IN WHICH the heiress to grunge is swooned by the king of garage rock in a lifelong affair over the span of three decades, always fervidly dancing on the edge of crashing and burning...
[2000s JULIAN CASABLANCAS x GROUPIE!OC]
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"Well, those are your girlfriend's tits. On fifth avenue." Nick tapped his cigarette, looking up at the photo of bleach blonde Stella with her arms crossed over her breasts. "She's not my girlfriend," Julian scoffed as Nick cocked his brows with a laugh, "Just a girl." His chest slightly tightened as he saw her skin blown up on the side of a building, "YVES SAINT LAURENT, PARIS" across her stomach. "Right, right. Just a girl." He shook his head as they got a move on, Julian's eyes burning into the advert. He thought it was ridiculous. Matter of fact, he had told her she shouldn't when she first brought it up at Nobu about two weeks ago.
"What? You don't like it?" she frowned as she ran her fingers through the new chemical cut that barely reached her shoulders. She looked like she'd received prophecies to order the french military, full Joan of Arc in Morrisey's eyes. "The hair? Yeah. Your...chest situation? Not so much." He dipped his chopsticks into the sauce before picking up another roll. Stella grimaced like a petulant child as she ate a spoonful of rice. "It's just an ad, its haute couture. You wouldn't get it." He rolled his eyes at her defiant words. Tension had been brewing beneath their feet and it was seeping in. Stella was playing a silent chess game, every move a plea for attention and validation. Julian was cornered between her overbearing doting and the ever growing concern of labels.
It made his skin crawl. The thought of calling her something more intimate than just Stella. He had never been big on "Girlfriends". Maybe once or twice in high school and he had absolutely hated the over-saturation of it all. Then again, Stella had an english paper due at twelve and an afterparty at one. It was his fault and it freaked him out. He had held her hand through it all, had coaxed and squeezed and pleased her enough. Had he not lingered by Notre Dame he wouldn't be in this mess. Stella was enamored and he was tugging on the collar of his shirt for some fresh air.
"Don't tell me she's just a groupie." Nick fixed his sunglasses as they walked back to the studio. Julian scoffed again, the chain on his jeans jingling as he walked with a new, brisk pace as if outrunning her. "She's just a girl, Nick. Nothing more. She's good in bed but I mean, it's like my mom is waiting for me in the wings whenever she comes up to me with that beer and that towel like I'm some baby." He howled with laughter, sunglasses nearly falling off the bridge of his nose. "That's what you get, man. She's a puppy. She probably expects you at her graduation." He tossed his cigarette on the sidewalk as they passed the department stores, "Remember, you bet me money on this shit."
Across the Hudson in Brooklyn, Stella sat in Chloë's kitchen watching her clean out her closet while she finished her math work. "Hey, these Tabis are your size. Want em?" she chuckled, swinging them towards Stella. She flinched and smiled but a flicker of sadness crossed her eyes. Chloë knew all too well what was happening. "Alright," she sighed as she dropped the shoes and walked to Stella's side of the counter. Her doe eyes fluttering softly at the disapproval on her best friend's face.
"Lindsey Buckingham," she murmured with a smile on her face as Chloë pretended to choke her. With a bellow that reverberated off every wall in the house, "Exactly! Hurrah!". Shame came over her face in small waves as the actress dramatically shook her by the shoulders. "Honey you have got to wake up! So what this man fucked you in his tour bus and took you to england? I could find you a guy two blocks down who could do the same!" Her smile was soft but her eyes were sincere. She had watched Stella pine after Julian when in reality he had never offered much in the first place. "I mean, think about it. That haircut is brutal," she laughed as she walked across the kitchen handling the bags of clothing. The tips of Stella's lips twitched slightly for a second in some semblance of a smile. The memory of her fingers gently tracing his strands of hair on his face as he slept, quietly kissing his cheek as he shifted his arms to hold her.
"And that dumb look he always has on his face-" Stella gripped her pencil harder as she tried to focus. Math. Math. X plus Y. Chloë's muffles penetrated her stream of consciousness, her pencil scribbling mindlessly. Furiously. "He swears up and down he's the next Lou Reed." She shook her head with a grunt and a laugh as she finished tying up the bags of clothing to donate. "Little does he know, it's all some pipe dream." Snap. The sound of her pencil snapping awoke her from her trance as she looked down at her paper, hours of work scribbled out.
"Fuck," she murmured, angrily shoving her notebook to the side, "He just wants to be so nonchalant about everything all the fucking time!" Her jewelry clanged as her hands landed with a sharp slap on the marble. "He can't! he can't and he's been trying to since we met! Ugh!" The tension had sat on her shoulders since the night they'd kissed on the rooftop. With the album rolling out soon, she knew there was inevitable success. The boys were talented and the art was amazing. They were also attractive and if the attention wasn't enticing enough, it would definitely be overwhelming soon enough. Stella felt like a ticking time bomb waiting to explode and collapse completely. Her chest constantly caving in with an immense pain whenever she saw him interacting with another girl.
She knew it was wrong. He had never promised her anything more than this. Anything more than a fleeting few weeks. Maybe she had misinterpreted him, had misinterpreted the kisses and the whispers in hotels on Sunday mornings. The laughs backstage and the naps on the bus. His scraps of affection had painted a Monet in her mind. Pure romanticism like the works they'd seen during their time in London. The parks they'd walked side by side. The secrets they'd shared and those stolen glances. It had meant nothing. She was a groupie and he was the rockstar.
Opening the door to the studio, his stomach churned with guilt. "Just forget about it for now." he told Nick as he rubbed a hand over his face, "Just forget about it." As he settled into the flow of writing, the image of Stella's face flooded his mind. Crashing into the rocks of his pen like violent waves. Memories of her ecstacy, her tears, her laughter. The scent of her warm skin blanketing him as if she were pressed up against him now. But the words didn't come. His pen was stopped at the top of a blank page as he stared blankly. How could he ever explain the walking paradox that had become a tangled mess in the span of two years.
