by Hazel Parker
She spent the whole afternoon and much of the evening packing everything that she might need for Hawaii and texting her friends and family about the trip, apologizing for not informing them sooner. Almost as if on cue, just as Jessica looked down at the clock to realize that it was nearly seven and she’d forgotten to eat since her early lunch, the doorbell rang. She opened the door to reveal Marissa standing with a bag of takeout Chinese food.
“You said you’ve been busy all day,” she began without even a proper greeting, “so, knowing you, I naturally assume you haven’t eaten.” Jessica pulled her into her apartment with a hug.
“You’re a lifesaver,” she said. “I’m starving.” Marissa nodded, completely unsurprised, and set the food down on the coffee table, struggling to find a place to sit that wasn’t littered with luggage or things that had been pulled out of her closets in the packing chaos. Outfits she’d decided against, books she chose not to bring, and countless other neglected items were strewn about the room.
“It looks like a bomb went off in here,” Marissa noted honestly, laughing as Jessica groaned into her wontons.
“Like I don’t know that,” she whined. “I don’t even have time to clean it up before I go, so it’s just going to have to stay like this until I get back in a month.”
Marissa rolled her eyes. “I have your spare key,” she reminded. “I’ll come in and make sure you can at least see the floor.”
“I don’t deserve you,” Jessica gushed. Clutter drove her crazy, and though she really didn’t trust Marissa’s cleaning standards, it was at least better than nothing. Having someone to water her plants and dust a little was appreciated.
Marissa ignored that, opting to change the subject instead. She sat nervously forward, taking a pensive breath in a way that put Jessica on edge. “Jessica,” she began, alerting Jessica of the seriousness of the tone just by the usage of her full name, “you’ve been acting really weird lately. A lot of changes have happened in a short period of time. I’m worried about you.”
Jessica laughed anxiously. “Why worry?” she asked. “I’m going to Hawaii; I’m getting married—things couldn’t be better!”
Marissa sighed. “Hon, I feel like Jace is pushing you around a lot.”
“He doesn’t do that,” Jessica lied. Really, Marissa didn’t even know the half of it, but she wasn’t allowed to say that.
“Doesn’t he?” Marissa challenged. “He’s expecting you to just drop everything and go to Hawaii whenever he tells you to—”
“I’m not doing it because he told me to,” Jessica argued, feeling genuinely hurt by that assertion. “It’s for a role. The start of my acting career. You always told me that my big break would come if I were patient; you said it just last week. Maybe that’s what this is.”
“Oh,” Marissa nodded, a dangerous edge to her voice, “so that’s what it’s all about.” Jessica narrowed her eyes.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re marrying him to kick start your career.” Jessica saw red. Sure, the contract was just about the notoriety, but she’d only agreed to it because she didn’t have to actually marry Jace, and Marissa didn’t know about the contract, which meant that she thought that she was going to actually go through with it just for fame.
“You think I’m that shallow?” she accused.
“I think that maybe you just don’t see any other options,” Marissa suggested with lawyer-like confidence.
“So you think I’m that desperate,” she extrapolated, fuming further when Marissa didn’t backpedal. Jessica stood and gathered the takeout Marissa had brought, then thrust the bag at her. “Thanks for the food,” she snapped, “but you should go. Don’t bother looking in on the place.”
“Jessica—” Marissa tried, but Jessica could feel tears welling up in her eyes, so she knew she had to close the door on her. It wasn’t their first fight in all their years of friendship, and they’d always talked things out afterward, but this felt different. She knew her actions looked suspicious, possibly even gold-digging. However, she’d been relying on the idea that the people that truly knew her would know that she was better than that and trust that she had a good reason for acting so out of character. She desperately wanted to confess about the contract, but she couldn’t, and as she sat against the back of the door crying, she couldn’t even call the person she always wanted to talk to most in moments like these, because she’d just kicked her out of her house. It brought up the question: was it really worth it?
No, Jessica decided, it wasn’t. She wanted to stop lying to Marissa. The constant stream of parties and interviews was exhausting. Most of all, she hated having to pretend to be all lovey-dovey in public with a man who, when the cameras stopped rolling, was a jerk to her in all but a few rare moments. She could find another way, she thought, to achieve what she wanted without Jace Oliver. Through vision blurred by tears, Jessica pulled up Jace’s number and called, not even bothering to look at the time. Apparently, however late it was, Jace had been sleeping.
“What do you want?” he demanded after three and a half rings, sounding very unhappy to be woken up.
