Never The Same

Zacky,
Had to go to work, I’ll see you later, sweetie.
xoxo,
Jessica.

Jess doted her I and then walked out of the apartment with her cameras and bag. She climbed into Zacky’s car, starting it and pulling out of the space that was assigned with her apartment, turning onto the main road, she searched through her head trying to remember just where exactly the shoot was. Tracking up to almost a week ago, she ran through the parts of the conversation she had with her boss that she could remember, and she remembered that the shoot was actually, for once, at the agency, instead of going to a natural setting and using it as a backdrop, they splattered a white sheet with several different colors of paint and were gonna hang it up as the backdrop.

Jess growled as she was stopped at another red light, she could tell that this day was gonna go to hell from the minute she woke up and stepped into Piglet’s yellow spot on her too white carpet. She woke up late, and had barely any time to get ready, so her hair had an oily tint, but nothing disgusting, eyeliner was smudged on her eyes and eye shadow applied sloppily, mascara on her eyelashes making them pop out, some had drifted off to the side, smearing a thing, but long black line of mascara that she seemed to have skipped over while running out of the apartment.

She was literally falling over herself to get dressed and out of the house on time, pulling a yellow shirt over her head, slipping on white tight jeans, American Eagle socks, yellow colored converse, a hoodie she felt was appropriate for the shoot, and some black bracelets, she also sprayed some perfume among herself, before jetting out the door to get to work on time. Her sack carried her four cameras she always took to shoots, and she had her iPod Touch that Craig and Ayden had bought her a few months earlier for no real reason.

She finally made it to her destination, dabbing a finishing touch of lip gloss to the disaster that was, she decided, made up of herself. She climbed out of the car, pulling the bag with her, making sure her headphones were slipped down her hoodie, so they were invisible the music device slipped in her tight fitting pocket, her back hanging loosely from her shoulder, she locked the car and walked up to the double glass doors that opened up to the very office like palace that was her work area.

“Good morning, Miss Jessica,” Sophie, the almost too polite secretary greeted Jessica.

Jessica couldn’t help but smile at the young woman, who was only a few years older than her, but with her shy attitude, should have been so much younger. “Good morning, Soph, let’s do lunch today?” Every now and again, Jess would invite her to lunch, especially on bad days, because Sophie could make anyone feel better.

“Of course, Miss Jessica,” Sophie grinned over at Jess, who smiled right back, suddenly the day didn’t seem so bad.

Jess walked down the hall, and turned left to go into the room where the pictures would be held. “Good morning, boys!” Jessica’s down mood seemed cheerful, now, as she walked into the assigned room.

A mumbled chorus of ‘mornings’ came after, delayed a few minutes, obviously not excited about waking up early to get here and not do anything for three hours.

Jessica smiled. “Why don’t you guys take a bit of a nap while I set up and all of that fun stuff and I’ll wake you in an hour or so for make up?”

“You are a life saver!” a man yelled throwing his hands up, she giggled, and went back to work. The men, curled up on the many, unneeded, sofas that were present in the room, almost instantly falling asleep.

Jess hooked all her wires together, meaning hooking up her main camera to the computer so she could see the photo better. She then looked through other pictures of the band, to learn their better sides and see how the light hits them just perfectly. Right side a must, left side is gonna have to be stalled. Blue lights, sure, red lights, yes, and where is this tarp thing?

Before she knew it, it was time for the boys to go into make up, and make themselves pretty once more. “Okay, boys! It’s time to wake up,” Jessica yelled, smiling when she heard groans, signaling they were finally waking up. “Make up time!” she shouted, loudly, to get them up and moving.

More groans were received, but nonetheless, the boys got up and went to hair and make up. Within the half hour the pictures had started, and were done within the next two, with constant bathroom breaks and food breaks. It was not too long before Jess was finally packing up equipment, and letting Sophie know that she was almost ready for lunch.

“Okay, boys, it was nice working with you, hope to do it again. I hope you have a nice rest of the day, maybe nap a bit?” Jess laughed, while the members of the Used chorused a thoughtful goodbye, and she met Sophie at the door, purses in hand.

A nagging feeling in her body made Jess feel like she should call someone who was in or related to the Escape the Fate family, but she couldn’t. When she got home the night before, she was up all night, thinking about the things she had said to Stacey and Max, she felt horrible, but she knew it had to be said. She ignored the feeling, grabbed Sophie’s cold and small hand, pulling her out of their work building, and out onto the busy Las Vegas streets, in search of some food.

