Famous Most Wanted

Grace slapped her copy of Music Box down onto the glass tabletop of her kitchen table.

'This is outrageous!' she shrieked, startling her two new PA's and her beautician who filed gently at Grace's toenails. Glenn, Grace's unfazed, brand new agent, shook his head in distaste at the magazine.

'Call my attorney!' bellowed Grace at the younger of the two PA's. She looked terrified. 'I will not stand for this! I'm carrying the baby of the most famous man in the world, how dare they belittle me?!'

'Honey, I don't think an attorney would be of much use,' sighed Glenn, opening the magazine and cringing with repugnance that there was no celeb gossip columns or fashion disaster sections. He shut it and pushed it across the table with one finger and a grimace, like it were covered in piss.

'And why not?' demanded Grace indignantly. Glenn looked up at her.

'Well, sweetie, I just don't see how the courts could possibly condemn them of anything. You kind of started this war with your attack on Montana. This is merely a retaliation. They never said the baby wasn't yours. They technically haven't done anything wrong. They have nothing on you . . unless the things they say about you lying are true?'

'Ugh, whatever. It doesn't matter anyway,' Grace tutted irritably, not about to admit that she actually had lied about Johnny and her relationship with him. 'It doesn't matter,' she repeated, looking down at her flat stomach and placing a hand on it. 'I've got what I want.'

***

The Weekly Word
14/05/11



'The fucking media are just lapping this up,' commented Curtis as he shut a magazine with all their faces on the front. He put it on his lap as a makeshift table for his plastic tub of curry.

'Good, it's what we want,' Kevin said, picking at his own tub of curry, 'They're doubting her. Now we got the media back where we want 'em. On our side. She thought she was golden girl, setting the hounds on us but we pulled a total 180 on her. Bet she's fucking fuming,' he laughed. Curtis joined in.

'Would've loved to have seen her face when she read Music Box,' he sighed dreamily at the thought.

'Bet someone read it for her,' commented Tommy, swallowing down his nan bread. 'Did you know she's now got, like, a dozen personal assistants? And they proper suck up to her too!'

'Probably think they'll get to meet Johnny when he comes back,' shrugged Kevin. 'Let's face it, he's the only real reason people endure such shit.'

'Hey Kev,' Zach spoke up, picking up his beer from the table. 'Hear much from Miranda?'

'Nah,' Kevin said. 'Should probably give her a call. Check in at casa de Carolina and see how she's doin'.'

'Makes me laugh that,' smiled Curtis. 'What's Miranda's real name?'

'What's Johnny's real name?' pointed out Zach.

'How should I know?'

'Google it,' suggested Tommy.

'Mate, I don't think internet forums and bloggers will know Johnny's name if we don't,' laughed Zach.

'Kev?' tried Curtis, glancing up at him. He shrugged in response.

'Kid don't tell me nothing, 'specially not something like that.'

***

Johnny and Taylor grinned triumphantly down at the finished woodland puzzle. It had taken them weeks but they finally had it finished.

'Good job there weren't any pieces missing,' commented Johnny. 'Go through all that and we can't even finish the fucker.'

'That would have been unsatisfying,' agreed Taylor with a nod. 'I wish we had a camera.' Johnny looked at Taylor and smirked.

'Why?' he laughed. She shrugged.

'It's an achievement, don't you think? And achievements need to be documented.' Johnny looked back at the puzzle. 'Yeah, I guess. What do we do with it now?'

'Put it away?' she suggested.

'Nah, you crazy? We just built the damn thing.'

'Then lets leave it out for a bit,' Taylor smiled, looking down on the puzzle happily.

'We should leave it for the owners to see,' he grinned. 'They'll come here eventually after we've left. They can preserve our puzzle in a glass case.' Taylor rolled her eyes.

'Don't. They probably will y'know? They'd make great profit from this place one day.' Taylor looked around and imagined tourists pushing to the front to get a photo of the puzzle, or the guest book they planned to sign.

'It's late,' Johnny said, glancing at the time. 'I might hit the hay.'

'One for the road?' Taylor offered, nodding at his mug, drained of tea long ago.

'Nah, I'll be pissing like a race horse all night,' he smirked.

'Lovely,' quipped Taylor, standing and picking up both her mug and Johnny's. She placed them in the sink and reached for the tap.

'Watch 'em in the morning, Tex. Come to bed.' Johnny leant against the banisters and smiled in a charmingly cheeky way. There was a gleam in his greeny brown eyes that Taylor recognised as suggestion.
Taylor raised her eyebrows at him.

'Okay, I'll go to my bed. You can go to your bed.' Johnny sighed and turned to bounce up the stairs.

'These nights get awfully cold, Tex. You ever want your feet warming up in the night, you know where to find me.'

'And I also know where to find the hot water bottles,' she smiled back. Johnny winked at her before disappearing upstairs.
Taylor sighed and walked back to the kitchen table. She looked down at the puzzle and smiled fondly, wishing she had a camera. She wanted to remember every minute spent with Johnny. Something told her their fun would only be short lived. He'd go back to being a world wide sex symbol, rock star, teen idol. She'd go back to her office. Her tiny flat. Her awkward polite conversations with Vinny.

