No Diggity [Jo]

[Aurora Jane Bates]

Rory dipped her paint brush back into the can and wiped it on the side to let the excess drip off before dragging it along the length of the wood.  She was on the last one.  She was making her own 'clip boards' to hang her photos on.  Photos of hers and Jo's favorite places in the world.  Rory wanted to get images from each place during fall to hang up soon.  Whatever song was on spotify was her soundtrack at the moment as she stood up to take a break, dancing around the couch and did a tight double pirouette, until she stopped to examine the paint she'd just flung onto the wall.  "Oops," she said, tilting her head sideways and decided she liked the character it added.  She was dying for Jo to come home from work.  Rory's day had felt so surreal she was actually wondering if she'd made it up.  

Rory pranced all the way to her room, leaping through the doorway, and picked up the camera Ethan had given her.  It was still there, she hadn't made it up.  She couldn't wait to get some quality film in it and take some really awesome photos.  Maybe she could convince Jo to let Rory dress her up and be a model.  Her heart skipped a beat again thinking about Ethan.  It was going to need to stop doing that sometime soon.  His Australian accent had made Aurora sound so much more beautiful than it was.  Rory heard the front door and immediately put down the camera and ran to the living room and stopped directly in front of Jo, "You are not going to believe the camera that I am now a proud owner of, and you are definitely not going to believe who gave it to me."  

[JoHanna K Roberts]

Jo scrunched her nose as she tried to squeeze herself tightly on the subway. When you were little people just expected you to basically disappear into thin air so that they could sandwich themselves in. But after a few steps she finally was able to get off and catch some fresh air. Well, “fresh” air. “ Got a problem, bro?” she asked defensively against a guy that was walking off the bus, staring at her as she finally was able stretch her arms out in the open space. Jo walked the remainder from the stop to their apartment. Jo dug through her purse, feeling around for her keys to their apartment, finding them at the very bottom of her purse surrounded by different trinkets.

Jo sighed, stepping inside as she dropped her bag and starting taking her jacket off. She threw it onto the couch, looking at Rory who seemed really excited. “ Yikes,” she said quietly. “ Well, awesome. You’ll have fun using it. Who gave it to you?”she questioned as she moved to her room to change out of her work clothes. Jo looked over her shoulder, assuming that Rory would follow her into her room before she started changing out of her shirt and pants. She scrunched her nose, looking for an oversized t-shirt and reluctantly pulled on a pair of yoga shorts with it, letting the shoulder of her shirt hang off of her frame and onto her arm. Jo looked back at Rory, lifting her eyebrows in suspense as she brought her hands up and put her hair into a messy bun. “ Oh my god, when you’re done telling me, we have to talk about work today. I totally almost got caught taking a coat today.” she said as she walked to the fridge and took out a bottle of starbucks coffee. Almost instantly she spit it out, turning the bottle over to look at the date before she dropped the glass into the sink. Jo moved to the couch, sitting by the arm and pulled her legs up to her chest as she watched Rory.

[Aurora Jane Bates]

Rory followed Jo to her room, "Um..." she said, distracted already, glancing at the coat Jo had shown up with.  That Jo, always accumulating things.  Jo had changed, telling Rory she needed to tell her about her day at work too, and Rory sat down in an arm chair, pulling her feet up underneath herself.  "So at work today, Rosie Madison, -is it not Madison anymore?- and Ethan Fox came into the store.  Which was so weird, we never get like, famous people in the store.  Anyways, Ethan asked for some helped finding gifts for friends, and then he bought that camera I talked about all last week, and gave it to me.  Just like that!  And then he gave me his number because apparently he wants to see the pictures I take with it.  And then, to top it all off, he asked me what Rory was short for, and I stupidly told him.  Oh, and I forgot about the part where we danced.  We danced." She let out a breath with a nod after having told all the highlights, feeling flushed just recapping it.  

"It was just... weird.  I'm saying it was weird.  He was really nice."  There.  Now she had told someone, it was out of her system, now she could let it go.  "Anyways, um cute coat, did someone almost see you taking it?"  Jo had this habit of taking things that weren't hers, and Rory really didn't mind all too much cuz like, free stuff, hello.  

