New Jersey - Middle of May, 2 a.m
Fitz held his phone in one hand and a drink on the other.
The family dinner was great. Karen was still on cloud nine from getting accepted to her first choice of college. Gerry was jovial, happily reported his team winning the last basketball game for Harvard, against Cornell no less. His son was also very pleased that Karen would not be in the same college as him. Apparently nothing could be worse than having your style cramped by an annoying smarty pants little sister. Secretly, Fitz could relate to his son somewhat. Both of his children had grown into wonderful adults and he thanked God profoundly for that.
Mellie and him did not have the best partnership or marriage. In the past ten years, they had stayed together, pretty much in name only, for the kids. He knew his children knew that their parents were no longer in love with each other. But he and Mellie worked hard to make sure that the kids knew they were loved more than anything. They raised their children in New Jersey and worked with each other to make sure that one of them would be home for the kids during the school year. Fitz was an actor and director, mildly successful in both if he said so himself, so he found himself in LA a lot. So much that he had bought an apartment out there, again, after trying to co-inhabiting with his somewhat Casanova of a brother, Teddy, for a couple of years. If he happened to work during summer, the kids would be spending their holidays in LA, which was always exciting for them.
Mellie was successful in her own right as a sound designer. She mainly worked for theaters in New York but some times, when a project interested her, she could be off for months in a different state. On a few rare occasions over the year, a different country altogether. When things like that happened during the school year, Fitz would just drop everything in L.A to be in Jersey full time for his children. That was another reason why, over the years, he had always turned down long term projects in L.A, no matter how appealing. He children came first. Period.
Mellie was not a bad parent. She worked hard for the kids and she was the more full-time parents that Fitz was. But she had a gypsy soul and sometimes that took over. Fitz learned that after the third time she left him with two children under 10 for months, only to come back as though nothing had happened. That was probably the one thing Fitz could stand not about Mellie. Well, that and her infamous infidelity while on set.
They should not have had kids. They should have let each other go a long time before Gerry was born. But Gerry was born and they had stayed. Even as the marriage crumpled and they were most of the time unable to stand each other, they had stayed. Coming from families with divorced parents, on one thing, they were united; they would not let their kids growing up being sidelined and neglected because of a divorce. So they stayed, frustratingly at first and then indifferently, in a loveless marriage.
Fitz was content with that. He was free to hookup, randomly with whomever he fancied. Not that he did any of it anymore. He had lost his interest and faith in romantic love. Until Olivia.
Olivia. Beautiful, sweet, funny, talented, incredible Olivia. She was a rising star. She took his breath away. It was no secret he had had the biggest crush on her just from watching her on screen. He had wanted to work with her. He had dreamed of being basked in that light that she somehow always radiated.
The day his eyes met her on the set of their now a hit TV show, he was speechless. Gosh she was ... gorgeous. She was like light, fluid and bright and radiant and warm. And then she looked him with brown eyes so large, so deep, so expressive. It was one of those moment when someone looked at you and you thought they could see through to your very soul. It was electricfying. It scared the crap out of him. He almost resigned there and then.
Except he did not have a chance to. They did a screen test and it was like magic. Their acting just meshed. Everyone on set was so excited. He was terrified. After they did the pilot, she was in his head all the time. He wished he could see her again. He wished the pilot would NOT be picked up by the network. The prospect of working with her even a few days longer somehow made him nervous and anxious to the point of nauseous, like that feeling he had when he walked into an audition earlier in his career. Or that feeling he had when he was about to ask a girl he really liked out when he was 16.
Crazy Grant, he should have run for the hills then. Because, after the first season, barely 5 months of being around her and only one sex scene, he was hooked. He was like a schoolboy, completely obsessed with his first crush. He dared not put a label on his feelings for her. Unconsciously, he waited for her. He watched for her. He learned things about her. He loved talking to her. He loved hearing her talk. Her love for everything she did was so contagious. Sometimes he just stared at her, drinking her in. He couldn't get enough of every little thing about her. The worst thing in all of that was, as her on-screen love interest, he knew what it was like to kiss those lips, to hear her moans, to wrap her up in his arms, to see and to feel his lighter skin next to her brown one. The contrast drove him nearly insane in the night when those images entered his subconscious.
