To Caress My Day

The house laid empty for three weeks while Twigs was in New York and Seth was in California. Though they weren’t able to be around one another, the couple did FaceTime, Skype, and text each other almost constantly every day. On one particular phone call, Seth overheard some surprising information about his girlfriend of one week and two days. It was the kind of information that he felt he should have known prior to them dating. While gathering his wallet and keys one morning before heading out the door to the Family Guy Studios, Seth received a call from his beloved girlfriend Twigs. She was on the set of Kylie Minogue’s music video and was now spending the last twenty minutes of her break to call her boyfriend. For the other breaks that she had earlier on in the day she had spent chatting with both the directors and cameramen on the set about their work. She tried to gather as much knowledge from them as she could in the short time she had before she had to appear on screen again to perform.

“Hey Pixie, how are you?” Seth answered into his phone with a huge smile on his face. He was no longer in such of a rush to get into work. Right now, all he wanted to do was to soak up the sound of her voice and not be disrupted by anyone or anything. He just wanted it to be her and him in that moment, nothing else.

Twigs couldn’t help but blush and smile at the sound of his familiar deep voice on the other end. “I’m doing well, and how are you?”

Seth’s feet led him to his kitchen where a sheet of paper with some doodles laid next to a newly sharpened pencil. Without a thought, he began to doodle a picture that began to transform more and more into his girlfriend the longer they talked on the phone. “I’m ok I guess. I mean other than missing you like crazy, things have been pretty busy.”

“Oh right, of course you’re busy. You’ve been away from your studio for a long time now, since you’ve been in the UK.” Twigs recalled the location of his studio being in California.

“You know, maybe busy is an understatement. I’d probably say I’m up swamped or maybe up to my ass in episodes.” Seth joked, earning an adorable laugh from his girlfriend as his pencil traced over the bottom lip of his portrait of her.

Twigs opened her mouth to respond back but was interrupted by someone shouting her name from behind her. Big brown eyes darted up to check the time on the clock hanging above the back door and saw that she still had time left on her break. With furrowed brows, Twigs looked over her shoulder to see one of her fellow dancers waving a hand at her.

“Oh my goodness Angelica, don’t scare me like that! I thought my time ran out.” Twigs scolded her.

“My bad. I was just wanting to ask what the names of your music video were. I heard Ricco talking about it earlier, and I was like blown away that you never mentioned it to me before.” Angelica explained, sounding apologetic in the beginning before it changed into a more of a complaint.

“Which one did he mention?” Twigs asked her really quick, hoping to get back to talking to her boyfriend as soon as possible. She made sure to keep the phone away from her lips so he wouldn’t overhear them.

“Wait, you have more than one? How many have you made so far?” Angelica questioned with her hands on her hips and a offensive tone in her voice.

“Two so far.” Twigs admitted.

“In that case, what are they called?” Angelica asked before rolling her eyes at her friend.

“The first one is called Hide, and the other is called Ache.” Twigs rushed out before gesturing to the phone with an impatient look and gesture. Angelica got the hint and gave her a soft thanks as she walked back onto the set.

Unfortunately for Twigs, Seth overheard the entire conversation and was completely shocked to find out his girlfriend of one week and two days was so far in her music career that she already had two music videos for two songs he had never heard of before. That was his girlfriend’s work, and he had no idea it even existed until now. It was also strange that she never mentioned it to him before, nor had her friends the few times he’d been around them. What was going on here?

“Did I just overhear that you have a music video that I’ve never heard about before, or is my hearing going bad? I know it can’t be my hearing.” Seth questioned with a little bit of suspicion in his voice.

Twigs bit her lip in regret as his curious tone reached her ear the second she put her ear back to the phone. She didn’t intend to keep him in the dark about them forever, and even felt guiltier that he had to find out about them this way. She knew she should have told him sooner but… “Actually, I have two.”

Seth dropped his pencil and pushed his doodle of Twigs away from him as he answered in a calm voice. “Well? What are they called?”

“My first one is called Hide, and my second one is called Ache.” Twigs revealed as her mouth formed into a pout because of the deceit he must be feeling about her secret keeping.

