90210: 2012

Navid slammed the draw shut forcefully – he couldn't even believe he'd considered taking his life, how selfish did that make him? After he was the one in the wrong he wanted to take the cowards way out, just because things weren't going his way, he had been the one that had dumped Silver and hadn't believed Dixon – his friend, instead he'd chosen to believe in an estranged Uncle who had know robbed him of hundreds of thousands of dollars – and somehow the money didn't seem to matter, because without friends there was no point to money, because all you could do was spend it on yourself, try to reassure yourself that everything was fine by buying things to tell you it was – like a pool or a new Ferrari, or trying to lure yourself into confidence that everything you'd done had been right: that you hadn't done anything wrong. But eventually one day you woke up and realized that you were a lonely, shadow of yourself – that realisation had just hit him in the face.

"Kim can you come in here – I've got some things I need to discuss with you."

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Silver relaxed onto the sofa, the cooling glass of tea cupped in her hands as Annie looked at her and smiled sympathetically, she looked very stressed and tired, but there was also a great sadness in her – naturally, Annie understood implicitly that she felt a special bond with connection, and clearly losing Marco had upset him more which had transpired into upsetting her – she hated seeing people lose those close to them, it had been a trait that had been born out of the death of her mother, Marco's passing was probably only liable to cause her undue pain.

"How is he?" Annie quizzed uncertainly – there was no point in beating about the bush where this was concerned, they both knew what the conversation was about.

"He's…composed I guess," Silver admitted truthfully – she had never seen a person so calm about a loss though she understood some of that was show and sheer fortitude, he was trying to be strong for Marco's memory, "I just…I want to help him, for how good he was to me when my Mom passed away…but he just doesn't seem to want any of our help…which I guess is his right?" she looked to Annie for confirmation but she just nodded uncertainly, "He just…I think he doesn't want us to help because you know…we didn't really make all that much effort with Marco – to get to know him I mean..." she allowed her words to be lost to the air as she lost her train of thought.

Annie bobbed her head once more, "It makes sense though…I mean it's almost as if we're all trying to make up now that he died…so I guess Teddy's maybe a little annoyed about that…but I don't think that means we stop…he's hurting right now and that's natural, we just…for now at least have to try and be there for him, however we can, Liam's going to see him so maybe he'll get some sense out of him."

"Oh," Silver said, sounding mildly surprised, "erm…I think there might be a Police Officer round there asking some questions."

Annie looked mortified, "I'm sorry, I didn't realize – it's just when Ade called us she made it sound like he needed a guy to talk to, so I just thought I'd suggest Liam went and saw him."

Silver nodded and frowned, "God I didn't even ask how your honeymoon was-"

"-I get it Silver," Annie said, smiling sweetly at her friend, "you have a lot on your mind, we all do…and it was great, really…beautiful…a beautiful, happy vacation."

"You don't sound so happy?" Silver probed, she needed something to distract her and Annie's distracted tone, coupled with her protestations of a wonderful vacation had given her an interest – she couldn't fully distract herself from Teddy or from the ordeal he was going through but she could look to her friends to give her just a little time away from it.

"Yeah…well I mean we got some news, besides Teddy I mean before we left," Annie said slowly, "Liam's…his Dad is back in town – his Mom called him to tell him that he'd been up at there house looking for him and then he'd left them, I mean I haven't had the full story yet but Liam sounded…worried…I'm just hoping he doesn't get his hopes up like he did last time."

Silver nodded absent-mindedly, "So what are you gonna do?"

Annie shrugged, "I'll just let Liam handle it – I thought Adrianna was coming over with you anyway?"

"She was but then…Navid called her right as we were about to leave so she's headed over to the Studios."

Annie regarded Silver, in all the time she'd known her she'd known that Silver could dislike, distrust and disapprove of people but she'd never actually seen her hate someone as much as she hated Navid, it was that strong an emotion, she couldn't stand to be around him when a few weeks earlier she would happily have fallen into his arms and made love to him, now she was just consumed by hate for him and sadness for Teddy…somewhere she had lost the joyful twinkle in her eye that had always signified that Silver had arrived.

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Naomi paused outside the editor's office and rummaged about in her purse, nervously applying the blood-red lipstick once she found it, and then entered at the urging of the Secretary. Maria Girard was, putting it mildly, a demanding boss. She hated it if the US Edition of Love and Kisses had less famous stars on its covers than its French or Italian sister publications, and she hated it even more when people messed up on photo shoots or on collecting stories as Naomi had learned to her cost in her few first weeks at the internship – which was exactly why she'd applied for the Italy transfer, sadly now she was home she needed to grovel for her old job and something told her that explaining that a friend had recently suffered a great loss so she needed to be close by to help just wasn't going to cut it.

