Runaway | Chapter 30
Summary: Instead of attending her spot at a top college in the fall, Y/N runs away from her home on the East Coast and ends up on a city bench in L.A. – lost, cold, and utterly alone. When one of her favourite actors, Jared Padalecki, passes her on his way home from a club with his best friend Jensen, while Y/N is getting ready to sleep in the street on that bench, he finds he can't just walk by.
Pairing: Jared Padalecki x Reader Rating: 18+ Chapter Warnings: verbal abuse from step-father, mild physical abuse Tags: AU, slow burn, ANGST, mutual pining, slow burn, gossip mags, rumours abound Word Count: 2.3k
Series masterlist | Read ahead on my website
TAKING A CHANCE… WITH A CHEATER?
Jared Padalecki – currently in the spotlight for his lead role in Taking A Chance, and his rumoured, not-so-secret, relationship with his co-star Quinn Bradley – caused quite the stir over the weekend at the production’s end of filming publicity event. Arriving on the arm of his suspected beau, the couple posed happily for photographs before they were interrupted by the arrival of Padalecki’s long time best friend, sports journalist Jensen Ackles, and his personal assistant, one Y/N L/N.
L/N, who has been spotted out in Napa with Padalecki and Ackles, all three together as well as separately, shied away from the cameras but was heard by reporters making the comment that Padalecki and Ackles were ‘finally back together,’ as she pushed the pair together for their own photos before slipping inside the event hall.
L/N’s comment has thrown into question the rumours surrounding Padalecki and Bradley that have been circulating in recent months. It’s true that during the time when the co-stars appeared to be growing closer, Padalecki was rarely spotted with Ackles, despite the latter’s recent move from L.A. to Napa shortly after the production began filming. Many are wondering why he would have left L.A. for this decidedly less sporting northern city, and the obvious answer seems to be that he and Padalecki wanted to remain close – which of course calls into question just what the relationship between the two men truly is.
Has Padalecki’s apparent relationship with Bradley merely been a publicity stunt to drum up buzz for their movie, while conveniently covering up the fact that their leading man is, in fact, gay and off the market?
However, there’s a fourth piece to this love triangle – Padalecki’s assistant has been seen out and about in Napa with Ackles much more than Padalecki himself, leading this reporter to question if that was just another red herring to help cover up the men’s clandestine relationship. There are further reports from unnamed sources on set that Ackles frequently visited with L/N at the Napa mansion where filming took place, but was rarely publicly seen with Padalecki.
Further suspicions have been relayed to us from set that Padalecki and L/N haved seemed much closer than an actor and personal assistant tend to be. It was apparently a stipulation of Padalecki’s contract that he could select his own PA, and he specifically brought L/N along with him from L.A. to work together, despite the fact that sources tell us she’s never worked on a film set before this production. So why, if she had no experience in the role, was Padalecki so insistent that she be hired alongside himself? Photos of the pair on set, which are currently being vetted for authenticity, have been submitted to Exposé by an anonymous source, which look highly suspicious to those inclined to believe that Padalecki may be carrying on a relationship with his young employee – nearly thirteen years his junior.
So who is Padalecki’s true paramour? Or has he actually been seeing multiple people at the same time for months? Following the party this past weekend, Padalecki has been spotted with both Ackles and Bradley on separate occasions, but L/N seems to have vanished. Our sources on the film set report that she was seen leaving the Napa vineyard in a taxi, accompanied by a suitcase. Did something happen over this weekend to reveal Padalecki’s duplicity? Will he finally own up to a relationship with Ackles or Bradley?
We’ll continue to keep our readers updated as more details continue to come to light.
Cece: Don’t know if you’ve seen this, hope you’re okay
Y/N/N stared at Cece’s text, accompanied by the link to the online magazine article. Why on earth did he have to send her this? Did he know something? Or just suspect something? Y/N/N certainly had her suspicions about Cece. She would bet the very little amount of money she had to her name that he was one of the ‘unnamed sources’ on set that the article referred to.
