I Could Never Pretend

“So, Josie huh?” Amelia nudged Steve and took a bite of pizza. They were sitting on Steve’s couch with Brandon in between them, watching cartoons. They had been scheduled to spend the morning filming picks up for the documentary, but following an unexpected thunderstorm they had decided to reschedule the shoot and Amelia and Steve had opted to share a sofa day and order pizza. The cancelled shoot also gave Amelia the chance to spend more time with Brandon and he was thoroughly happy tucking into his cheese and tomato pizza, although Steve seemed to be enjoying the cartoons more than the two year old.

“What about her?” Steve feigned curiosity. Oh how the tables had turned, Amelia smirked to herself.

“She seems nice.” Amelia smiled suggestively and took another bite of pizza. She was enjoying the opportunity to play Steve at his own game.

“Yeah, she is.” Steve nodded, not taking his eyes away from the television and stuffing vegetarian pizza into his mouth at an alarming pace. Perhaps he was trying to avoid the line of questioning, Amelia thought to herself slyly.

“So...Are you seeing her again?” Amelia prompted, wiping tomato sauce from Brandon’s chin. Over the past three weeks of filming, Josie had been present every day, under the pretence of ‘moral support’, but Amelia’s female intuition told her that there was definitely something between Steve and Josie, even if they had not realised it themselves.

“What do you mean?” Steve glanced at Amelia and raised an eyebrow. He was a good actor but Amelia was better. She knew all the tricks in the book.

“Don’t play coy with me Steve. You know exactly what I’m getting at.” She grinned, absent-mindedly passing Brandon his juice carton.

“Fine.” Steve sighed, his resolve collapsing far sooner than Amelia had expected. He stared at Amelia accusingly. “You’re just too good.” He shrugged.

“Thank you.” Amelia smiled proudly. “I’ve learnt from the best. Now spill.”

“Well. I really like her and I was thinking of asking her to be my date for Jeff’s wedding.” Steve admitted, examining his nails quite shyly. Amelia had never seen this side of him before and she found it adorable.

“Does she know you like her?” She asked. Amelia had never been one to interfere in other people’s love lives, that had always been Rose’s area of expertise, but sometimes Amelia thought her friends needed a little gentle persuasion.

“I don’t know. We kind of almost kissed the other day.” He smiled shyly and gobbled down another slice of pizza, chasing it down with a long swig of diet coke.

Amelia beamed. She was so happy for him. After everything that he had been through Steve deserved some happiness. “That’s great. Like I said, she seems really nice.”

Steve grinned. “I’m glad you like her. You seem to be a good judge of people Amelia.”

“Really?” Amelia raised an eyebrow.

“Ok, well maybe not so much in the past...” Steve trailed off, realising his mistake. “But then again you always see the good in people. That’s a gift. ”

“It’s not necessarily a good thing...” She thought bitterly of her husband. Maybe she shouldn’t have bothered looking so hard to find the good in Bam and instead taken him for what he was right from the start, a spoilt and selfish little boy.

“You saw the good in me.” Steve reminded her with a smile playing on his lips. “Not many other people gave me the chance that you did. I know Jeff and Knoxville hated me.”

“They didn’t hate you.” Amelia assured him. “They were just worried about you. And it wasn’t hard for me to see the good in you.” She patted his arm. “You’re a good person Steve. You just made a few mistakes. We all do.”

“Some more than others.” He shrugged. “But hey, let the past be the past right?”

Amelia nodded. If only it was as easy as that. She finished her last slice of pizza before getting up to find her pack of baby wipes. Brandon had managed to cover his hands and face in sauce.

“I could use one of those.” Steve laughed, waving his sticky fingers at Amelia and grinning. Brandon giggled and copied Steve, putting his own dirty hands in the air. Amelia shook her head in amusement and passed Steve a wipe.

“There you go. I’m sure you can clean yourself up right?”

“Yes mom.” Steve teased as Amelia wiped the muck from her son’s hands and face.

Once Brandon and Steve were both cleaned up, Amelia returned to her seat took a sip of coke. “So do you think you and Josie might get together?” She inquired, pulling Brandon into her lap for a cuddle.

“I really don’t know. I don’t exactly have a great track record with relationships.” Steve shrugged. “But Josie is definitely different from anyone I’ve been with. She’s on my wave length you know. She gets me.”

Amelia smiled. “Well what are you waiting for? Go over and tell her exactly how you feel.” She urged.

“Really?” Steve looked at Amelia with uncertainty.

