Juvia

The next morning I woke up before my alarm and it was a good thing, because I was still at Gray's house and I had to get to work on time. How we had fallen asleep on the sectional, wrapped up with one another was something I didn't fully understand but here we were. I pulled away from his grip and he cracked open an eye in my direction. "Mornin," he mumbled.

"I have to get to work!" I knew I sounded panicked but frankly I was freaking out. "I still have to go by my place unless I want to waltz in work in yesterday's clothes."

"Woah, hey calm down," he sat up, "what time do you have to be there?"

"Ten, and it's damn near nine now," I grabbed my phone throwing it into my purse and looked around for my shoes, "how did I let this happen?"

"It's not the end of the world," he ran his hands through his dark hair and yawned.

I stopped for a second, mesmerized by how good he looked when he just woke up. I probably looked like a hot mess. I ran my fingers through my tangled hair with a huff and finally just threw it into a bun, I didn't have time to worry about what I looked like. "Alright, I don't mean to run, but I am really gonna be late if I don't go now, I hadn't planned on staying last night."

"Yea, but I'm glad you did," his smile was soft and genuine.

"Me too," It was the truth, things were unconventional, but I was happy with how they were going. "It's Friday so I have a morning meeting, midday shoots, then the live show and then I'm free for the weekend."

"Text me when you can," he pulled me into a hug melting away all the stress I was carrying. "We can make plans."

"Sounds like a plan," I leaned up and kissed him before turning to run down the stairs. The drive across town to my place took longer than I would have liked, I managed to hit every red light on the way home, so I was practically pulling my hair out by the time I got there. I bolted inside, stripping off my shirt and jeans as soon as I was safely inside my place. I hurried up the stairs and around the corner and snagged a dress from my closet. A dress was simple and only one piece, no matching necessary, I glanced at myself in the mirror as I ran past and decided my bun worked well enough considering I had hair and makeup once I got to work anyway. I just needed to brush my teeth and grab my shoes and I could be back out the door. I had definitely had more thorough days of freshening up for work, but I was back on the road in less than ten minutes, and I was praying to make it to the morning meeting without being late or getting a speeding ticket. Hell, I was only going 5 over the limit.

Once I parked in the main lot I jogged through the studio to the conference room, unfortunately by the time I arrived Erza already had everyone gathered inside. I opened the heavy glass door and walked to my usual seat next to Mira and felt everyone's eyes on me. I felt like a kid sent to the principal's office. Mira gave me a knowing smile and a grin crawled up my face, there was no hiding where I was...but she totally had the wrong idea about what had happened.

The morning meeting seemed to take a thousand years, I had doodled all around the edges of my call sheet by the time Erza had finished talking I watched as she stood and slowly made her way out of the room before turning to Mira, "sorry I was late."

"You slept with him," she accused loudly enough that the whole table had to have heard.

"shhhh" I hissed, "I did not, can we talk about this somewhere else." I pushed her out the door toward my dressing room and used a little too much force getting her to hurry.

"Ouch," she complained, "you're pushy today, clearly I believe you when you said your cranky ass didn't get any last night so why are you late?"

"So I stayed over at Gray's-"

"You just said you didn't have sex, can you get your story straight," she teased.

"I did stay. I didn't have sex." I tried to be blunt to avoid any further confusion.

"Okay?" she sounded confused, "if you stayed the night then what did you do? And do not say video games." I huffed out a breath and rolled my eyes. "Oh come on, you did not stay up all night with a sexy movie star to play games. Juvia!" She was clearly annoyed, but it was the truth.

"It got late and we kind of crashed on the sofa, and I barely woke up with enough time to make it here on time."

"But you didn't make it on time," she pointed out flatly.

"Fine," It was frustrating to be called out, but she was right, "but I wasn't that late. So what happened before I got here?"

"Oh you're going to love this, or hate it," Mira teased.

"What?"

"Guess who we're interviewing for tonight's show?" she was drawing this out on purpose.

"I don't know, who?"

"Minerva Orland."

##

Once again Mira proved to be my favorite co-worker by talking me through my panic attack. I sat in the makeup chair with my head between my knees practically wheezing with each beath.

"Breathe," she said rubbing my back, bringing me back to earth. "I will be right there with you, no one knows about... him.," she looked around to see who might be listening, "so just do your job and it will all be fine."

My heart was racing, my face was numb and I felt like I couldn't get a good deep breath to save my life. How was it that we had to interview Minerva for the show today. The woman was not so secretly pissed at my ...boyfriend? Was he my boyfriend? Ugh the stress kept adding up. I needed to focus on something, anything, so I decided in that moment to focus on the sound of Mira's voice.

