Alone Together

Chapter 3

SLAM! Jen awoke to the noise of a door slamming not too far away from her. She realized she was in Josh's familiar house and calmed down, knowing she wasn't kidnapped somewhere. Josh had  his arm across her body, he must have slept like that, but he was now sitting up, alarmed from the noise.

"What was that?" he said in a nervous voice. Jen couldn't seem to form words for some reason. Did someone just get in to Josh Hutcherson's house?

"Josh?" said a voice with a strong accent that Jen didn't regognize. There was footsteps coming from the direction of the slammed door.

"Shit, Claudia is here." Josh hissed. Jen didn't know who he was talking about at first and then remembered his Paradise Lost costar. They were actually dating?

Before Josh had time to get untangled from Jen Claudia Traisac was standing in the large arc opening into the living room. She had a startled expression on her face, she obviously didn't realize he would have company.

"Oh, um..." she said nervously. "What's going on?" Jennifer realized that the scene Claudia was witnessing looked quite sexual, them sitting up awkwardly next to each other with blankets surrounding them, like they were caught in the middle of something.

"Jennifer fell asleep coming home yesterday, so I let her stay here since she wouldn't wake up," his voice sounded confident and slightly angry. "Why are you here?"

"Well, I thought we could-"

Josh cut her off saying, "Wait, how did you get in my house?" he had risen and was taking angry strides across the room toward her. Suddenly Claudia's shy expression had turned into rage.

"I got a key from your room; I am your girlfriend!" she shouted, like she believed being his girlfriend meant she could come freely in his house when she wanted.

"My girlfriend? We are pretending, that definitely doesn't mean you can take a key to my house secretly!"

"Pretending? I love you, Josh!" she was taken aback, she looked disgusted.

"What?! We talked about this! I would just help you get attention, you do not love me!"

Suddenly Claudia's long hand raised and slapped him across the face. At this point Jennifer ran across the room and she stood between the two. She could tell Josh was enraged and wanted to hit her back but knew he couldn't.

"Who do you think you are?" his voice was strained. "We agreed that we weren't dating. I wanted to help you, be your friend!" He looked confused by her anger.

"I wanted to be more than friends and I made that clear. I thought we had something. Then I walk in here and see you sleeping with another woman!"

"Well we didn't have something! And I did not sleep with her." Josh laughed as he said it, like he couldn't believe she thought either of those things.

Claudia looked like she was trying to cover up her hurt. She scoffed and ran out the door.

"Uh, wow." Jen said. She couldn't tell what Josh was thinking.

"She's so stupid," Josh said. Then he just sat right back on the couch covered with large down comforters. "Come here," he told Jen. She awkwardly sat back down next to him but he pulled her into his arms.

"I'm sorry," she said over his shoulder, not knowing what to say. She couldn't imagine how he felt in a situation like this.

"Don't be. I thought she was nice, I was gonna help her. It was pretty clear I was wrong. She is pretty evil I see now. Like, don't slap me! It was pretty clear I didn't like her like that." Jen could feel his chin bone digging into her shoulder as he talked but she didn't care because his hugs were the best. She could tell he was hurt by Claudia's change in personality. They stayed hugging like that for a while.