A/N: Hi everyone, long time no see. In all honesty, I have not written a damn thing in months and this is from ages ago, but I'm trying to get myself to do something author-y related. I'm a senior in high school right now, and currently in charge of a company for one of my classes, so I've been too busy to really even step in front of a computer. But I figured I'd post this, seeing as I have a few chapters of this. If you all really like it and give me lots of reviews/follows, I'll do my best to be online more often and updating. I dunno. In all honesty, I don't even know what the hell is going on on Degrassi anymore, but my heart still cries out for this pairing, so, here I am writing about it. All right, that's enough banter from me. Please enjoy this, love you all very much and hope you're having a super cool November. (P.S - two year anniversary of Celestica coming up? what the fuck, right?)

Rating: Rated M because smut is cool and swearing is awesome.

Disclaimer: I'm glad I don't own Degrassi because then a lot of people would hate me!

Summary: He's snarky and super annoying, but somehow always right and a damn good author. She's a powerhouse who hates liars and gives in too easily. After waking up next to her afternoon interview, Clare Edwards starts to realize that she's not as professional as she always thought she was.

When he opened his eyes, he wasn't really sure where he was. Maybe he was back at her apartment, or maybe she even bought them a hotel room? Well, he was sure he hadn't purchased a hotel room. Because why in the world would he spend a bunch of money on a girl he had only met last night? He sat up lazily, rolling his shoulders back in a slow motion, a few groggy grunts slipping out of his mouth as he awoke from such a precious slumber. He didn't bother to look at the woman lying beside him because if he were being honest, he couldn't care less about her. It was a one night stand; why talk to her and make it into anything more? He tossed the blankets off of his legs, shifted off the bed, and stood to his feet. Where the fuck were his clothes, again?

That's when she opened her eyes. After hearing his morning noises and the sound of his feet hitting the cold wood floor, her eyelids fluttered open, exposing big blue eyes eager with interest. She too, sat up in a tired manor. The pulse of last night's drinking hit her like a gong, making her have to blink several times to shake off the dizzy feeling. She rubbed her eyes, and pulled on the blanket of the bed, covering her exposed chest. The man standing on the other side of the bed grumpily wandered around, searching for his clothes that were hiding away in the bathroom. The fun had all started there the night before, or at least that's what she remembered?

He was definitely gorgeous. She couldn't remember the last time she had seen a man so miraculously chiseled by God. His muscles continued to tense when he'd stretch his arms and she couldn't deny how beautiful he was. Or maybe it was just because she was still tired and the room was still blurry and she was a little bit dizzy. Yeah, it was probably that.

He finally stumbled into the bathroom, cheering silently with a small bit of a fist pump to himself at the find of his clothes. Putting on his boxers and socks and jeans and belt, he failed to notice the little lady wandering out of the bed and shuffling through one of the drawers, pulling a very large shirt out of the third drawer from the top and slipping it over her head. It was like she had shirts planned just for one-night-stands. Except, Clare Edwards didn't do one night stands. So this couldn't be one of those. This had to be something like… forever.

"Hey," She said softly, showing up in the bathroom beside him.

Shit. There went his cover.

"Uh, hey."

She ran her hands through her messy curly hair and cracked a half smile at him in the mirror. She really didn't have any effort to turn her head and stare at him. He decided to play along with her little morning routine as she picked up her toothbrush and squeezed out a slab of toothpaste. He turned on the water from the faucet just adjacent to hers. Man, this place was fancy. He collected a handful of water, and brought it up to his face, splashing him all over to wake him up. Oh, and now the water was making his hair stick to his face – causing him to look just a little sexier than before. She tried not to stare at him awkwardly in awe with her toothbrush hanging obscurely out of her mouth.

"So," She began, still all toothbrushy, "what do you do for a living, um…" She paused, trying to recollect the memories she had seemed to forget from the night before. One of them being his name? "Eli? Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's your name, right?"

"Yep." He answered flatly, staring at himself miserably in the mirror. He had hoped to make a hasty exit and never come across her again – no matter how good or how not good she had been in the sack the night before. "Yep, Penny, my name is Eli."

"Oh, my name's not actually Penny." She spat into the sink and began brushing again. "It's Clare. Penny is my pen-name."

For a moment, he appeared interested. He wasn't really. "Oh? Are you an author?"

"Nope. Journalist." She spat one more time before brushing her tongue this time around. "So are you going to tell me what you do for a living or not?"

