Fan Fiction: Indiscretions, Ch 2 &3
So, yeah, here's more. Cos two people are reading and that's better than nothing. lol. Feedback is always appreciated.
Chapter Two:
He was in Los Angeles. Dee wanted to wait until the baby was a little older before taking the trip
home to London, and Orlando had agreed to her terms early on, so there he was. She and her friends
were cooing over the cradle in the other room, so Orlando had resigned to watch television for a bit and
pretend as though it all wasn’t happening.
He’d been flipping past Mtv when he stopped at the sight of a familiar face or two, and then died
in his chair. Or, at least he’d felt like he had. He was certain his heart now resided somewhere on the
floor, either their or laying somewhere in New York City with Gen’s heel firmly implanted inside it.
Of course, he knew he had no one to blame but himself. If he had been less brusque when
breaking off his relationship with Dee, if he had listened to her early warnings that she was going to be
having a child within the next year and she was fairly certain it was his, perhaps things would have been
different. But Orlando hadn’t wanted to listen, so much in love with this girl he had met at the Mtv movie
awards. Then it had all blown up in his face.
The phone calls began again. Dee was certain the child was his, and as he had been so kindly
during the pregnancy, he could count on never seeing the little girl. Orlando just couldn’t have that. So
he agreed to what she wanted; a family.
What could he do? His hands were tied. A family man couldn’t be consorting with another
woman, so Gen would have to go. No explanation, either, just take off one afternoon in time for the birth
and hope she would understand when she heard. After that, well... he thought it best not even to think
about it. Dee had her baby, now all she needed was a husband.
And then this Justin Timberlake business. Gen had reassure him that it had been nothing more
than a fling, a brief romantic interlude in Jamaica, brought on more by the sun and the sand and the
alcohol than anything else. But MARRIED? And never divorced, never annulled? It left Orlando’s mind
spinning. He just gaped at the television, not knowing what to think. And it all just went downhill from
there.
“Well congratulations!” Cate Frost, an Mtv News correspondent and sometimes VJ, had said
laughingly, while the Total Request Live studio audience just stared in shock. “And that’s not the only
bomb you’ll be dropping on us today, is it?”
“Actually, no, it’s not,” Gen agreed, smiling.
Orlando shook his head at the television. She wouldn’t. She just couldn’t. She couldn’t go
through with it, not now. He had always known Gen to he stubborn and headstrong, but not over this. She
couldn’t... could she?
“In about a week, I’m saying goodbye to New York and TRL and moving to London,” Gen
explained. The audience gasped. Gen was perhaps the most popular VJ since Carson Daly.
“So what are you doing in London? Is Justin going to?” Cate pressed.
Gen nodded. “We have a nice little flat in the city,” Gen went on. “Obviously, Justin is going to
be back and forth a lot, but it will definitely be our permanent home for now. And I’m not leaving Mtv
entirely -- I’m going to be working on Mtv Select, our European affiliate station.”
“Well, Gen, we’re certainly going to miss you...” Cate was saying, and Orlando had to turn it off.
She was still going through with the move. And Justin was going with her. It was just too much to bear.
Gen let out a sigh of relief as she started packing up her dressing room. Maybe it would be a
good thing, a change. She would be away from New York, where everywhere she saw reminders of
Orlando and where they had been together. They had only went to London once or twice, to scope out
possible apartments, and it didn’t hold too many memories of him. It was a fresh start.
“Guess what!” Cate announced, pouncing through the open door with a grin. Gen glanced up at
her in the mirror and smiled.
“I have no idea, just tell me,” Gen replied. “Judging by that look on your face, it’s something
really good.”
“It’s something really GREAT,” Cate replied, seeming to be very excited. Cate was a bit younger
then Gen, and she looked more like a teenager than a woman in her early twenties. She often gave off
the appearance of an overexcited school girl, particularly when she was very happy about something.
“Remember how I met you and... what’s-his-name... in London for a few days?” Cate asked.
“Yes,” Gen said, turning around and leaning up against the vanity behind her. “And I remember
how you took off after one day and we never saw you again because you hooked up with some DJ from
that club we went to.”
“Yeah, well, that DJ has connections,” Cate replied, “And that DJ got me an audition for a hosting
gig on this show called cd:uk, and that DJ helped get me the job. And that DJ is helping me to find ‘a nice
little flat in the city’!”
Gen gaped. She couldn’t believe it. “What?” she asked, astounded.
“Well I couldn’t let you go to London all by yourself,” Cate told her, grinning. “And besides, I have
friends there. It’ll be great, man!”
