May 17, 2015: part two

OFF CAMERA: 05-17-2015

On her way out of the hotel to her meeting across town with Harmony, Nessa had been cursing how slow the elevator was when she'd already been running ten minutes late thanks to a catastrophe involving a pair of misplaced shoes. She'd spent indeterminate minutes alternately contemplating the cables snapping and plunging her to certain doom down the shaft to growing old and gray before the damned thing ever reached the lobby. Now that ponderously slow ride was a blessing since she had ample time to think about how she was going to bring up the subject of that video. Twice, she pulled out her phone, scrolling through the contacts list and hovering over Mika's name— how in God's name had that thing completely passed by her notice for months? Even with her actively using the site and still posting blogs (as well as getting into a flame war through the comments), she'd been utterly oblivious and that made her angrier than it should have. By the time the damned mirrored box reached the top floor, she was more than furious at herself for the complete lapse in concentration than anything else. "Stupid, stupid, stupid," she muttered, letting her head fall back against the glass for a second before the doors finally opened with a muted ping.

Steeling herself for what was sure to be another awkward conversation, she marched down the hallway towards the suite she was sharing with Matt Stone. By the time she reached the door, her pulse was pounding in her ears and her cheeks were flushed but the anger was vacillating towards Harmony now.

How dare she try and slap some silly little label on what I have with Matt. How dare she try and imply I'm stupid enough to let myself get tangled up in some toxic relationship!

If the keycard hadn't worked in the lock, she might've blown a gasket and kicked the door in (or at the very least tried to). Thankfully that little light blinked green and she found herself on the other side of the door, breathing heavily as she leaned back against it. The first thing she saw was a mess of clothing on the floor, the bathroom light on despite being empty, the television on and the small garbage pail knocked over with some litter surrounding it. To say that Matt Stone was a messy person would be an understatement, and Nessa was only gone for an hour or so. Matt had heard the door open and close, rather abruptly, and poked his head over the end of the bed to get a view of Nessa.

"You're back early," he started, noticing she was breathing rather heavily, her face a little flush. "Did you decide to run here? You look less than perfect, to say the least," he added with a slight grin, never missing an opportunity to point out something obvious. All he knew of her little trip was that she was going to meet with Harmony and he couldn't have been less interested in that, finding her both boring and annoying.

"I can't believe the nerve of that... that..." she was almost speechless in her fury, "that meddling bitch!"

"Oh my...did she talk about her dreadful gym again? Or maybe something that her guy did? What's his name...Ned or something?"

Stone got up off the bed and grabbed the bottle of water that was left on Nessa's side table, bringing it to her. "I can't image what kind of advice she could offer you that would be considered meddling, though."

Nessa stared at him for a few seconds, completely unable to be angry with him in the face of that sweet gesture. "Miss High and Mighty seems to think that..." she trailed off, shaking her head as she uncapped the water.

"Is it something so incredibly stupid that you can't bring yourself to say it out loud? I get like that sometimes; your friends aren't the brightest, dear." He said, heading back to the main part of the room, taking a seat in one of the two chairs provided.

"Stupid, yes," she nodded emphatically, "completely and utterly preposterous. She felt the need to show me the video of us burning Mika's things, put me on the spot and asked me if I knew about it. Since I didn't and she could tell she'd all but ambushed me with it, she jumped into this sad little spiel about how you're trying to isolate me from all my friends."

That got his attention, Matt sitting up now and looking over at her. "She did, did she?" He asked, trying to gauge how she felt about that, looking for a sign of this just being an act or if she was really upset with Harmony over him. "Interesting theory, but unless she feels that Mika is your only friend, her point is sort of idiotic, isn't it?"

"I suppose it is," she let out a bitter little laugh, "and the funniest thing is that in creating this little situation she feels she needs to save me from, she's only proved without a shadow of a doubt how completely awful she is as a friend. I mean, honestly, saying you're trying to control me as though I'm some weak-willed little puppet?"

