Jace
“Okay, rise and shine, sleepy head.” Elodie’s high pitched chipper voice rings in my ears.
She yanks open my black out blinds and the sunlight practically pierces through my eyelids like I don’t have any.
“How the hell did you get in here?” I ask, covering my head with the comforter.
“Oh no you don’t.” She tears it off and I’m wearing only my boxers. “Damn, you’re really hot. Good thing this,” she swirls her finger in the air over my body, “doesn’t do it for me or you’d have to beat me off with a stick.”
“Is that supposed to flatter me?” I say, pushing myself up as I lean against my headboard.
“It’s supposed to make you do something other than lay in bed for days on end.” She sits on the edge of the bed eyeing me with judgment.
I pinch my fingertips into my eyelids before running my palm down my face. “Howard let you in, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, well don’t fire him. He’s worried about you.”
I huff out a breath. I’m worried about me, too. I’ve practically locked myself in my house since I got back from London. I haven’t done anything for press or tours and I even bailed out of my next job. Well, postponed it with the excuse of the current media climate with the conservatorship.
Somehow, pieces of information about the court case were published on some online bloggers' accounts. Probably my mother again, trying to find a way to pull on the heartstrings of the public for sympathy on how we ‘turned our backs on her.’
My father, not willing to continue living under the scrutiny of my mothers demands and unrealistic expectations, filed for divorce only a few days after the hearing.
He’s in my spare room.
That pisses my mother off more than anything. It’s the only thing that made me half smile in the last three weeks.
Oh, and maybe Elodie, who’s been more supportive than I ever expected. Her and her girlfriend come over for dinner a couple times a week and she’s been around daily since I got back.
She told me she knew about Lennox after she saw us together during the rappel drop for the fundraiser. She said, and I quote, “it was beyond fucking obvious”, which is annoying considering how much I tried to hide it. But, it allowed me to be open about everything with her.
It’s nice…having a friend. Even if I currently despise her massive invasion of my privacy.
“We’re going out today. You have one week to prepare for the Silver Screen Awards and with your current look, you know—Dracula meets Frankenstein—you’re going to need at least a month.”
“Ouch.” I run my hands through my unruly hair that I haven’t had cut in, I don’t know how long.
“I’m serious.” She pats my leg and stands, heading into my closet.
She’s right. She’s more than right. I’ve been holed up in here and I have a new excuse everyday as to why I can’t do anything.
I glance at my phone on my nightstand and tap the screen. Why? No clue. Elodie and my father are here now. Howard is probably somewhere on the grounds and Gordon would be the only one to call me.
“I just checked socials, he hasn’t turned his profiles back on but feel free to check yourself,” Elodie calls out blindly from the closet.
I roll my eyes but do it anyway.
Morning ritual and all.
Still nothing.
I don’t know why I torture myself. He was clear. He was crystal fucking clear.
Elodie comes back into the room holding a pair of jeans and a beige button up shirt then places them at the end of the bed.
“Shower and get ready. We have to leave in thirty minutes,” she says as she rounds the corner of my doorway.
“Are you in charge of my conservatorship now?” I blurt out sarcastically, because she knows all about that too.
She pops her head around the corner and pins me with a glare made for a pirate. “No, you are. So act like it.” She smiles, blows me a kiss, and leaves the room.
I close my eyes and inhale, taking a deep breath as I head into the bathroom. I shower, get dressed, and walk out of my house for the first time in weeks, trying to forget about the Lennox-shaped hole that’s branded on my heart.