He could feel their chemistry. He knew Olivia was not completely immune to it either. He could feel her staring when he was not looking. He could feel her eyes searching for his across a crowded room. He knew there was something between them, unspoken but yet so real. He also knew neither of them would act on it. He, because he would never drag her into a scandal with a married white man. He had been in this business long enough to know that it would be detrimental to her hard-earned career. She, probably because she had a strong set of ethics and being involved with a married man would be against that.
So he had contented himself to be her friend. They had talked a lot. They had become friends. Until a fated night, nearly 5 months ago, just before they went on the mid-season hiatus, they were at Cyrus's home for an early Christmas/end of year party. Toward the end, Olivia was noticeably inebriated. She didn't drink much normally but she seemed to have a great time that night with the cast. Having watched her all night, Fitz decided to stop her before she regretted it the morning after. He did not drink much, only nursing a beer all night long, being designated driver for a few of the cast. He volunteered to take them all including Olivia home that night. He dropped Abby and Quinn off first and then David. Olivia's place was outside the city limit so she was last to remain in his car. She had fallen asleep somewhere between Quinn's and David's house. He was halfway on the highway to her place when she suddenly spoke:
"I want to go to the beach with you. And star gazing. I like the stars. I don't get to see them too often"
"I think I should get you home and some aspirins or you'll wake up tomorrow with the worst hangover of this millenium"
"L-O-L. That's laugh out loud. Have you become twitter literate yet?"
"I'm old but I'm catching up. Don't underestimate me!" He jested.
"You are funny. You are smart too. And you are very very very hot. All the girls on set thought so" She said somewhat incoherently.
"Well, thanks. You are not so bad yourself. Anyway, we will get you home soon so you can sleep the alcohol off. I'm pretty sure you are more drunk than you think are if you start to give me compliments."
"They weren't compliments. They were just facts. I hate you for all those facts though." She mumbled.
He didn't say anything. He couldn't really understand what she just said.
"It would have been easier if you are just hot. I have met a lot of hot guys. I can see through them easily. But I can't see through you. I just, I just see you. You being nice. You being understanding and humble and wise and considerate and incredible at what you do." She ranted on.
"I wish I am not attracted to you but the more I tried to untangle myself, the more attracted I became. I can't get you out of my head." She kept going.
He gripped the steering wheel as though his life depended on it. His heart was beating so fast, it would jump out of his chest soon.
"Stop, Olivia. You need to stop." He said, hanging desperately onto the final thread of control he had. Please God, make her stop. He prayed.
"I want to stop too. I'm in a relationship, you know. He's a good man. He doesn't crave fame or fortune. He's nice. But he doesn't look at me like you do. He doesn't kiss me like you do. His hands do not feel like yours. He lips do not feel like yours and I ... I crave you." She said, exhaling at the end like she finally let go of something heavy inside her chest.
He didn't say anything. Neither of them did for a long time. He steered the car toward an exit and somehow, almost unconsciously took them both to the ocean, like she had asked, before he stopped the engine completely. It was cold outside but it was warm in the car. The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife.
After what feel like a few minutes, he spoke: "Liv, we are adults. It's chemistry. What between us. We turn it into good acting. It fits with the story. It's good for the show. But between us, it could never grow into anything else".
He spoke slowly, choosing the words carefully. With every syllable he spoke, he felt his own heart break a little.
"Do you have feelings for me? Am I the only one feeling this?" She asked. She did not feel intoxicated any more. The tension between them had somehow drove all the alcohol away from her body. She wished she could still be drunk. She wished she could just laughed it off and pretended it was a drunk joke. But she could not do either. It was time they arrested the elephant in the room.
"I ... Liv. I don't think my feelings are relevant" He tried to dodge the question.
