Smiling at Everything

"So do you want one?" Jazz asked.

She wouldn't normally share her energy drink stash with anyone else. Those caffeinated beverages she horded were very important to her life. Most of her band mates didn't drink half as many energy drinks as she did anyway. Neon was too weight conscious to drink things with that many calories. Energy drinks had, what she called, empty calories. Arpeggio was a diabetic. Things like energy drinks were immediately out of the question for her. Lestat claimed energy drinks were for pansies, opting for alcohol when he was allowed to drink it. Dante drank energy drinks from time to time, depending on how much sleep he got and what the band had going on. Dorian was more of a candy fiend.

There was no point in even offering them the beverage because they wouldn't drink it. And they never asked for one. They knew she had a set of energy drinks that she brought with her and on occasion bought from the grocery stores they stopped at. But they didn't bother her about them. Just like they didn't bother her about any of her quirks.

"Uh, sure," Zack responded.

"Which one?" Jazz asked.

Zack stared at the multitude of bright energy drink packages. He was too distracted by the amount of them to decide which he would prefer. She bought that many energy drinks at Wal-Mart. For a moment he wondered what the cashier was thinking when he or she saw the amount. Then again, the cashier likely knew who Jazz was before ringing her up; they probably didn't think anything strange about the number of energy drinks she was buying.

"Doesn't matter," he replied.

Jazz shrugged and grabbed two four-packs of Full Throttle from the suitcase, placing them on the table in front of the couch. That would be enough to keep her awake, assuming Zack didn't drink more than one.

"How do you not gain weight drinking so many of these?" Zack asked.

"I have a personal trainer for that, Beatrice," Jazz responded, returning to her spot on the couch and ripping one of the packages open.

Mixing the drinks today seemed like it required too much energy, more than Jazz had at that moment. She would drink them one at a time and hope the caffeine would course through her system fast enough to keep her from falling asleep. If it didn't, she could pinch herself repeatedly to keep herself awake.

Oh wait, that constituted as self-injury; she couldn't do that.

"You're personal trainer must be amazing because he's given you the body of a goddess," Zack stated.

She knew he liked her. Zack could openly compliment Jazz's body without feeling freakishly awkward.

"She," Jazz corrected, "I wouldn't trust a man to shape my body properly."

Not to mention she didn't trust men in general. But that was information that Zack didn't need to know yet. Technically, it may have been important since his ultimate goal was to be with her in the romantic sense but Jazz didn't see Zack as being like every other man. He was a legitimate love interest. And he was much closer to her than any of her friends were. He wasn't playing stupid games with her; he made his intentions known and was willing to be her friend first. Zack wouldn't hurt her. Jazz had no reason not to trust him.

"Other female celebrities trust male physical trainers to shape their bodies," Zack stated.

"They also trust plastic surgeons like my mother and father. That doesn't mean I'll go to those either," Jazz returned.

"So you've never been to a plastic surgeon to have a procedure?"

Jazz shook her head.

"Your parents never tried to force you to?" Zack asked.

He just assumed that Jazz's parents tried to. He originally assumed that she had at least one procedure. But everything on her looked real. He had seen a few pictures of her in her youth around her penthouse; her face was still close to the same but more mature. Her chest bounced the way a real one would when she walked; her behind wasn't too large or too small. There were no scars from liposuction or tummy tucks on her body. She was all real as far as he knew.

"Nope," Jazz replied, taking a sip from her energy drink.

Zack grunted in response and leaned over to grab an energy drink from the pack. It was silent for a moment. They sat in each other's company, enjoying the calming silence and sipping on energy drinks. The day had been busy, full of shouting and stage directions for the photo shoot. Though they wouldn't be sleeping, it was time to relax until the performance the next day.

"The photo shoot was fun," Zack commented.

"You just enjoyed me rubbing against you," Jazz stated.

Most of the shoot involved Jazz being in control. Zack didn't complain and Joseph changed his artistic vision accordingly. No one questioned why Jazz wouldn't let Zack act as the dominant one.

"That was a plus," Zack chuckled.

"I'm sorry about your back."

"Jazz, my back is fine. It was a small price to pay for having you on top of me. Stop worrying about it."

Jazz smiled, shaking her head and taking a sip of her energy drink. She had to admit it was fun though. For the first time that she could remember, she had been excited about being on top of a man. Given the chance, she may do it again.

"So, um, do you think you'll ever be comfortable enough to tell me what happened in the dressing room?" Zack asked.

"I hope so," Jazz replied, "I've trusted you with a lot so far; I'm hoping to be able to open up to you completely."

She was thoroughly convinced Zack was a good guy, that talking to him would help sort out her problems. She just needed to get up the nerve to tell him.

"Have you talked to anyone else about what happened?" Zack asked.

Jazz let the question swirl around in her head. Technically, she had talked about it. Not to a friend; to the judge, the attorneys, the jury. They knew everything. They had to know everything or the two men that hurt her wouldn't be behind bars. But those people were under an oath to keep that in the courtroom. Neither case had been televised, no information about it circulated the internet, Jazz's name had been taken out of all of the reports.

"No," Jazz replied.

"Not even Armand? From what I've heard everyone in your band loved him."

"I was never close to Armand."

Armand was an amazing person, Jazz agreed with that. But they hadn't hit it off when they met years ago during the formation of the band. They got along okay. However, they never got much closer than that.

"I was under the impression everyone in RxN was open with Armand. You guys even have a music video devoted to him."

"I hold him in high respect because he helped a lot of people but I could never get close to him. I don't know if you noticed but I'm not in any of the Armand-related shots in the music video."

"Why not?"

"We never did anything together. I saw him at band practice and that was about it."

"Is there a reason you weren't close to him? Come to think of it, you're not close to any of your band members. Why is that?"

"I didn't go to the same high school as anyone else in RxN. When we made the band, I had nothing to relate with any of them on. They were just people I knew through Neon. It never really went past that. I guess it didn't help that I was being fake from the beginning. The only one in our band that has ever seen the real me is Neon and I don't think she remembers how I was before the faking started."

"Why didn't you ever try to get close to Armand? Or anyone for that matter?"

"It just didn't seem worth it."

"You've been getting close to me."

Jazz looked him in the eyes, "You seem worth it."