Chapter Nineteen

Justin's eyes gleamed. "I want Banana Fudge."

Dru scrunched up her nose. "Blecch."

"Illlk fine..." Justin rolled his eyes, and watched the girl prepare his ice cream cone. "I'm waiting to see what kind you're getting Miss Dru."

Dru studied the different selections through the glass. She was filled with curiosity. She had never had ice cream before. She had wanted to try some at the hotel, but had been too afraid to ask. "Is the pink one good?"

Justin took a sloppy lick of his ice cream and laughed. "The pink one? Oh God D...don't tell me you've never had ice cream before."

She smiled, and shook her head.

"Girl, I'm starting to think that you were raised by wolves. First it was Disneyland...and now this."

"Sorry," Dru whispered. After a moment she looked at the girl who had prepared Justin's ice cream cone. "I want the pink one." She stated, boldly.

The girl gave her an awkward glance. "You mean Strawberry?"

"Uh," Dru looked to Justin for help. He smiled, and gave her a reassuring nod. "Yeah, Strawberry."

"Very good." Justin smiled, giving her a reassuring pat on the back. He shoved his ice cream cone in her face, "Come on, have a taste of mine."

She laughed and pushed his hand away. "No."

"Yes," he grinned. He pushed his ice cream cone back toward her face, leaving a smear of it on her chin.

"Justin!" Dru whined.

"Calm down would you? Here...I'll fix it." He snickered. He stepped towards her and licked the mess he had made off of her face.

"Eww." She groaned, wiping his saliva off of her face. "We're in public ya know."

"Nah. Besides us, it's only Lonnie, and this wonderful person behind the counter." Justin explained, winking at the girl behind the counter. "And I'm sure she doesn't mind if I lick you."

The girl behind the counter giggled. Her face was a shade of crimson. She looked like she was going to burst at any moment.

"Would you two hurry up already?" Lonnie chimed in from his table by the window. "Eric is havig a hell of a time controlling those girls out there."

Justin rolled his eyes. "I'm introducing Dru to the wonders of frozen desserts."

"I thought we were boycotting frozen desserts." Lonnie said.
Dru was confused. "What's boycotting?"

"When you don't buy something because you're against it." Justin explained. "And we aren't boycotting frozen desserts Lon'." Justin nodded. "We're only boycotting frozen yogurt, remember?"

"Oh yeah." Lonnie grumbled. "Because it's fake ice cream...or something."

Dru took her newly made ice cream cone from the girl. She stared at it for several moments, almost too scared to taste it.

Justin looked back at her and laughed. "Don't stare at it too long D. Otherwise it'll melt."

Dru nodded, and took a tiny lick of the frozen treat. She was pleasantly surprised. It was fabulous. "Mmm." She took a bigger lick. It was so good.

"You like it?" Justin questioned, with a smile.

Dru nodded. "Mmm." She would have said more, if she could make herself tear her tongue away from the wonderful taste.

"Good. Dru likes it." Lonnie muttered. "Can we go? Please?"

Justin looked out the window. The size of the crowd had tripled in the last ten minutes. He sighed. He figured he might as well toss his ice cream in the garbage now, because there was no way he was going to make it through that rowdy crowd without it getting all over him. It was a pity too, because he couldn't remember the last time he had gotten to go get a real ice cream cone, from a real ice cream parlor. No, he would never do this again, he was sure of that. It was back to the box and the scoop...it was the only way...he couldn't deal with this. Now, because he had insisted on coming here, he was going to get stuck signing autographs for two hours. Two hours...

Two hours that could have been spent showing Dru the Chinese Theater, or the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

He was pissed.

He looked back over at Dru, and had to laugh. She had consumed the entire ice cream cone already. "It was that good huh?"

"My head hurts." Dru complained.

"You have brain freeze." Justin giggled. "You can't eat ice cream that fast."

Dru groaned. "Now you tell me." She gasped. "Is my brain going to be frozen forever?"

Justin couldn't answer. He was laughing too hard to get any words out.
****************************
"You haven't called me in ages! I was beginning to think you had found somebody else!"

