Chapter 12 takes place three weeks after chapter 11

There was a knock on the door of JC’s hotel room. He’d gotten to the point in the tour where he gave up trying to figure out what hotel— or what city— he was staying in. He got up from the desk chair and walked over to the beige door. A blond woman was standing on the other side.

"Cassie?" JC asked as he stepped back into his room. "What’s up?"

Cassie smiled at the greeting and followed JC into the room. She took his spot by the desk, sitting backwards in the chair. JC sat on the bed facing her.

"Management wants you to go to the Academy Awards again," she said simply. "They think that sending you will give publicity to your movie."

"Okay," JC said. He looked at the blond woman. There was something more. "What’s the problem?"

"Dates," Cassie said. "You need one. They already got you tickets."

JC frowned. He didn’t want to take a date. "I could go stag."

"You don’t want to do that," Cassie said. "Chris is going with Dani, Lance and June are going, Joey’s taking that bimbo and Justin’s trying to kill me by taking Britney. I’m sure you don’t want to be the only one without a date."

JC pondered that statement for a moment. "No," he said slowly. Suddenly his expression brightened. "I’ll take you."

Cassie shook her head softly. "You know if I weren’t your PR rep I’d be happy to go with you."

JC pouted playfully. "Well, can’t you set me up with someone?"

"You hate that," Cassie said. "You hate being set up. Why would you want to for something as big as the Academy Awards?"

"Well who am I going to take?" JC asked. "I obviously don’t have a significant other. I don’t want to take any of my previous dates."

"You’re forgetting the obvious," Cassie said.

"Who?" JC asked. He looked genuinely confused.

"Abby."

"Abby?" JC asked.

"Yeah," Cassie said with a laugh. "You know the girl you talk to for hours a day?"

JC shook his head. "I’d love to take her, but I don’t think that she’d be into going."

Cassie raised an eyebrow. "JC, she’s a girl. She’d get to get dressed up and meet Ben Affleck. What more could a girl want?"

The man shrugged. "I don’t know."

"Are you just avoiding the suggestion because you don’t want to take her or do you honestly think she might not want to go?"

JC paused for a few moments. "I could ask her."

"You don’t sound enthusiastic Josh." Cassie leaned back against the desk. "I thought it sounded like the perfect suggestion. I mean you’d get to see her instead of wracking up those killer phone bills."

"I’m just not sure she’d want to go with me," JC said. "Not with the whole tabloid thing."

"Is she still dwelling on that?" Cassie asked. "It’s been three weeks. Everyone’s forgotten."

"She hasn’t brought it up," JC said. "We’ve talked about everything but, actually. Her new apartment, her trip to Orlando to get the rest of her stuff, Carl’s multiple blind dates… the list goes on. She’s thinking about it though."

"Again I say it’s the Academy Awards," Cassie said. "This is a once in a life time opportunity."

"Yeah," JC said. A soft smile spread over his face. "I’ll ask her when I talk to her tonight."

"Is that her tonight or your tonight?" Cassie asked.

"Mine," JC said. "She gets off work at two and that’s eleven here."

"And you guys still talk for hours?" Cassie asked. "Damn that girl must love you to waste sleep time just to talk to you."

JC couldn’t think of anything to say so he just blushed and nodded.

Abby tiredly threw her weight against the door to her apartment. She wobbly braced herself as it flew open. She had only fallen in the door once. That had been enough for her.

It was her night to call JC. She was happy the phone bill hadn’t come yet. She could still live in the happy oblivion that she was actually going to be able to pay the bill on her salary.

She took off her jacket and curled up on the couch. It was the largest of the pieces of furniture in the sparsely decorated apartment. She had a bed, a couch, a table and three mismatched chairs. The apartment wasn’t that big though so it was all okay.

She could dial the numbers to JC’s cell phone with her eyes closed but she chose not to. The one time she’d tried it she’d dialed a number belonging to a little old lady and woken her up at 2 a.m. Her ears still rang from the tongue-lashing she’d gotten.

"Hello?" a voice answered after the first ring.

"Hey," Abby said. She couldn’t help yawning. It had been a long evening at work.

"You sound tired," JC said. "Long night?"

"You don’t even know," Abby laughed. "It’s not too exciting though so let’s talk about you and your life as a super famous pop star." It was what she said every night. They’d talk about him and then they’d talk about her ‘unexciting’ day at work and then he’d tell her to go to bed or she was going to get sick.