“How long have they been around?” Seth demanded to know as his accidently slap his hand onto the counter top too hard, making him hiss in pain at the stinging sensation on his palm.

“Well, my video for Hide came out in July 10, 2012 before we even met, and my second video came out in August 8, 2012 a week before we met.” Twigs clarified to him in a very soft but guilty voice.

“Is that all of them?” Seth asked with a defeated sigh, trying not to let her soft voice chip away at his annoyance.

“Well, I’m hoping for two more videos to be released this year.” Twigs surprised him.

Seth shook his head as the last of his irritation crumbled, leaving only hurt by her keeping secrets from him. “I don’t understand why you never told me about this before, Pixie. I mean, I know we only started dating a week and two days ago, but I can’t help but feel kind of hurt that you kept this information from me. Don’t you think I’d want to know about your work and your successes even if they were finished before you and I got together?”

“Oh honey I know, I know! Just please, let me explain. I did want to tell you before today, but I was too anxious about how it would make me look to you. I wanted to do it right so you wouldn’t get any wrong ideas about me.” Twigs struggled to explain as her fingers rubbed over her forehead with worry.

Seth frowned. “What do you mean ‘get the wrong idea about you’? What are you talking about, baby?”

Twigs let out an embarrassing groan. “Well, I didn’t want to give you the idea that I only wanted to be with you so that I could use your many connections in the industry to help me build my career into something bigger. I wouldn’t be able to live with you thinking I was an opportunist that’s only dating you so I can live the rich and fabulous life of a successful artist in the music industry. That’s not true, and that’s not something I would ever do to anyone. I was so paranoid that you would start to believe that the reason I talk about my career so much was because I was trying to drop some hints that I need help to get more successful, WHICH I don’t by the way! I am just fine with building my own career without you lifting a finger, or spending any cent of your money on me.”

Seth was kind of speechless. “Oh...”

Twigs let out a soft sigh. “Look, Seth, I am so fucking sorry for keeping this secret from you. It’s just…I’ve never been in a relationship like this before, you know? I’m trying to be very careful about what I say and do around you because I don’t want you to think that I’m using you, and that I don’t care about you at all. I care about Seth MacFarlane for who he is, not how much he’s worth and what he can do for my career. Can you find it in yourself to forgive me? Does anything I just said make any sense to you at all or am I just not making any sense here?”

Seth’s frown turned upside down at he let out a soft chuckle at the sound of her adorable whine at the end. He couldn’t stay mad at her, especially after expressing her fear of him judging her. But did she really believe he would think so low of her because she was poor? “Of course I forgive you, Pixie. How can I not? I have to admit that I’m a little offended that you would think so lowly of me. Rich or poor, I would never judge you and label you as an opportunist just because I have more money than you. I’m not sure if it’s stupidity on my part, but…I’ve never once thought that you might have been interested in me simply for my money and/or fame.”

Twigs was a little surprised. Seth never gave her any suspicion that he thought she was an opportunist or a gold digger, yet still she wasn’t sure if the idea hadn’t at least presented itself to him one or two times in the past. Now that he assured her that he hadn’t, she couldn’t help but believe him with all of her heart. “Really? Wow, I’m relieved to know that. That’s definitely takes a lot of weight off my shoulders.”

“I’m glad…so…can I watch them?” Seth asked timidly instead of just pulling it up on his phone to watch without her permission. This was his girlfriend’s music videos, so he wasn’t sure what to expect from her.

“Oh god, o-ok.” Twig’s covered her red face even though he couldn’t see her before checking the clock on the wall to see she had two minutes left. “The first one is called Hide, you might enjoy that one more. The second one is called Ache, the dancer is a friend of mine. I have to go baby, I have only two minutes left before I have to go on set. I’ll uh, I’ll miss you. Call you later. Bye.”

“Bye baby, see you later!” Seth hurriedly called before she hung up on him. After pressing the end button, Seth gathered up the last of his things and headed right on out the door to work. The only thing that was on his mind at the moment was that his girlfriend would have a lot of explaining to do the next time they met up.