This kind of shit stirring was exactly the sort of thing he revelled in. Did he still think there was something going on between her and Jared, and this was his way of trying to get her to admit to it? Well, if that was the case, he’d never been further from the truth. Jared hated her. The fact that there were rumours about Jared and Jensen dating had made her laugh though. If she hadn’t known that Jared was really with Quinn, she wouldn’t have been that surprised if Jared and Jensen turned out to be a bit closer than your typical best friends.
Y/N/N set her phone face down on the counter and took another sip of her coffee, letting her eyes slip closed and leaning the warm mug against her forehead. She’d forgotten how cold it could get in Washington. Everything about her stepfather’s townhouse was crisp and grey and cold as stone; the industrial concrete counters in the kitchen seemed to be sapping the little warmth that her coffee had provided right out of her body again. Pathetically, she let herself spend a moment missing Jared, who had always been so sunny and warm.
She finished her coffee and pulled herself off the kitchen stool to pour another cup. She’d only been home two days, and the jet lag was still weighing heavily on her eyes, not used to being up at what was essentially four in the morning according to her body clock. Y/N/N's mom was still asleep, she had never been an early riser after she stopped working, but she heard her stepfather moving around upstairs, getting ready to go into his office.
A moment later, Y/N/N heard his heavy footsteps on the stairs and braced herself for the cold indifference she’d been the recipient of since she’d arrived home with Carlton a few nights ago. Her mother, at least, had been relieved to see her, wrapping her in an awkward hug that Y/N/N hadn’t had the energy to return, but her stepfather had just seemed aggravated.
“Y/N/N!” His loud, angry voice echoed through the ground floor of the house from the foyer, and she startled, spilling coffee over her hand in surprise. Fuck, he sounded really upset. She wondered what on earth she could have done, then with a sinking dread she remembered the gossip article. Surely he couldn’t know about that? It had made no mention of her family, and it had given her father’s last name, not his; there shouldn’t be any way for people to connect her back to him.
“What the fuck did you do?” he burst into the kitchen like a storm, his face clouded over with rage.
“I–I don’t know,” Y/N/N stuttered helplessly. She wasn’t going to admit to anything until he told her what he was angry about. Maybe he didn’t know about the article and she’d just broken the shower or something? She really couldn’t think of anything else for him to be so angry about, though.
“So you don’t know why there’s a load of paparazzi outside of my fucking house right now?” he demanded venomously and Y/N/N couldn’t help her wince, giving away that she did know why. “Rigby told me you were shacked up with some actor, did you get yourself in the news? They better not have any fucking photos of you being some Hollywood slut, or I swear to God–”
“I wasn’t ‘shacked up’ with anyone!” Y/N/N protested, feeling tears begin to well up behind her eyelids and willing them not to spill over. “I had a job on a movie set, I was working for him, that’s all.”
“Rigby seemed to think there was more going on between you and him,” he huffed in frustration.
“Well he was wrong,” she answered weakly, her chest tight with regret. “How would he know anyways? We were on private property during filming, he couldn't have been watching us work.” Her stepfather scoffed and rolled his eyes, getting himself his own mug and aggressively grabbing the coffee pot from Y/N/N’s hands.
“You really are as stupid as you look, aren’t you? He had informants, that’s how he does his job. You really think a little thing like ‘private property’ was gonna make him abandon the assignment?”
Y/N/N’s heart sank.
“He had other people watching me? Who?” she asked nervously, feeling like she might already know the answer.
“I don’t know, some gay kid who worked there too and wanted the money Rigby offered him. Apparently he was very amenable to the terms, guess just as many people disliked you out there as here,” he grimaced creully and Y/N/N crumpled back against the counter.
