Owen entered Jenna's apartment carrying the two bottles of alcohol. Both were already half empty, but they would be more than enough.
The lights were on, and for the first time he was able to really take in the place where she lived. They were friends, yes, but they had never gone over to each other's apartments to watch movies or share meals. Their schedules were always moving at a different pace, so they had never quite reached that level of everyday familiarity.
Structurally, the space was very similar to his own, after all, it was the same building, but the personality was different. Everything was arranged with almost meticulous care. A sober, clean style, with no excess objects or ostentatious details. Nothing stood out.
Though they did share the same sense of order and neatness.
Owen set the bottles down on the low coffee table in the living room and, when he looked down, he found himself face to face with an orange cat, fairly large, approaching him with complete confidence, purring.
He couldn't help but smile and crouched down. "So you're the famous Juan Antonio?" he asked, gently scratching behind the cat's ear.
The cat responded by rubbing against his hand, completely at ease.
"It's unusual for him to come say hi," Jenna commented from the side as she removed her rings and a bracelet, carefully placing them on a shelf. "He's usually pretty picky with strangers."
Owen looked up at her, amused, without stopping petting the cat. "That says a lot about me, or very little about your visitors."
Jenna rolled her eyes with a faint smile. "Don't flatter yourself," she said as she crouched down and started calling the cat.
Juan Antonio turned his head toward his owner. He hesitated for just a second and then walked over to her. Jenna began petting him naturally and, as she did, she looked at Owen with an almost triumphant smile.
"Hey, you're his owner," Owen defended himself. "It'd be weird if he chose me."
Then he added, pointing at the cat, "But I won't forget this, Juan Antonio."
Jenna laughed, shaking her head. Then she looked at him curiously. "Your pronunciation of his name in Spanish is really good."
Her friends always struggled with it. The Spanish j sound didn't exist in English, and they usually ended up saying something closer to Yu-an or Hu-an. And Antonio almost always got reduced to Tony.
The way Owen had said it, on the other hand, had been perfect.
Owen adopted a mockingly self-satisfied expression as he stood up. "I've learned some Spanish," he said. "As an actor, you never know when a role might call for it."
"You're amazing," Jenna commented, somewhere between gentle sarcasm and genuine respect.
"I know. I'm on my way to the Oscars," Owen replied with fake arrogance.
Jenna laughed and went into the kitchen. She returned a moment later with two glasses and set them on the table. Owen poured until each was about halfway full.
"Is that one of your dreams?" she asked, taking her glass.
"The Oscars?" Owen repeated.
"Yes," Jenna nodded. "Your goal, maybe even for 2023."
"I'd be lying if I said no," Owen admitted. "More than once I've imagined myself holding a statuette and giving some cheap motivational speech in front of everyone."
For an actor, it was the ultimate dream: to be recognized as the best, whether in a leading or supporting role. Something comparable to the highest individual award an athlete could receive.
In his past life, he had come close to achieving it as a supporting actor. In this new one, he wanted to get there again, and win. With the scripts he literally had etched into his mind and with his skills, which could still improve, he felt there were no excuses.
"But…?" Jenna said, taking a sip of her drink.
"I feel like lately awards are losing credibility with the public," Owen continued. "It seems like campaigns, marketing, or political correctness matter more."
Jenna nodded. Although she had a strong social awareness, she shared that perception and tried not to mix it with her work as an actress.
She also understood the weight of marketing: a movie that focused more on its campaign and festival run, selling itself as the film of the year, had the advantage. Instead of winning Best Picture, it was the best-sold one.
And others were rewarded more for their messages than for strictly artistic merit.
"Every year the Oscars lose viewers," Jenna commented.
The last real peak was around 2010 to 2016, when DiCaprio finally won his long-awaited Oscar for The Revenant.
Luckily for DiCaprio in this reality, The Revenant still existed, since Owen had never read the historical fiction novel the film was based on. So DiCaprio kept his Oscar in this timeline.
"Many of the recent winners don't really connect with the general audience," Owen commented. "Although that shouldn't be the only criterion either."
For him, a good movie didn't need to be a box-office hit to deserve awards. It needed a great script, solid performances, and coherence across all its elements. And he knew very well that many of the biggest box-office successes didn't meet those standards.