“Our agreement is off,” she stated angrily. That seemed to wake him right up.
“You can’t call it off,” he argued. “We have a contract. It’s legally binding.”
“So, sue me,” she taunted. “Do whatever you have to. I’m not going through with this for another day, and I’m not going to Hawaii.” Jace sighed.
“You’re clearly upset,” he said. “Why don’t you just get some sleep and we can talk about it tomorrow when the driver comes?”
“No,” Jessica maintained. “I’m not doing the movie.”
Honestly, she was surprised that he’d even made it this long without hanging up on her, but he remained surprisingly patient in his reply. “Okay,” he mediated, “how about this. You agree to go with me to Hawaii, and if you still want out of the contract at the end of the first day, we’ll call off our engagement early.”
Jessica halted. “Really?” she asked. She could hear the smile in his tone.
“If there’s anything I’ve learned about you in the past two weeks, it’s that I’m not going to be able to convince you to do anything that you don’t want to do. Trying to keep an angry Jessica Owens in a cage is pretty much an impossible task. So, yes. If I can’t convince you to stay, then I’ll terminate it.”
She was hesitant to agree because it seemed too easy; he was being too nice. “You either have something up your sleeve,” she speculated, “or you’ve got a lot of confidence that you’re going to convince me.”
Jace laughed. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Jessica,” he said before hanging up the phone. Oddly enough, she felt a little better now that she’d talked to Jace. Though she was still firm in her decision, she realized that she’d stopped crying, and even though she’d deny it if anyone asked, started to smile a bit. At least, she thought, it was enough peace of mind to allow her to sleep. One day. She could handle that.
Chapter Eight: Jace
The driver that was to take Jace and Jessica to the airport arrived absurdly early in the morning. He hadn’t planned on getting a lot of sleep the night before, anyway, not with a six-thirty flight, but it didn’t help that Jessica had chosen to call him crying at midnight. Even after they’d hung up, he had struggled to fall asleep again. She’d sounded so sad, and he had no idea what had caused her to panic and want out of the contract. Luckily, since she’d agreed to allow him the day to convince her, he hadn’t been forced to call Nora, but he was still a little concerned about what they were going to do if Jessica couldn’t be swayed.
It’d help if he knew why she wanted to end the agreement so suddenly. Clearly, there had been some kind of incident, but he knew so little about her personal life that he couldn’t begin to speculate what it was. Maybe her parents had called to disown her? What was her relationship like with her parents, or did she even have one? He remembered she’d mentioned that she had a brother w
ith whom she was on rocky terms. However, that didn’t seem like something that was changing soon, so he doubted that was the problem. For someone with whom he’d spent almost all his free time for the past two weeks, someone he’d kissed and held the hand of and declared his love to, he really didn’t know anything about Jessica.
Maybe that was part of the problem.
In any case, all he knew now was that he was going to have to work hard to convince her to change her mind about terminating the contract. Though there would be legal ramifications for her as well; honestly, those had mostly been to scare her away from the prospect of breaching their terms, because if it got out that the engagement was a fraud, it would reflect much more poorly on Jace than on Jessica, and she was a smart girl, so she probably knew it. Jace, if he thought about it, was risking much more than Jessica was, but he’d told Nora from the beginning that he didn’t care what he had to put at stake: he wanted to be a serious actor, and if this was what Nora thought was the best way to change his image, he’d do it.
Even without makeup and in jeans and a t-shirt, Jessica was stunning, he thought as he watched her roll her luggage out of her apartment complex and to the car. Normally, he wouldn’t offer to help her, but since he was trying to convince her to stay, he figured that he should be on his best behavior. He hopped out of the car and opened the trunk.
“Good morning,” he greeted, trying to toe the line between friendly and fake. “Did you get any sleep?”
Jessica groaned. “A little,” she said. “Sorry about calling you so late. It could have waited until this morning, I guess.” Jace shook his head.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, finishing loading her luggage into the trunk and slamming it shut. “Ready to go?”
Jessica sat in the car beside him, their knees touching, and leaned her head out the window. She didn’t seem in the mood for chatting, which would have been music to his ears on a normal day, but now made him unnerved. Unfortunately, he knew he was going to have to initiate conversation, which was not his strongest suit.
“What happened last night that got you so upset?” he asked. Jessica still looked like she wasn’t in a great mood, resting with her eyes closed. It was fair: she was tired and going somewhere she didn’t want to be with someone she likely didn’t want to be with.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she dodged. Jace felt like he’d dodged a bullet.