[JoHanna K Roberts]

Jo stared at Rory with a blank expression as she tried to follow the chaos that spilled out of her mouth. It was rare that Rory got this excited about stuff, but when she did it you couldn’t hold her back. “ It’s not Madison,” she said with a straight face as she shook her head. She might not keep up with Hollywood people that much, but that model was frikkin gorgeous. And of course she had the perfect Irish guy. They were so beautiful it was almost nauseating. “ Okay wait.. Is he the one that’s Thor?” she asked in confusion as she picked up her phone to start googling who he was. No, definitely not Thor. “ Wait,…” she said, closing her eyes as she shook her head, ignoring when Rory was wanting to talk about her day at work now.

“ You danced with him? And he gave you his number?” she asked with a confused expression. “ Isn’t he engaged? To the twerker?” she asked again before setting her phone down. Wine. They needed wine. Jo stood up from the couch, going over to the kitchen where she found a coffee mug and a bowl that was clean, pouring some wine into each of them. She walked over, deciding to be nice and offered Rory the coffee mug, keeping the bowl to herself before she lift it and took a drink. “ Okay, but HOW were you guys dancing? Why did you tell him your name? What…. Is happening,” she said, all quickly, but all in a very dry and lethargic tone.

[Aurora Jane Bates]

Rory shook her head, "No not Thor the other one, yeah google it."  Thank god someone else was interested in this story.  No, thank god someone else had understood everything that had spilled out of her mouth.  Rory had a way of rambling and telling things out of order, and Jo had a way of piecing it back together.  "Yeah he gave me his number, that's weird right?  Like if I was famous, I would not give my number to random people, right?"  Rory sighed, falling back in the chair and leaned into the lumpiness of it.  "And he is just so like.... normal.  But Jo, he is crazy attractive.  I'm pretty sure I was blushing like a tomato when he left.  Oh thanks poophead."  She smiled endearingly and took the coffee mug and took a sip.  it was great when Jo could buy alcohol.  "I don't KNOWWW why I told him my name, he kept asking me about it, and he asked all nice and he kept smiling at me and stuff!  And then he goes 'Aurora' and I'll be damned if it all of a sudden sounded like the best name on the earth when he said it.  Oh, and we danced and it was like..."  she sounded like a little school girl about to like, break out into some terrible song and dance number in a musical.  "Well stand up."  Rory set her mug down, and grabbed Jo's bowl, setting that down too and made Jo stand up, and began dancing with her the ways he had earlier in the day, "And it was just silly and fun, and he dipped me like this, and spun me around, and Earth Wind and Fire was playing..." she said, shaking her head like it was literally the craziest thing that had happened in her lifetime.  "I don't know what is going on.  Like what, am I actually supposed to like, contact him?!  He IS engaged to the twerker."

[JoHanna K Roberts]

Jo kept her eyes on Rory as she used both hands to lift the bowl up to her mouth and take a sip, listening to every word that she was saying. At least it had been an eventful day in a good way for Rory. She couldn’t help but smile as Rory stood up wanting to dance, forcing Jo to do the same. She laughed, taking Rory’s hand and danced with her, probably more clumsily than what she and Ethan had done earlier tonight. She smiled, waiting for Rory to finish her little rant and questions, and excitement. She lift her arm, spinning Rory slightly one more time before she plopped back onto the couch. “ I have never seen you so excited about a boy in ……ever.” she said honestly, realizing that it was the truth. Rory kept a safe distance from guys, partially her fault there with not setting a great example in the love department.

Jo took in a deep breath and shook her head, just trying to comprehend everything. “ I mean, they’re just people, right?” she said, looking over at Rory. Living in New York had taught them that more than anything. Some celebrities were assholes, some were kind, some were boring and some were cool as hell. She saw her fair share of each on set at work during her internship, but the thing was ; that’s what made them human. Even ordinary people on the street thought they were hot shit. “ He gave you his number I say go for it,” she said honestly as she shrugged her shoulder. “ Suddenly you can’t talk to someone because they’re engaged? That means they’re a leper?” she asked, looking toward her room as she noticed Liam Neeson coming into the living room lazily and tried a couple of times unsuccessfully before he was able to jump onto the couch and fell tiredly next to Jo. “ Are you positive it is his real number?” she asked curiously.