But the problem existed at the other extreme as well.
When a very popular movie did bring all of those qualities together, it was often dismissed in the awards circuit, SAG-AFTRA, the Golden Globes, the Oscars, simply for being too mainstream. There were clear prejudices.
Especially toward certain genres, like superhero films, where merely belonging to the genre seemed to automatically exclude you from the conversation, even if you had a strong script, standout performances within that framework, solid direction, and impeccable technical work.
"Well, let's stop talking about movies and get drunk," Jenna said, pouring herself more alcohol and then topping off Owen's glass as well.
Owen's eyes widened slightly when he heard her. "I wasn't expecting to hear those words from the consummate professional, Jenna Ortega."
"I'm not that strict," she replied, sounding mildly offended. "I can get drunk once in a while…"
Owen looked at her with one eyebrow raised. "Once in a while?" he repeated.
That didn't sound entirely true. He knew how strict Jenna was with her routine, even on weekends. In fact, he clearly remembered something she'd said days earlier before going out with friends: 'I need to meet my socialization quota. I've put it off long enough.'
Jenna scoffed and corrected herself. "Okay… once every long while. On special occasions. Like a New Year's party."
"That sounds more like you," Owen admitted, nodding. "And honestly, I was surprised you went to a party with that many people."
It wasn't two hundred people, but it was definitely more than fifty. And considering the level of fame Jenna was carrying, combined with how careful she was even in social settings, it wasn't the most typical choice.
"It wasn't my idea to go," Jenna confessed, grimacing. "My friends insisted. I wanted to stay home with them, do an endless pregame, and call it a night. But I didn't want to be a buzzkill… so I ended up going."
"Now everything makes sense," Owen said with a teasing smile.
"Oh, shut up," Jenna said, lightly punching his arm. "You're not one to talk. I'm sure you were planning to stay home too, but since your girlfriend asked for a break, you decided to go out, right?"
Owen nodded, but there was something to clarify. "It wasn't out of spite, or because she was going out with her friends and I wanted to match that. It was more because she canceled the plans we had, and I didn't want to leave the guys alone on New Year's. Five guys, no girls, at a gathering, it didn't sound ideal."
Jenna nodded slowly. That definitely sounded much more like Owen.
"We're really good friends," she said then, with a hint of surprise in her voice, as if she were only just putting a name to the idea.
Owen laughed and nodded. "Yeah. The responsible, self-aware ones of the group."
"Without a doubt," Jenna replied, quickly running through her friends in her head. She was usually the most grounded of them all, though if she included Owen in the equation, the podium wasn't so clear anymore.
Then she smiled and added, "Even though we sound like two old people and we're barely in our twenties."
Owen let out a short laugh. "In our defense, we take our work very seriously because we actually like what we do."
"To work done right," Jenna said, raising her glass, "and to being a little obsessive."
Owen mirrored the gesture. Their glasses clinked softly, and both took a long sip.
"So… do we keep drinking just to drink, or…?" Jenna said, letting the sentence hang as she slowly swirled the glass between her fingers.
"I don't know, do you have something in mind?" Owen replied honestly, not feeling particularly inspired.
"With Melissa and the others we sometimes play Two Truths and a Lie. Do you know it?" Jenna suggested.
Owen hesitated for a second, then nodded. "Yeah, you have to guess which one is the lie, right?"
"Exactly," Jenna confirmed. "But the industry version: castings, sets, weird anecdotes… you know."
Each person would say three statements. If the other guessed which one was false, the person who had said them had to drink. If they got it wrong, the guesser drank.
"It's a good game," Owen admitted, "though my résumé is pretty short compared to yours."
In this life, almost all of his projects had been self-financed. He had very few stories about traditional castings, just a handful from when he'd first arrived, back when he still didn't have the creative control he now had.
"You can talk about USC," Jenna said without overthinking it. "About the acting program. I'm sure you've got a few. Or from high school, you did a lot of theater, right?"
Owen nodded slowly. Memories of the previous Owen surfaced in his mind: real anecdotes, yes, but born from a version of himself that no longer fully existed. Some of them clashed with his current work ethic, but the youth, lack of focus, and certain immaturity of that time made them completely believable.