Gen didn’t have time to think of a response; her cell phone had begun ringing again, and she
answered before replying to Cate.
“Hello?” she asked.
“Ok, the marriage I expected. I’m no longer a bachelor, as far as the media is concerned. That, I
can deal with. But now I’m moving to LONDON?!” the voice on the line said.
Gen laughed. “Yeah, J, you are,” she told him. “And it looks like you’re not the only one.”
Two weeks later, Gen had made a trans-Atlantic move, and had brought a few friends with her.
Justin had been there to help her move all her things into the apartment and even brought a few of his
own to keep up appearances, and had promised to return in a couple weeks, once his tour in the States
was over.
Cate and her DJ friend had indeed located a nice property for her, not far from Gen’s own place,
and had quickly become something of an item on the London party scene. Gen herself had become a
fixture at the Sintillate club parties, and seemed to be coping well with her break-up. Her new job was
going amazingly well, and it seemed everything would turn out nicely.
But little Lorelei Bloom was three weeks old, and her dear mummy had decided it was time to
bring her home. Orlando had been keeping tabs on Gen for some time, and realized that one of Gen’s
best friends seemed to have fallen for one of his own best friends. Things were about to change.
Orlando was going back to London.
Chapter Three:
Gen was getting bored. Going out with Cate and her new friend had seemed like a good idea to
begin with, but the appeal was very soon lost in the noisy club. It hadn’t been an average night out; she
was at a birthday party for a man that she hadn’t even met. Cate had assured Gen she could come
along, and true to Cate’s word, the three -- three meaning Gen, Cate herself and Cate’s constant
companion, Abs -- were let in the door without even a pause to check that their names were on the list.
It was late in August, and though the air-conditioning was pouring out of the vents, it was nearly
suffocating inside the club. Gen wanted to leave, but Cate had disappeared into the crowd almost an
hour before and had yet to return. It was getting late, and yet still the place was packed end to end. Gen
didn’t want to leave without Cate, but as the girl seemed impossible to locate, she had decided to do just
that when a very drunk man suddenly through his arms around her.
“Thanks so much for coming to my party!” he slurred, hugging Gen in a sloppy but amiable way,
as though the two were old friends meeting for the first time after many years. “Everyone’s having a
great time, don’t you think?”
Gen carefully extracted herself from his arms, and he barely seemed to notice. She took a brief
moment to study him, to see if she knew him at all. He wasn’t exceptionally tall, and had dirty blonde
locks that hung nearly to his shoulders. Despite the horrible hair, his bright blue eyes and charming smile
made him an overall pleasant-looking person, though totally unfamiliar to Gen. He was beaming at her,
even as he stumbled a bit backwards into a table.
“Careful!” Gen said, reaching out an arm to pull him forward before he fell into a small crowd at
the table. They didn’t seem to mind, of course, nearly as drunk as he was as they laughed and pointed at
their wobbly host.
“Thank you for coming for my birthday!” he proclaimed to Gen, again greeting her. Gen couldn’t
help but laugh a little herself.
“Sorry, but I don’t think I was invited,” she replied. He frowned, gazing a moment at the short,
slim brunette standing before him. After a brief period of concentration, he smiled again.
“Oh, that’s all right,” he told her, patting her gently on the shoulder. “Lots of people weren’t
invited. Well I don’t think really anyone was... it was supposed to be, if they show up and we like them,
we’ll let them in, and if we don’t like them, they’ll have to go. So if you’re inside, I must like you, even if I
don’t know you. So thanks for coming!”
Gen laughed again. “You’re pretty friendly, aren’t you?”
His eyes widened. “People tell me that all the time!” he confided, grin ever-widening as he
spoke. “It’s not really true though, cos as I said, we didn’t let just ANYONE in, only the people we liked.
And if we like SOME people, that means we don’t like some people, so that’s not really friendly, is it? Of
course I suppose I am nice to the people I like, but what about all those other people I don’t? I’m not nice
to them. Well, I am if there’s a camera around but that’s just for face.”
It took Gen a moment to compute in her mind what the strange man had just told her. He was
talking in circles, and though Gen was nowhere near as drunk as he was, she wasn’t completely sober
either, and it was all a little too much to take.
“So what’s your name?” Gen asked, trying to decide whether she should stay and at least get to
know the man who had been responsible for her comped drinks all night, or search out Cate and get a
cab home.
“His name is Rich,” a new voice added, sounding not at all pleased. An attractive Asian girl
wearing a slinky red dress, with jet hair cropped at her shoulders and a flawless complexion, had pushed
her way through the crowd to come up beside the drunken man, whose name was apparently Rich.
