The sound of rain
I own nothing...Hope you enjoy!
"Come on, Shane, you've got to do this. Tommy has already agreed." Jordan looks at Shane expectantly. "It's not like this is the first video we've ever done."
"I don't know, Jay. Have you read the script? Fighting, Bondage, S and M? We should have read up on this guy before we agreed to let him script our new video. I'm beginning to think he's crazy." Shane, sitting in Jordan's basement studio, picks up the papers and hands them back to him.
"What's wrong with it? It's just a video, it's not like it's real." Jordan can't understand why Shane is so hesitant. In one scene, Shane is riding his motorcycle. He thought he'd jump at the chance to ride his bike. And they'd used fight scenes in one of their other videos. Surely it can't be the sex part that was holding Shane back. "Why don't you want to do it?"
"I don't know. I just don't think it's a good idea." Looking at Jordan, he says, "What, you want to do it? How's that going to go over with Angela?"
"I think she'll be fine with it. It's just a video, right? And you don't have to be in any of the sex scenes. There are actresses for that." Jordan scratches his head.
"But, Jay, you do have to be in some of those scenes. Didn't you read all of it?" Shane shakes his head.
"Yeah, I read them. They're not that bad." Jordan, sighing loudly, looks up at Shane. "I don't have a problem with it. Tommy doesn't have a problem. What's your problem?"
"I just have a bad feeling about it. I guess if you aren't worried about it, then I shouldn't be. Tell them we can start filming when I get back." Shutting off his laptop, Shane packs it and his papers into it's case. "I gotta go, man. I'm gonna fly to Three Rivers for a few days."
"You and Sharon are getting pretty serious, aren't you?" Jordan knows what all Shane has been through and he's happy for his friend. "You've been to Three Rivers twice since she was out here last month."
"Yeah, I think so. It started out just for fun, but I really do like her, Jay. She's had a rough time of it lately, too. Now I know why I never liked Kyle. He's a real dick." Shane heads up the stairs, Jordan following behind. "I should be back by Wednesday. Call if anything comes up."
As Shane walks through the family room, Angela is coming down the stairs. Stopping to hug her, he says, "I'll see you in a few days. I'm heading to the airport. Need me to bring anything from Three Rivers? I can always run by the house if you need me to."
"No, I don't think so. Just enjoy yourself. Give Sharon and the boys a hug for me." Kissing his cheek, she watches as he walks to the door.
Jordan walks into the kitchen, Angela right behind him. "I thought we could have a salad for lunch. Is that ok with you?" Seeing her nod, Jordan walks over to the refrigerator and starts pulling out vegetables. "Where are the kids? Justin's not sleeping again is he? That's all he ever does."
"No, he and Maddie are playing in the nursery. He's getting up on his hands and knees now, not quite crawling, but he wants to. She's moving just out of his reach, trying to make him come to her. It won't be long before we're chasing him around the house. It's hard to believe he's six months old, isn't it?" Angela, wanting to help, takes out the cutting board and a knife before starting to dice tomatoes.
"How's Maddie doing with her tutor? Do you think it's working for her? She has what, two weeks left before she'd be out for Summer anyway?" As Jordan is talking, he's washing the lettuce, pulling it apart.
"She's doing fine. She'll be right on track when she starts back to school in the fall. I think she's enjoying this time with us. This has been like a vacation." Angela, now slicing a cucumber, pops a slice in her mouth.
Jordan VO: Ok, so I need to tell her about the video. She'll understand, right? It's just acting. It's not like I'd do something like that for real. She knows the difference.
"Hey, Shane and I were reading over the script for the new video. He seemed to think you'd have a problem with some of it. I told him you wouldn't, that you'd understand it was just a video, right?" Now chewing on his thumb, Jordan leans back against the counter and watches Angela grate cheese.
"Why, what's in it that I would object to?" As she continues to grate the cheese, she looks up at him. "I've seen all the other videos. It's no big deal."
"Well, there are some sex scenes in this one. But there will be actors and actresses." Still chewing his thumb, Jordan turns back to the fridge, pulling out the salad dressing and the leftover grilled chicken. Passing the chicken to Angela. "This Cubbins guy Deborah found to write the script got a little crazy. He wrote in a little bondage and other kinky shit, like that."
"Will you have to take your shirt off in it?" Winking at him, Angela says, "You know I don't mind seeing your hot body. 'From Yesterday' is my favorite of all the one's you've done so far."
