"Listen. I will lose myself if it means I can find you." -Alaska Gold
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"You're not going to watch the interview?" Jared's voice came through Daphne's doorway.
"No," she replied with a laugh. "Why the hell would I do that? I gave it. I was there. I remember what I said." The interview with Oprah Winfrey was airing that afternoon and Daphne was trying to distract herself from it. Kelly was too busy trying to figure out automatic responses to press questions in her own room.
Jared appeared in the doorway, leaning against it. Daphne didn't glance up from the paperwork she was looking over. She was one of the few people Jared thought worked harder than he did. With her charity and different filming schedules to keep track of, Jared didn't know how she did it all. But then again, he did quite a lot himself and it didn't really seem to faze him one bit.
"Am I in it?" he asked, laughing.
She looked up at him and glared. "Really? That's what you care about?"
He smiled and sank onto her bed next to her, laying across it on his back and looking up at the ceiling. In the days since their conversation on the steps in the warehouse they had drifted into a state of security with each other. It was strange for both of them. They were very close and spent all of their time together, but nothing physical happened. Not even a kiss. And the funny thing was, Jared didn't seem to have eyes for anyone else. It actually bothered him slightly.
"Let's go do something," he whined as he turned his face toward her.
"You can spend time with your other friends, Jared. There's no law against it," she said, without even looking up. She took a pen and crossed out a large amount of text from a paragraph in front of her.
He sat up and took her pen from her. "No, you haven't left this hotel room to do anything besides filming in days. Let's go to the park and ride bikes around or something. I'm tired of being boxed in."
"Jared, give that back!" she said, reaching for it.
He grinned at her and shoved it down his sweatpants into his underwear. Slightly uncomfortable for him, but he loved seeing her squirm.
She looked at him in surprise, and then laughed. "You really think I won't go down there?"
He shrugged, a grin on his face. "Try me."
She sighed and shifted to face him. She brought her hand up to the waistband of his sweatpants grazing her fingers across the sliver of flesh that had appeared there when his shirt rode up. She resisted the urge to smile as she saw his abdomen contract slightly at her touch. Jared bit his lip and kept his eyes trained on her as she slowly shifted his shirt up a little bit and trailed her fingers down to the waistband. Jared was obviously aroused and he was waiting to see how Daphne would respond to him. Her hands hovered over his pelvis for a moment and she leaned in closer to his face. Their eyes never left each other's. Just as she was about to bring her hand down, she stopped.
"You know what? I just remembered," Daphne started. "I've got another pen." Her whispered words drifted down to Jared's ears in a harmony that only he heard.
With that she pushed away from him with a devilish grin and reached over him into the drawer next to the bed. He fought the urge to reach up and grab her hips as she leaned over him. He sighed deeply to himself and watched her go back to her work. She tossed the comforter over top of him. He looked at her in confusion.
"To cover that…thing…up," she replied, gesturing to his erection.
He felt a blush rising to his cheeks and he rearranged the blanket on top of him. Suddenly Daphne jumped out of the bed and tossed her papers onto the desk in the room. "Let's go for a bike ride. Or a walk."
He looked at her incredulously. "Are you fucking serious? NOW?!" he motioned at his crotch and gave her a pointed look.
Daphne smiled a wicked smile and crawled slowly up the bed. "Why not now? You wanted to a few minutes ago."
"That was BEFORE you did THIS to me!" he said, sitting up slightly and wincing when the pen stuck him in the balls. "Son of a bitch that hurt," he said, yanking the pen out and tossing it on the bed next to him.
"Jared, I didn't do anything to you. I barely touched you. I think you need to find a way to get that energy out," she said, nodding towards his crotch. She smiled sarcastically and clapped her hands. "I know: let's go for a BIKE RIDE!"
He sighed and stood up, flinging the blankets off of him as he did so. Daphne was quite impressed at the tent he pitched, but she averted her eyes, biting her lips together to keep from laughing like a school girl.
"I'll give you a few minutes to…figure this out," she said, gesturing to his penis as she shoved him into his own room. "I'll even put my music on loud so I can't hear whatever you're doing."
He gave her a sarcastic smile. "How kind of you."
She shut the door behind him with a snap and Jared sighed heavily and leaned against it. He didn't know why he let her do this to him. He was driving himself crazy. He needed to get laid. FAST. But not by Daphne. That would ruin everything between them. Someone easy and quick. He glanced up as he heard the sound of Ella Fitzgerald singing the jazz classic 'Someone to Watch Over Me' come from Daphne's room. She played it often, at least three or four times a week. He thought it was odd because she never really seemed like the type to listen to jazz music. Jared hurriedly disposed of his…situation and changed into more appropriate clothes. He knocked on Daphne's door and found that she had changed into a light, flowy dress that showed off her figure perfectly.
