In Love With A Good Man

Chapter 10: The Blame Game

Harley convinced Casey to stay home with her so that they could get as much time together in as possible before he started working full time at the bank next week. After just a few days, she'd already gotten used to his daily routine.

In contrast to her previous lifestyle, Casey was all about regularity. He did a lot of things the same way every time, every day. When he worked on his personal things like music or photography, that's where he'd get his variety from. Otherwise, he was very much set in his ways.

She didn't mind that about him, but she'd be lying if she said it didn't get boring sometimes. Thankfully, Casey would make up for that by finding little things for them to do or watch together.

"Do you have any plans today, baby?" Harley asked him one Saturday morning.

"Yeah, I do, actually. I just got off the phone with this guy who's organizing this little...rap video shoot thing with three local guys here in Gotham. They're doing a freestyle cypher and some other stuff. I sent in some beats to them and they liked a few actually, so they asked me to come to the shoot and handle the music." He explained.

"Really? That sounds so cool, baby! You're gonna be famous!" She said with a laugh. Casey chuckled at this, shaking his head.

"No, but it might help me get some more business. We'll see. The shoot is this afternoon...you wanna come?" He offered, asking the question as if he had just thought about it right at that moment.

"Can I?"

"Sure. They need people in the crowd for the video anyways. And this way, you don't have to be sitting around by yourself. You'll have plenty of time for that when I start work." He said as a joke.

"Okay! Of course I'll come and support ya," She said with a smile. "I'll wear my nice dress!" She decided excitedly.

"Heheh, that might be too fancy, Harley. We're doing a rap shoot in basically an empty warehouse. A nice dress will definitely be too much." He said.

"Oh...okay! Well then you help me decide what I'll wear!" She suggested.

"Alright, sure. I'm just going in a hoodie, joggers, and sneakers." He said.

"Yeah? Well let's go pick out something for me already! Come on!" Harley urged, grabbing his hand and pulling him upstairs...

Casey and Harley approached the warehouse venue holding hands. Casey, true to his word, wore a white hoodie with black joggers and white and red sneakers. Harley wore a red and black plaid shirt with a white top underneath, black ripped jeans and black boots.

"Heheh, I just realized we match, honey." Harley pointed out as they made their way inside.

"Yeah, I thought you did that intentionally." Casey said with a chuckle.

"No, but it's cute!" Harley said with a laugh, "I just went with red and black because, you know, all my clothes are red and black. Kinda part of my brand." She said with a giggle.

"Oh yeah, true," Casey chuckled. He fixed the straps of his backpack, which he was using to carry his laptop with all of his music software on it. "Okay, I need to get set up and organized, so I'm gonna meet with Freddy, the guy in charge. Talk to you later?"

"Yep! Knock 'em dead, hun!" Harley said. She shuffled up next to him, pressing both of her hands on his face and giving him a long kiss on the cheek. Casey chuckled and smiled.

"Thanks, babe. See you in a bit." He said before leaving to go get set up for the show.

Harley waved and watched him go. She folded her arms in front of her and looked around curiously. Casey was heading towards a small staging area surrounded by cameras and speakers. To her left, she saw a crowd of seemingly random people just hanging out, snacking and drinking.

"Hey!" Harley said as she approached a small group of women talking. "Any of you girls know where I can get some grub? Ooh, and a drink. Like some soda or a beer?" She asked.

"Yeah. Table's right there." One of them answered with a polite smile, pointing to a table propped up against the wall.

"Perfect! Thanks!" Harley said, smiling back before going to the table, where she promptly grabbed herself a bottle and a small bag of chips.

"Hey cutie, you mind passing me a bottle real quick?"

Harley quickly turned her head and saw a dark-skinned gentleman with glasses and long-braided hair standing by her. He had on a jersey and joggers with a brand name on the side. Harley smiled politely and nodded, handing him a bottle identical to hers.

"Sure! Here ya go." She said as she passed it to him.

"Thanks. What's your name?" The guy asked.

"I'm Harley." She introduced herself.

"Harleyyy. Alright. I'm Leo. My homies call me Lyon. You call me whatever you like, baby."

"Heheh, alright Leo." She said, tapping her fingers against her bottle.

"Whatchu doing in here all by yourself?" He asked.

"Oh, I'm not! I'm here with my boyfriend!" Harley quickly answered with a smile, "That's him right over there, see?" She pointed over to Casey. Leo turned and looked over, seeing Casey setting up his equipment. He realized then that he was the DJ of this event.

"Ohh okay, so he's handling the beats. That's cool, that's cool. He any good?"

"Guess you'll find out soon, huh?" Harley said with a little giggle.

"Alright, haha, that's what's up. Well hey, after I do my thing up there, I've got a little something going on you might be interested in." He brought up.

"Oh? You're one of the artists here?" Harley asked.

"Yeah yeah. After this, me and the crew are headin' to this nice place uptown to party. I'd definitely like to see you there. Your boyfriend can come too if his music isn't trash." Leo threw in with a small chuckle.