Ugh, personal lives. Here came all of the backstories and the reasons as to why he dressed so distastefully and why he almost never combed his hair. He rubbed his nose slightly and shrugged his shoulders. "I dunno. I'm an author." Hoping to get the conversation off of himself, he threw more questions back at her. "What kind of journalist? For what paper?"

"New York Times."

Woah, okay, he wasn't expecting that. He was expecting some sort of rinky-dink paper on the side of nowhere that he'd never heard of. But okay, this girl was the real deal. He tried to play it off as if he really didn't give two shits about her big shot New York Times life, but he was intrigued a little bit.

"I write book reviews. You know how on the back of novels it'll say things like: Inspiring. A new-age American Classic. The author instigates personal experience and a clever, self-deteriorating tone. A must read. Yeah, that's what I do."

"And what did you say your name was again?" Eli asked.

"Penny Hastings is my pen-name; Clare Edwards is my real name. I just always enjoyed the name Penny growing up."

He pretends he cares, but he really doesn't. "So, Penny-Clare," He joked, flashing her a lopsided smirk that he rarely ever used for people he didn't know very well. "Is this your place? It's pretty nice." He figured. They had already sparked some kind of conversation – so he'd ought to keep it all going. And the more that he could keep the conversation off of himself the better.

"Oh, God, no." Clare laughed. She leaned over the sink to gather some water in her mouth from the faucet, rinsing and spitting into the sink. "I live in New York. I'm only in Toronto on a trip to interview this author. My boss put me in this hotel, and yeah, it is pretty nice."

Eli peeled back the curtain of the small bathtub and groaned, finding his nice dress shirt waded up in a soaking wet ball on the floor of the tub. He picked it up to ring it out, carelessly dripping water all over the bathroom floor. "So who's the guy you're interviewing?" He asked, not really that interested. But hey, maybe he knew the author she was referring to. Being a writer himself, he had a bit of a relationship with some of the other people in the Toronto area. Maybe one of his 'friends' (he preferred to use the term friends lightly. No one was really his friend) were becoming a New York Times bestseller.

"His names Casper Callahan." Clare said casually. Eli suddenly dropped the sopping wet shirt. Oh. Shit. "He wrote this novel, Stalker Angel. I'm more than halfway through and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't extremely gruesome and completely horrific. I'd say a mixture of Chuck Palahniuk and Stephen King. It's really… really fantastic."

Everything changed now – it wasn't just some girl he wanted to avoid and get away from. This was bigger than big. This could make him well known – this could change his entire career! Eli ran a hand through his hair, his cheeks starting to turn red like a tomato.

"Do you really think so?" He asked. "I mean, I don't think I would ever compare it to Stephen King but… if you say so, I mean… I mean, thanks! Shit, this is embarrassing; I'm getting all worked up over it." Eli was grinning like an idiot – and Clare just stood there completely confused.

"Wait, what?" She pinned her eyebrows together.

"I'm Casper Callahan!" Eli said excitedly. Clare's mouth fell open. No, no – this couldn't be happening. "I wrote Stalker Angel!"

"You told me your name was Eli!" She screeched.

"It is Eli!" He didn't understand – why did she seem upset? "You told me your name was Penny." He pointed out.

"Yeah! Because I was at a work related event!" In a flustered manor, she turned on her heels, heading back towards the bed. She picked up the telephone that was sitting on the nightstand, and quickly punched in some numbers. "I can't believe this is happening."

"Wait, what's happening?" Eli questioned, following behind her. "Who are you calling?"

"My boss!" Clare huffed, putting the phone up to her ear, balancing it between her head and her shoulder. "I can't do the interview now, this completely compromises my review. Hi – um, can I speak to Mr. Coyne?"

Eli quickly pressed button on the receiver of the phone to end the call. Clare glared up at him. "No, come on, Clare, Penny, whatever your fuckin' name is – you can't not do the review. I need this! My book needs this! My whole fucking career needs this, Penny-Clare."

"But I slept with you – I'll feel obligated to make you sound like some sort of writing god of some sort. Like I'm comparing your writing to your sex."

Eli smirked, "So you're saying I'm a sex god?"

Clare groaned, throwing the phone back onto the bed. She stood up to pace around the room, because that's what she did when she was nervous – she paced like hell. "This is ridiculous – I can't do the interview. I'll have to call someone in to do it for me."

"Come on!" Eli shouted. "Please!"

She shook her head. "This is totally against like, everything I believe in."

"It's not my fault we had a one-night-stand. You came on to me, anyway!"

Had she? She didn't really remember.

"And how was I supposed to know you were going to interview me? Hell, I didn't even know I was being interviewed for Stalker Angel in the first place!" Eli continued, following behind her as she paced around the room. They looked quite awkward, her pacing ridiculously and him following along like this would change her mind.

