62The Duncney Fanclub
But they're just friends, right? In fact, rumor has it, they hate each other!
"Good morning, Princess," he smirked. He completed the sentence even though she had slammed the door in his face three seconds earlier. Her timing was getting impressive.
It was almost like a daily tradition for them now. They would both go to collect their mail at the same time, he would smirk and say good morning, she was would silently call him a douchebag and slam the door on him. He'd never really done anything wrong to her, she just found him to be cocky. It was a sense of knowing.
Still smirking, he found his way back into his apartment, shuffling through the mail.
Bill. Junk. Junk. Bill. Script. Junk. Bill.
Nothing exciting. Nothing new or different. He ended up throwing them onto the table for his manager and publicist to deal with later. They would bitch about it, but he'd long since given up caring.
He found himself falling headfirst onto the sofa, pulling one of the cushions under his head. It had been a long night, but he didn't want to think what would happen if they found him asleep in bed during the middle of the day again. He says he doesn't care, but he cares enough not to fire his manager and publicist.
The television was playing in the background and as he tried to fall asleep, he caught the sound of his name:
"Duncan Evans-"
Next channel.
"Hollywood's bad boy-"
Next channel.
"Last night was the setting for none other than Duncan Ev-"
TV off.
Heather was not going to like this, he thought to himself, slowly opening his eyes to stare at the blank screem. His memory was faint, but last night didn't sound like it ended well. At least he had ended up home, somehow. He'd definitely woken up in his own bed this morning, hangover no where in sight. It'd been a long tiem coming, but Duncan was sure he finally had the right prevention for hangovers.
It couldn't have been that bad.
Heather thought differently. She burst into his apartment three hours later, already screaming at him for his indecency. He'd gotten very good over the last two years of tuning her out. She had flipped the television back on and was gesturing wildly to the pictures behind her, the news reporters taking everyone on a step-by-step of what had happened the previous night.
Duncan was still having trouble remembering. He still had trouble remembering when Heather whacked him over the back of the head with a rolled up magazine before dropping it into his lap. It unfurled, revealing a charming portrait of Duncan across the front.
"Naked. You were naked in a very busy street, just running around, flashing yourself off to the crowd!" Heather was infuriated. Out of all the stupid stunts he had pulled over the last two years, this was the one that had annoyed Heather the most. After she specifically told him to stay home, he'd, yet again, disregarded every word she had said and gone out anyway.
Was it Geoff who dared me? Or was it Trent that dared Geoff but after six tequila shots I thought it would be fun to do it for him?
He still couldn't remember exactly what had happened. But at least Heather couldn't get mad for him doing it at his own place this time. Usually his own parties were the wildest, and his neighbors complained to the point where he was already threatened with eviciton.
This time it had been at...at some girl's.
Lizzie? Lily? Lauren? He couldn't remember that much, but he'd gotten some fun out of her. At least he thinks that's her in the foggy memory. For all he knew it was Geoff in a wig and his reputation was even more down the toilet.
"Are you even listening to me?" Heather looked like she was about to break out her right hook (whether that was before or after her head exploded, Duncan didn't know). She was staring at him, grey eyes slanting down to his sunglasses. "This isn't a joke, Duncan! I am not your mother, I am not your personal assistant. I. Am. Your. Publicist! And you're not my only client, you know. If you ruin your reputation, you ruin mine, and you will not like it if you ruin mine, do I make myself clear?" She was leaning forward, her weight on her right leg, her face pressed tightly to his in a dominant stance.
He didn't respond, he didn't need to. She simply blew off her steam and led herself over to his kitchen where Duncan could hear her explaining everything to his manager, Noah. And by explaining he meant complaining about her long-term pain in the ass.
Noah was already on the phone to someone, he didn't know who. Noah was always on the phone to someone. Heather simply spoke to him as if he wasn't, rifling through the mail that lay abandoned next the empty shot glasses.
"I just can't work with him for much longer. He doesn't even care about his career anymore. I don't know what went wrong."
"I can't land him any decent jobs," Noah chimed in, tossing the script towards Heather. "Nobody wants to hire him with the shit he's pulled." Running naked down a crowded street was not the worst thing he had done by far, but it still wasn't inexcusable. His behavior was getting out of hand, and they had no idea what to do about it.
"Good Morning," SLAM! "Princess." The smirk played on his face even as he turned away. There was something about hearing that door slam that satisfied Duncan. It probably pissed off the other two neighbors on this floor, but he'd learnt to not care for them. Not that he cared for Courtney either, caring was not in his system, but annoying her was just too good to resist.
In the eight months that Duncan had been living at this particular apartment building, Courtney had slammed the door on him every day for the last seven. He believed she enjoyed doing it, got a kick out of it. He certainly did.
Duncan let himself back into his apartment, shuffling through his mail, same as always. A small brown envelope caught his eye at the bottom of the pile, something he didn't get often.
Courtney Taylor
Well that definitely wasn't for him. And what better way to piss off Courtney than to show up on her doorstep uninvited.
Before the rational part of his decided to kick in (not that it had kicked in in the last four years), his feet were already carrying Duncan out the door and towards Courtney's apartment. He'd never stood in front of her door before, he wasn't the kind of neighbor who'd asked to borrow sugar on his first day in a new apartment or gone over to introduce himself. He was more the kind of neighbor that would give you a quick nod when you left your own apartment after your obnoxiously loud music had kept the entire floor awake all night.