Stopping to kiss her on the cheek, Jordan heads to the pantry to get the croutons. "Yeah, I'll have to take my shirt off. I think my shirt is off in the whole video, actually. And he wants me to bleach my hair and cut it. Some kind of crazy mullet, but he says only for some of the scenes. Halfway through the shoot, he says I have to cut it short and dye it back to dark brown. At one point, he has me jumping out of a window, from like 30 stories up. He has some weird ideas, but I hear he's good. He's won several awards."
"Jordan, I'm sure it will be fine. Tell Shane I'm ok with it. If it's a Residue video, it will be amazing." Grabbing some bowls from the cabinet, she serves up the salad. "Run get the kids, will ya'? I'll grab a jar of sweet potatoes for Justin and he can eat while we eat."
Jordan VO: See, Shane was worried for nothing. I knew she'd understand.
Jordan walks up the stairs, humming. When he gets to the door of the nursery, he slowly pushes it open, just enough so he can see inside. Maddie is on her stomach, Justin just in front of her on all fours. With Maddie encouraging him, Justin pushes forward with his knees and moves his hands out in front of him. Maddie picks up his Teddy bear and holds it up to him.
"Come on, Bubby. Come get the bear. You can do it. You're getting to be such a big boy." She teases him with the bear, moving it close to him and then pulling it away.
Jordan watches as Justin moves one knee, then the other, making his way to Maddie and his bear. Chuckling, he gets Maddie's attention. "Hey, Dad. Did you see him? He's crawling!"
Dropping down on the floor beside them, he says, "I did see him, Mad. Good job! You really got him to do it, didn't you?
Smiling at her dad, she says, "Yeah, I've been trying to get him to do it for a few days. He's a quick learner."
Ruffling her hair, Jordan leans over to hug her. "Mom's got your lunch ready. Wash up before you head down, ok?" She gets up and heads to the door. "Tell Mom I'll be down in a minute."
Jordan picks Justin up from the floor, hugging him. "I saw you, big guy. You're going to be all over the place in no time."
Jordan lays the baby down on the changing table, getting a fresh diaper and baby powder. Unsnapping Justin's onesie, he quickly changes and powders him before snapping him back up. Holding Justin on his hip, he makes his way back downstairs. Passing Justin off to Angela, he washes his hands while she gets the baby strapped in his high chair.
Sitting down at the table, Jordan looks around at his family, a smile on his face.
A few weeks later, Jordan, Shane and Tommy were standing around, watching the actresses hired to be in the girl on girl sex scenes, film take after take. It seemed to be hard for all the guys in the room not to watch.
"Damn, guys. It doesn't look like they're acting, does it?" Tommy actually looks away. "I feel wrong just watching this."
Laughing, Shane says to him, "Whatever. You know you like it. You wish you could join them, don't you?" Not even bothering to look away, he says to Jordan, "I hope your scenes don't look this convincing. If he pushes you like this, you may have to beg Angela for forgiveness."
"No, shit. This is hot. I think I need to go home for a little while." Looking across at the bed the actresses are using, Jordan shakes his head, laughing.
"Damn, Catalano. You need to go take a cold shower?" Tommy laughs with them.
"How come I'm the only one who has to do this? Why couldn't either of you do it?" Jordan turns his back to the girls. "It's not fair."
"Because you're the prettiest out of us all. And you're the singer, so it makes sense. Just think about Angela the whole time and you'll be fine." Shane, eyes glued to the bed, punches Jordan in the arm.
"Are you trying to get me killed? I can't think about her while I'm doing this. I need to think about car engines or something. There's no way I could think about Angela and do that without embarrassing myself." Jordan hears Cubbins tell the girls he got what he wanted, that they were done.
Jordan VO: Damn, why did I agree to this? I'm gonna get myself in so much trouble. Maybe she won't watch the video. Yeah, right. She said it wasn't a big deal. Come on, Catalano, just get it over with.
Jordan watches as the production crew changes the sheets on the bed and brings out some of the props for his scenes. The actress playing across from him, a pretty dark-skinned girl with long dark hair walks into the room wearing nothing but her bra, panties, knee-high stockings and heels. He starts to run his finger through his hair before realizing his hair is short again.
Sighing, he turns to Shane. "Man, what the hell was I thinking? Angela is going to have a heart attack when she sees this shit." Pulling his phone out, Jordan debates with himself about calling Angela to tell her what's going on.
After a few minutes, he decides to text her. "Thinking of you. Busy morning at the video shoot. Love you, babe. ~J."
