After All(70)

They gave us plenty of time to back off and go away and yet we kept on pushing their buttons.

"My, aren't you fellas so big and strong?"

Finally, understandably, we were arrested. I remember clearly, like it was yesterday, the moment we were at the station being fingerprinted and I looked over at Matt, who was wearing a pink, floral dress and had a red, curly wig half-hanging off his head, and I said, "Matt, you look ridiculous."


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Needless to say, we were let go in the morning, after spending a night in the cell dressed as women.

But the LA jails are no joke. Lucky for me, tonight I was shoved into the drunk tank with a bunch of frat boys who had passed right out and didn't give me any trouble.

Fucking hell though, what a hell of a night it was. To go from the high of having Alyssa on my arm at the party, actually having someone I wanted to show off, that I cared for deeply, that I was proud of, to losing my temper on the paparazzi. I had the night planned out so differently.

First, we would get the tacos and fill our bellies since I know from experience that the food choices at LA events are pretty skimpy since no one eats in this town, then we would go back to the hotel.

And I know that Alyssa had been standoffish after the last time we had sex and I also know I admitted that I might just be a rat-bastard in the end, but the fact was, I wanted nothing more than to get her naked and beneath me again. It was truly the only time I knew that what we had was real, that each moan, each look, each touch, meant more than anything either of us could ever say.

When I'm deep inside her, there is only truth between us.

The thing is … she's getting under my skin. She's slipping into my veins, a poison, a drug, and like most foolish men, I'm too weak to stay away, to say no.

I want her. Every day. Every night. I want her in my bed, I want her in my arms. I want her sitting across from me at the dinner table, not just for the next two months, but … for as long as I can. When I think about Alyssa now, it's no longer in terms of contracts. It's no longer in terms of what should be, what's supposed to be. It's no longer in terms of what's fake.

When I think about her, I think about just her. I think about what she does to me, what she means to me.

Honestly, she means the fucking world.

And I'm having a hell of a time expressing that to her because everything we have between us is supposed to be a lie. And if I was smart I would be keep it that way. After all, I told her about the kind of person I was, that I might hurt her in the end. But the truth is, I don't want to lie anymore.

I want every single moment we share to mean something.

The only problem is, she doesn't know the real me.

Though, fuck, she sure got a glimpse of that tonight.

I've always been very guarded with my private life. No one really gave a shit until I went on Degrassi and then the Canadian press started poking and prodding the boy behind Cruiser McGill. But that's the Canadian press. They're pretty bashful about it all. When they asked me about my parents, I told them both of them died when I was young and I was raised in Mission by my aunt. No one ever bothered to look into it. And there was no one from my previous life, the life on Vancouver's east side, that would ever argue. Everyone except Jimmy is pretty much dead. 

That said, it doesn't surprise me that somehow someone would start digging and find the truth behind it all. I'm not ashamed. The problem with it all is that people get the wrong ideas. They start making assumptions. That's where it gets dangerous.

The right thing tonight would have been to address the guy's questions and set the record straight. But I just wanted to be alone with Alyssa and the fucker caught me off-guard, especially as he was the only reporter so far who knew the truth about my mother. I know my mother was clean when she had me, that she only started using a few years after my father left, and I'm pretty sure she wasn't a prostitute. She was more or less always at home and if she ever had guys over, I was allowed to hang out with them, if I wanted.

I rarely did. Even when you're raised around drug use, it never stops being a terrifying monster, one that doesn't live in your closet but out there in the open.

Fuck. Who fucking knows. What's worse is that even if I did try and set the record straight, the guy wouldn't have cared. No one would have cared. They only want the worst details from you as possible.

Well they have them now. Tomorrow, it will be known exactly what the man was asking me before I punched him, therefore, my truth will be laid bare for people to judge, as will my actions.