"What?" Clare stopped her pacing, causing Eli to bump into her from behind, the two of them stumbling forward to a stop. "What do you mean you didn't know about the interview? I talked to your publicist four or five times. She assured me that the meeting would take place at Pizza Leslie at three and that you would be on your best behavior, which at first I was a little confused about but now I definitely know what she meant."

Eli smirked. He was somewhat offended that she would say something like that, and yet also utterly amused at her frantic composure. But now he wasn't surprised at all that he hadn't heard about this interview. His publicist was fucking insane.

Imogen Moreno had known Eli Goldsworthy before his book had even been published. Probably before he had even thought about writing it, but we're not so sure about that part. She found him while stumbling across the internet for poetry, falling in love with a blog titled Scars and Stories (which, in case you didn't know, is a Fall Out Boy lyric. Imogen Moreno was one of few to notice this). Imogen just so happened to work for a publishing company called Harlequin Enterprises… which was consumed with mostly teenage vampire fanfiction and on some occasions, good authors with really good novels. This was how Eli Goldsworthy became 'discovered.'

The only thing was, Imogen (who became his publicist and called him every two and a half hours to "make sure he was getting his work done") had developed a sort of 'crush' on the young author. His poetry ran on loop through her head. And this was when Eli Goldsworthy realized you do not hire someone that is a fan of your work. In fact, hire someone that hates your work –motivation to get something better out.

The reason why Imogen hadn't alerted Eli of his interview was for three reasons. One: this 'Penny Hastings' girl seemed a little bit too good to be true. She couldn't risk her precious Eli – er, her precious Casper getting his name put out badly. Two: Imogen liked to maintain some sort of illusion that Casper Callahan never actually appeared in public. It was bullshit, and Eli thought so as well. Three: she had honestly just forgotten.

"Well," Eli shrugged his shoulders, unfazed by the fact that his publicist had nearly sabotaged a meeting that could change his entire career, "Miss Moreno sometimes fucks things up. It's a good thing we ran into each other now so we can actually do this meeting."

Clare huffed. "Have I not made it clear to you yet that I cannot do your interview."

"CLARE!" he shouted, an undeniably annoying pleading tone in his voice.

"Eli, I can't! As much as I wanted to yesterday, I can't."

"And you don't want tonow?"

"Well not really!" Clare threw her hands up into the air. Eli placed a hand on her shoulder to spin her around, her only reaction being to shove his hand off of herself protectively. "I had sex with you, Eli, and now if I'm going to write a review for your novel it'll be a little bit difficult to do while I'll be thinking about you shirtless, or something. And you not wearing a shirt right now isn't helping at all, either."

"We'll just keep it between us, okay? The sex, I mean." Eli tried to reason with her. "We'll keep things strictly professional from here on out. No random sex at random work related events. I swear I won't fuck this up, especially when I need it so badly."

Clare Edwards longing for professionalism had really only sprung up a few weeks ago after an incident in the office. Her boss was devilishly handsome, quick on his feet and had such a fantastic way with words; it was hard not to fall for him. Hell, almost every girl in the office and out of the office would kill to get a slice of Declan Coyne. It honestly wasn't her fault. In fact, he'd been the one flirting with her non-stop at the water cooler every day. He'd be the one inviting her into his office to discuss things privately, hinting at her as subtly as possible that he'd like to get her out of her work clothes and do her on his desk immediately. She'd tried to make a move and – it'd backfired.

"Miss Edwards, this is completely out of line."

"What? I thought –"

Declan shook his head, biting down on his lip. "Things between us are strictly professional, Miss Edwards. I thought you were aware of this. I can't have any of this here at the Times. We must stay focused on our work, not have petty office affairs. Besides, I don't even find you attractive."

"Declan –"

"It's Mr. Coyne."

"Mr. Coyne… You've been the one flirting with me. It's out of line for you to turn me down like this."

Letting out a sharp breath, he turned away from her to sit back down in his desk chair. "I am your boss. Get back to work or else I'll have to give you a citation."

She stared blankly at him, his usually very beautiful eyes starting to look unappealing as she kept looking. "I'm sorry." Clare muttered, trying not to seem too hurt by his rejecting her after all this time. "This won't happen again."

Clare sighed, looking up from the ground at Eli. She finally gave in, nodding very slowly and shrugging her shoulders in defeat. Eli clapped his hands graciously, not really meaning to, but pulling the girl in for a hug.