Justin blushed. "Nadia...you know there's nobody better than you."

"Aww." Nadia cooed, dragging Justin over to her more expensive section of the boutique. She held Justin by the arm, and they both started laughing like two small children. "Now that's the Justin I know and love," she smiled. "Now this...this is amazing..." Nadia began, taking a shirt off of one of the racks to display to Justin.

Dru stood in the background. Arms folded, expression stern. She was getting mad. Justin hadn't formally introduced her to Nadia yet, and they had been in the store a good fifteen minutes, and as for Nadia...well, the woman hadn't seem to notice that she existed. She didn't understand. Was she not good enough?

Of course she wasn't. She was Dru. Watching Justin and Nadia brought out the fact that she wasn't one of them. Did Justin love her? Right now she wouldn't know it. No, he didn't love her...he loved the idea of having her around, like some sort of small dog he could train to do new tricks. She was entertaining him.

This was exactly the reason why she hadn't had wanted to come home with him. She knew that this was going to happen. They hadn't even been in California two days yet, and already he had found someone else more interesting than her.

He was bored with her.

But damn it, she loved him...and the feelings she had for him were too strong to take back now. Noticing a small leather chair to her right, she slowly dragged herself over to it and sat down.

She waited for Justin to notice that he had forgotten about her. She counted to ten...twenty...no...he still didn't remember, or maybe he just didn't care. One thing was for sure...he definitely cared about Nadia. He was totally into her. Smiling, laughing...even flirting a little bit. But why wouldn't he? Nadia was glamorous.

She was just...Dru.

She continued to sit in the chair, while Justin enclosed himself inside of a dressing room. Just as she thought he might have been done, Nadia would throw yet another outfit over the door for him to try on and yell, "Boy, you would look so fine in this!" It was ridiculous, didn't she know how many outfits Justin already had? Apparently not.

An hour had passed. Dru was fighting to keep her eyes open.

"What do you think?"

She lifted her head up. Justin was standing before her, wearing an outfit that made her want to forget that she was mad at him. He did look "fine". Was she drooling? She touched a finger to her lip and quickly flicked away the spittle that was trickling out of her mouth.

Justin let out a nervous laugh. "You don't like it?"

She almost snapped out of her daze in time to reply, but Nadia beat her to it.

"You look fabulous J!" Nadia exclaimed, sauntering up behind him. She gave Dru an odd look, "What are you doing in here? We're closed for an hour."

Justin let out a careless laugh. "No...it's okay-"

Nadia stepped next to Dru's chair and put a hand on her arm. "I know you like to be good to your fans J, but this girl has to go."

"No, she's with me." Justin tried to explain.

Nadia gave him an impatient look, "Don't give me any of that bull J," she threw Dru a disgusted glare. "There's no way she's with you, just look at her."

Dru stared at her boyfriend. Waiting for him to defend her. To say that she was special, and not some ugly slob of a girl like Nadia was making her out to be. She waited...and waited....

Justin didn't say anything. He turned away and went back to the clothes he had been looking at.

Dru was appalled at Justin's lack of interest in the situation. Why was he acting like this now? In New York he had acted as if he couldn't live without out her. Just the other day he had told her he was in love with her. What was going on? Was this what Justin was really like? In love with her behind closed doors, but oblivious to her around his peers? Dru stood up from the chair. "Sorry Ma'am. I didn't realize you were closed."

Nadia gave her an angry look. "Get out." She seethed, giving Dru an all knowing once over. "You couldn't afford anything in here anway."

Dru gave Justin a look of disbelief. "Aren't you going say anything?"

Justin sighed, and slung the bag of clothes he had bought over his shoulder. "I gotta go," he mumbled, walking back over to them. He put his hand on Dru's shoulder, but she quickly pulled away. God, why couldn't she just understand? This is the way things had to be.

"Sweet Justin, take her with you." Nadia said sarcastically, as she watched them head toward the door. "I'll see you soon."

Justin glanced over his shoulder, and gave her a reassuring wink before following Dru out the door.
*********************
"Listen..."

She walked faster.

