After Tonight

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Second Chance: Memories

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His lips were warm on mine, firm and tender, making me gasp with each stroke of his tongue. My arms curved round his head to pull him closer, needing further contact. As my fingers delved into the silky tendrils, I opened my eyes to find him staring intently at me, his eyes stormy blue with passion. He shifted his body over mine, his full weight pressing onto me and I moaned. "Oh Brian..."

My eyes flew open, the remnants of my dream still vividly imprinted on my mind. God, after three years, I thought I had finally managed to suppress all the feelings I had for Brian. Yet the dream had come back again.

Dammit Brian, when will you ever leave me alone? I thought, my mind still shaken by the vividness of the dream I had just had.

Next to me, the phone rang, the sharp ringing jarring me out of my bittersweet reminiscing.

"Hello?" I asked, my voice still husky with sleep. It was only 6.30am and hardly anyone ever called this early. At the sound of my agent’s voice, I groaned inwardly.

"Katie, this had better be important," I stated flatly into the phone.

"Erin, you know how you’ve always wanted to go into acting?" she chirped excitedly.

"Yeah?" I replied, still groggy.

"Well guess what? You’ve just been asked to star in a music video! Shooting starts today at 10am sharp! Hurry up and get your butt out of bed. This is something you cannot miss!" she said, her words pouring out in a rush, enthusiasm dripping like honey.

That got my attention but not quite enough to get me up.

"Today?" I whined, "Do I really have to go?" I asked hopefully, still not ready to face the world after the disturbing events of the night before, not to mention my dream.

"Erin... they asked for you especially! By name! You have to go! This is really gonna make you!" Katie stated firmly.

I sighed, knowing I had to go. Kate really knew what made me tick and she also knew that I wanted to prove myself to my parents, so any job that would help me get ahead (nothing sleazy of course), I’d take.

"Fine, give me the address and I’ll be there!" I replied, not giving away anything in my even tones.

As she reeled off an address, I hesitated, then decided to go through with it.

"Katie? John asked me to marry him last night..." I said, desperately wanting her opinion.

Silence.

"And what did you tell him?" Kate asked, her voice suddenly sobered.

I fiddled with the wires of the phone nervously.

"I told him I would think about it..." I said, trailing off as I remembered the awkwardness of that moment. He had been expecting me to say yes and I was too but somehow when it came down to the crunch, I’d chickened out.

"Erin... Erin? Are you still there?" Kate asked anxiously, waking me up from my reverie.

"Huh...? Yeah I’m still here, must have fell asleep or something for a bit," I lied, not wanting to upset Kate. She was a good friend, hell, she was one of my best friends since contrary to public opinion, I’m really very shy around people. I guess old habits die-hard.

"Well you know my opinion on yours and John’s relationship. If you know you love him, go ahead and marry him... if not... well kiddo, don’t make the same mistake I did," she said with a bitter laugh before ending, "Don’t forget, 10am sharp!" hanging up after that.

After Kate hung up, I spent countless minutes cradling the phone in my hands as I silently contemplated what she had just said.

Did I love John? I thought I did and I was so eager for him to propose too. Was that love?

No.

Love was what I had with Brian, wild and unfettered passion that shimmered bright as the moonlight gilded our bodies clinging together.

What I had with John transcended that. It was a steady affection that would never burn out. He didn’t make me giddy with wanting when he kissed me but at least I knew he would still be there in the morning when I woke up. Not that we had done anything. Yet. After we married, that would all change of course.

But even as the thought formed and took shape in my mind, my heart sank. No matter how I rationalized things out, I could not marry him. That would be the wrong thing to do. It would trap us in a loveless (on my part) union for all eternity.

Katie was one example of that, she had found the courage to put that mistake behind her, to fix it but for me, marriage is for life. I didn’t believe in divorce and since I only planned to marry once, I had to choose carefully.

And it wouldn’t be John I married. Not now anyway. Not when my blood didn’t drum through my veins at the sight of him, not when I didn’t want to do more than kiss him goodnight on the cheek at the end of every date we had. Maybe when I finally gave up on my dreams and settled for second best, I would, but not now.

‘Dammit Brian Littrell, why did I ever have to meet you?’ I thought frustratedly, throwing back my blanket and getting out of bed to get ready for that morning’s work.

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Two hours and one nice, long soak in my bubble bath later and I was ready to face the world. Almost ready actually, I was still quite emotional but I had a good cry when I was soaking and that went a long way to helping me calm my ragged nerves. However my mind still churned with reawakened dreams and every other stray thought served only to make me weepy again.

‘Erin girl, wake up! You can’t fuck up now, not over a lousy piece of ass anyways!’ I thought as I slid into the driver’s seat of my candy red BMW convertible. It’d been a birthday present to myself when I turned twenty-four last year and things were finally falling into place, career wise. I certainly had come a long way from that naive girl who had given away her heart too easily.

