Fame ***

I wasn’t sure exactly what I expected. Maybe something straight out of a bad superhero movie, where the ultra-powerful villain (Heather, in this case, of course) would swear vengeance against me and everyone I loved and my first-born child, followed by a maniacal cackle and the sound of smoke in my ear to show that she’d disappeared in a puff. Not that the disappearing thing would have quite the same effect over the phone, but I couldn’t have known what kind of stunts she’d pull.

But instead, she just sputtered a lot, like she was a robot that had gotten water poured on her. “Fired?!” she finally gasped out, her voice almost like a grotesque choking.

“You heard me,” I replied. “Unless you don’t understand the meaning of the word. Do you want a dictionary definition?”

She babbled for a second longer before I heard a tune in my ear, alerting me that she’d hung up.

I let out a long breath, trying to ease the butterflies in my stomach. Maybe I’d acted too rashly. Although I didn’t want to go through with the plan set up for Niall, since betraying him would just kill me on the inside, I probably shouldn’t have fired her. I was left with no management and nobody to watch over me, which was a death sentence in Hollywood. Not having any representation meant that I would have no kinds of defense against the tabloids or any kinds of media coverage, no one to contact for any available parts, and no one to pave my career for me. If I had to take care of myself, I would just flounder around in the empty abyss until the dark reality dawned on me that my career was unsalvageable.

But maybe Jem could help. He had to have a manager, right? Otherwise, he wouldn’t have gotten a part alongside me, even if it was just a cute little teenage chick flick.

Call me when you wake up, I wrote in a fast message before sending it to him. My heart started to slow back to a semi-normal pace, and exhaustion started to wash over me again, a powerful yawn exploding from my mouth.

I padded back to my bedroom, trying to be as quiet as I could so I didn’t wake Niall. After all, he probably didn’t sleep too well with all the traveling he did, and any few hours of sleep must have been sacred.

But my efforts weren’t worth a thing. As I climbed back under the covers, pulling the sheet and comforter up over my shoulder, Niall’s eyelids fluttered and opened.

“Hey,” he mumbled, a small smile playing on the corner of his lips like he knew a funny joke he wasn’t willing to share. It almost broke my heart with how young and adorable it made him look. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” I responded, trying to keep my eyes open for just a few moments longer. “Just getting a drink of water.”

He made a noise of acknowledgement to show that he heard me before draping a hand around my bare waist.

And soon enough, we both were asleep again, facing each other so our breaths mingled in the space between our sleeping forms.



When I woke up the next morning in the most unattractive and groggy kind of way, I was startled to find the bed next to me empty. I sat up straight, gathering the sheets around me, suddenly shy and self-conscious. I had never been ditched in the middle of the night before, and Niall hadn’t shown any signs that he was planning on running when he’d stirred awake in the middle of the night.

But my heart started to race faster when I realized his shorts and boxers, which had been lying quite obviously in the middle of the floor, were gone. So he had gotten dressed and left without a bit of explanation. He didn’t even respect me enough to say goodbye.

I wanted to feel angry or homicidal, something tangible and powerful, but instead, I just felt sad and hurt. Almost abandoned. Like the sacrifice I’d made only a few hours earlier, where I cut myself off from the person responsible for my fame in the name of being noble, wasn’t worth it. Wasn’t worth anything.

Fighting back tears, I got dressed into a pair of sleeping shorts and a tank top, making my way out to the kitchen, hoping to make myself a smoothie to ease my aching heart.

For a second, I looked around for a slip of paper, the last chance that Niall had left any kind of hint of the events of the night before. But when I didn’t find anything, I realized that a note wouldn’t have made any sense. What would he have written? Hey, babe. Thanks for the sex. It was W-I-L-D. Niall.

That would have been so fucking embarrassing.

“Morning.”

The word cut through my thoughts so sharply that my only reaction was to jump back about ten feet and screech at the top of my lungs.

Niall looked thoroughly amused at my shock and chuckled, but my heart was still pounding so hard in my ears that I could barely hear what he said next. “Sorry. I thought you heard me come down the hallway.”

“No, I didn’t.” Then, as an afterthought, I added, “I thought you ditched me, actually.”

His eyebrows knitted together in concern, and I felt instantly guilty for saying anything. “Is that really what you take me for?”

“I guess not.” It was better he didn’t know the truth, really. “I guess I’m just still tired.”

Niall closed the distance between us, wrapping his arms around my middle and planting a soft, romantic kiss against my lips. It was so completely different from the passionate night, so much more innocent and pure, but I still felt the blood rush to my face. “Well, I’d never do that to you. Even if you slept so long that I missed ten interviews in a day. I would never just leave you.”

“Choosing me over your career. How sweet.” I tousled his hair playfully, trying to pretend that his declaration hadn’t hit so close to home with my own situation. “Now did you want any breakfast?”

“I already looked and found that you have nothing good to eat.” He grinned, the light flashing off his braces. “Why don’t we go to the bakery down the street?”

“How the hell do you know I have a bakery down the street?”

He wordlessly reached into his back pocket and pulled out his phone, which had the GPS directions to the little place I frequented when I’d first moved to L.A. “Now get dressed and let’s go. Unless you want the paparazzi to take pictures of you looking like that, of course.”

“Fuck the paparazzi,” I mumbled, capturing my eyes with him for a second. “They really don’t matter anymore, do they?”

Something flashed behind his eyes that I couldn’t catch before he reached forward and wrapped his calloused hand around my soft one. “I couldn’t have said it better myself, lass.”