Justin jogged to catch up to her. "Dru...come on, just listen for a second!"

"Leave me alone." Dru grumbled, as they reached Justin's awaiting limousine.

Lonnie opened the door, and shot them both a confused glance. "Who killed the party?"

Dru didn't answer. She got into the limo without a word.

"Don't ask." Justin grumbled. "Just...don't ask." He got into the limo, and waited until his bodyguard had shut the door before speaking again. "D."

She sat in the far corner of the limousine, staring out the window, oblivious to her surroundings. She didn't bother to look his way. She had no reason to now, not after the way he had just treated her.

"Dru look...this isn't as bad as it seems. If I had told Nadia about you...about us...she wouldn't have understood. That's why I didn't say anything. It's better this way...better for you...for us." Justin explained.

Dru sucked in a breath and shook her head. "No Justin. That's not why." She didn't take her gaze away from the window. "You just didn't want her to know that you are sort of in a relationship with a poor, uneducated barbarian named Dru...and I understand that Justin. I really do." She nodded. "Justin, you don't have to make up any more excuses...I'm used to being sh *tted on."

"You're not a barbarian."

Dru didn't reply.

"I'll make it up to you Dru."

"You can't make it up to me." She whispered. "You don't know any other way of doing things. This is how you are...and you probably don't realize this...but you probably act this way all the time. You just don't see it, because everyone else around you acts the same way."

Justin crossed his arms. "I don't act like anything," he pouted childishly. "You're just jealous."

Dru laughed. "Right. I'm jealous. " She shook her head. "Jealous of what?"

"Of Nadia." Justin replied, with a smile. "And I totally understand..."

"See!" Dru hollered. "You're doing it...again!"

"Huh?"

"You...you aren't even taking my feelings into consideration. Justin, you watched while that woman talked down to me and you acted like it was okay. Now, you're saying I shouldn't be upset about it...and you're also acting like I should feel out of place...like Nadia is better than me or something. I'm telling you right now Justin...I would rather be back digging through the trash than be in that womans shoes!"

Justin stared at her in disbelief. Never had she been so firm with him. So commanding. It made him smile. She was a lot stronger than she had been in the city. He quickly repositioned himself next to her. She was so busy venting that she didn't even notice.

"I mean really..." She rambled on. "Who do you think you are
Justin? In all my life I have never..."

"Shhh," he smiled, covering her mouth with his hand. "Shh."

"Mshtn mmmp!" She said, her words muffled by his hand. She pushed it away, disgusted. "I hate you," she pouted.

He kissed her.

Silence.

Dru bit her bottom lip nervously. She looked into his eyes, which were filled with the look of love they always held after they kissed. She half smiled. She couldn't help it. She loved him. "You suck," she muttered, angry that she was letting him get away with what he had done.

Justin caressed her face with his palm. "Sorry," he said softly. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah yeah." She looked out the window again. Within seconds she felt him wrap his arms around her, she felt his warm breath in her ear. "Justin..."

"Things will get better." He told her. "They will."

"Okay." She felt the tears crawling down her face now. The overwhelming events of the day were taking their toll on her less than stable emotions.

He kissed the back of her ear. "Tonight...I want tonight to be special. Do you think...tonight should be special Dru?"

Dru began to tremble. He wanted sex. Tonight of all nights he wanted to have sex. With all that had happened today...couldn't he just lay off? No...because having sex with her was a goal of his, this she knew, because she had been trying to get him to put it off for a long time. Getting her in bed was a challenge to him...that was just the type of guy he was. But, if she did it tonight, that meant it would be over with tomorrow...and that meant that she wouldn't have to worry about it for a least a week or so. "Tonight should be special," she got out. She could feel him smile.

"I love you."

She didn't reply. She could only think of what she was going to do to prepare herself for an experience that she had never had the opportunity to enjoy in her lifetime. Sex was torture, something that had once put food in her stomach and a roof over her head...that was all she had ever come to know it as. She had never thought of it as something that was done for pleasure.

Maybe tonight would be different.

Or maybe the memories of her horrible past would hit her so hard she would lose her mind.