Hibiscus Films

"But you've messed up that narrative at every turn," Juno went on. "And then you even quit smoking and it was like, fuck." They both grinned, her hair falling forward to brush against his face. Felipe gently pushed it back and tucked it behind her ear, enthralled at getting to touch it for the first time.

"And then what you said just now was the last straw to break the camel's back," Juno said, lightly combing her fingers through Felipe's chest hair. "So in conclusion, I'm sorry. It shouldn't have taken this much to convince me you're a real person and not just a smaller, Colombian version of The Rock."

"Hey, Dwayne Johnson is a really down-to-earth guy," Felipe protested. "His work in mental health awareness is huge. And he inspired my goatee." They broke into quiet chuckles again before Felipe held the tip of Juno's chin and lifted his lips up to hers.

His chaste kisses escalated within seconds of Juno slowly pushing her tongue past his lips, then scraping it against the roof of his mouth. Felipe was giddy with desire, trailing his mouth down past Juno's jawline, down her neck and to her collarbone. His hands were on either side of her thighs while hers quickly undid a few more buttons on his shirt.

She was panting and squirming against Felipe's iron-hard cock, still restrained within his suit trousers. Then she pushed her breasts upward toward his face. Felipe groaned as he slipped off the left strap of Juno's dress, then licked and sucked her stiff, tan nipple.

Juno cried out before catching herself, still not convinced the driver couldn't hear them. She buried her nose in Felipe's hair and held on to his shoulders beneath the fabric of his dress shirt, whimpering softly against his ear. Nothing could have turned Felipe on more, and he let one hand wander north along her thigh while still sucking her breast.

"Carter..." Juno breathed when she felt his fingers slowly traverse the leg opening of her panties, just millimeters away from her clit. "Please, Carter."

No, Felipe's eyes widened as he realized he'd waited too long to tell her who he really was. I'll be damned if the woman I've wanted all this time is gonna call out the wrong name now, he thought, pulling back. It was a gargantuan task to push her dress strap back up onto her shoulder but he did it, then shifted a perplexed Juno to the seat beside him.

"There's something I have to tell you," he started. "We actually--"

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...

"¡manda cojones," he swore at his phone alarm that alerted him their hour outside the theatre was almost done.

"It's okay, sweetie," Juno rubbed his chest before doing up a couple of his shirt buttons. "It's just as well. We wouldn't have finished anyway."

"Speak for yourself," Felipe gave her a weak smile.

"Look, just a little longer at the after-party and we'll be back here. Tell me anything you want then. Right now, I'm going to fix my makeup," she said, smiling at his erection trying to tear through his pants, "and you're going to think about how the Leafs haven't won the Cup since 1967."

Juno

I wonder who designated Yorkville as the go-to celebrity spot, Juno wondered as she sat in the darkened lounge of a posh restaurant where the after-party was taking place. Several people had already come up to Carter and congratulated him on his movie, and Juno was getting to feel like arm candy.

As if he'd read her mind, Carter's hand crept over to hers on the seat of the booth they were nestled in, and they smiled at each other as he held her fingers in his.

"I am literally counting down the minutes until it's acceptable to make an exit," he whispered to her. "I had a much better time every night in the last two weeks sitting at home and writing with you than I ever did at any of these parties."

Juno resisted the urge to lean over and kiss him, especially when Evan and a friend of his walked past. They gave Juno and Carter a small wave as they took their drinks to the booth behind them. Then Carter stood up when one of the film's producers approached their table.

"I know everyone and their mother has stolen your date from you," the portly older man smiled at Juno. "But I promise this will be the last time tonight for me." Carter threw her an apologetic glance as he stepped away, and Juno sipped her drink while looking around the room. Then her ears perked up when she heard her native tongue being spoken right behind her.

I was right, Evan is Thai, she thought excitedly, knowing there were barely 20,000 people of Thai descent living in Canada. And so is his buddy. She was about to turn around and crack a joke in the same language when he kept talking.

"I have to hand it to him, he's never lacking for gorgeous women," she heard Evan continue.

"Shhh, she's on the other side of this booth," his friend responded.

"So what? What are the chances she understands Thai? Her last name alone sounds like it's Filipino, if anything."