"Well actually," JC said slowly. "I have a question for you."

"Okay," Abby said. This wasn’t the way the conversation was supposed to go.

"See, there’s this thing that management is having us go to and, well, I need a date."

Abby was silent, unsure of what to say.

"I’d pay for you to come and for the dress and everything," JC said. "You’d be doing me a favor really."

"Is it wise for you to take me?" Abby asked quietly. "I mean with that story and all."

"It’s old news Abs," JC said. "No one will even remember it by the time the awards come."

"Awards?" Abby asked. "What sort of thing is this?"

She could hear JC swallow through the telephone line. "The, um, Academy Awards?"

"The Academy Awards?" Abby said loudly. She suddenly felt completely wide-awake. "You want me to go to the Academy Awards with you? Why?"

"There’s no one else I’d even think of taking," JC answered. "I don’t really have all that many female friends now, and well, I’m comfortable with you and I thought you’d have a good time."

"But it’s the Academy Awards," Abby said. "You’ll have to walk down the red carpet, right?"

"That’s generally what the two hour pre-show deals with," JC said with a hint of amusement in his voice.

"But then they’ll see us together," Abby said. Why wasn’t JC seeing that this could only be a bad thing?

"Cassie said you’d only want to go with Ben Affleck," JC said with a laugh. "But I told her no, I thought I might possibly be a good enough date for you."

"I’d love to go with you," Abby said before she could stop herself. "It’s just—"

"No ‘it’s just’s’ Absters," JC said. "You just said you’d go. We can work out the details later."

"But Josh," Abby said. "The tabloids will have a hey-day."

"Abby," JC said dryly. "Justin and Britney are going together. The tabloids won’t be paying any attention to us. Now, no more buts... It’ll be fun."

Abby tried to swallow her worries and doubts, the little voice in the back of her head telling her she was going to screw up JC’s career. "Okay."

"Great!" JC said. "Now tell me about your day."

"Well," Abby began. "It just got a lot more interesting."

Carl felt his stomach rumble as his nose inhaled the scent of the eggs scrambling in the pan in front of him on the stove. He glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall.

12:15

Right on cue the front door opened and a girl walked into the entryway of the small apartment.

"Hey Babe," Carl called.

"Hey," Abby said. She walked into the kitchen section of the apartment and wrapped her arms around Carl’s waist, lacing her fingers together in front of him. She kissed his neck lightly and leaned her cheek against the back of his shoulder.

"Don’t go back to sleep yet," Carl said as he turned around taking the pan of eggs to the two plates already set on the kitchen counter. Abby shuffled along behind him, not letting go of his waist. She pressed her head farther into his back.

"I still tired," Abby mumbled pitifully.

Carl finished putting the eggs on the plates and set the pan on the counter. He gently untangled Abby’s arms from around his waist. He put a plate in her hands and gave her a light shove toward the table set along the dining room wall.

"Go eat and then you can go back to sleep," he ordered. He followed her to the table and sat across from her. His eyes studied her face. Something was different. She looked more tired and more excited at the same time.

"How’s Josh?" he asked with a smile.

Abby looked up and lightly bit her lip. "He’s good." She began shoving eggs in her mouth again.

"Just good?" Carl asked. "That’s all I’m going to get out of you? Normally we spend all of brunch talking about him and the tour and their latest radio interview and…"

"He asked me to be his date for the Academy Awards," Abby said, cutting Carl off.

The fork with his egg on it stopped halfway to Carl’s mouth. "He what?"

"You know, the Oscars?"

"I know what they are," Carl said. "And you’re going?"

"Yup," Abby said. She nodded while staring at her eggs. Her recently cut hair fell down around her face.

"Shit!" Carl said. "Why is he asking you?"

"Thanks!" Abby said indignantly. She smiled though and continued. "He says he doesn’t have any other girl friends he wants to take."

"Wow," Carl said. "You’ll get to do the red carpet and everything…"

"I know," Abby said. She looked at Carl and she didn’t look happy. "The world’s going to see me with him."

"So?" Carl asked. "You already spent two months living in his apartment."

"But this is different," Abby said. "This is like… I don’t know. It’s just scary."

"This is so cool," Carl said. "So cool."