Taking off his shirt, he walks over to his partner and introduces himself. He sits on the bed, waiting for the director to tell him what to do. He keeps his composure until he looks over to see the props he'll be using. Handcuffs, whip, gag and blind fold.
"Shit, I know this isn't going to turn out good," he mumbles to himself. Just when he's about to get up and call it all off, Cubbins comes over to him to discuss the first take. Jordan sucks it up and gets started.
When the guys finally make it home that night, it's around 10 pm, and it's raining. Jordan, who hadn't said much of anything since they left the studio, shut the car off and got out. Tommy and Shane grab their stuff from the car and head toward the steps leading to their apartment, yelling "Good night" along the way. Jordan, grabbing his things, slowly makes his way to the front door. Walking in, he lays his keys on the table, and his bag on the floor. Everything is quiet, so he assumes everyone is already in bed.
Not ready to face Angela just yet, he sits at the bar in the kitchen, with his head in his hands. Today had been a long day. After what seemed like several hundred takes, he was finished shooting his sex scenes. As much as he hated it, he couldn't completely detach himself from it. He had tried, much to the displeasure of his crazy ass director. He was feeling guilty as hell because by the end of it, he was even convincing himself that he wanted the girl.
He knew it was just acting. He knew, other than a few kisses, a few very hot kisses, that he had done nothing wrong. Even so, Angela had been the only girl he'd kissed since they got together. It felt wrong. Not to mention some of the things he had to do. He never removed his pants, not once, but he still felt like he'd cheated somehow.
"God damn it," he says out loud. Getting up, grabbing a soda from the refrigerator, he heads down to the pool. Maybe if he swims a few laps, he'll calm down enough to face her.
Stripping down to his boxers, he jumps in the deep end. Swimming from one end of the pool to the other, over and over again for half an hour did nothing to change his mood. Jumping out, he grabs a towel and wraps it around him. Collecting his clothes, he heads back upstairs.
Going up to their bedroom, Jordan walks in to find Angela sitting up in the bed with Justin asleep in her arms. Nodding to her, he tries to slip into the bathroom. She calls out to him. "Hey. I thought I heard you come in. How did filming go?"
Ducking his head, he says, "It was fine. I'm gonna jump in the shower." Not giving her a chance to say anything else, he shuts the door behind him.
Stripping his wet underwear off, he turns the shower on and steps underneath the warm spray. Trying not to think about the dark-haired girl and hand cuffs, he doesn't succeed. Groaning, he turns the water to cold. For several minutes, he lets the cold water run over his hot body. Grabbing the soap, he quickly washes himself before rinsing and shutting off the water.
Pulling the towel from the shelf just outside the shower, he dries off. When he moves to the sink, he brushes his teeth. Still thinking about those kisses with a girl other than Angela, he brushes his teeth again before rising his mouth with Listerine, gargling for an extra long time.
When there's nothing else to do in the bathroom to kill time, he gathers his dirty clothes and towel, dropping them in the hamper. Opening the door to the bedroom, he sees that Angela isn't in the room. He moves over to the dresser, pulling out a pair of boxers, slipping them on.
He is just getting in the bed when Angela returns without Justin. "Hey, are you ok? It seems like you have something on your mind?"
Jordan, not wanting to go there with her, says, "I'm ok, just tired I guess. It's been a long day." Turning on his side facing the wall, he pulls that covers up over him.
Angela slides up next to him, putting her arm around him from behind. "So all the filming done? Now they just have to edit it?"
"Uh, yeah. We finished all our scenes. Good night, babe." Jordan, with his back to Angela, doesn't see the confused look on her face. He never goes to sleep without kissing her good night.
Not saying anything else to him, Angela removes her arm and turns over to face the other direction. Reaching over to turn off the lamp, she sighs. In a few minutes, she's asleep.
Jordan, still wide awake listening to the rain hit the window, can't stop thinking about everything that happened that day. He knows nothing good will come of it, not where Angela is concerned. He keeps telling himself he did nothing wrong, but it still feels like he betrayed her in some way. Turning over to face her, he pulls her back against him, wrapping his arm around her. Burying his face in her hair, he pushes everything else out of his head.
"I love you, Angela," he whispers to her, just before he falls asleep.
TBH, I was running out of ideas for this story, but I think I've gotten back on track with it. I'm having fun writing BOTH stories at the same time. I'm trying not to get them mixed up... Let me know what you think. REVIEW! ~gagirl29