"Fitz, it's a Yes or No question. I need to know" She turned to look at him. Their eyes locked and like all the other times, a spell was cast over them both.
"I do. I wish I don't. I tried to pretend to myself that I don't but I do have feelings for you." He confessed.
Then and there, they both felt something clicked within each of them. Like puzzle pieces falling into place. The looked into the other person eyes. The tension was still thick but it had shifted a gear into something charged with passion. The world fell away. All the worries. All the logical reasoning. Everything else but each other became insignificant to them at that moment.
They weren't aware who made the first move but in a second, she was in his arms. Her face in his hands. Her arms around his neck, caressing his shoulder. They were not in characters. This was them being more true to themselves than they had ever been in their entire life. Kissing each other was so natural yet so erotic. They could not get enough.
Fitz dragged Olivia across into his laps. She straddled him. They smiled at each other and continued their kiss. Until Fitz grew so hard from her grinding. Until she started moaning his name through their kisses. Somehow his consciousness kicked in. He stopped them. He stilled her hip movements with his hands. His lips left hers while his forehead rested on hers.
Coming out of her haze of lust, Olivia could not understand why he had stopped.
"Do you not want me?" she asked, her voice breathy and throaty. Her arousal so evident, it was killing him sweetly.
"I don't. I mean I do" He added quickly, feeling her immediate withdrawal. Damn it, he needed more blood in his brain and less, well, he should not think about it if he still wanted some blood in his brain.
"I mean I don't want to have you like this. In my car. while you are still intoxicated. Not our first time. You deserve to be worshiped." He swallowed, trying not to think of the ways his body wanted to worship hers.
"I also don't want you to regret in the morning because you are drunk now" He added. His throat was dry. He was thirsty but not for water he needed to drink from her again. So he did, he lowered his lip and kissed her lips to quench his thirst. She let out another throaty moan.
"I'm not drunk. Not on alcohol anymore. You can do a breath test on me if you want. I won't regret it. So take me home. Your home." She said, with conviction. To leave no doubt of what he would do, this time, she was the one leaning in. She kissed him thoroughly. Deeply. Deliberately. Driving home the point that SHE was in control.
He looked deeply into her eyes for any hint of regret only to see so much passion reflected in her brown ones. God, how he loved those eyes of hers!
9 weeks later,
11 p.m on a hot July night
Fitz approached a trailer, looking around to make sure no one was still around. It was a Friday night and they had already finished shooting so the whole lot was completely vacant, except for him. He discreetly knocked on the trailer door. Five consecutive knocks to let the owner know that was him. It was their code. The door opened and he stepped in.
- "You shouldn't be here", she said, in lieu of greetings.
- "I know it was late. I just thought ... I don't know, I've been looking for a chance to talk to you."
He was suddenly nervous. He hadn't been this close to her for months. He hadn't been alone with her longer than that. What the hell was he thinking? The thing was, he wasn't thinking. Not when it came to her. He needed to see her so he had stayed until she finished filming, knowing her routine to stay back a little longer than everyone else after shooting. She had told him that she needed her routine to decompress, to get out of character so she could be 100% Olivia Pope.
- "Fitz, we agreed to stop. We can't. I can't ... do this anymore." - she replied. She looked up at him. There were pain in his eyes. His jaw tensed. She was hurting him and she hated herself for that. She could see the pain etched on his face and her own heart ached. Her hands itched to touch him, to soothe the pain away. But he was not hers to soothe. And she was not his. That was important. She needed to remember that.
- "I know. You told me, on the phone. I haven't forgotten." - Forgotten? What a joke! That conversation was imprinted in his mind. He had played it over and over again inside his head, trying desperately to understand what had transpired. All he knew was that he had called her to tell her that Karen was accepted to Yale, pre-med major. He was a super proud Dad. He wanted to share that with her. He always wanted to share every little thing with her. It was maddening to him how she consumed every thought, every feeling of his. He was also going to tell her that he and Mellie had initiated the divorce process. But before he got to that, she dropped the bomb and turned his world upside down. It hadn't turned back to its axes since.