She seated herself in a chair as Maria entered from another room, talking animatedly in Italian on the phone before she sank into the swivel-chair, she ended then call and then she did something that made Naomi's anxiety-scope shoot of the reading: she smiled at Naomi. She actually smiled, showing all her perfectly chemically-whitened teeth (not that she'd admit to it of course) to Naomi and Naomi smiled back uncertainly, "I was just talking to Lorenzo, one of the women you were working in that Office for, she was very impressed," Maria praised and Naomi fought back the urge to blush like a kindergartener, "she said you have a natural eye for fashion, your hair has always been immaculate and that despite a language barrier you quickly picked up fluency in a foreign language which…for an intern is…nothing short of extraordinary."

"So I did well?" Naomi prodded.

"You were amazing and you've got Cassandra that bitch at the Italian Magazine fuming that you left so suddenly – I assume you want your old job back?" Maria prompted and Naomi was taken aback – was it really going to be this easy? Naomi had known she could be a bitch but she hadn't realized that she was only minor league on the scale of bitchiness when she was being mean, she had reduced individual girls to tears sometimes, Maria had made a living out of it…for more than twenty-years, if you didn't believe her claim to be a mature 38 then more like thirty years, and she was great at what she did, could you be good at being a bitch? Something about that just didn't tally with random praise and endorsement.

"Of course I want it back!" Naomi enthused – there was no point in holding back.

"And how about a Salary?" Naomi felt as if she had dollar signs plastered to her eyeballs as she pondered over having a huge career in fashion and only being slightly shy of 20, she would be better than anyone, she would be better than Whitney Port or Lauren Conrad – she would be the intern kid that rocked her way to the top and didn't need an MTV Reality Show to pilot her fashion career off. "There's just one condition," and Naomi felt as if someone had smashed her glass, crystal-clear future with a sledge-hammer, suddenly Maria didn't seem so much like an Angel as an Executioner, standing with a black bandana over her head and a vicious expression on her face, "it's a fulltime position."

College? Now she had her inner conflict to deal with – in a few seconds only. College meant a solid academic grounding for the future, she would actually have graduated in something other than begin completely gorgeous and she would have skills she could apply to the workplace in the future. Taking a job in an industry as volatile as the Fashion Industry meant a salary – not that she exactly needed money with access to her trust-fund but having her own money to fall back on wasn't exactly stupid and it was what she loved, and what she wanted to do with her life. It was just the risks that worried her, if something went wrong then she'd be out in the cold, on her own, without anything to do with herself and she'd just become another trust-fund-kid, which was definitely a label she didn't want to wear her whole life. She could see herself in the world of Fashion, at her desk organizing shows or planning photo shoots with the biggest movie-stars from around the world, it would be unforgettable.

"I'll do it!" she affirmed ecstatically.

Maria grinned back at her, "You won't regret this Naomi, Love & Kisses can offer you so much, just as you can offer us something in return – a valued worker and member of the team, do you think you could start this Monday for us?"

"Are you kidding?" Naomi laughed, "If I get my own Office I can start today!"

She felt a feeling of achievement and vindication, although she wasn't entirely sure why she should've felt that way, she looked up and the sun was gleaming, which she thought to herself clearly reflected her sunny disposition: it after all had nothing to do whatsoever with the generally amazing weather that LA experienced all year round.

She placed her huge Chanel sunglasses on and strolled purposefully away, showing off her amazing legs in her miniskirt and the gorgeous new Jimmy Choo's she'd picked out specially while she'd been in Florence for work the week before, the prospects for what should've been a boring week were looking up, she began dialling Silver's number into her phone and then thought better of it – there was no point in hosting a party this week, she would still be acting as supportive friend to Teddy. She'd have to think of something else, but that didn't matter, nothing could rain on her parade.

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Teddy settled in the seat at the breakfast bar – his seat, Marco had always sat on the right as the Police Officer sat down beside him, his name badge read CAMPBELL but Teddy guessed that was just his surname, the guy at least seemed sincere unlike the ones from the hospital the night before, he also seemed calm and comprehending, as though he understood the gravity of such a loss and didn't want to make any thing worse, in fact he looked as if he was specifically deciding how to phrase something in order not to cause offence.

"Sorry…you can call me Doug," he shrugged, "I just…I thought I'd actually know how to approach a case like this…I went through something similar myself…but I guess you never really know how to do it…let's just…look I'm gonna level with you…I shouldn't cause it goes against protocol and everything but…basically the fact that your boyfriend was shot and the car was returned…means it's a murder investigation now – we removed the bullet and took samples from it, and that's why your car wasn't at the hospital when you got there as our forensics team are looking over it. Let's just…start easy do you have any enemies?"

Teddy shook his head, "Not that I'm aware off."

"Alright did Marco have any enemies?"

"Again…I don't know, sorry."

Doug nodded, scribbling some things down onto his pad, "Did Marco say if he was doing anything different the night that he got shot?"

