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Reasons having anything with Selena would be fucking stupid: it'd make him another notch on the Disney scandal bedpost.
The thing he hates most is the implications of it -- that fooling around with Selena means he's not actually above it all -- it's too much. It's totally irrelevant that he's a 19-year-old guy on a TV show and she's his hot costar because, apparently, behind the Ears, that's shady.
And his home friends, the ones not in the scene, they already give him shit that he's even doing something in the same arena as Hannah Montana. His whole old hockey team learned the Waverly Place theme song and sang it last time he dropped by a practice. He doesn't need the rise and subsequent loss-of-innocence cliche -- that whole stereotype he's beginning to think Disney orchestrates right from the beginning, even the media-hyped out-of-control fall.
It's not that he's faulting anyone that's been through the machine. That first generation is still making paparazzi waves -- Britney Spears' meltdown, Justin Timberlake, uh, being Justin Timberlake (obviously the Timberlake path is ideal here), Christina Augilera being "dirty." All in the news, all way past their Disney days.
So, yeah, he's not complaining that he's set up for a legacy of movies about transforming robots (that Shia LeBeouf path isn't so weak either) and drinking and clubs and having a good time all in the name of his career. It's just that when Selena's standing next to him between takes, challenging him to a thumb wrestling match and absent-mindedly licking her lips, he wishes he wasn't 100% sure that Tod the new catering guy moonlights for TMZ.
Not that he hasn't tested the waters a little bit -- and Selena seems down for it all, whatever it is, which is good. The video blogs with the fucking Jonas Brothers (no, seriously, HOW is this his life?), being pap-snapped at the mall with his 16-year-old TV sister, it's all leading to a picture of them holding hands under the table at The Ivy getting weird amounts of press in US Weekly. How illicit.
This all makes for a total lack of surprise when Selena knocks on his trailer after they've wrapped an episode where they had to spar a little bit (in the name of magic, of course) and tells him they're going out.
Her parents still have her maintaining that wholesome Disney Channel star image and she's not the type to be an emancipated minor, so there's never any hustling through the backdoors of clubs, they usually just get coffee or something. Any place she can spend money on things -- if he has to see the inside of the Marc Jacobs on Melrose ever again, he'll throw up, seriously.
He lets her in the trailer and she goes right for the pack of Smarties she brought him last week -- she's good at that, getting him presents that are really just presents for her. He changes his shirt and she does that thing where it's a little too close to the little sister line for him to feel totally comfortable.
"Ooh, a chest hair, David! Maybe I'll ask the writers to work that into an episode -- little Justin Russo and the puberty spell."
She's wearing a tiny strappy tank top thing and her hair's half up and there's a smudged bit of make up still left around her eyes from filming and despite anything that comes out of her mouth, he could never really confuse her for a little sister. Too hot for that.
He walks past her toward the door of his trailer and opens it, holding it for her from up high and she ducks under his arm to step outside.
"I want tea," she announces to David.
He knows this is because last week Perez Hilton posted a shot of Lindsey Lohan drinking tea (and wearing leggings -- he fucking hates the leggings), but he's not going to say anything. If he's excited about being the next Zac Efron or whoever, he's not gonna sweat her for her Lohan fantasies.
He always drives, like, seriously always, he's not even sure if she has her license (oh god, he has a thing for someone who might not even be able to drive) and so when they arrive at his car, he wordlessly unlocks the doors and she gets in.
"Let's go to that one place that we went that one time after the thing," and she looks over at him expectantly.
What's worse (or better? if this is going anywhere, maybe it's good he understands more than half of what she says) is he knows exactly where she's talking about and throws the car into drive.
She always starts with him about whatever's in his CD player and so that morning for the ride to work, he popped in a Strokes CD. When she turns the stereo on, she seems pleasantly surprised.
"Well, David, it's not my favorite, but I can't complain with this. You're safe, this time."
The traffic never seems to get better and he never seems to get used to it and watching the cars around him slow to a crawl makes him smack the steering wheel.
"Don't these people have somewhere else to be?" He lets out a groan.
"You really should see someone about all this anger you've got inside, if it starts affecting your performance on the show, I'll have no choice but to go to the press,"
That makes him laugh a little. If there's one thing he's absolutely sure of, it's that she's not the gossip-y costar that blabs set secrets to make her own star burn brighter.
"Oh yeah? I'm going to sell those pictures of you in my boxer shorts then. I'll come off looking a little bit like a douchebag, but then everyone will just be impressed that I was able to land someone hot and that'll make me hot in return. You'll just look tragic. My logic? Is flawless."
It's her turn to laugh, but she lets out a cute little squeal instead, "You know I only had those on because Jake spilled Pepsi all over my pants and they'd locked up wardrobe while the crew took lunch. And did you call me hot? You did, didn't you?"
"Ah, Selena, so young, so naive. *I* know that's why you had my shorts on, but the public, they don't know. They'll assume the worst. And, yeah, I called you hot, but you knew that. You know you're hot, don't be one of those girls constantly looking for attention from guys, you're better than that."