"Perish the thought" He started, shaking his head at what he was hearing. "If I was controlling you, I wouldn't have let you go see her now, would I? Would I allow you to be the Vice President of a company and spend time with that, rather than be at my beck and call? Of course not; you're your own woman, and that's one of the many things I adore about you." He said reassuringly, wanting to put this potential fire out once and for all. "Not to seem unsupportive..." he started, looking to word this the best, "but it appears to me that maybe she's the one trying to control you?"

"That's exactly what I left that restaurant thinking," Nessa nodded, "and it really seems to me that for all her babbling about how wonderful Nathan really is to her that she's simply jealous that I have someone like you... someone who supports me and understands the day-to-day torture of this business of ours."

"Well let's be fair to her for a moment, she's having just as many issues with that other blonde girl that you were, and if I had just lost one of my best friends, I might be tempted to try and sabotage my only other friend's life if it meant ensuring they would rely on me for support. It's a pretty shitty thing to do to you, but she seems like a pretty desperate person."

Nessa opened her mouth to reply and then closed it, considering his words. "You know, I think you might be right. She doesn't have anyone else in the company. I mean, that Heafy idiot she had that series with is long gone and her little friendship with Lex Collins," she rolled her eyes, "well we both know that Rain Main isn't even capable of normal human interaction. You're right. She needs me. That's why she's trying to plant those seeds and undermine what we have. God, what a selfish cow!"

"I don't know about her being a cow, I was under the impression that she was a fairly..." he stopped there, realizing what he was saying and how it likely wouldn't go over well, "nevermind, the point is, she wasn't right to try and plant any seed, let alone trying to pull you away from me. You know how much I care for you, right?"

"I do," she replied quickly, "and honestly, that was never up for debate. I know you had your reasons for posting that video without telling me— I appreciate that, I do— you finally helped me free myself of that deranged barnacle."

"I honestly didn't realize I hadn't told you." He said quickly, knowing full well that he hadn't, but admitting it now seemed to be detrimental to his plan. "Remember when I asked if I could borrow your laptop a while ago? That's when I uploaded it; your blog remembers your password. I just thought it was a funny little thing for your fans to enjoy; they so rarely get to see the playful side of you. I meant no harm, of course." He said, deflecting as much as he could under the guise of appeasing her fanbase.

Grinning, she nodded, "of course. And when I looked at the stats, it was one of the most popular uploads in the last year. Clearly you know what you're doing, sweetie— that's why you're a far better manager than Alex ever was."

"Who?' He asked, without a hint of sarcasm. "Oh, right...that guy you were going to marry...whatever happened to him?" He asked, glad to have changed the subject, for now.

"I'm not really sure," Nessa replied, "last I heard he went back home to Nebraska, I think it was. The publisher that was going to buy his book pulled out when they found out he'd plagiarised half of it from fanfic-dot-net, at least from what I heard. Either way, good riddance to that talentless, spineless hack."

Matt started laughing at that, finding it to be the most ridiculous thing he had heard. "I didn't even know he was an author...I didn't really bother to get to know him at all, in fact. Oh well, it's a sad fact of life that sometimes people we used to care about turn out to be people we no longer want in our lives, eh?" He added, bringing the conversation around full circle.

She moved in closer to him, reaching out to lay a hand on his shoulder. "The ones who really matter are the ones who are always here, through wins and losses and everything else."

He wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her a little closer. "I agree completely, and no matter what other people tell you, I'm always going to be here for you." He said, really trying to hit it home how wrong Harmony was.

"I'm gonna hold you to that," she replied, feeling herself starting to finally calm down.

"I expect nothing less from you, Ness. Now I don't know if you should cut her out or anything, Ness; I'm no expert on controlling people, but if that's what you decide to do, just know I'll support it."

"I'm going to at least sleep on it," she said softly, leaning against him as she perched on the arm of the chair he sat in. "The last thing I need to do is make some snap decision when I'm furious and end up regretting it later."

"I think that would be best. I just don't want to get in the middle of you two if you think she's still a good friend; I don't know how I would live with myself if I knew I cost you a true friend, Nessa." Matt was persistent, you had to give him that. "Aside from that...encounter, was there anything else you wanted to do today?"

"I did want to go shopping at Macy's, but that's been ruined for me now." It was truly a sad state of affairs when Nessa had lost her appetite for shopping. A sad state of affairs indeed.