Months after that incident, I was still a total wreck. I had graduated from college just a few weeks before and instead of going out partying with my friends, few as they were, I spent most of my time mooning around in my room, crying over and over again as I recounted those fatal few hours when I had found myself again in his arms. There were regrets aplenty and numerous self-reproaches.

‘Why did you say no?’ my mind would scream at me, my body craving the taste of his lips again, wanting wanting so desperately but the answer was always the same.

No matter how many times I hated myself for turning away from him, I knew I had made the right choice.

In the morning when the sun shone bright as truth, he would have left me and I would have been just another of his conquests, a one night stand that was born of a passion that would have burnt out (for him) as soon as the afterglow faded off. And if I couldn’t handle him walking away from me before we had sex, imagine how I would have felt if we did have sex and he left me. At least I had spared myself that much humiliation and heartache.

The car sped down the long winding roads, the cool morning breeze teasing my hair, sending the dark strands every which way. Most of it was slicked back into a ponytail but what I couldn’t get tamed danced into my eyes, distracting me momentarily from my thoughts. At least the air was fresh, which was why I had left the top down. Rush hour traffic could be a total bitch at times, especially since this was a Monday but I was past most of it seeing how it was already after nine.

The address Kate had given me was just out of town and an hour away from my tiny apartment in downtown LA. Even though I’d soaked in my tub for nearly an hour, I had plenty of time to get to the video shoot. Kate really hated it when I was late. At the thought of her, I smiled inwardly.

It was Kate who had saved me after those fateful months of wallowing in self-misery. My parents had insisted on bringing me out for my twenty-second birthday and we had ended up at ‘Rogers’, a really swanky restaurant that was famed for its elite clientele of Hollywood celebrities and various other famous patrons.

Kate had been there with one of the models she represented and a mutual acquaintance of my parents. We had been introduced and I remembered being desperately ready to leave, to eat dinner and get the whole evening over and done with but the intensity of her stare cut through my haze of misery.

While my parents chatted with the model and their friend, I stood there, shrinking beneath her critical (or so it seemed) contemplation.

Finally, with a slight, instinctive nod, she said to me, "Would you be interested in modeling?"

That definitely got my attention and what remained of my misery disintegrated and I stared back curiously at her.

"Are you serious?" I asked, not daring to breathe as my mind replayed her question over and over again.

"Absolutely!" she replied, the enthusiasm coming into her voice as she told me exactly why she thought I should be a model. By the time she was finished, I was almost convinced. Well intrigued but not entirely convinced since I had always thought of myself as just average looking. Still I agreed to sign up with her and try my hand at modeling, dip my toes in the water so to speak.

My parents weren’t as happy as I thought they would have been when I told them of my plans to move out of the house and get my own apartment while trying for a career in the high glamour (and risky) world of modeling. But they came around after it became apparent that this was more than just a sudden rush of misjudgment on my part and meeting Kate certainly helped. Her credentials and family background were impeccable.

Oh yeah and I have to mention that I think my mother really secretly loves my new job. I mean come on, imagine the rush she gets when she says to her friends "My daughter is a model". Positively heady.

The next three years had been a whirlwind of activity. I had always thought that models were glamorous creatures who sipped languidly at club sodas in between bookings and worked on their tans. But I was more than wrong. Between the numerous rushing to and fro for auditions and photo shoots, I was all too ready to fall into my bed each if I could find a bed at all. Sometimes I would catch an hour or two of sleep in some corner between jobs.

I’m not exactly a supermodel like Cindy Crawford or Naomi Campbell and I never will but I did mange to establish a reputation for myself as a steady sort of worker and the demands for my modeling services were extremely flattering.

My parents still grumbled now and then but when I started dating John, the son of one of my father’s business, they gradually subsided. My mother would drop small subtle hints about grandchildren once in a while but I brushed them aside. I want children but not now. There would be time enough for that. For now I just wanted to concentrate on my career.

The last leg of my journey ended as I rounded a curve in the road, forcing me to push aside my thoughts. I drove in past iron wrought gates after showing my driver’s license to a bored looking security guard who was stationed outside bordered by groups of hysterical teenage girls. It occurred to me that I had never asked Katie who the singer (or singers) I would be working with was.

I slotted my car in an empty space next to Katie’s silver Mercedes and got out of the car, blinking as I took off my sunglasses to gaze at the lush green surrounding me. I spotted Katie waving at me as she stood with a small group of people near the house (correction, make that mansion) which was some distance to my left. As I walked to her, I thought to myself that this was going to be one of the more interesting bookings I had ever undertaken.