[Aurora Jane Bates]

Rory scoffed, "Well, yeah I mean, come on..." when Jo said she hadn't ever seen her this excited about a boy.  It was an attractive guy, that sort of changed the game.  But yeah Rory really kept her distance from guys.  You could ask her until your tongue fell out what she was so scared of, but she honestly wasn't so sure.  She was just scared of getting hurt.  She'd always been a little different, and she'd paid the price for it growing up.  She'd been tired of never fitting in, feeling like people just didn't get her.  How was that different with guys?  She was never the girl guys wanted to date.  She was either a really cool friend, or they just thought she was weird.  The idea of letting a guy in enough to actually have a relationship was probably her biggest fear in life to date.  

"I mean, I think it's his real number, do you think he was just messing with me?"  Would he do that?  Guys could be mean sometimes, Rory knew that well enough.  Another reason she was scared of them.  Rory pulled her knees up to her chest.  Beside all the general excitement of the encounter, she didn't really understand what it all meant.  She didn't want to read too much into things, maybe he just thought she was cool.  Which, she was, obviously.  "I don't know.  Now I just don't know," she said taking her wine and downed the remainder of it.  Rory reached out her mug toward Jo, leaning back and threw her other arm over her eyes dramatically, "Hit me again."  This was too much thinking.  Too easy a situation to get hurt in.

[JoHanna K Roberts]

Jo leaned forward and poured the remainder of wine that was in her bowl into Rory’s coffee cup before sitting back. It was sort of a lot for one day. It wasn’t often that Rory got this worked up about someone, and then on top of that the fact that he was a celebrity, and then on top of that he was engaged. Jo bit the inside of her cheek, looking over at her friend. It wasn’t like Rory to read too much into stuff. She was usually pretty spot on. Jo shook her head, “ You were there, I wasn’t. But you know that you rarely overthink things,” she said before reaching down to pet Liam Neeson. It was just so crazy that all of this had happened when just this morning nothing exciting at all seemed to be happening to them.

“ Here I’ll find out, give me the number,” Jo said before getting up to go get her cellphone. She pushed her bangs from her face, unlocking her phone as she made her way back to the living room. All she really knew about the guy was that he was a celebrity. It would be easy as hell to block her number when trying to call him and then if he answered and it was him, simply question about confirming an interview without naming anything specific. People had a tendency to fill in the blanks for you. And since it would be work related, he wouldn’t be worried about whether or not Rory was giving his number out. Jo sat back down, looking down at her phone before looking up at Rory.

[Aurora Jane Bates]

"Right though?"  Jo was right.  Rory was the level headed one usually.  She was rarely ever wrong about a person.  And it had seemed like something had been going on.  And it was hard too, to make a judgement without being biased because he was a celebrity.  "What are you going to do," Rory said, handing her phone over skeptically after having found the number in he contacts where she'd left it indefinitely.  Rory looked down at Milo who had brushed against her leg and scooped him up where he nuzzled onto her lap and lay down there.  "Oh god, this is too much," she stated pulling a blanket off the back of the chair and pulled it over her head.  She couldn't look.  Not that her vision had anything to do with it, but hiding seemed like the thing to do right now.  Milo was purring loudly, and Rory pulled he blanket down so that it was wrapped up around her head like a hood but she could still see.  She drank more wine.  This was SO unlike herself, she was being such a moron right now.  She couldn't help herself.  

[JoHanna K Roberts]

Jo looked through Rory’s phone as she responded to what she was doing, “ What I always do. Be a boss,” she said lazily, finding the number. She licked her lips punching the star six nine so that her number would be blocked before calling Ethan’s number. She looked over at Rory, waiting as there was silence at first. She made a slight face, thinking it wasn’t going to connect before it started ringing. Each ring felt like it was taking forever. “ Hello?” a voice echoed on the other end of the phone. Jo lift her eyebrows, looking at Rory. She stalled a moment before plugging her nose and trying to talk in a nasally tone, “ Hi, I’m calling on behalf of your upcoming interview. I wanted to confirm that was still going to happen,” she said , making a ‘wtf’ face to Rory. “ Oh um, for Rolling Stone?” he questioned.