Nice try, pal, Juno smirked, now intrigued. I guess that's the silver lining to taking your South African ex-husband's surname.

"But I'm sick of this shit," Evan said more seriously, in what Juno recognized to be a Phuket accent. "Some magazine writer comes along and spreads, and he's paying her to write a screenplay? Must be sweet to have a nice rack."

The sudden shock of the statement was only rivaled by Juno's queasiness.

"And my ass that they're just 'friends,'" Evan continued, clearly slurring from his drinks at this point. "He's been glued to her all night like a bodyguard.

"Well, it's not who you know; it's who you blow," Evan's buddy acquiesced. "Who did they think they were fooling sneaking out of the showing and then sneaking back in like that?"

"Maybe she'll be 'friends' with us if we offer her a job," Evan added, which was followed by their raucous laughter.

Their conversation turned to Juno's dress, hair, and body, but she only heard parts of it as she frantically ordered a taxi on her phone, her tears blurring her vision. She spotted Carter about 10 meters away near the bar, still speaking with his producer, but his back was toward her.

She quietly grabbed her clutch and made her way toward the door, then wiped her face as she stood on the sidewalk waiting for her cab. The mid-September night air would have felt frigid if her skin wasn't burning hot with rage and humiliation.

Once in the back of the taxi, she sent Carter what she intended to be a final text.

Carter, thanks for the nice night. I took a cab home. What happened between us was a mistake. I will no longer write the screenplay for you, but I will sell you the rights to my story if you want to proceed alone. You can talk to my lawyer, but please don't contact me again for whatever reason.

Putting her phone back in her purse and taking out a few tissues, Juno quietly sobbed in the back seat for the rest of the ride home.

Felipe/Carter

"Oh, for the love of--" Felipe bit his tongue when he was just about to curse out the milk he spilled across the kitchen counter instead of into his son's cereal bowl.

"The love of what, Papa?" Nico asked from the table, still in his footie pajamas. Felipe sighed as he retrieved a rag and doused it in soapy water.

"Nothing, papito," he said. "Papa's just frustrated."

"What's fust-rated mean?" Normally, Felipe's irritation would have marginally increased at having to be Nico's personal dictionary, but he was thankful for his company today. It was two Saturdays after the premier of End Code, which also made it a full 15 days since he'd last seen or spoken with Juno.

He'd been standing by the bar at the after-party with his producer discussing a possible future collaboration with Hibiscus Films, when his phone vibrated and he reflexively checked it. Thinking it was Jakub messaging about Nico, Felipe was surprised to see the text was from Juno.

Horrified upon reading it, he immediately looked over to their booth to see she was gone. He then checked with Evan and his friend who each said they hadn't seen her leave.

"Did she... did she say anything was wrong?" Evan had asked, clearing his throat. Felipe was too distraught to notice the younger man shoot his buddy a slightly worried glance.

"No," Felipe had replied. "Thanks, though. Excuse me."

He rushed outside to the sidewalk to call Juno but it kept going straight to voicemail. After two messages, her inbox told him it was full so he began texting her. Thinking back, Felipe estimated he might have sent her 50 texts in the last two weeks, just to ask what he had done to make her upset with him. No response.

Maybe it was the press coverage? Felipe pondered, noting that the local papers and entertainment shows in the days following the premier endlessly speculated whether he and Juno were dating.

End Code was already a blockbuster, and he was sure it was partly owing to the questions around his personal life. Could the surreal nature of his job be why Juno left him so unceremoniously? No, he thought. She ran out that same night, not after the gossip rags came out the next day.

And it wasn't as if he had anyone else whose brain he could pick for answers. It was fitting that out of all the words Nico wanted him to define just then, 'frustrated' was the one.

"It means when you're trying to do something and a bunch of things get in your way," Felipe offered as he mopped up the counter and wrung out the rag in the sink. "Then you make silly mistakes and start getting mad at yourself."

"I did that in kindergarten yesterday," Nico said as he slowly mixed his cereal, making sure every last crumb had been submerged in milk. Felipe sat down with his coffee across from his son, raising his eyebrow at the boy. Nico, engrossed in his cereal, didn't notice but kept talking.

