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It was really quite strange, the way it happened. Kristen still couldn’t say whether it had entered into her head as a possibility before. But it wasn’t like she minded.
Jennifer was…well, she was at once scarily like Kristen and her complete opposite. She clearly didn't fit in in Hollywood either, but in her case it was more that she was loud and blunt (in a different way than Kristen’s bluntness - Jennifer happily overshared in interviews, things that Kristen would never in a thousand years say in front of anybody she didn’t consider one of her best friends, but Jennifer just blurted out stories about pissing in the woods nonchalantly as the reporter had asked her what her favorite color was) and rambunctious and, well, she actually had curves. (Spectacular ones too; you'd never see Jen doing a photoshoot where she crossdressed.) She seemed kind of like a puppy: friendly and cute but probably annoying if you were around her too long. People like that were fine, but Kristen tired of them quickly. She assumed that when the inevitable meeting happened, it would be two minutes at some public event, she would spend the entire time feeling awkward, and they wouldn’t speak after that, except possibly at auditions and such. That wasn’t exactly how it went.
It began while she was at some awards show, trying in vain to keep a smile plastered on her face, when Jennifer bounded over, grinning and practically vibrating with excitement. "Hi!" she said. Just looking at her made Kristen tired. She held out her hand, and Jennifer took it and pumped it up and down enthusiastically. "It's great to meet you, finally! I've been a big fan of yours for so long, this is totally surreal."
Slightly taken aback at this, Kristen could only stammer, "Really?"
"Yeah, dude! Speak, Panic Room, and you kicked ass in The Runaways!" Jennifer's grin was infectious, and Kristen felt the corners of her mouth turn up of their own volition in a real smile. "And Twilight of course, I can't imagine anybody doing a better Bella than you, you're perfect in those movies. Oh god, sorry, that sounds super creepy!" she added, clapping a hand over her mouth. "I promise I'm not trying to be, god, I'm awful. I should just never talk without a script in front of me again, I'm sorry. I can go if you…"
Kristen chuckled. Somehow, Jennifer’s outburst came across as more amusing than creepy. Maybe because out of character, she was one of the least threatening people Kristen had ever met. She had a sudden vision of Jennifer walking up to someone in a dark alley and saying something like "Hey, I'm gonna mug you now, just a heads-up” and then dropping the gun when she tried to point it at her victim and probably shooting herself in the leg accidentally while trying to recover it. The puppy comparison was beginning to seem very apt. "Don't worry about it, man. I'm glad you like my stuff that much. I saw you in like, Winter's Bone and you were great. And like, X-Men and stuff, that rocked." She bit her lip. Damn. Her brain sabotaged her again. It always happened when she was trying to be cool.
Relaxing visibly, Jennifer grinned again. "Thanks! Hey, so since we're like, the new teen queens of Hollywood or whatever, I think we should hang out. They'll probably try to kick up a rivalry, you know, between us or whatever, which I think is bullshit, and that would suck cause you seem awesome. So I figure if, like, we become friends then we'll just have all that out of the way." She suddenly looked a little shy. "I mean, if that's cool with you."
Kristen took a moment to reply because her brain was too busy processing the idea that Jennifer Lawrence had just proposed friendship. "I, uh…uh yeah, totally!" she said finally, nodding and smiling. Somehow Jennifer's awkwardness was reassuring, as if suddenly Kristen wasn't the only person here who was either automatically at home at public events or playing everything up to cover up the fact that they weren't. Maybe she’d finally found someone who could out-awkward her. "I'd like that. Being friends, I mean."
"Great!" Jennifer pulled a Sharpie out of her cleavage (Kristen forced herself to think clean thoughts, like why of all places to put a pen cleavage was the best option - although then again, if she had a rack like Jennifer's she would probably take advantage of it too) and, grabbing Kristen's arm, scribbled some numbers on the back of it. "Text me after this shit is over with!" she said, grinning as she stuffed the pen back into its former hiding spot. "Or during. I've never had a texting riff-buddy before for awards shows, that would be great!" Then she looked around for a moment. "I'd probably better go make sure I'm not supposed to be doing an interview or anything or else my agent will yell at me later, but seriously, it was great to meet you!" And she was gone, an awkward overenthusiastic blur.