“Really.” She repeated. “Look at me and Johnny. You don’t want to make the mistakes we did. If we had just told one another how we felt from the beginning, life would have been a whole lot easier.”

“That’s true.” Steve laughed. “You frustrated the fuck out of me, you know that?”

Amelia laughed. “Like I said, don’t make the same mistakes. If you like her let her know. You’ve got nothing to lose.”

***

“You know you could just stay in bed instead of going out with Laura.” A husky voice whispered into Amelia’s ear.

Amelia sighed gently, resting her head on Johnny’s shoulder. “I’m not just ‘going out with Laura’.”She reminded him. “I’ve got get fitted for my bridesmaid dress.”

Johnny pouted. It was a Saturday and raining, making it the perfect time to stay in bed all day. He knew that Amelia had plans, but it didn’t stop him from wishing they could remain snuggled up in his king size bed for the next twelve hours.

“Don’t pout.” Amelia laughed, prodding his chest. “You’ve got Brandon to keep you company.”

“Yes. And he agrees with me that today is a perfect day for cuddles, not shopping.” Johnny informed her, keeping his arms locked tightly around her waist. He was not going to give up easily.

“Well that’s lucky. You can cuddle each other.” Amelia smiled, half heartedly attempting to wriggle free of Johnny’s grip. In all honestly she would rather be staying in bed with her two favourite boys. The thought of dress shopping reminded her of her own wedding. Something she was trying to forget.

“You’ll be missing out on some serious snuggles.” Johnny warned her, attempting to pull a serious face.

“I’m sure I will.” She nodded. “I guess I’ll just have to make up for it when I get back.”

This seemed to satisfy Johnny and he let go of her waist. “Promise?”

“I promise.” She laughed and rolled out of his arms. “I would say that I won’t be long, but you know what Laura’s like.”

Johnny groaned, realising that Amelia would probably be gone for most of the day if Laura had anything to do with it. Amelia laughed at his reaction and climbed over so that she was straddling him. “You’re evil.” He observed. Amelia looked at him questioningly.

“You can’t do this to me and just up and leave to spend the day shopping.” He gestured at Amelia’s naked body sitting on top of his. “It’s just evil.”

Amelia grinned. “I’m sure you’ll get over it.” And with that she got off him and made her way to the bathroom, leaving Johnny to close his eyes and exhale in frustration. She knew exactly how to drive him crazy.

***

Amelia arrived at Jeff and Laura’s perfectly on time, despite Johnny’s numerous attempts to seduce her that morning. Granted she had given in eventually, but Amelia prided herself on being punctual so she had left him in bed wanting more.

“Hey. You all ready to go?” Amelia greeted Laura as she opened the door.

“Sure, come in for a sec, I just need to grab my bag.” Laura smiled and hugged her friend. “Make yourself at home. Jeff’s not in as usual.”

Amelia followed Laura into the house and took a seat on the sofa. She was not at all surprised to find that Jeff was in the office and she couldn’t blame him. The living room was full of wedding magazines, spare invitations and flower samples. The place resembled some kind of wedding related nightmare.

“You didn’t have to dress up for the occasion.” Laura noted in sarcasm as she looked Amelia up and down. In an attempt to avoid unwanted recognition while they were shopping, Amelia had opted to wear her oversized university hoody, an old pair of leggings and her converse.

“I don’t want to draw attention to myself.” Amelia shrugged, making Laura laugh.

“That bad huh?”

“They’ll probably ignore me if Johnny’s not around. It’s not like I’m a celebrity or anything. But I didn’t want to take any chances. I’m sick of seeing my mug in the magazines.” Amelia explained.

“Makes sense.” Laura grinned. “Anyway, if you get any hassle, Claire and I have it covered. We’ll be like your very own bodyguards.” Laura put her hands on her hips and stuck out her chest in what Amelia assumed to be an attempt to appear intimidating.

“Thanks, I appreciate that.” Amelia laughed as Laura left the room.

“Good. Now, are you excited?” Laura grinned, instantly reappearing with her oversized leather hand bag.

“Sure.” Amelia smiled as convincingly as she could. Laura had found her own dress months ago but Amelia had managed to put off the bridesmaid dress shopping until as late as possible. While she was honoured that Laura had asked her to be a bridesmaid she dreaded the thought of trying on dress after dress. It was just too painful a reminder of her own wedding. Laura on the other hand seemed overly excited at the prospect of finding dresses for her two bridesmaids and Amelia knew it was going to be a long day. A few minutes later they climbed into Laura’s car and set off to pick up Chris’s girlfriend Claire who was going to be Laura’s other bridesmaid, before making their way into town.