"I was making a Lego robot with Issa, but then I pulled out the foot to make a new foot and the whole thing fell down," he said. "I forgot to make the robot lie down first. Issa was mad at me."

"You too, huh?" Felipe smiled, debating whether he should tell his son to get used to having women be angry with him.

"Yeah," Nico replied before shoveling a half-teaspoon of sugary crunchiness into his mouth. He chewed, swallowed, then went on. "I tried to fix it but Issa was still mad. Then I tried to say I'm sorry but she was still mad then too. Then I think I got fust-rated with her."

"Did you manage to fix things with Issa before you came home from school yesterday?" Felipe asked as he sipped his coffee, genuinely wondering whether his son could offer him an angle to approach Juno that he hadn't yet thought of.

"Yes, I did," Nico said, clearly proud of himself. "She wasn't playing with me inside. So when we did outdoor playtime I went to her at the toy kitchen and I said she has to tell me why she's mad, or else it isn't fair. She was playing house. And she couldn't just run away from her house so she had to tell me."

Felipe's brain ignited with the idea his brilliant little boy had unwittingly given him, dumbstruck that he'd had Juno's address all this time and hadn't thought to use it. He looked at the clock, calculating how long it would be before he could drop Nico off at his classmate's birthday party he was slated to attend that afternoon.

"That's amazing, papito," he praised his son. "But why was Issa so mad in the first place when you tried to fix your Lego robot?"

"Oh! She said she was sorry to me, Papa," Nico said, excited at remembering the best part of the story. "She wasn't even that mad at me. She was also fust-rated because she was hungry when I broke the Lego robot. Then she had a snack at outdoor play."

"So she was upset at something that didn't even have much to do with you," Felipe said more to himself than to his little boy. "That's something I hadn't thought of before, Nico. Thank you for helping Papa today." He got up to wash his coffee mug.

"Is Juno mad at you, Papa?" Nico asked in a little voice. Felipe spun around in surprise. "Is that why she stopped coming over? Can you make her come back?" Unfortunately, all the answers to Nico's triple-barreled question were the same.

"I... I don't know," Felipe responded honestly. "But maybe I'll be able to ask her today. Like you said, she can't just leave her house so she has to tell me why she's mad."

Juno

"Stop buzzing!" Juno shouted at her phone Saturday afternoon, feeling somewhat silly when she knew she could have just put it on silent. She'd been sitting in front of her laptop at the kitchen table for an hour, pondering six different ways the plot could go with her latest short story.

It was one of those afternoons when she kept re-reading the previous day's work without being able to process a damn word. Exasperated with herself, she checked the text only to see it was from Carter.

Come out to the balcony.

He was the last person she wanted to see, yet also the only person she wanted to see. Hating herself for doing so, she found her legs carrying her toward the screen door, then peering down toward the front of her building.

There he stood in near-perfection, wearing a bomber jacket and black jeans as he slammed the door of the beat-up, red pick-up truck he'd just parked in the front lot. Juno was so entranced at the sight of him after 15 long days that she didn't notice him counting the floors up to where she stood.

She was at a loss as to why Carter Amos was so deeply under her skin after just a few weeks of knowing him, when it'd been much easier to break up with her ex-husband after 4 years of marriage.

Being on the sixth floor of her building, she was too far up to shout anything down to him without the entire neighbourhood hearing. So all she did was pull her cardigan closed when she felt a gale of cool October wind rush at her, and lean forward against the railing as she took him in. When she averted her gaze for a moment and then looked back, he was gone.

What the...? Juno looked around the front parking lot, then wondered if he'd left, but his truck was still there. Stumped, she shut the sliding glass door and went back to her laptop. She'd hardly sat down when there was a loud knock at the door.

"Juno, I know this is your unit," Carter's muffled voice called through the door. "Your neighbour pointed it out in exchange for an autograph."

"Carter, I already told you that starting something with you was a mistake," Juno answered, dreading how fast word would now spread around the condo that she was involved with a household name.

"Will you at least open the door so I don't have to have this conversation with you in the hallway?" he appealed. Frowning, she opened the door and glared at him.

"Fine," she said. "Come in."