Taylor, never one to be rebellious, had a sudden urge to run upstairs, march down the hall, barge into Johnny's room and kiss him ferociously while he was off guard. She had the urge to take his offer and share his bed. And she had the urge to run away with him and never look back.

He really had changed her life and she wasn't sure if going back to her old one would be so easy. She wanted to stay like this.
It was like that Aerosmith song she liked. “I just wanna be with you, right here with you, just like this.”

That was how she felt. She really didn't want to miss a thing.
Her time with Johnny was valuable and precious. Yet she had no way to keep a part of him with her. Even the phone Vinny gave her didn't have a camera on it. She was going to have to rely purely on her brain to lock these memories away safe.
But Taylor was pretty sure she wasn't forgetting Johnny any time soon.

Taylor turned off the big lights and felt her way to the stairs, ascending. When she reached the top, she stopped to look down the hall. Johnny's door was shut. Taylor looked away. She'd bottled it. Of course, she knew she was never actually going to kick Johnny's door down and force herself on him. That was just spontaneous fantasy that she was pretty sure she'd dream of tonight.

Taylor pushed up the long sleeves of her green jumped and entered her room. She sat on the side of her bed and remembered her gun was still in her handbag from the walk. She reached for the bag on the wicker chair by the window and unzipped it. She slid out her gun and checked the safety was still on before sliding it into the drawer beside her bed. Taylor threw the bag back at the chair while she shut the drawer and she felt a tiny stab of pain.
Instinctively, she ripped her finger away from the drawer. But that only intensified the pain.

'Oww!' she moaned, frowning at her finger. 'Jesus, ow!' A door opened down the hall.

'Tex?' She didn't answer as she stared intently at her finger and squeezed.

'Owww!' she yelped again. Johnny pushed her door open.

'You okay?' He actually sounded concerned. Taylor continued to watch her finger, like it would drop off.

'I got a splinter,' she groaned, squeezing her eyes shut. 'I hate splinters.' Johnny sighed and sat beside her on her bed. He turned himself so he was facing her.

'Send it this way, y'mucky pup.' Taylor opened her eyes to see his hand held out to her. She glanced nervously down at her finger again.

'What're you going to do?'

'Have a look at it of course,' he answered. Taylor reluctantly held out her finger. He took it and inspected it.

'It's a deep one,' tutted Johnny.

'I can feel that,' commented Taylor frustratedly.

'Don't go anywhere,' he said standing and hurrying out the room.

'What? Where are you going?' she worried. The sound of drawers being rummaged through could be heard downstairs, shortly followed by feet up the stairs.
Johnny sat back on the bed, facing Taylor, and produced a sewing needle. Taylor's eyebrows shot up.

'I'm not sticking a needle in my finger!'

'No,' he agreed. 'I am.'

'You most certainly are not!' replied Taylor indignantly. Johnny rolled his eyes.

'Look, trust me yeah? I'm the master of digging out splitters.' Taylor didn't like the use of the term 'digging'. 'Don't ask how, considering my profession, but I always end up with cracking splitters in me fingers. I've got it down to a fine art now after all these years. Now hand it over.' He held out his hand and, with a sigh, Taylor let Johnny take her hand.
One leg was folded beneath him and so Taylor's hand rested on his knee as he leant over it. Taylor covered her eyes with her other hand. Feeling it was enough, she couldn't watch it too.

'So are you particularly squeamish then?' Johnny asked, not looking up at her.

'No. I just dislike splitters. They cause an abnormal amount of pain for something so little.'

'Bit like a paper cut,' noted Johnny. 'Get plenty of those too.'

'Ow!' flinched Taylor.

'Sorry. It's almost out.' As Johnny teased at the splinter, Taylor peeked through her fingers at him. She got a view of his messy black hair, hanging over his lowered head. She hid her eyes again.

'Ow!'

'Sorry.'

'Thought you got it down to a fine art,' commented Taylor.

'Didn't say it wouldn't still hurt though. There,' Johnny said a moment later. 'All done.' Taylor peeked through her fingers again and saw Johnny smiling up at her. The needle was out her finger and so was the splinter.
She removed her hand from her face and inspected her finger. It was sore, but the pain would ease. She lifted her head and met Johnny's. It was then she noticed how close he was. And after the fantasies she'd been having, she definitely wished Johnny would move away. But of course he didn't. He wanted a reaction out of her. Any kind of sexual response to him.

They stared at each other for an intense moment. Taylor was first to break eye contact as usual. She could never last long in a Johnny staring contest.

'Um, thanks,' Taylor said weakly.

'No problem, babe,' Johnny smiled, standing. She didn't bother to pull him up on calling her babe. Somewhere in inside her, she actually liked it.
Johnny reached her door before turning around and smiling crookedly at her.

'Oh, and my offer still stands. I'm an excellent foot warmer. Gotten that down to a fine art too,' he winked.