Teddy froze at that point, his mind filtered away from that breakfast bar to the few moments before Marco left the very apartment he sat in for the last time, they had been talking and watching a movie and Teddy had said he'd run to the store and by some popcorn, but Marco had pointed out Teddy had done it the last three times and that he'd do it this time, he'd also alluded to buying some whipped cream for after the movie and that had set Teddy's mind racing, as a couple they could be…pretty wild in the bedroom – although Teddy wasn't sure whether deciding to buy some whipped cream constituted something out of the ordinary, the only different thing was he'd loaned him his keys instead of Marco driving his own car which he guessed was why the Cop…Doug he corrected had asked him if he had any enemies, in case it was mistaken identity. He had watched Marco leave out of the driveway, had a beer, looked through his Facebook and then after a few hours he'd gotten worried, decided upon calling the Police and then the phone had rang – the Hospital, telling him Marco had just been brought in and his world collapsed.

"I guess not," Teddy replied simply, "I mean he was just running to the store for some groceries, and obviously I loaned him my car."

"How come?" Doug pried but in a calm, relaxed way, "he didn't like his own one?"

"Nothing like that, I just knew he got a kick out of driving my car, besides he's lucky if his does sixty going downhill with a tailwind," he joked although Doug gave only the slightest of smiles, "and mine goes faster…I just wanted him home…safe and…sound." Teddy fought back tears at that point as he once more played over the routine of him volunteering to go and get the stuff, or them going together, thinking he might have taken the bullet or wrestled the assailant and saved Marco. How things might have been different.

"Are you okay to go on?" Doug quizzed sympathetically, his eyes seeming tranquil and comforting.

Teddy nodded after a few moments.

"You know what…this is probably a little intense…here's my card," he handed it over and Teddy briefly scanned it, "call me in a couple of days and I can follow this up – and off the record, you can talk to me about it if you want to, I'm a qualified counsellor…if you need it I mean." He stood up and turned on his heel, Teddy crossed and opened the door and bid him farewell and then grinned weakly as Liam approached up the pathway – his beautiful vintage Mustang parked haphazardly on the drive. He extended his hand and Teddy grabbed it, the two leaning in until they collided in their traditional greeting. Teddy led him into the house and Liam took a seat at the bar as Teddy had a few minutes before.

"So how was the honeymoon man?" he really didn't want to go through stuff about Marco again, it was almost in a way shameful that he couldn't confront his feelings, even with one of his best friends, but he just needed to take his mind of it and deal with it in little…sittings…maybe he would talk to the Cop about his feelings, if he thought that might help…he wasn't even sure what he wanted to do anymore, did he need someone to talk to? Is that what people did?

"Pretty sweet," Liam smirked in that confident way that Teddy had learned during their friendship to mean that Liam and Annie had spent most of the trip in bed together, it was so refreshing – someone actually acting as if nothing was different, and he was grateful for it, "Annie saw her Grandma too so she was pretty happy and I actually won some money on the tables so yeah, not a bad trip."

"We should go sometimes – a guy's trip," Teddy suggested brightly, and then his grin faltered, he caught Liam's look which had changed to one of deeper understanding, showing that he cared but that he understood a distraction might be better than a discussion, "sorry it's just…hard."

Liam nodded, "I can't even begin to understand what your going through man, it's…it's scary, really scary, that someone can be taken away from you…and I'm not gonna beat about the bush because I respect you and I wouldn't expect you to act differently than you had…I didn't really know Marco…and I should've taken the chance to get to know him…all I can do is just support you in whatever you want to do and be here for you, whether you wanna go shoot some pool at the beach club, grab a couple of beers at a bar or you know…whether you just wanna talk and crap."

Somewhere deep inside of himself Teddy was happy that he had a friend like Liam, Dixon and despite his flaws even Navid were both pretty great too but Liam…he'd always understood Teddy a lot better than the other two and he'd always been straight with him, he'd accepted Teddy for who he was even if he was adjusting to it, and they'd become closer because of it – not in any overt sense, Liam wasn't Teddy's type…if he even had a type…they were just great friends. Ones that would stand the test of time, Dixon was almost as good but somehow…he rushed to quickly to act differently depending on the situation and Navid…tended to mess up a lot of the time. Without meaning to, but he did, and after a while it left you wondering whether he should've really done things differently, behaved better – learnt from his mistakes.

"I've done enough talking," Teddy mused aloud, "but thank you, for being here for me I mean…it means a lot, and that you're being straight with me too."

Liam nodded graciously, Annie was amazing and he loved spending time with her as his wife, but sometimes he liked spending time with his guys, having some time to himself, he wasn't explicitly a lone wolf but he preferred to be a part of the Wolf pack: with Teddy at least compared to the other two he knew where he stood, and Teddy could actually party as hard as he did – with Dixon and Navid you were looking if they'd even finished a six-pack before they crashed and were either throwing up or fast asleep. He'd been a great friend, now Liam could return the favour.

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Hope you liked Chapter 4,

Reviews and responses as always welcome,

5 up in the near future,

Acrobat

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