"You know, I have to be an absolute idiot to be here right now," he bit off to her surprise as he strode in past her, then took off his jacket and dropped it on a chair. "I told myself I'd never again be interested in women who'd go hot and cold on me, yet here I am." He willed himself to not be distracted by the tank top and cute PJ pants she wore under her oversized cardigan.

"Well, you weren't invited," Juno shot back after she shut the door and locked it. "I sent back the advance and told my lawyer to sell you the rights to the story and whatever work I've already done on it, so I thought that was that. Why are you here?"

"Because I think I at least deserve to know why you never want to see me again!" Carter exclaimed. "You climbed on to my lap in the limo, remember?" Juno clenched her jaw and looked down at the floor. "You told me you couldn't help but be attracted to me because you thought I was a good guy. How in the hell did I suddenly become a bad guy in the span of an hour?"

"You didn't do anything wrong!" Juno shouted, trying to blink back her tears. "It's just that nobody--not even me--will take me seriously if they think I'm nothing but a starfucker!" Carter seemed taken aback.

"What?"

"Evan is Thai, in case you didn't know," she said somewhat quieter. "So was the other guy he was hanging out with at the after-party. They were sitting in the booth behind us so I could hear everything they were saying but they didn't think I was also Thai."

"Oh shit, what did they say, Juno?" Carter asked her seriously. She quickly wiped the tear that slid down her face, unable to look at him.

"They said..." Juno's voice trembled. "They said it must be easy to shoot straight up to screenwriter from working at a mediocre magazine when you spread your legs for your interview subject."

"Jesus Christ," Carter shut his eyes.

"And there was more, including whether I'd put out for them if there was a career incentive, and... comments about how I looked in my blue dress."

"I am never going to work with those fucking assholes ever again," Carter fumed.

"He's not wrong, is he, though?" Juno asked pointedly. Carter looked at her like she grew another head. "I didn't work my way up in the film industry like he's been trying to do. I didn't pay my dues. I was just in a position where I was able to send a famous actor-producer my work and he thought I was cute so--"

"No," Carter vehemently shook his finger at her. "No. Don't you dare demean both of us by making it sound like I was only after some tail and you're a talentless hack.

"You know what, scratch that," he reconsidered. "You can say whatever you want about me. But don't you dare insult the incredible story you sent me, the likes of which I haven't even read from seasoned writers in the industry--including Evan." Now Juno was taken aback.

"He's pitched scripts to me before," Carter explained. "I'm not going to say they were awful, but they were average. Formulaic rom-coms and the like. They were full of clichés and the same tired old tropes, and so I turned him down. But he had no right to disrespect you like that."

"Nevertheless," Juno said, "he's not wrong. I haven't been able to cut it on my own in traditional publishing, so what does it say about me when I get this unexpected hand-up out of nowhere?"

Felipe/Carter

Felipe's head snapped back to look at Juno's face as soon as she uttered those words. There was a full 30 seconds of silence between them while he contemplated how to respond. But there was only one way.

"I wouldn't be here if I hadn't gotten an unexpected hand-up out of nowhere once," he said pensively, running one hand through his hair. "Everyone knows I was homeless at one point, but I never talked publicly about how I was able to escape the cycle. I've never even told Chelsea this.

"A beautiful, kind girl was the one who helped me. She bought me lunch and some extra food, and talked to me like I was a real person. It was the first time in over a year I'd felt like one." Juno was leaning near the wall outside her kitchen, and Felipe made sure to watch her face as he prepared to tell her the next part.

"Then she took me to her gym where I was able to clean up," he said. Juno's eyes got wider. "And then," Felipe continued as he pulled his wallet out of his jacket pocket, "she gave me this." He held out the faded sticky, noting that Juno's fingers shook as she looked at her own printing.

At last, she put the post-it note on the table, then stepped toward the movie star in her living room, gazing at him like she was seeing him for the first time. She raised her hands to either side of his face, searching his eyes.

"Felipe?"

Felipe couldn't stop himself when he heard his name on her lips for the first time in 12 years. He scooped her up in his arms and held her to his chest as tightly as he could without hurting her. Juno's arms flew up and around his waist as she buried her face in his chest.