“Okay,” he continued, now dreadfully realizing he’d have to come up with a new topic of conversation, “we can talk about something else. Are you a… sports fan?”
“Really, I just can’t believe that Marissa would say such a cruel thing to me,” Jessica blurted, almost as if he hadn’t spoken. “She thinks I’m marrying you.”
Jace nodded. “Yeah, everyone thinks you’re marrying me,” he reminded her. “It’s part of the deal.”
“But she thinks it’s for personal gain!”
Jace winced. “I mean, if we’re being technical, you are doing this for personal gain,” he pointed out.
“But I’m not marrying you for personal gain,” she said. “I just can’t believe that someone who’s known me for as long as she has would think that about me.” She sighed. “Do I just seem like someone who isn’t going to get cast if I don’t sleep my way to the top?”
There it was. The real reason Jessica didn’t want to go to Hawaii and be in the movie wasn’t about a fight with her friend or a being upset; it was because it had shaken her confidence. She didn’t know if she deserved it.
“Jessica,” he said, “you know that I, of all people, wouldn’t tell you something just to make you feel better.”
She couldn’t stifle a laugh at his expense. “Yeah, I know that,” she agreed.
“So believe me when I say that you are a fantastic actor.” Jessica stiffened in her seat but didn’t look up at him. Maybe he hadn’t convinced her. “Do you want to know why I had Nora seek you out instead of any of the hundreds of other women I’ve had romantic story arcs with?” She shook her head. “Because I remembered who you were. I remembered you by name. I don’t do that often. Hell, it usually takes me a month to learn the name of a new costar. I just told you that Nora had done the footwork because I didn’t want it to go to your head.”
Jessica looked perplexed. “But I was only on three episodes,” she countered skeptically, “and you didn’t even talk to me.”
“I know. But after the first day of filming with you, I went to Nora and I asked her who you were because I thought you were such a stunning actor. Couldn’t believe it when she said you hadn’t done anything more than commercials. So when I was looking for someone who could pull this off, I knew I needed someone who would be convincing. I didn’t track you down because I thought you’d be desperate for a casting deal. I did it because I thought you could sell it. I asked Nora to track down Jessica Owens. Not ‘that girl who played Vanessa on Code Blue a few years ago’ or ‘someone who’s looking for a role.’ I wanted you.”
It looked for a terrifying moment like Jessica might cry, and Jace couldn’t believe that he’d managed to screw up this pep talk so badly so quickly without even knowing what he’d done wrong. However, she didn’t burst into tears. Instead, she put her hand in his and pointed out the window to show that they’d finally arrived at the airport.
“We’re here,” she whispered, their conversation still too quiet for the cab driver to hear. “Even if I leave tonight… I can at least enjoy our day in Hawaii, right?” Jace nodded and stepped out of the car. The studio had sent people to help them onto the plane, and they were already getting the luggage out of the trunk by the time Jace even thought to do so. Jessica tried to take her luggage but was reassured against it. He watched her thank each of the helpers—something he didn’t even really think to do anymore after so many years of not having to lift a finger, and which he rarely saw his peers do, either—and follow them to the airport terminal where she sat down in a chair and tried to make herself comfortable. He smirked.
“What are you doing?” he asked, and she looked up at him as if it were obvious.
“Waiting for the announcement that we can board.”
“We don’t have to do that,” Jace explained, pointing to the open gate that was waiting for them, a special arrangement made by the production crew as a special perk for the actors. “Come on. It’s ready to take off.”
Dumbfoundedly, Jessica allowed him to pull her to her feet. She was so amazed by something that was so casual to him that he couldn’t help but find it a little adorable. He didn’t recall when he’d started to take these things for granted, but for Jessica’s sake, to make her a little more sympathetic to him, he thought that he might as well start appreciating them a little more if he wanted her to change her mind. With that in mind, he thanked the people that had brought his luggage up and the lady who collected the two tickets he produced.
They were seated side by side in first class, which Jessica immediately mentioned that she’d never flown before. The whole trip would take nearly six hours nonstop, but that didn’t seem to dampen Jessica’s excitement as she politely asked for a pair of headphones to listen to the in-flight movie and a cup of coffee. Jace himself preferred to sleep during long flights, especially ones that were so early in the morning, but he figured that he should probably do his best to stay awake for this one in case Jessica wanted to talk or needed to be entertained. Sourly, he thought that he was becoming much more of a tour guide intending to optimize her trip than he was an actor accompanying his companion to a film shoot, but he tried not to let it bother him.