Jo nodded once at Rory, giving her a thumbs up before she plugged her nose again , “ That’s right, Mr.Fox. Here at Rolling Stone we just wanted to make sure you still had time for us in your busy schedule,”. There was a moment of silence , “ Yeah that’s fine, you can just call me Ethan. Usually Rick calls.” he said. “ Rick’s on vacation,” she said out more quickly than anything else she had said tonight. “ Oh, alright. Yeah, looking forward to talking to you guys. I do have a quick que-“ “ Have a good night, Ethan,” she said before hanging up and looking at Rory. Jo cleared her throat , trying to casually hand Rory her phone. “ Yeah, that’s Ethan Fox.” she said before sitting back.

[Aurora Jane Bates]

Rory had been literally biting all her fingers listening to this phone conversation, feeling her heart skip a beat for about the hundredth time that day when Jo gave her a thumbs up.  When she hung up and confirmed that it had been Ethan Rory covered her face with both hands, "Oh my god, I'm dead."  There it was.  The walls were going up.  "Jo, I can't contact him, that's crazy."  Rory stood up carrying Milo with her heading to her room.  They actually had a gig tonight at a small little underground club.  Jo hated telling people.  Rory just spent all her days fantasizing about her little ukelele and how cute it was.  "I need to sleep on this."  There.  She needed to process.  That was what she needed.  And she needed to focus on something else.  "Wait, come help me pick something out and tell me about your work day, distract me."

[JoHanna K Roberts]

“ You can contact him…. I just did,” Jo said, groaning as she had to get up to follow her. Clearly there was no rest for the wicked tonight. She grumbled to herself, hating the fact that they had a gig tonight. “Liam, no!” she yelled out at him as he started to inappropriately love one of their couch pillows. Jo stopped into her room first, going through her closet and just grabbing the first few things that she could find before she came out and made her way to Rory’s room. “ Work was stupid,” she said in annoyance. She took her hair down, hoping that Rory would braid it when they were done getting dressed later.

“ So I’m doing my thing and reading through the script, and then I went and visited the set. And I just..” she sighed, rolling her eyes. “ They aren’t going to use that jacket again, and it was REALLY windy tonight for some reason. I don’t feel like walking in that wind. So I saw the jacket and was like… I’ll borrow it..” she said, knowing that Rory meant that she was just going to bring it home. “ And that stupid, idiot.. he didn’t say anything. But I know he saw it. And I feel like it’s a matter of time until I get canned,” she said grumpily as she started to change.

[Aurora Jane Bates]

"Okay so you stole it," Rory laughed, pushing clothes back and forth through her closet.  "Who saw you do it, which idiot?"  Not what person was an idiot, it was which idiot, because in Jo's world there were multiple idiots.  Rory went through a mental list of things Jo had 'borrowed' and knew the list was too long to actually remember everything.  Rory had some things too.  "Okay well they haven't canned you YET."  Rory wondered why someone would just not report Jo if they had seen her.  Why were people so weird today.  Rory held up two pairs of shorts, "Which ones?" and then threw the pair Jo had pointed to on the bed.

[JoHanna K Roberts]

“ Stole is such an ugly word,” she said, making a slight face as she sat onto Rory’s bed and stretched her legs out in front of her once she was dressed. “ The idiot with the hook,” she said in annoyance. “ All the girls on set are like oooh and ahhh like he’s.. chocolate or something. Which is just, disgusting,” she said. “ But anyway, I’m pretty sure he saw and I don’t know if he has seen it before so who knows if he’ll rat me out,” she said, making another disgusted face before she looked up at Rory. “ Wear the top you got during spring break,” she said, starting to pop her knuckles. “ And if he does rat me out, who the hell is he, you know? Like.. Oh, being a celebrity isn’t enough, now you have to make sure the people beneath you have a crappy life, too?”

[Aurora Jane Bates]

Yes, stole was an ugly word, and what a Jo thing to point out.  "Captain Hook saw you?" Rory asked, shrugging.  Rory laughed though because Jo hated chocolate.  Pointing her finger into the air like an aha moment about the shirt.  "Well maybe he just doesn't really care. Like it's not like you're taking anything from his wardrobe, and what loss is it to him?  It's not."  Rory dug around the floor of her closet for a specific pair of shoes.  Getting dressed was always this silly thing where she drove herself crazy trying to pick something and then opted for whatever items were lying on the floor in front of her.  "hey who knows what kind of celebrity he is, apparently there are different kinds of them."  She made a face, the Ethan ordeal coming back to her mind and she shook her head as if she could shake him off.