025:

The film with Tom was a wrap. In another few days the film with Sam would be a wrap, and she would be meeting with none other than cousin Steve McQueen, and the great Kell Stevak, who she'd be working on a project with by next year.

Cousin Stevie was just home from his mission, and cuter than ever. He was the only one of Austin's sons in the business. And he had ambition. She liked him a lot, and although he wasn't directly related to her, they'd grown up together. Not as friends, but as real cousins might have.

She had the concert this Friday, and then recording all next week. She sighed and felt a little back ache beginning, stretched and turned her neck to both sides relieving the pressure. Nothing could dampen her spirits now. She had everything to look forward to and nothing to lose.

She was walking down a carpeted hall with windows on one side overlooking downtown LA, when her cell phone rang.

"Hi, Mom."

"Mia. Hi. How's it going?"

"I'm fine, couldn't be better. I'm about to walk into a meeting."

"Great. Feeling movement?"

"Yep, feeling movement. I told you, I've been feeling it for awhile, but I thought it was gas."

"Well, just checking. I'm going down to Cassie's graduation and then I'll be at Miles and Jenny's. I might stop in before heading back, will you be home?"

"I don't think this'll take that long, and Bertha has the baby only till six, then she's going out. Yeah I should be home. Ryan's coming over."

"Finally spending a little time together? That's good news too. He's doing better?"

"I think so. He's kind of just sticking around, even when I'm just me."

"Are you sometimes not you?"

"Haha! All the time I'm not me. I'm whoever they want me to be, but with Jared I was just me, and now, with Ryan around and he's seen the real me, he seems to be sticking around."

"Do you think it's serious?"

"Hey, Mia, wait up." It was Ryan. She turned, smiling warmly. He'd been a good friend to her these past four months, and she found when she didn't judge him too harshly, she felt a rather unique kinship with him as he struggled to come to terms with his brother's death, especially with the way they had parted. They'd spent many hours now, mostly on the phone or over dinner at her place, talking about Jared, and it was a balm to her spirit as well as his. They had even started talking about their own pasts, their together pasts, just a little. And it hadn't been sour, only neutral.

"Yeah, I think he's good." She told her mother, and allowed Ryan to grasp her fingers as she said good-bye.

He took her hand and diffused the slight residual build she'd been working on the past couple of hours. "How'd it go today?"

"Good, it's a wrap." She said. "What about you?" He was working on a film with Robert De Marco, a man Melia had only met once, when they'd both auditioned for a part in a film neither of them had been awarded.

"Good. It's been hard. Robert's wife is critically ill. She's probably going to die soon. His mind isn't in the project. It might get scrapped." He opened her car door for her. She turned and stood there staring at him.

"I'm so sorry." She breathed, feeling more than sorry, feeling absolutely sick, that anyone should have to go through what she just went through was beyond her scope of imagination. It was too fresh and too painful for her to relive it, thinking about someone else going through it. "I should maybe call him. Do you have his number?"

"Yeah, I thought you might be able to comfort him." He said, and whipped out his cell phone. He read off the number and Melia plugged it into her phone and then flipped it closed. "I've tried to talk to him, but he is angry at the whole situation. Did you go through that?"

"Anger? No, I don't think so. Mostly denial. I just wouldn't believe it could happen to us." She got in her car and Ryan leaned against the door.

"You want to go get a bite?" He asked her softly, seeing the pain again in her eyes.

She stared straight ahead. She had to tell him, and tell him soon. It was only fair. He had spent a fair amount of time with her and seemed to be developing another set of feelings. She wasn't sure she wanted him to do that right now. And it wasn't fair to let him keep on the way he was.

She nodded. "Hop in." And he grinned and went around to the other side. "I've got to pick Hannah up and let Bertha go."

He sang along with the radio on the short drive over to Rocks, where Tracy had been working with another singer. He knew she was a working mother also, and was surprised, and constantly in shock, at how dedicated she and Richard were to their family. Somehow they made it all work, and that amazed him.

Rocks studio was situated almost on the ocean itself. Once it had been a block away from the beach, and now it had expanded and took up the whole block. In fact, according to the pictures, it took up three or four blocks. According to pictures, it had once been a sprawling one story above and one below, and now sported three above and two below. It was newer as well, the newest looking building for several miles. Ryan had now been there, and in the underground parking facility many times. He felt at home there.

They were waved ahead, and Melia parked in her own place and started to get out and then stopped. Ryan had already opened his door when he realized she hadn't moved and turned to look at her.

"You okay?" he asked gently. In the last four months they'd come to a truce about her marriage, and her betrayal. They had talked about it some, argued and fought over it, and now, simply remained together because there was nothing else they could do. What he had to admit, mostly to himself and certainly not to her, was the deep hatred he felt toward his brother for what he had done to them. Jared had torn up the greatest thing in his life. There was still a part of him that felt more betrayed than he'd ever felt with anyone else. Each and every time he looked at Melia he could see her in Jared's arms. And part of him, deeply held in check couldn't forgive her for that. Part of him wanted to see her suffer the way he had suffered. But there was another part of him, a very integral part that also still loved her and wanted to be with her and make it work. He didn't know which part would win. He realized what she didn't yet, that they still belonged together. He wasn't sure it was love, but it might be karma.

"No." she said and put both hands on the steering wheel. "I have to tell you something."

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