She starts to say something back, but stops and closes her mouth. He figures she realized he actually just gave her another compliment, on top of the first.
Traffic's still not moving and it's inching closer to rush hour, so it's going to be even longer. It's not that he minds when they wrap early for the day, it's just he still fucking hates traffic, always, early wrap or no.
The CD fades out, he probably should've rewound back a little bit, but Selena just switches it over to the radio instead. They're playing that grating Katy Perry song and if he's truthful about it, it's just the song he hates, not Katy Perry, in fact, he would hit it with Katy Perry pretty quick, but everyone knows that the unspoken rule is the first in-the-media relationship is supposed to keep it in the Disney family. Not that he's put out by the thought of the Disney family, as evidenced by the tiny, hot costar riding shotgun.
Selena's one of those people that gets most of her joy in life out of being entertained -- which means she doesn't do well inside a car that's moving at six miles an hour. It's literally a matter of seconds before she suggests they play a game.
"Let's play a game!"
Selena's right on cue, how perfect for an actress.
In the times he's driven her somewhere they've played Would You Rather, Screw/Marry/Kill and Truth or Dare, but it's usually just a game of random questions where she asks him whatever pops into her head and he answers her with varying degrees of truth, depending on the question.
"All right, I'm going to ask you questions and you answer them."
The familiarity would be scary if he didn't like her so much. Usually routines with girls leave him running for the nearest stupid fling. If he's not a Disney cliche yet, at the very least he's a commitment-phobic guy cliche.
"Oh wow, we've certainly never played this game before! Selena, I commend you on your creativity."
It sounds a little bit like something an asshole would say, so he turns and winks to soften the blow.
"Haha, you're SO funny," but she gives him a little slap on the bicep and smiles at him and he realizes how sickeningly sweet they really are together.
"Yes, yes, I know, I'm hilarious -- you were saying something about questions?"
She looks all business then, sits up a little straighter and says, "Do you think I'm a virgin?"
It's so ridiculous, so completely out-of-left field and ridiculous that if he'd been drinking something he'd have actually done a real spit-take. (Disney physical comedy training is good for something, right?)
"Uh, I don't know. No? I'll say no, you're not."
"But I AM!"
"OK, you are. Um, listen, I'm not really sure where you're going with this."
"It's just, this whole Disney image thing, it's always, 'oh the saintly stars of the Disney Channel,' but they say it with a nudge, like we're all secretly crazy, but I'm not! I'm not yet, at least."
It weird to hear somebody else's take on everything they're going through. He talks to Jason when they're shooting Hannah Montana on the same days as Waverly, but Jason's older than him by like, a lot and the Jonas Brothers are already way past David's level of fame and plus, well, Selena's a girl. He never thought about it maybe being even worse for girls.
"I know what you mean," and he does. "It's like we're under a microscope to see if we're going to fizzle out or go batshit insane or whatever. I almost wish we were on Nickelodeon, but after the Jamie Spears thing, it looks like it's just as bad over there. No one ever talks trash about Josh Peck though. How do I get to be Josh Peck?"
"David, you don't want to be Josh Peck, you've got a better face. He's going to be in indie movies, you're going to be in blockbusters."
That might be one of the nicest things she's ever said to him and it's weird that a sentence like that can even be considered a compliment, but it is.
"Thanks." He means it, he really does, but it doesn't seem like enough, the energy in the car has shifted and he can tell she feels like this is a deep, serious conversation, like she's opened up to him and a 'thanks' just doesn't seem like enough, so he reaches over to pat her on the leg.
Her thigh is warm under his hand and he never gets to the patting part of patting her on the leg, his hand just goes down once and then stays on her thigh, heavy and (hopefully) reassuring.
She looks at him like she's confused for a second and he realizes that she really is still just a high schooler and her life's been so weird so far that she doesn't know what things mean in the normal world. Hopefully she doesn't think this means she has to blow him now. Not that he would stop her. He'd just rather her want to do it than think she has to.
It takes a second, but she puts her left hand over his right on her leg and they sit like that, listening to the radio, for a few minutes. It's so inane that when he hears Miley belting out the seven things she hates about Nick that he knows the whole story and hopes his own shit doesn't go the same way. He's a little old for that kind of drama though. Or at least he hopes he is.
When she lifts her fingers a little bit and scratches lightly back and forth against the top of his hand, his first thought is to check out the windows that no one with a camera is around to point it inside his car. He's not that famous, but she is, maybe. They want her to be, soon, anyway.
There are (obviously) no cameras and he turns his hand palm up so they're holding hands and interlaces their fingers before giving her a little squeeze and a tight smile. He's still not sure what this is about and the tea place is another five minutes away, even without traffic.
"Are you OK? Like, are you gonna be OK?"
She's staring out the passenger window, but has tightened her grip on his hand.
"Yeah, I'll be fine. I am fine, everything's cool, David."
He doesn't believe her and it's so weird the way she's acting. She's normally so bubbly, yelling out questions about ice cream and cartoons and pumpkin spice lattes.