And, paradoxically, that made them perfect for the game.
He looked at her and gave a crooked smile. "Alright, let's play. I hope you don't get drunk too fast."
Jenna raised an eyebrow, amused. "You sound confident," she replied. "I hope I don't have to help you stumble back to your apartment."
"You won't. You start, you're the expert," Owen said with a faint smile.
"It's not like I'm some big expert," Jenna replied, straightening slightly as she got ready. "I've just played it a couple of times. But I'll go first."
The game began and, to Owen's surprise, it turned out to be far more fun than he'd expected. He wanted to win, as always, especially against Jenna, but he also found himself genuinely enjoying listening to her stories, all of them plausible enough to make him doubt. It was hard to spot the false one, which forced him to actually pay attention.
Without realizing it, the game became the perfect excuse to get to know each other better.
After several rounds, the bottle had gone down quickly, and neither of them was keeping track of who was winning anymore. For the first time between them, competition had slipped into the background.
Jenna was standing now, gesturing more than usual, with an energy that was rare for her. The alcohol had done its job. Owen listened attentively, a faint smile at the corner of his mouth, more entertained by the way she told the story, the gestures, the tone, the exaggerated indignation, than by the content itself.
"Yes, I know it was a low-budget movie and that it was a supporting role," Jenna was saying dramatically, "but for God's sake! You can at least take it a little more seriously."
She was talking about X, where she had a significant supporting role. Specifically, she was complaining about the actor who played a character named RJ. The ironic detail was that the actor's name was also Owen.
"Well," Owen chimed in, shrugging, "we can't expect everyone to keep up with our pace or have our work ethic."
Jenna looked at him with narrowed eyes. "You're defending him because he has the same name as you."
"Of course not," Owen said.
"And I know I shouldn't expect from others the same things I expect from myself. Not everyone takes the work the same way. But at the very least, I expect respect for the project, for the crew, for everyone else's time, and that when you act, you at least try to do it decently," she said, taking a sip from her glass.
Owen watched her for a few seconds before nodding.
"You're right," he said. "But there's always going to be someone like that on a film. Even on low-budget projects, there are too many people involved. You can reduce it if you're the one doing the hiring, but it's never easy."
"That's why I'd like to be a director or a producer," Jenna replied, pointing at him with her glass as if she were making an irrefutable point.
Owen smiled faintly as he stood up. In the course of that conversation, he'd learned something he hadn't known before: one of Jenna's goals was to direct. She'd written a script a long time ago, she'd mentioned it, though without going into details. And being a producer, as he understood it, was more about the creative side than the executive one, permits, numbers, logistics. She was a perfectionist, liked having control, but not in a bureaucratic sense.
"Well, Mrs. Producer…" Owen began, stepping closer to help her when she wobbled slightly and almost lost her balance. "I think it's best if we call it a night on the alcohol."
Jenna looked at him with mock offense, though she didn't pull away. "It's not the alcohol," she replied. "It's my heels. They're killing me, and it's impossible to keep my balance like this. Wait here, I'm going to change. There's still some left in the other bottle. We didn't finish."
Without giving him time to respond, she turned around and walked decisively toward her bedroom, leaving him alone in the living room.
Owen watched her go and let out a sigh, accompanied by a smile. He sat back down on the couch.
She had a strong personality, yes, but not the impulsive or capricious kind. It was more like his: decisive, logical, and hard to sway in an argument. And that wasn't something Owen came across very often.
Five minutes passed, and there was no sign of Jenna.
Owen, who wasn't entirely sober either, stood up and walked to the bedroom, whose door was still closed.
"Jenna? Everything okay?" he asked, knocking gently.
"Yeah, I'm coming," she replied from inside.
Owen waited a couple of seconds in silence, then spoke again. "Sure?"
This time, the answer didn't come right away. "No, I need help. Come in."
Owen pushed the door open and stepped inside. Jenna was sitting on the edge of the bed, her back straight, one hand resting on her lap. Her expression was neutral, far too calm for someone who had just downed half a bottle.
"What happened—?" Owen started, but stopped when he noticed the detail.