“What do you feel like, Soph?” Jessica asked, still holding onto Sophie’s hand.

Sophie was a shy girl, who moved to the city know for it’s regular dose of not so censored sin from a small town in Oklahoma, a petite little thing, with blond hair and baby blue eyes. She was quite the stunner, but refused to date anyone, and being the young age of twenty one, it was odd, a lot of women want to get out there and explore before they hit their mid-twenties, but Sophie was fine being single and not willing to mingle.

“I’m up for anything, however, I am a vegetarian,” Sophie spoke almost inaudibly.

“That’s fine, I am one too!” Jessica smiled, at Sophie.

After walking around the busy streets for what seemed to an hour, the pair finally decided to go to a local deli and just pick up something there. Both got a salad, minus the ham, with the house dressing, which was good but left a bad after taste in Jessica’s mouth. Within the next hour, Jessica had walked Sophie back to her desk, put her camera’s in her office, and said goodbye to co-workers she actually liked.

· · ·

Zacky was still sleeping at the late hour of 2 o’clock when Jessica finally walked through her apartment door. She growled because Zacky was being lazy and her apartment was a mess, Piglet sleeping in the middle of it. She ignored the snores coming from her bedroom, put Piglet’s leash on, rubbed the dogs eyes, hoping to wake her up, and then took her on a walk. Craig would want to see his niece anyway.

They wandered the now quiet side of Sin City, it was only busy from nine in the morning to one in the afternoon and as soon as the sun said goodbye to this side of the world and let the moon take his place in the sky, and the lights became brighter than the sun itself. The quiet, but car crazy town was calming Jessie’s nerves, as she was still upset with what she heard and saw when she walked into her apartment.

Twenty some odd minutes later she ended up at Craig and Ayden’s house, she walked up the pathway that was wedged between to small sections of off green with some brown patches here and there of grass, ringing the doorbell once, and knocking twice, she opened the door and walked into the house, Piglet barking hoping to get Craig’s attention.

“Piglet’s here, Ayden! Did you hear her, I did!” Jess laughed, hearing Craig’s outburst, and some various laughs coming from the living room and then light pounding, meaning Craig was coming running to get plump puppy. “Hey Piglet, how’re you?” Craig asked, crouching down, picking her up. “Aye Jessie, come in, and sit with all of us.”

“And who is us?” Jess asked, dropping the leash that she was holding onto.

“You’ll see…” Craig whispered, hoping she wouldn’t leave after she saw that Stacey and Max were over.

They walked into the living room, Jess rolling her eyes when she saw that Stacey and Max were there, ignored them and sat on Ayden’s lap. “How’s my girlfriend?” Jess asked, pressing a light and chaste kiss to Ayden’s lips.

“Hey!” Craig playfully glared. “That’s my girlfriend,” he sneered, or tried to, but broke into laughter before girlfriend left his mouth.

“Learn to share baby,” Ayden smiled. “And you’re girlfriend is good, you look nice today,” Ayden looked up to Jess.

“Yeah, had a photo shoot with this band, the Used, they were so tired!” Jess said, winding her right arm around Ayden’s neck, Ayden’s arms coming around Jessica’s waist. “But they were nice, I don’t even remember their names, I gave them a card, though, before they left. And then I went out to lunch with Sophie.”

“I wanna meet Sophie again,” Ayden whined. “She’s nice. But the whole band thing, sounds tight, you let them sleep? What time did the job start?”

“Fucking six o’clock in the fucking morning, didn’t get done until noon, and then spent and hour packing up and talking with the guys, and then went to lunch for another hour, came home to a mess of an apartment and a lazy boyfriend,” Jess rolled her eyes.

“Your eyes are gonna stay like that,” Craig mumbled, and then starting cooing at the puppy again. Jess just stuck her tongue out at him.

Craig continued to play with Piglet while Ayden and Jess lost themselves in a quiet conversation, but all of them heard Stacey sneer, “She comes here and it’s like we disappear, let’s go Maxi.”

And then hearing Max throw back a “Would you shut up for just like two seconds? Besides I need to talk to Jess,” everyone practically heard the eye roll that Stacey sent her eyes on.

“Jessica, can I talk to you for a second?” Jess forced herself not to scoff, but got off Ayden’s lap and walked to the sliding glass door, Max following.