Nothing Is Ever Simple

JOHNNY

“What the fuck is going on PJ?”

Johnny removed his shades and stared at Jeff in confusion. He had barely taken two steps into the office before Jeff had stopped him in his tracks. Johnny groaned. It was too early in the morning for confrontations and his head was hurting after a night of heavy drinking with his cousin Roger. Not only had it been a wild family night out, it had also provided Johnny with a distraction from Amelia.

“You know exactly what I mean. You and Amelia are both sulking around the place and quite frankly it’s doing my head in.” Jeff said plainly, folding his arms on his desk and looking like he meant business.

Johnny collapsed into his own chair and banged his head on the desk. “I need coffee.” It was definitely too early for this kind of confrontation.

“Stop avoiding the question.” Jeff warned him, giving Johnny his most authoritative stare.

“Stop being bossy.” Johnny responded without moving his head from the desk.

Jeff couldn’t help but laugh. “If I wasn’t bossy nothing would ever get done around this place.”

“Touché.” Johnny conceded, finally lifting his head wearily as if it was a heavy weight. “Please can I have some coffee and then we’ll talk?”

Jeff nodded and pushed a polystyrene cup towards him. “I heard Roger was in town so I took the liberty of preparing you a hangover cure.” He explained, tossing a packet of painkillers over to Johnny. “I was hoping we would actually get some work done today.”

Johnny smiled guiltily and washed the tablets down with a lukewarm gulp of coffee. It was his own fault. If he had arrived in the offices on time it would still have been warm.

“So…” Jeff looked at Johnny expectantly. “Are you going to explain why you two have been avoiding one another for the past two weeks?”

Johnny shrugged. “She said it herself, there’s nothing going on between us.”

“She told you that?” Jeff raised his eye brows disbelievingly.

“Well…” Johnny scratched his head and realised he wasn’t quite giving Jeff the whole picture. He proceeded to tell Jeff about overhearing the conversation between Amelia and Mel.

“Are you really that dense Knoxville?” Jeff sighed exasperatedly when Johnny had finished.

Johnny frowned. “What?” There was surely no need for Jeff to be so rude.

“Do you really expect Amelia to open up to Mel after meeting her for a matter of minutes? Besides which, she’s hardly going to admit she’s in love with you to your ex wife is she?”

Johnny was quiet. He had never thought of it that way, but then again, it didn’t explain why Amelia had been avoiding him.

“Seriously PJ, your love life is starting to resemble some bad teenage TV series. ‘Will they, won’t they?’ As your friend, it’s frustrating to watch. I know how crazy you’ve been about her right from the start. At New Year I thought it was finally a dead certain that you were going to get together; I mean you got the hard part out of the way right? You told her you love her and she said it back so surely that should have been the end of it right? But no, you were an idiot and you let her go back to Bam. And then I was sure that the little stunt I pulled with the restaurant would have done the trick but both of you are so incredibly blind, I can see I’m going to have to bang your heads together and hope it knocks some sense into you.”

Johnny grimaced as Jeff reflected on the absurdity of his relationship with Amelia. The worst thing was, Jeff was right. He had let her go too many times. As this realisation swept over Johnny he felt incredibly weary and not just due to his hangover. He was tired of trying to the right thing by everyone. It was time he threw caution to the wind and thought about himself for once.

“Have you spoken to Amelia?” Johnny wondered if she was going to be subjected to a similar rant.

“No, that’s your job.” Jeff told him in no uncertain terms. “I feel like I should be a relationship counsellor or something.” Jeff sighed, shaking his head.

“Maybe you should. You and Laura have a great relationship.” Johnny smiled.

“It’s because we’re honest with each other about everything.” Jeff winked. “Anyway, we’re not here to talk about me. Have you seen this?” Jeff passed a glossy magazine towards Johnny. It was open and folded at a specific page. Johnny examined the article in question and scrutinised the photograph of him and Amelia leaving the restaurant the other weekend. He bit his lip with anger as he scanned over the pictures of Bam with other women.

“As you can imagine, Amelia’s not particularly overjoyed about this. “ Jeff interrupted his thoughts. “It’s bad enough that she knows what Bam has been up to, but now so does everybody else. I suggest you live up to the caption and ‘comfort her through this difficult time’.”

Johnny nodded absent mindedly as he wrestled with the desire to go and find Amelia and see if she was ok.

“So, just to make sure you spend some time together, I’ve talked to Rick and Dimitry and Amelia’s going to fill in for Dimitry when you shoot ‘One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer’ for the next couple of weeks.”

Johnny’s eyes widened at the thought of practically working one on one with Amelia and he remembered that there was supposed to be a meeting regarding that segment of the website that very morning. Right on cue the door to their office creaked open and Amelia and Dimitry entered. Johnny looked up to find himself staring into Amelia’s beautiful green eyes. She smiled apologetically as she and Dimitry sat down around the desk.

As they discussed the segment and who they would interview, there was no awkwardness between Amelia and Johnny, for which Johnny was very glad. He was looking forward to working with her at the same time as hopefully working out their feelings for one another.

Once the meeting was over, the four of them filed out of the office for a coffee, or in Amelia and Dimitry’s case a smoke break. Johnny hurried to catch up with Amelia as she made her way out of the building. “Hey.” He smiled awkwardly. “Can I crash one of those off you?” he asked as Amelia started to light her cigarette.

“Sure, but I thought you quit?” she eyed him suspiciously and held out the packet for him to help himself.

Johnny shrugged. “Blame Jeff, he’s bad for my nerves.” It was true.

“I’ll let you off then.” She smiled and handed him the lighter.

They stood side by side and smoked their cigarettes in silence. Johnny was trying to think of something to say that would make up for him avoiding her for the past two weeks. By now, however, Amelia and Johnny were more than familiar with prolonged episodes of no contact and Amelia beat him to it.

“So, I was wondering if the invitation to your premiere was still open.”

Johnny grinned. “Only for you.”