It was exactly the same kind of door as he had, white wood with a gold trim. The apartment number was stenciled on in a golden paint and there was a small mailbox pinned to the wall to the right of the door. Duncan contemplated dropping the envelope in there and leaving Courtney to find it in the morning. The stupid part of his brain told him it could be urgent and his hand was already knocking on the large door.
There was silence for a moment before it loudly swung open, slamming against the wall behind it. The woman who'd answered was on the phone, talking loudly and sternly to whoever was on the other side. She was definitely not Courtney, much older and dressed in a dark navy pantsuit. She stared at him as she kept talking.
"Hold on a sec, Barry. Who are you?"
"I'm Duncan?" He replied, not sounding too sure himself. He'd been kind of thrown off by it not being Courtney on the other side of the door. "I'm looking for Courtney."
"You just missed her, she's probably just leaving downstairs." And with that she went back to her phone call, walking away, slamming the door shut behind her.
Duncan was stunned. It had been a long time since anyone had asked him who he was. And before then he'd been confident Courtney lived alone. It took a moment for him to recover before heading down the staircase towards the first floor.
The pair lived on the top floor out of four floors, with four apartments on the top three and more of a 'chill out zone' on the first floor. Duncan mainly stayed in his apartment on his floor and only passed through on his way out. There was a back door on the first floor that led to a private parking garage for the residents.
He found Courtney just about to exit through the front door. His pace sped up just slightly and he caught her just as she stepped out onto the sidewalk.
"Hey," Duncan tapped her on the shoulder. Before he could register what had happened, he was doubling over in pain and Courtney was pulling her fist away from his gut. "What the hell?!" No one stopped as they walked past to see if he was okay.
"Oh, it's you." The words rolled from Courtney's mouth with distaste. "Is it not bad enough that I see you every morning, now you're personally stalking me on my way to school?"
"Stalking you?" He held out the brown envelope, "I came to give you this."
Courtney took a half-step back, suspiciously looking between him and the envelope. "What is it?"
"The fuck should I know, it was in with my mail."
"You came all the way down here to give me my mail? You could have just left it in the mailbox."
"Oh, well next time I will!" He snapped, clutching at his aching stomach.
Courtney tentatively took the letter from Duncan's outstretched hand. It definitely had her name on it, no doubt just a school progress update as she also noted the school emblem printed in the corner.
"Thanks," she said, nodding her head at him and holding her hand up in goodbye.
"No problem," he replied, removing the hand from his stomach and trailing back into the apartment building.
The banging woke up early the next morning. Heather had a key so it wouldn't have been her; her preferred method of waking was the ice bucket challenge. The banging didn't cease, dragging Duncan from his bed.
He swung open the door, yawning, and while he wasn't looking he was roughly shoved the side as the screaming started.
"HAVE YOU SEEN THIS?!"
"Good morning to you too, Pri-"
"NOT NOW!" Courtney snapped, pushing something into Duncan's hands. "HAVE YOU SEEN THIS?"
Duncan hazily peered down the magazine she had pushed onto him. The front page was a blur, rubbing his eyes. The headline came into focus, followed by the picture and Duncan dropped the magazine to the floor.
"LOVE LETTER?" He screamed. "WHO THE FUCK DO THEY THINK I AM!"
Courtney retrieved the magazine from the floor, waving it at his face. Duncan grabbed it from her hands, staring at the front cover. The picture was obvious: yesterday morning, outside the apartment, as Duncan had handed her the mis-delivered letter. Duncan had a smirk on his face, Courtney had a shy smile as she had one foot behind her as she reached for the letter that they both had their hands on. It was a perfectly timed picture, if that.
"WHO THE FUCK DO THEY THINK I AM?" Courtney stressed. "I get that you're some 'superstar'." The air quotations hurt, Duncan thought. "But I'm not! I'm very aware that there are several so-called celebrities living in this building, but-" Duncan hit her in the face with the magazine and dragged his feet over to the sofa.
Courtney followed.
"I don't think you understand how serious this is," she stated, and he continued to ignore her. It was like having Heather 2.0 on his ass.
He flipped on the television and found the photograph in question on the screen, the all-too-perky voice over was questioning the appearance of a 'new girl' in Duncan's life. The love letter was still being questioned and so was Courtney's identity.
His eyes gazed over to Courtney, to which he noticed she was still in her pajamas. Her hair was piled messily on top of her head and she hadn't put any effort into, well, anything. She was sitting on the arm of the sofa, leaning forward, elbows on knees. Her hand covered her mouth, but the worry lines across her face gave everything away.
"Where's that sexy school uniform of yours?" He teased, a smirk breaking out on his face. He nodded towards the picture, still on screen, to which Courtney noted that Duncan had caught her on her way to school.
"Like hell am I going to school today," she snorted. "You honestly think-" But she stopped herself. She didn't know him. He didn't know her. There was no need to get involved, or tell him anything personal that would bite her in the ass later on. This would all blow over, she was sure. This was her fifteen minutes of fame, that's all.
A/N: AYE! NEW STORY!
...Don't get mad. I am now more focused on my writing. I am going to continue my stories and I needed a fresh start with this one.
So I hope you guys enjoy this story, I love the whole premise of one of them being famous. This is my...third story, I think, revolving around fame. I'm trying to get back into my old writing style where I just write...I don't think, I don't plan, I just write. Because I find that my writing used to be a hell of a lot better back when I didn't know what I was doing.
Thanks for reading, please review (:
Love, ChloeRhiannonX