"Ready to go?" he asked. She nodded and followed him out the door and into the hallway.
"I was thinking maybe we could go for a walk through the park," she said.
He rolled his eyes. "Five minutes ago it was a bike ride! Make up your damn mind woman!
"I like walking better," she responded. "Then you can't leave me behind," she joked.
Jared sighed and looked over at her. "You don't walk through parks at night, Daph. That's how people get killed and end up on the morning news."
She shrugged. "Lucky for me, I've got you to protect me," she said.
"Oh goody," he replied sarcastically.
They managed to sneak out of the hotel using a side entrance and walked to the park. It was evening and the sun was setting on the horizon as they walked. The streets were still busy and they had to wait for several minutes at a crosswalk before they could cross the street and head into the park. The park was quiet and emptying out as people left it to head home. There was a concrete path lined with trees and street lights and on either side large open field areas. It reminded Jared of Central Park in many ways.
He kept Daphne within arms' reach and tried to keep them on the well-lit path, but she got distracted and wanted to wander into one of the fields. He glanced around to make sure they weren't being followed or watched or anything.
"You know," he said as he hurried after her. "You get distracted really easily. I'm not sure that's a good quality to have all the time."
She looked back at him over her shoulder with her signature smile. Daphne was one of those actresses that had a signature smile-like Julia Roberts or Anne Hathaway. He followed after her as closely as he could, watching the ground to make sure he didn't trip over any tree roots or anything. As they entered the large clearing, he could see that the air was filled with fireflies that were flickering through the night. Daphne stopped and stared at them, a grin on her face. He watched her and the childlike wonder she never seemed to lose.
"What?" he asked, catching up to her.
"When I was a kid and we would travel to Tahiti, my grandfather used to put fireflies in glass jars for me so I could watch them at night," she said softly. "I would watch them for hours and hours, wondering how they could do it."
Jared smiled. She shared many memories from her childhood with him, mostly ones that had to do with her grandfather. It baffled him to think that the great Marlon Brando would have ever done some of the things she said he did, but it seemed like she knew a very different version of him.
"Why do you listen to that Ella Fitzgerald song so much?" he asked.
"It's Gershwin, actually," she corrected him softly. Her eyes never left the air and she kept them trained on the fireflies that flitted by. "They wrote it originally, she just sang it."
He nodded, tucking his hands into his pockets. "But why do you listen to it so often? I never thought you were into jazz music."
She smiled and glanced at him. "It was my grandfather's favorite song. He played it on his record player almost every day. He used to dance around the patio in the back yard with me standing on top of his feet."
He laughed lightly at the image of Hollywood legend Marlon Brando waltzing around his back yard with a child version of Daphne standing on the tops of his feet, her dark curls cascading down her back as he swung her around.
"Every time you talk about your childhood it always seems so idyllic and perfect," he responded.
She let out a loud laugh. "That's because I only tell you about the good parts," she replied, looking over her shoulder at him coquettishly.
He liked it when she was flirty with him. It was a different side of her people rarely saw. With her playing Ophelia, she was getting more and more bold in terms of her sexuality and he was enjoying watching her. But it was always her eyes that did him in. She had this ability to give a sexy stare, looking up at him from under her dark eyelashes in innocence and naughtiness at the same time. It was ten times better than any look any porn star could make. And several times Jared found himself waking from dreams which featured her gazing up at him in the same way as he did all sorts of dirty things to her.
"Can I take your picture?" he asked, holding his phone up.
She gave him a funny look. "It won't come out very good. It's dark," she laughed.
"Let me try," he said, holding the phone up and smiling at her.
He tried to capture the skyline behind her and her silhouette in the darkness. It didn't come out right, but it was still a beautiful picture. He uploaded it onto his Snap Chat with a grin. It was so dark no one would know it was her so it wasn't a big deal. He had been trying to limit the fodder for the rumor mills about them dating so he wasn't sharing as many photos with Daphne in them as he had before.
"Alright, let's keep walking. I don't like staying in one place too long here," he said, taking her hand and walking a bit further.
He liked the feel of her hand in his. It felt soft and small against his. His hands were torn up from rock climbing and guitar playing and all sorts of other things but hers weren't. They were soft and free of calluses. Her nails were always perfectly manicured and often he found himself wondering how hard it must be for her to maintain a perfect image all the time and what it must be like for Daphne to have that type of pressure on her all the time. They walked back through the trees and onto the path.
"Hang on, I want to get a shot of you coming towards me," he said, jogging up the path. "The light's perfect here."
Jared was too busy talking to notice that Daphne was silent. His back was turned and he didn't see what happened.
"Jared," her voice came to him, a mixture between a breathy whisper and a plea for help.
He turned to face her and his blood ran cold. In the spotlight of a street light, he saw Daphne being held by another man and he could see the silver of a knife flash against her throat.