"Oh alright. Thanks." Harley said, not really interested in going.

"Anytime, anytime. You just let me know. I'll see ya, Harley." Leo said, smiling at her and nodding his head once before leaving.

Harley glanced over in Casey's direction. She saw that he was looking over in her direction; he had seen them talking. As soon as she looked back at him, his eyes went back down to his laptop. Harley swallowed nervously, feeling a pit in her stomach.

He was mad. She could feel it...

The performance itself was really cool. Harley didn't pay so much attention to what anyone was saying, but listening to Casey's music choices was really interesting. It was hard to believe that most of what she was hearing was stuff that he had made, but he flowed through it so naturally that she could tell he must've done this plenty of times.

Once everything had completely finished up, Harley ran up to Casey and gave him another hug and a kiss, "That was really good, baby! You looked so cool up there." She said with a giggle.

"Haha, thank you. I just need to finish up and pack my things and then we can leave, alright?" Casey said, before quickly turning and going.

"Okay, I should tell you babe that-oh okay..." Harley was about to start telling him about the exchange between Leo and her, but he'd already hurried off to get his stuff before she could get her sentence started.

While she was waiting, she caught sight of Leo leaving the warehouse with his crew and a handful of girls all following him and the other rappers out. He looked over at Harley, lifted his sunglasses, and gave her a wink before he went outside...

"Alrighty. Freddy says things went well and we'll be in touch for future stuff!" Casey said as he returned to her.

"Huh? Oh, that's great baby!" Harley said, quickly collecting herself before responding to him. However, Casey could quickly tell that something was off with her.

"You okay?" He asked. Harley nervously glanced at the door that Leo had just walked out of.

"Yeah, um...one of the rapper guys invited us out to a party...he was flirting with me pretty hard. It made me kinda uncomfortable." Harley admitted.

Her first instinct was to do something to knock the guy out, but she obviously couldn't do that, so it left her in this weird position of trying to be nice while also trying to get away. She wasn't sure if she should share that thought process with Casey; she wasn't sure how he would take any of this.

"I see...well, did you want to go?" Casey asked slowly, unsure at what Harley was getting at.

"I don't think so...I just didn't like it." She said. Casey nodded.

"Alright. Well then we won't go." He replied with a nod and a little smile. This caught Harley completely off guard.

"You're...not mad?"

"Not really," Casey answered with a shrug. "We can talk about it in the car on the way home, yeah?" He offered, putting an arm around her.

"O-Okay."

"Come on, let's go home." He said again.

Casey and Harley walked out of the warehouse together. He kept his arm around her and rubbed it as they got to his car. He tossed his backpack in the back seat then walked around and opened Harley's door for her. She sat down quietly in the passenger seat and put her seat belt on as Casey sat in the driver's side and buckled up too.

There was a weird aura in the car as they pulled out of the parking lot. Casey could sense it, but he wasn't really sure where it was coming from. If he was gonna find out though, he knew that he was probably gonna have to talk first.

"What's going on, Harley? Did that Lyon guy say something bad to you?" Casey asked.

"No, no he didn't...how did you know it was him?" She asked.

"I saw you talking to him earlier. Now you're telling me this, so I figured that's when it happened." He reasoned.

"Right, right, yeah...you seem really calm about this. You're not upset?" She asked again.

"I mean, I don't appreciate it, but I'm not really hung up on it." He answered.

"You're not mad at him?" She asked.

"Well, some guys are just like that. It's to be expected I guess, with you being as attractive as you are. I guess I should've thought of that before I offered to bring you here. That is kinda the crowd. So that's on me." Casey said.

"No, it wasn't your fault, hun...you're not mad at me either?" She asked quietly.

"Mad at you?" Casey asked, looking at her oddly. Harley rubbed her arm and took a moment to word her next sentences carefully.

"When I was with...some of my last boyfriends, they would get really jealous and upset at me whenever I had issues like this with other guys in the past. I'd never cheated on any of 'em, but they'd blame me for even talkin' to them. Like I was desperate for attention." She explained.

"Oh jeez...that really doesn't make a lot of sense. But yeah, jealously does weird things to people. I do know that," Casey acknowledged this fact with a nod. "Well no, I'm not mad at you. I trust you, Harley. If you were reciprocating the flirting then yes I would have a problem with that."

"I wasn't. Not at all. I was being polite but I made it clear that you were my boyfriend. He just kept trying anyway." She explained.

"Ahh, one of those. Sorry, Harley. But that's not on you. We're a team, remember?" He said, taking her hand and linking his fingers with hers. She smiled gently, feeling more at ease.

"Yeah, you're right. Thanks, baby. You're the best boyfriend I've ever had." She said, smiling at him.

"Heheh." Casey chuckled a little.

Then Harley noticed something weird. After smiling and chuckling, Casey's face fell a little bit, as if he'd just realized something. Whatever it was, his mood totally shifted downwards, and he got quiet. Harley waited for him to say something, but he didn't.

It was a quiet car ride home after that...