“Tell me about it?” Juniper dared while he rested his elbows on the table, fingers laced together. “I mean if you want to – I don’t want to pry but it sounds like a good story.”
He figured they may as well share stories if they were going to become friends. Juniper had few close friends, mostly famous ones but they tended to be superficial and he doubted any of them would risk anything for him. He just wanted real friends.
“Oh, it’s all right.” Jack took another sip, smiling faintly. He didn’t mind talking about his past (the recent parts, anyway), and it was kind of flattering to be the focus of the actor’s attention. “I d-don’t know if it’ll be very interesting to someone as well-traveled as you, though.”
He told Juniper about his career as a painter, and how he’d moved to Metro City in the hope of finding new opportunities – and of forcing himself to be braver and more outgoing. “It d-didn’t work very well at first. I was still a recluse, b-barely speaking to anyone except clients.” His smile grew. “But then I met Katelynn.”
“A woman helped you change?” This intrigued the nerd side of him, the shoujo manga lover, the romantic and even the actor side of him in case the story was interesting and not cheesy like some romance novel.
Still all in all Jack was an interesting fellow; shy, well mannered, polite, perhaps even humbling from what he could gather. And his story so far did seem like an interesting plot for a movie.
A faint lavender blush rose in Jack’s cheeks. “S-sort of.” He twirled the ice in his drink idly as he thought back to those early days. “Katelynn’s a photographer.” She’d held several other jobs too, but that was how he best liked to think of her – that artistic side that he loved. “I f-found her blog online. And th-then one day we happened to meet out in the park. I told her I was a fan of her work, and,” his smile grew, “we hit it off. We were just friends at first, though. She had a crush on someone else, and I was so shy, it took me so long to admit I liked her."
Jack Maple 