or that he’s my best friend ….but is he my boyfriend?
Does he even want that?
What do I do if he doesn’t?
My mind flashed back to our kiss in the living room …. How right he felt holding me, how it just seemed to make sense like everything else between us.
God I didn’t really know how he felt about this. Us.
I suddenly realised that unlike our friendship where I knew my best friend like the back of my hand, my romantic feelings towards Ari were confusing in comparison, not to mention trying to decipher how he feels back.
Suddenly a streak Paranoia flashed through my mind.
Ari had girls literally running after him in streets trying to jump his bones these days and Starbucks barbies who put topless pictures of him on their phone’s display picture. He also hung out with stunning actresses and models regularly these days at Hollywood parties.
I knew I couldn’t really compare to that.
But I’d never felt I’d had to.
I was just his painfully plain and completely normal childhood best friend.
His best friend, who, until very recently had believed herself immune to the Ari virus that has swept the nation and acted accordingly giving him no special treatment.
‘Urghhh. Stop thinking so hard. Not now, not today’ I murmured at myself in the mirror under my breath. I shook my head, trying to expel these unwanted thoughts from my head.
Today I wasn’t going to think about the details.
I was just going to go with the flow.
And the flow told me that I had loved kissing Ari, that he was still my best friend who got ‘me’ better than anyone else,
And that eventually, I had to leave the bathroom.
As I broke out of my swirling thoughts I heard Ari though the door ending the phone conversation “ Ok, yeah I know…. I know. I’ll be there. Bye”
I took a long, deep breath, glancing at my reflection briefly.
My cheeks were still a little pink.
I almost laughed at how stupidly self-conscious I was being.
For goodness sake Isabel, Just a few hours ago Ari’s saw you dripping in mayonnaise and spaghetti Bolognese!
Get a grip!
You didn’t act like that before and now isn’t the time to start …
I put the towel back on the rack and opened the bathroom door to reveal Ari with his arms crossed, leaning at the side of the doorframe smiling down at me.
Somewhere between me entering and leaving the bathroom he had put on his top again.
“Hey you” he said softly, his face set in a sexy half smile.
“Hey back- at –cha.” I replied, unable to stop the smile that seemed to spread across my face whenever he was around.
“New Pyjamas?” his eyes flicking to my polka dot trousers as his arm reached out and twirling a stray piece of my hair round his fingers.
“Mhmm…. like them? ”
“Very cute. But I think you wearing my top makes the outfit for me”
I laughed, “You would do”
“so maybe I’m a little bias.”
I arched an eyebrow, “Uhm?”
He smiled back but it didn’t quite meet his eyes like it did a second ago, which made my stomach dip in disappointment. He sighed, “ So … turns out I have to meet my agent and sort some stupid publicity stuff out.”
“Stupid publicity stuff? Sounds fun” I replied slightly sarcastically, trying to decipher the mixed emotions in his eyes.
“I just have to drive out to his offices and meet him quickly to smooth some stuff out but I promise I’ll be back in less than an hour.” Ari leaned down, cupping my face in his hands and kissed me softly on the lips, like I was so fragile he thought I’d break.
I felt the familiar butterflies fizzing in the pit of my stomach and stood on my tiptoes to kiss him harder back, letting myself enjoy the feel of his tongue against mine.
Too soon we broke away, smiling at each other. Then he walked toward my door slowly, turning back before he opened the door letting his eyes roll up my body appreciatively until he got to my face.
“ You really have no idea how hard you make it to leave you” Ari said playfully, though his eyes were still serious as they held mine.
In response, I felt my face flush as the familiar heat of a blush spread over my face at his comment.
Then he opened the door and was gone, leaving me leaning against the doorframe smiling stupidly as I listened to his footsteps down the stairs, his brief ‘byes’ to our parents in the living room and the sound of his car starting up outside.
I sighed happily as I switched off my bedroom light and wandered over to my bed, crawling under the covers. Feeling slightly less stalkerish about wearing Ari’s t-shirts to bed, I took a deep breath sweet sherbet lemon scented top I was wearing.
I felt myself drift to sleep thinking about how jealous millions of girls all over the world would be of me kissing Aaron Fox.
But to me he was just Ari.
…………………………………………………………
Some time later, as I slept I heard the faint sound of my door opening and clicking shut and after a few minutes of the sounds of soft movement I felt the mattress dip beside me. Ari’s body heat radiated into me and I felt myself relax into the familiar hard, warm planes of him, comforted by the steady rise and fall of his chest against my back.
But as I drifted back into sleep, a slight smile on my face, I was struck me by the scent of sherbet that seemed to envelop me in a way that I had missed every night for the last eight months.
…………………………………………………………………
Hey, again sorry it took me so long to upload , please stick with the story!
Hope you enjoy the chapter and try to ignore any spelling/ grammar mistakes I missed lol
Smile024 :D