"It'll be fine, the questions are all pre-written and pre-approved, we will just breeze through the interview and she'll be on her way and you'll be on yours. Easy peasy."

"Easy peasy," I repeated as I sat up, my hair falling out from my messy bun. I could do this, I had been interviewing people for six whole months and some of them were horrible to interact with. I could handle Minerva, she might be pissed at Gray but Mira was right, she didn't know I had a connection with him so she wouldn't be taking anything out on me. It would all be just fine.

"Great," Mira stopped rubbing my back and waved to Cancer, "let's get your hair fixed because you look like you don't own a brush.

Cancer stepped forward and raised an eyebrow at my hair and got to work, talking about his plans for the weekend all the while. My palms had stopped sweating by the time he finished fixing my hair and when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I looked good, I looked like myself and I was feeling like myself again too.

Once I hit wardrobe I felt much better, the team had put me in dark blue jeans that fit like a second skin and an understated cream top. I was back on my game and finally feeling confident. I saw Mira exit her dressing room wearing a burgundy dress with her hair in gentle waves and I knew we were going to rock this, we were a great team after all. We took our places, sitting on two tall stools while we waited for Minerva to join us. It was another twenty minutes before she finally emerged from the green room and sat at the stool opposite us.

"Let's do this, she muttered, clearly not happy to be there.

"Great," Mira chirped, "we're ready whenever you are."

Max stepped forward and gave us the run down, "This isn't live but I want to do this as if we were, ask a question, get an answer then on to the next. Keep things rolling and don't get hung up if you don't have an answer Minerva, we'll edit out any dead air in post."

I looked down at the notecards I held and read over a few of the questions I had to ask, nothing too bad at all. I heard Max countdown the shot and we were rolling.
Mira started, "Welcome Minerva, we're so happy to have you take time out of your busy schedule to be with us today."

Minerva's mood had completely shifted, she was bright and sunny all of a sudden and it practically gave me whiplash, "Thanks for having me, ladies, I'm glad to be here."

My turn, "I understand you're busy filming your show, Storm of Shadows, how's that going?"

"Great, we're actually going to wrap up in just a few weeks and I'm excited to have some time off."

Mira laughed, "I think we all enjoy a little time off sometimes. Is there anything new on the horizon for you? Any projects you want to hint at?"

"I'm currently discussing a top-secret project with a very well-known producer, I can't give any details right now, but I will definitely come back and share once I am free to announce it."

We slipped into a smooth rhythm discussing her public and private life, punctuated by polite laughter. When the interview wrapped I was in shock with how well it had gone, we stayed on script and got all the answers we needed without any significant lulls in conversation, overall a success. Just as I was thinking that I was in the clear Minerva unhooked her microphone and handed it off to Max before turning to Mira and giving a sneer. "I can't believe I had to do this interview alone, my co-star should have been here but of course he is deserting us for bigger and better things."

There it was, a jab at Gray. I smiled and unhooked my own mic before giving Mira a long look, this was going to be painful. "I can't wait to hear what you're going to be doing next," I attempted to smooth things over.

"You know I won't have any trouble finding another project to get on board with, but if you ask me Gray is setting himself up for failure," She casually looked at her nails as if her words weren't set out to destroy him "I'd love to see you do a real piece on him instead of the fluff you did a few days ago about him being a nice guy at a hockey game."

I felt frustration settle in my temples as I defended, "Well, I met him and he did seem pretty nice so-"

"Don't be fooled," she spat, "he's a tool, He's mediocre at best and will bomb this movie, mark my words. Besides, he's got a nasty little personal life that will ruin him in the end."

Mira interrupted before I could speak, "That's interesting, but we have to get ready for our next segment."

Minerva didn't seem to care what we had to do, "I heard he's sleeping with a bunch of his groupies, it's all going to bite him in the ass in the end."

My blood was boiling, I stood to speak my mind directly to her face, but Mira steered me down the hallway toward my dressing room, "Bye Minerva, see you later!"

"What the hell was that?" I was furious, I wanted to go back out and set her straight, but Mira's firm grip kept me grounded.

"Don't engage." she warned, "She's trying to start rumors, nothing she said has any merit. She wants us to tear him apart in the rumor department but it's not going to happen. Even Max fact checks his stories before they make the air, don't worry."

"How was I supposed to sit there and listen to that?" I asked, anger still had me seeing red.

"Juvia, listen, you're the one keeping things quiet between you and him. You can't go out there and defend him with no proof to back it up, and she shouldn't be throwing out accusations without proof either. This is part of the business, the only reason you're upset is because you like him, and it hits a little too close to home."

