THE EDGE ➶ JAMES FRANCO✔️

4. WOULD YOU LIKE A CAT WITH THAT?

Begin Again by Taylor Swift

"I've been spending the last eight months thinking all love ever does is break and burn and end. But on a Wednesday, in a café, I watched it begin again."

~~~

Walking into Le Brumé, the cute Panera-Bread-like café downtown, Allison spots him immediately. He's making small talk with someone sitting at the table behind his.

"Hey, James."

He turns towards the voice he loves so much. "What's up, Allie?" The biggest smile she's ever seen spreads out across his face.

She rolls her eyes playfully. "Oh, I'm Allie now; I see. Can I call you Jay?"

"Whatever works." He shrugs.

She shakes her head, laughing.

"I wanna introduce you to my agent, Kyle Petty." James motions towards the man he was talking with and nods.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," she says, holding out her right hand to shake his.

Kyle takes her hand and kisses it instead.

"The pleasure's all mine," he says with a smile.

"Yeah, he's a bit of a flirt," James remarks with a smirk on his face. "Tried picking me up the first day I met him."

"Did not!" Kyle exclaims, hand over heart, faux shock on his face.

Sitting down across from James, she places her purse on the floor by her feet. However, she notices that her black pump's heel catches the handle, but she decides to ignore it rather than fiddle around with it. She'd aware that her klutzy move will only make her look like a mess.

Suddenly, the lady dining with Kyle stands up, motioning for him to join her.

"Well, gotta go. See you soon, Jamie." Kyle turns to you. "Hopefully I'll see you very soon." He winks and walks off, the woman accompanying him laughing off what he just said.

I guess she's used to him flirting with other people.

"But, okay, what's with Jamie?" She questions. "Why'd he call you that?"

A playful look in his eye, James tells Allison that the first day he and Kyle had met, Kyle misunderstood his name and called him Jamie. It stuck and is now their own little joke.

"So, you said you'd never been here before?" James asks.

"This is only Day Three," she says, giggling.

"Three out of..." He trails off, a questioning look on his face.

"Many, hopefully."

"Good." He is obviously in a good mood today; he had bothered to clean up a little bit. He had gotten his hair shaped-up and he doesn't look like he'd had a hangover this morning.

After ordering, James's face changes from lighthearted to serious.

"Allie, I wanted to ask you something."

Oh, no. Did I do something wrong?

"Shoot," she says coolly.

"I realize this is such a fifties term, but I want to ask you to go steady with me."

What?

Shock fills her otherwise smiling expression. "What do you mean, James?"

"Honestly, I don't know if you could handle it. Most girls can't. I'm a player, Allison; that's just the truth. Can you be there for me?"

Her confidence grows as she remembers an important lesson she learned from a previous relationship: her feelings matter, too.

"Can you be there for me?" She asks, lifting her chin, but still looking comfortable in the situation.

"I hope so, but if I'm ever not, you'd have every right to leave and I wouldn't blame you." He pauses as he searches for the words he wants to use. "I really, really like you, Allison, and I don't want to hurt you, but if I do, turn the tables and hurt me. I deserve it more than anyone. Will you do it?"

Don't do it, Allison. Think of Bradley. You two still have a chance. You've only known this guy for three days! What the hell did you get yourself into? This a dangerous game you're playing.

You shake the pesky angel off your shoulder and take a potentially devilish move. "Yes. Anything you say, James."

~~~

After lunch, he takes her out for a walk in the park. He sneaks a kiss on her cheek when she stares out at the nearby beach. She just smiles and ignores the flashing cameras, proud. The quick pecks turn into holding hands and making out; neither of them care about the press anymore.

Coming upon an iron bench, the pair sit down when suddenly something brushes against her leg.

"What the hell was that?" She screams, picking up her legs.

Looking down at her predator, James laughs and picks it up. "It's only a cat, Allison."

She calms down. She's always had this fear of... Nevermind.

She spends a few minutes petting the little tomcat, smiling at his soft purrs.
"I wonder if he's a stray," she says, looking around for anyone that might know.

"We can look around and ask the local humane center if anyone's looking for him."

"Oh, can we?"

"Knock yourself out, A. We'll go get the car."

Carrying the small black and white kitten, she rushes into the humane center and searches the "missing" bulletin board thoroughly. Nothing.

James asks the elderly lady at the front desk if anyone was asking about him. Nope.

She requests to see him, and once she does, she smiles brightly.

"Oh, that little darling is the local stray. Go ahead, take 'em home. He's a real sweetheart," she says.

~~~

Later, James offers to drive her home and she obliges.

Just before she gets out of his car at her apartment complex, he asks her if she wants to stay with him that night.

Giving in to those chocolate lab eyes is easy for her.

"Your cat can come, too," he adds with that award-winning smile of his.

"I think I'm gonna call him Gatsby," she says, after one-handedly loading a set of clothes and a toothbrush in his backseat.

"Why?" James asks, taking off.

"He's a tuxedo cat." She scratches behind the kitten's ears and loud purrs fill the Cadillac.

"Is that what they're called?"

"Yep. I think you'd look good in a tuxedo, too," she adds, smirking.

"Would I, now? Have you not seen pictures of me on the red carpet? I think I look pretty damn good."

"Sure do."

~~~

So things do get a little rowdy when she slips into bed with him. He invites her, of course.

She swears she'll never forget the night she made love to James Franco, one of the hottest bachelors to ever grace a movie screen, or so she whispers in his ear at two 'o clock in the morning.

~~~

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