Cece. She had been right, he had been spying on her and Jared. It was a good bet he was the one informing the Exposé as well, and that’s how the magazine had gotten all those photos from set, and the selfie of her and Jared on their latest cover – that photo had been the screen saver on her work phone, the phone she’d left behind in her room in Napa. And of course Carlton would have thought she and Jared were together, because Cece had always been convinced of that fact too.
The congressman’s phone buzzed along the concrete counter where he’d set it down, and he turned away for a moment to pick up the text. Y/N/N watched as his face grew darker, his frown cutting deep creases in the pudgy lines of his cheeks as his eyes darted back and forth, clearly reading something. Slowly, he looked back up at his stepdaughter and Y/N/N felt her heart drop. She knew what must have been in that message.
“You did get yourself in the news, you fucking idiot!” he screamed, and his phone flew past Y/N/N, only very narrowly missing her face and smashing against the wall of cabinets behind her. “Do you realise how this makes me look?!” Her stepfather stormed towards her in a fury, striking her hard across the face, and she collapsed back against the counter in shock. “And now we’ve got the fucking press outside the goddamn house! How do you think this looks for my career, to my constituents? Having my sorry excuse for a stepdaughter on the front page of some trashy gossip magazine with a man twice her age!?”
Y/N/N was crying now, tears silently spilling down her face as she cowered in front of her stepfather. She didn’t know what to say to any of his accusations, and she knew that no matter what she said nothing would make it better.
“Maybe I need to make you disappear again, save you from embarrassing me and this family any further,” he grunted, and Y/N/N shuddered, remembering his threat from the last fight they’d had; the threat that had made her run away in the first place.
“If you didn’t want me back here then why send a PI after me in the first place?” Y/N/N spat, then abruptly shut her mouth, surprised at her outburst. She’d never spoken to her stepfather like that before.
“What did you say to me, young lady?”
“Why did you send someone after me?” Y/N/N asked again, voice more steady, and just a little stronger this time. “If you're just gonna ‘make me disappear’, why didn’t you let me stay gone?”
“Because clearly you couldn’t handle yourself out there,” her stepfather growled angrily, pointing towards the front of the house and the press that was waiting. “You couldn’t be trusted to be left alone like that. Plus your mother insisted. She was worried,” he rolled his eyes in frustration. “And she was right to be, I suppose; you got yourself in plenty of trouble out there. Maybe Rigby should have let that director finish what he started, teach you a real lesson about the consequences of your actions.”
“Y-you know about… I mean… Carlton told you what happened?” she asked, hanging her head in shame. She had really hoped no one else would ever find out about that, she never wanted to think about it again.
“Told me? He cleared it with me. How else would he have convinced you he was someone you could trust? He needed to get you home somehow if he wanted us to pay him, that was the deal.”
Y/N/N felt the blood draining from her face in horror at his comments.
“You planned that?” she whispered, the air frozen in her lungs beneath her stepfather’s cruelly indifferent gaze. “You arranged for me to be sexually assaulted?!”
“Not specifically,” he shook his head with disinterest. “They knew the director had a record, figured it was a safe bet he’d try to take it too far at some point in time, Rigby and the gay kid just made sure it happened at a time he could be close by to swoop in and play the hero. Oh, don’t look so pathetic, it worked didn’t it? Got you running back home with your tail between your legs, and now I need you to stay quiet, stay out of the news, keep to yourself, and we won’t have any more problems,” –the congressman walked up to Y/N/N menacingly, pulling out his money clip that Y/N/N knew had a pocket knife attached on one side, and she swallowed hard– “right?”
Y/N/N nodded meekly, eyes following the money clip back to his pocket as he tucked it away.
“Stay inside today. If I see you’ve talked to any of the reporters out there, you don’t want to know what happens next, do you understand?”
Y/N/N nodded again, and her stepfather reached out and patted her shoulder heavily before taking his coffee and walking back to the front hall, getting ready to leave for work.
Chapter 31 coming April 19th or subscribe to my website to read the completed the story!
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