She let my wrists go and I sighed, feeling defeated, "so I just have to listen to her spiteful crap?"

"Yes, and then shrug it off, you know it's not true," she wrapped her arms around my waist, "we work in a messy business and it's finally catching up to you. Now take a deep breath, calm down, and let's get ready for the next segment."

#

I flopped across my mattress and stayed facedown while I screamed. It had been the day from hell and I was finally home and could relax. Feeling optimistic I checked my phone for a message from Gray but was left with a sinking feeling of disappointment, of course he didn't text me, I was supposed to text him and I forgot with all the Minerva drama. I typed and deleted three different messages before I gave up and headed to the shower, I needed to get the weight of the day off my mind.

When I stepped out of the bathroom I heard the faint sound of my phone's ringtone and I scurried into the room and dove for my phone on the bed. "Hello?"

"Hey, you."

It was gray, suddenly I was really glad I did the whole half naked towel run to catch the call before it dropped. "Gray, hey."

"Were you busy? You sound like you ran," his laugh puntuated the moment perfectly.

"I did run," I admitted feeling silly, "what's up?"

"You didn't message today and I wanted to see how your day went, I take it you were busy."

"My day was..." I couldn't even finish the sentence. Do I tell him about Minerva? What if it upset him, or really pissed him off? I didn't want to be responsible for that.

"Hello?"

"I'm still here." I sighed and rolled onto my back to stare at the ceiling. "I had a day, let's just leave it at that."

"That bad?"

"You could say that," I would have taken a do-over if it were possible, the entire day had been awful.

"Well I am driving around with no place to go, why don't you text me your address and we can hang at your place tonight."

I sat up gripping my towel to my body, "Um, here? I don't have the kind of security you do, I just live in a townhouse with a communal parking garage."

"That's fine, really."

"If you're sure," I don't know why I was hesitating. I really wanted to see him. "I'll hang up and text you the address then, make sure you give me at least five minutes to get dressed, you caught me straight out of the shower."

"That's no fun."

I snorted back a laugh, "tough. I'm not answering the door in my towel."

"Fine, see you soon."

I hung up and opened a text shooting over the address and throwing my phone down. I had no idea how far away he was, so I needed to hurry, I dropped my towel and pulled open my drawers, yoga pants and a crop top was good enough for tonight. He had seen me pretty dressed up every time we had been together so far, so it was time to show off my casual side since it was more my style.

Fifteen minutes later I heard the doorbell and my heart skipped a beat. I opened the door to see Gray wearing dark sunglasses and a hat leaning against my doorframe. "Get in here before someone sees you," I pulled him inside by the pocket of his hoodie.

"Are you ashamed to be seen with me?" he teased putting a hand over his heart, "I'm hurt, Juvia."
"Shut up," I leaned in to kiss him, and his hands were on my hips instantly.

"So now that I'm here you can tell me about your day," he said, clearly watching my expression as I thought. Shit, there was not going to be any hiding this from him.

'Come on," I pulled him into the living room and turned on the lamp, "Did you watch the show today?" He sat and pulled me to sit next to him, my legs draped over his lap.

"No, I had some scenes run late, why?"

I grimaced, "I interviewed Minerva today."

He watched me carefully, "and what happened?"

I tried to keep my voice neutral but I felt the anger flooding back, "The interview itself wasn't bad, she said and did everything right." I took a deep breath before continuing, "but once the mic came off she was full of angry energy going on and on about you."

His hand went to his jaw and his brow furrowed, "Shit. Sorry. She is pissed at me, there's nothing I can really do about that. It's my fault the show is ending."

I snapped, "but that doesn't make what she said about you okay. I was about to tell her off when Mira practically dragged me out of the room."

His laugh broke through my frustration and took me completely by surprise, "you almost went off on her? I thought you wanted to keep things quiet."

I couldn't help it, I laughed right along with him. "I wasn't thinking about that at the time, I was just furious and wanted her to stop trying to spread lies.

I couldn't believe my eyes as he pulled me closer and laughed like he'd just heard the funniest joke, he was laughing at me. "I appreciate your tenacity, but you really don't have to defend my honor. Lots of people say things that aren't true, and it doesn't bother me." I started to argue when his lips crashed into mine and suddenly it didn't seem important anymore. I had him right there with me and I was happy. I shifted to sit facing him in his lap and gave his hair a tug as his hands gripped my hips. I pulled the bottom of his shirt and waited for his reaction, his smile was devious, "I won't be stopping you tonight," he said, barely over a whisper.

"Good."