One of Jenna's heels was missing. She had managed to take one off, but the other was still firmly tied to her leg.
She followed his gaze and sighed. "I can't get it off. It's tied too tight…"
Owen looked at her for a second and couldn't help letting out a short laugh. "And you said you weren't drunk? You can't even take off a shoe."
"It's not a shoe, genius," she shot back. "They're lace-up heels. And they're not easy to take off, especially when Melissa was the one who tied them, and she tied them way too tight."
"Whatever you say," Owen replied as he stepped closer. Then he crouched down in front of her. "May I?"
Jenna nodded and lifted her foot slightly.
Owen took it carefully and examined the tangle of laces. Up close, it was more complicated than he'd thought: the straps wrapped around her ankle and went all the way up her calf, pulled tight.
He started untying them, but didn't make as much progress as he'd expected. His expression shifted, focused.
Jenna smiled as she watched him. "What's wrong, genius? Why is it taking you so long? I thought it was easy."
"I'm a man," Owen replied without looking up. "This is the first time I've ever seen something like this. It makes sense that I'd struggle."
"Great argument," Jenna said. "I'd buy it if I didn't know you're also a little drunk."
Owen didn't deny it. He probably would have handled it much faster if he'd been completely sober.
After wrestling with it for a couple more minutes, Owen finally managed to undo the last knot. He tossed the heel aside as if getting rid of a personal enemy.
"Finally," Jenna said.
"You're welcome," Owen replied, standing up.
"My foot thanks you," Jenna said, "and curses Melissa for tying them so tight."
The straps had left faint marks on her skin, barely visible, but enough to show how tight they'd been.
Jenna let herself fall back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling, and let out a long sigh. "I'm tired."
Owen sat on the edge of the bed without lying down. He checked the time on his watch: 4:30 a.m.
What he'd thought would last an hour at most had stretched on far longer.
"Have you been awake long?" he asked.
"Since seven," Jenna replied. Then she sat up and ended up beside him. "And you?"
"Since six thirty, to be exact," Owen said, his shoulders slumping slightly. The exhaustion was no longer easy to ignore.
A comfortable silence settled in. Owen stared ahead, his thoughts drifting to tomorrow, the meeting with the director and everything waiting for him on the first day of the year.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, Owen noticed that Jenna was staring at him.
He turned his head, and their gazes met.
There were no words. Jenna suddenly leaned in and kissed him.
It was a brief kiss, just a few seconds. Owen didn't close his eyes.
Jenna noticed immediately. At first she thought it was just surprise, but when she caught his expression, she pulled away almost at once, leaning back.
"I'm sorry," she said quickly, the words tumbling over each other. "I don't know what I was thinking. And after everything I told you about not flirting when you're on a break with your partner… how hypocritical of me. I'm sorry."
She spoke fast, as if she needed to fill the silence with explanations.
It had been an impulse that caught her off guard. She wasn't the kind of person who usually gave in to things like that.
And she did believe in the idea of a break, crossing that line wasn't right. Though, to be honest, Owen's words, that lack of faith, that sense that the relationship was already broken, had shifted Jenna's perception and logic, leading her to act the way she had.
Now, faced with Owen's reaction, doubt hit her all at once.
Maybe he wasn't as sure of what he'd said. Maybe he was still someone deeply loyal, and this simply wasn't acceptable to him. Or maybe, quite simply, he didn't want something like this with her.
That made her pull back even more, uncomfortable, aware that she'd crossed a boundary and might have put her relationship with Owen at risk.
So the easiest thing was to blame the alcohol and try to salvage the situation.
Owen was still looking at her, surprised. He wasn't fully listening. Then he interrupted her, his brow slightly furrowed. "Weren't you a lesbian…?"
Jenna blinked, completely thrown off. "Excuse me? A lesbian?" she repeated, incredulous.
"Yeah, you know… The Fallout. I don't know. I thought you were," Owen replied, still processing what had just happened.
"What? Because I kissed a girl in a movie, that automatically makes me a lesbian?" Jenna shot back, half amused, half confused.
"No…" he corrected himself immediately. "But it kind of points that way, you know? I mean, for example, I wouldn't take a role like that. Not because I have anything against it, I just wouldn't feel comfortable."