Still too shocked to know how to react, Kristen just turned her arm over and stared at the scribble, mouth agape. Jennifer Lawrence just…gave me her phone number. Jennifer Lawrence just gave me her phone number. The realization sluggishly made its way into her brain, immediately followed by the desire to go off somewhere private and quiet and freak out and maybe cry a little because god, people didn't do this. Not with her. Especially not girls! How did normal people deal with this?
The rest of the night passed in a blur, mostly spent staring at the number (she’d get hell from her manager for that tomorrow, but whatever, she was involved enough when she was expected to be, she wasn’t completely zoned out, and at least she hadn’t smoked before she came this time), and, occasionally, glancing around to try and find Jennifer. Finally she spotted her sitting farther down and near the middle of the row. There was no way Kristen could get to her without having to alert at least twenty people about it. So she gave up, letting her thoughts wander until her attention was required again.
After it was all over, she pulled out her phone the second she was in her car and stared at it for a moment, squinting at the unnaturally bright screen. C’mon, dude, she wasn’t serious. And even if she does want you to text her, you’ll probably hang out once and that’ll be it. Just save yourself the embarrassment now. Still, Jennifer seemed cool. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if they became friends.
On impulse, she tapped the number into her phone, then sent Jennifer a text saying Hey, it’s Kristen. So that was pretty lame. You wanna get something to eat? Then she had to take a moment to fend off a slight panic attack when she realized what she’d just done.
Not two minutes had passed before the screen lit up with a reply. In N Out? The one on Sunset? 15 minutes?
After taking a few moments to breathe very deeply and not think about what she was doing (namely, conversing with a really gorgeous and seemingly quite nice girl who also happened to be famous and god, what was she doing talking to her?), Kristen sent an affirmative reply and started the ignition, on autopilot due to shock. This whole making friends thing, she wasn’t good at it even with normal people, how the hell would this work?
---
Alcohol, that was how.
Well, that wasn’t entirely accurate. The spontaneous date (was she allowed to call it a date? how did these things work anyway?) was promising from the beginning. Jennifer strode over the second she spotted her getting out of her car and grinned. “Hey! I haven’t ordered yet, I was waiting for you. You wanna get it to go and then come hang out at my place? We might not get mobbed that way…no guarantees though.” She tilted her head like a dog, waiting for an answer.
Blinking, Kristen nodded and said, “Sure, sounds good,” not entirely sure what she was doing. People weren’t usually this forward with her; this was uncharted social territory, and that always made her nervous. But she followed Jennifer inside anyway.
Jennifer’s order consisted of a 4x4, two orders of fries and a strawberry milkshake, which put Kristen at ease immediately. “Thanks for eating like an actual person instead of those crazy diet freaks who eat like birds,” she blurted out, then cursed her moment of spontaneity. But Jennifer laughed and said, “Of course, dude. Food is the greatest thing in the world, why would I deprive myself of it?” Kristen smiled.
Later, they flopped onto the giant couch in Jennifer’s living room, plates full of food on tray tables in front of each of them. It should’ve been weird, sitting here with this girl she’d just met hours ago, but it wasn’t. Kristen looked over and smiled at Jennifer as the other girl attacked her burger with relish. “So what do you wanna do?”
Jennifer’s next sentence was too garbled by burger bits to be understandable, but after a few moments of chewing she swallowed and tried again. “I dunno. Drink, hang out, make fun of trashy TV. How are friendships supposed to work? I usually just talk at somebody until they get freaked out by how weird I am and run away.”
“You’d have to be pretty fucking weird for me to run away,” replied Kristen, smirking.
“Awesome.” Stuffing the rest of the burger into her mouth, Jennifer got up and wandered in the direction of the kitchen, returning with a bottle of vodka and two shot glasses. She set them down on the table in front of Kristen and poured them each a shot, then grabbed one and waited for Kristen to take the other. “Here’s to friendships forged through mutual awkwardness!” she toasted, clinking her glass against Kristen’s. A bit of vodka splashed out, hitting her dress. “Shit. Whatever, I was planning to change into actual clothes anyway.” She stood up and shucked the dress off, standing there for a moment in black panties and a mismatched bra. “Hang on a sec.” As she turned to go, Kristen forced herself to stare at her glass, at the walls, at anything that wasn’t Jennifer’s nearly naked and very attractive body as it receded from view. Was Jennifer that chill with everyone, or was she sending Kristen some kind of sign? If it had been the latter, she’d probably just failed it, not that that was a surprise. She’d never been good with subtlety or hints.