“Given that you’re at his birthday party, I would think you would know his name,” she added stiffly, glaring
at Gen and crossing her arms before her.
Gen flushed, embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” she replied. “I came in with Cate Frost, she never said it
was a birthday party...”
“Oh!” the girl said, recognition lighting her dark eyes. “You’re Cate’s friend! She’s been looking
for you for a while! I’m sorry, I didn’t realize! No hard feelings?”
“Um... sure,” Gen replied. Apparently, this girl knew her.
“I’m Sofia,” the girl told her. “I’m Rich’s girl. This drunken sod next to me is Rich Neville.”
“Hi!” Rich said cheerfully. He even lifted his hand to wave and Gen, but the movement through
him off balance and he ended up throwing an arm over Sofia’s shoulders to keep from falling again. Gen
stifled a laugh.
“Nice to meet you both,” she said. “And happy birthday to you, Rich.”
“Thanks for coming to my party!” he replied.
“Cate was looking for you. I think she’s down by the DJ booth,” Sofia told Gen, who rolled her
eyes in disgust.
“Should have guessed,” Gen said, shaking her head. Cate had been spending far too much time
with that Abs guy lately, at least in Gen’s opinion. They barely knew each other and already were
practically living together. Gen knew the pains that could spring from moving to fast with a man you
barely know, and didn’t want Cate’s romance to end on a similar note.
“Oh, and I’m really sorry to hear about you and Or,” Sofia added, catching Gen off guard. “We all
thought you two would work out. Some of the girls were really glad of it too, we never did like Dee and it
was about damn time Orlando brought someone new to the group.”
“Girls?” Gen asked, frowning. “Group? And how did you even know...”
“Ask Cate, she’ll explain,” Sofia replied, smiling. “I’ve got to get Rich here home and to bed. He’s
been celebrating a little too much tonight.”
“Ooh... bed... yes... bed sounds good,” Rich mumbled as Sofia led him away.
Gen shook her head. There seemed to be a lot more going on around her that night than she had
realized.
It took almost a half hour to wade through the throng of people on the dance floor and reach the
DJ booth. There was Cate, just as Sofia had mentioned, standing and smiling up at the man on the
decks. So close to the speakers, the bass throbbed and Gen could feel the heavy vibrations of the music
pulsating in her chest as she moved in close to try and get Cate’s attention.
Cate was lost in her own little world when she felt Gen’s flattened palm connecting with her bare
shoulder.
“Ow!” Cate yelped, but her voice was lost in the music and she turned to frown at Gen. A
moment later, the two had moved a sufficient distance from booth to be able to talk clearly, and Cate
turned and hit Gen back as hard as she could.
“Ow!” Gen cried out. “What the hell was that for?!”
“Well why did you hit ME?” Cate replied, rubbing her shoulder where a bright red palm print had
formed. “And besides, I didn’t hit you as hard as you hit me.”
“I was JUST trying to draw your attention away from the pretty bald man you’ve been lusting
after all night,” Gen told her, then reached out and smacked Cate again. “And THAT was for taking me to
a birthday party for a guy I’ve never met and then deserting me in a crowd of people don’t even know!”
“Hey! You said you wanted to go out, I brought you out!” Cate said in her own defense. “And you
have met Rich, you met him and Sofie and K and Lance and Jack and Kian and Shane and J and Elijah
and Bonnie when you were here in London, in THIS club, with Orlando!”
“Yeah, and what the hell is up with this Sofia broad knowing about me and Orlando anyway?”
Gen went on ranting. “I mean, god, only our closest friends even knew that we were together and she’s
all nonchalant about how sorry she is that he fucked me over and I don’t even know who she is!”
Cate groaned. “Look, this isn’t the time or the place to have this discussion,” she replied. “But
you did meet them all, just the once, and I didn’t want to tell you about that because then you’d know how
serious he was about you and you’d been doing so well!”
“Doing so well?” Gen asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” Abs, the pretty bald man Gen had mentioned before, added in as he came up behind
Cate. “That you’ve stopped moping around all the time and have actually been fun to be around and
Cate didn’t want to upset you again.”
“Explain to me what the hell you two are talking about,” Gen said, shaking her head. She just
didn’t understand what they were saying, and it seemed even that they didn’t want to tell her. They
exchanged a glance, Abs and Cate, even now, as though they were silently questioning one another as
to whether or not they should explain.
Finally, Cate sighed. “All right,” she relented. “You ready to go? Cos you can come back to my
flat and we’ll make some coffee and we’ll tell you everything that we know. I think Sofie was talking about
going shopping tomorrow afternoon anyway, and you’ll need to be filled in to come along.”