There's a driveway coming up on the right and it looks like it winds into a mostly-empty parking lot behind a restaurant, so he puts his blinker on and turns in.
"Wait, where are we going?"
"I'm kidnapping you. Disney will pay big for their newest rising star." As soon as he's finished the sentence he wishes he could take it back, they may joke around all the time, but the vibe in the car and what caused it should've stopped him from making light of everything.
"Yeah," she says, totally flat.
"I just thought we could talk back here and I wouldn't have to worry about getting plowed into by some asshole L.A. driver."
"Umm, OK," and she sounds mostly like her old self (he knows she likes it when he swears, something about the juxtaposition of Justin Russo and the real David Henrie) but they're already parked in a spot and he figures they might as well talk about...whatever it was he thought they were going to talk about.
"Is this really about living up to some idea of the Mickey Mouse career path? Because if you're parents got the same speech mine did when we started all this, then you should be better prepared than this."
She sighs.
"No, I mean, I guess not, it's just everything is like, weird, all the time. I feel like I can't do anything the normal way because what if that's the day we get bigger, or I get bigger and suddenly there's an interest in pictures of me and the first pictures that come out are me on the lap of my costar, making out."
He's almost stunned into silence, but this is too good to just let pass.
"You know, Selena, you'd have to actually be in your costar's lap, making out, for those pictures to even exist to get out in the first place. They don't go that crazy with the Photoshop. Uh, at least I don't think they do."
"What? And your point?"
"My point is that you're probably safe unless we start making out." He throws in a weak laugh at the end, but it breaks off into a gulp.
"Hm. David, about that..."
She's joking. She's got to be. There's no way he underestimated her this bad. No, it can't be. At her core, she's sweet, little Selena, right?
"...I think that might happen."
"Oh?" His voice breaks.
He can tell she's enjoying the shift of power toward her because she's got the mischievous little Alex smile on.
"You're not that much older than me. And you're cute. And you've been working out -- don't even try to play like you haven't. And we can talk, about my life, about Hollywood, about everything, and you get it, it's not some foreign thing to you. I like that I don't have to explain every single detail to you and you still understand."
"Um, I like that, too?"
"Was that a question?"
"No, I like that, too. Seriously."
"Well, that's good, now we can a lot of stuff out of the way."
He has never been so confused by any conversation with a girl, ever. But he's going with it because the strap on her tank top is starting to slip down her shoulder and plus, he doesn't have a whole lot else going on right now.
"And what stuff would that be?"
"If they're going to take pictures of us making out --"
"Wait, what? I just assumed you meant Jennifer, not me," and he gives her a big grin to show he's joking.
"Listen, you should read the stuff on the Internet about Alex and Harper, they would flip out if I made out with Jennifer, but, come on, you know I meant you."
"All right, go on, keep talking."
"Like I was SAYING, if they're going to take pictures of us making out, we better at least make sure we're going to look good in them."
"So you're proposing...what? That we make out where no one can see so that when people can see, it looks good? I heard that right, right?"
"Yep."
This is all too easy and definitely a lot more awkward than he imagined his first time hooking up with Selena being like, but hey, gotta start somewhere, right?
"OK." He shrugs and smiles at her before shifting to lean in to kiss her -- he figures she'll put a stop to all this before he actually gets there, they'll have a laugh or whatever, but no, she meets him in the middle and suddenly his mouth meets up with sticky, vanilla-smelling lip gloss and they both freeze.
She doesn't pull back and then starts hesitantly moving her lips over his, so he figures this is definitely what they're doing, even if it's weird. He tilts his head to get a better angle and moves his hand to cup her cheek and then she opens her mouth and, oh, there's her tongue. He opens his own mouth and gently pushes his tongue into her mouth and then they're kind of like, play fighting, but with their tongues, and it's so fucking weird, but awesome and his other hand is moving from her hip and inside the very bottom of her shirt, just touching the skin above the top of her jeans and and and -- a car alarm goes off.
He pulls back, "Whoa."
She wipes a little bit at her mouth and looks around wild-eyed, "What IS that?"
The chirp of the alarm being disarmed sounds through the parking lot and a man in a suit strides across the parking lot toward the car.
"It was just an alarm, everything's cool."
"Oh, um, OK." She won't meet his eye and it's only when he reaches out to nudge her that he realizes she's blushing.
"Selena Gomez, are you blushing?"
"Shut up, David."
She smiles at him and he smiles back and all the weirdness in the air cracks away.
He starts the car again and pulls out of the parking lot.
When they (finally) get to the tea place, a Waverly Place fans catches them holding hands on a couch on her cell phone. The photo makes the rounds on the internet for a couple of days, they have a talk with Disney execs about it and everything's cool. That's it -- the end of it. They're not crazy enough for too much media attention and even her parents like him. It's all pretty great.
And when they finally get there, when they're finally Hannah Montana, High School Musical, Vanessa Hudgens status and all the lights and all the fame, and they're finally sleeping together, they at least have the common sense not to videotape it. Because hey, it's one thing to be a cliche -- it's another to be a joke.