Jenna nodded, understanding his point. "I get it. But I'm not a lesbian. I loved that script, and I didn't mind doing those scenes at all. The kisses weren't a big deal."
Owen nodded.
"Seriously, that's the only reason you thought I was?" Jenna asked, still incredulous.
"Not just because of that," Owen admitted. "Do you remember when you said I had a free pass to flirt with Mikey? It's not a sign that you like women, of course, but it was a sign that you didn't seem very interested in me."
Jenna made a small grimace. Seen that way, it made sense. That kind of comment, added to the dynamic they'd always had, didn't give the impression that there was any underlying attraction between them. It had always been a clear, comfortable friendship.
Until now.
"So you're not a lesbian," Owen said, more as a statement to organize his own thoughts than as a question.
"Definitely not," Jenna replied without hesitation.
Silence settled between them. She was the one who broke it.
"So…?"
"So what?" Owen asked, looking at her.
"Now that you know I'm not, if I kissed you again, would you react the same way?" Jenna asked frankly.
She sounded direct, but not impulsive. She had already crossed that line once and didn't want to leave things in an ambiguous place. She preferred clarity over awkward silences or mistaken interpretations.
"Didn't you say it was because you were drunk?" Owen countered.
Jenna tilted her head, clearly unconvinced. "Come on… did you really buy that excuse?" she said, almost amused. "After playing Two Truths & a Lie, you should be able to recognize a badly put-together lie from me."
Owen smiled, conceding the point. "That's true," he admitted. "It was a pretty weak excuse."
"Then…?" she pressed, not looking away.
Owen held her gaze for a few seconds before answering. "I'd react differently."
"Oh, how?" Jenna asked, trying to sound calm.
Owen studied her carefully. Jenna was sitting in front of him, wearing a one-shoulder black dress that fell in clean lines over her body. The semi-sheer fabric in certain places revealed just enough, effortlessly elegant. Her dark brown hair was short, barely brushing her shoulders, very different from the hairstyle she had in Wednesday.
"I'd kiss you back," Owen said honestly. "I wouldn't freeze up like an idiot."
Jenna smiled, but her expression quickly grew more cautious. "Are you sure? Because of Sophie and all that."
"Yes," he replied without hesitation. "I already told you I wouldn't care too much about the consequences. It was a break where I had no say at all, and honestly… from that moment on, I stopped seeing a clear future in the relationship."
Jenna nodded slowly, and both of them began to move closer without saying anything else. This time there was no doubt or surprise: their lips met with more intention, the kiss growing more intense as the seconds passed, with a complicity that no longer needed explanations.
Owen's hand rose to Jenna's cheek, gentle, and she responded by moving closer, letting herself be guided as they stepped back toward the bed.
…
Owen woke up the next morning beneath a white sheet that wasn't his, soft light filtering in through the curtains. Beside him, Jenna was sleeping on her side, peaceful, her hair tousled across the pillow.
For a few seconds, he stayed still, listening to her breathing. He noticed she was wearing his shirt.
Honestly, for Owen, the New Year had begun in a completely unexpected way,and with someone he hadn't expected to wake up next to.
'This really is a confusing universe,' Owen thought.
As for what had happened with Jenna, and the eventual explanation he would have to give Sophie, he didn't feel tormented. In his mind, the relationship was already practically over. It had been a quick decision, even a somewhat radical one.
He hadn't gone out the night before with the intention of sleeping with anyone. He'd even had the chance to try something with Mikey and had chosen not to, precisely because he didn't want to cross that line before definitively closing things with Sophie.
What happened with Jenna was different. Completely unexpected.
He had never considered it a real possibility. For a long time, he'd assumed their bond was purely platonic, or even that she wasn't interested in men at all. He had been wrong. And once he realized that, and recognized the genuine closeness they shared, he decided to let himself go.
It hadn't been impulsiveness or spite. It had been a conscious choice, made from a place where the previous relationship no longer truly existed.
'We were on a break...?' Owen thought, as he recalled Ross Geller's famous line.
Even if his situation was very different from Ross and Rachel's.
At that moment, a sleepy voice broke the silence.
"What time is it…?"
Owen turned his head slightly. Jenna had woken up.
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