When Jennifer came back, she was wearing an oversize T-shirt and boxers. “Phew!” she sighed, collapsing onto the couch and taking a drink. “Much better. Man, I wish I could just go out every day like this, you know? I hate pants, they were obviously invented by somebody who hated freedom and happiness and all that shit. But dresses suck too, cause you can’t take the bottom half off when you’re done with it, the whole damn thing has to go. Pain in the ass. See, if everyone just went around in a T-shirt and boxers all day I think we’d be a happier country. I’ve had all my best times when I wasn’t wearing pants. Haven’t you?” Jennifer turned to look at Kristen, expecting an answer.
Well. This girl was clearly insane, but she was also hilarious. Kristen took another sip while she thought about the question. After a moment she nodded and said, “You’re right, man, I’ve never been really happy when I was wearing anything more than boxers. You’re totally onto something. Pants are the devil.”
“I’m glad you agree!” Jennifer grinned in a manic sort of way and chugged the rest of her shot. “See, this is why I gave you my number. I knew we’d get along cause you’re awesome! Plus you’re hot,” she added nonchalantly. “I like hanging out with hot people.”
Normally this would’ve left Kristen flustered, but the alcohol was starting to do its work and she just chuckled. “Thanks, man. Feeling’s mutual.”
“Good.” Then Jennifer leaned over and planted one on her.
It was so sudden that it took Kristen a minute to figure out what was happening, at which point she reached up and put her hands on Jennifer’s shoulders in order to pull her closer to her. It had been a while since she’d had a good drunken make-out with a pretty girl, so what the hell? Plus Jennifer was a great kisser. Like, really great. A couple of times a moan escaped Kristen’s lips, which would’ve been embarrassing if her head had been clearer (as it stood, she was hardly in a position to feel embarrassed about anything). She was also eternally grateful to whatever force had caused Jennifer to have to change clothes, because it was much easier feeling her up while she was wearing a T-shirt than it would’ve been if she was still wearing that dress.
Eventually the vodka caught up with Jennifer and she dozed off, both arms wrapped around Kristen and her head pillowed on her chest. It was one of the more adorable things Kristen had ever seen. (She was drooling a little too, but even that was kind of cute.) In a moment of sudden sentimentality, Kristen stroked Jennifer’s hair affectionately – it was darker than Dakota’s, but just as soft – and the other girl sighed in her sleep, snoring softly. Yeah, this turned out okay, thought Kristen as she nestled into a comfortable position beneath Jennifer. Could’ve been a lot worse.
---
The first sensation Kristen was aware of, upon waking up, was a light tickle traveling across her cheek. She exhaled loudly, reached up to bat at it and opened her eyes to see Jennifer leaning over her flicking her cheek with a strand of hair and grinning. “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty!” she said, immediately jumping out of range of a glowering Kristen when she sat up and brandished a fist, then flipped the bird at her. “Oh c’mon, it’s 11:30! I’ve been up for an hour already!”
“And it’s Saturday, your point is?” Kristen yawned and stretched, noting the slight ache in her body from being pinned in one position all night.
“My point is pancakes!” Jennifer bounded away and came back a moment later with a plate heaped high with pancakes and a giant container of syrup. “I always feed my conquests in the morning, but I really like pancakes so I ate like half of them on accident while I was waiting for you to wake up. I’ll buy you a drink or something to make up for it later.”
Kristen shrugged and started in on the pancakes. “Wait, conquest? All we did was make out. Which was great, don’t get me wrong, but not exactly conquest material.”
“Yeah, well, the vodka kicked in sooner than I thought it would. I was gonna pull off all your clothes and make you scream, but I accidentally fell asleep first. Whoops.” Jennifer shrugged and made a weird face, bugging her eyes out like a cartoon character, and Kristen couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m not much of a screamer, but that’s flattering,” she replied.
“That sounds like a dare.” Jennifer’s smirk was flirty, playful. She raised an eyebrow. “I like dares. And I don’t give up easy.”
“Ooh, I like the sound of that.”
---
It wasn’t like they were exclusive or public about it or anything like that. They were friendly at events, spoke fondly of each other in interviews when prompted, in the way that you did of other actresses you knew because everyone knew each other in this business. But every few months Jennifer texted her In N Out? and Kristen cleared her social calendar for the weekend, explaining it away as a “personal vacation.” She got the food and brought it to Jennifer’s house, and Jennifer met her at the door with shots in hand, and neither of them came out until work necessitated it, and it was easy. It worked, somehow.