"Aw, thanks, Clare!" He said excitedly, letting go of the hug after noticing she'd stiffened up at the first touch. "Sorry. No hugs either, got it."

"You should probably get going. Our meeting is supposed to be at three." Clare warned him, pointing a finger in his direction. The darker haired man held his hands up in defense, then pointing to the bathroom.

"I have nothing to wear, my shirts all wet from last night's festivities." He wiggled his eyebrows, clearly trying to make a joke now that the mood was lighter since she'd agreed to interview him. Clare glared his way, and Eli laughed, quickly scampering off into the bathroom to take care of his shirt. "You know," he said loudly from the bathroom, "I technically have no idea about this interview. Imogen hasn't even told me about it."

"Imogen?" Clare furrowed her eyebrows. "Right, your publicist."

Eli twirled the dress shirt up, ringing up all the water he could in the tub. "I mean, I could call her myself and tell her I found out about it, but then she'll wonder how, and then she'll go batshit crazy."

"Why?"

He peeked his head out the door at Clare who had been changing, sliding on a pair of dark blue lacy underwear. "Well, see, Immy's kind of in love with me." He mentioned. Getting over himself, he finally put the wet shirt on, shivering slightly at how cold it was.

"I'll call her." Clare said, kneeling down onto the ground and pulling out a suitcase underneath her bed. She pulled out a very professional looking forest green dress. She didn't bother to turn around and change as Eli stood before her, quickly pulling off the large t-shirt she'd been wearing and daintily putting her arms through the straps of a very sexy black bra. Eli cocked an eyebrow. "What?" Clare put her hands on her hips after adjusting the clasp in the back. "Are you in middle school? Have you never seen a girl change before?"

"No – I have. It's just…"

He didn't really have any excuses as to why he'd been staring like she'd just done something totally illegal. Clare rolled her eyes, stepping into the green dress and then pulling her curls into a bun and turning around. "Zip me up." She'd ordered, and Eli obliged, stepping forward and pulling up the zipper on Clare's dress. "Okay, I'll call your publicist right now. Just wait here so I can make sure she calls and lets you know."

Eli nodded as she pulled out her cell phone and started to go through her recent calls, finding Imogen's number and then holding the phone up to her ear. He watched as she balanced it between her ear and shoulder so she could multitask and put some brown tights on.

"Hi, am I speaking to Imogen Moreno?" Clare started, sounding awfully cheery while she did. "It's Penny Hastings from the Times. I just wanted to make sure my interview with Mr. Callahan is still at three today?" She suddenly stopped sliding her right foot into the tights and an ummm noise fell from her lips. "What do you mean he's busy?" Clare eyed Eli strangely, and he shrugged his shoulders. "You told me he'd be ready for this interview. What could possibly be more important than an interview with the New York Times? An interview with the queen?"

She squirmed a little to get into her tights and scoffed into her cell phone. "You're bullshitting me, right? Because I'm standing right in front of him."

Eli's eyes went wide, but a loud laugh emerged from his lips since he actually didn't give two shits about Imogen. "Oh, you don't believe me? Do you want to talk to him?" Without much of a warning, Clare tossed the phone his way, it hitting his chest as he scrambled to catch it.

"Are you trying to throw away my career?!" Eli barked into the phone, giving Clare a very devious smirk as he did so. "You didn't even tell me about this fucking meeting, do you have a reason for that?"

"Eli, I –"

"That is Mr. Callahan to you, Moreno. This would be the first influential interview to my writing career and you're trying to screw it up? God, do you know how many publicists I have lining up behind your ass?" Eli quickly pulled the phone away from his ear, covering up the mouthpiece and giving Clare a cheeky look. "Zero." He said quietly.

"I'm so, so, sorry Mr. Callahan. It won't happen ever again, I swear. I messed up, please don't fire me. Who else loves your work as much as I do?! I always have, please. Please."

Eli rolled his eyes, trying to stay in character on the phone as much as he possibly could. "I'm not going to fire you. But you're on serious probation, Moreno. It's a 'three strikes you're out', kind of deal. And this should constitute for two strikes."

She watched as he tapped her screen, ending the call. "Yeah, so, took care of that."

"Casper Callahan seems like a real dick." Clare smirked, picking up two or three bracelets off of her makeshift dresser and slipping them onto her left wrist, and clasping a watch onto her right. "Can't wait to meet with him at three." He can tell that she's actually being one hundred percent sarcastic and he doesn't care at all.

"If he even shows up," Eli continued, "I heard he's never seen in public. Or at least, that's what his publicist says. But she's a real bitch too. They go hand in hand."

Clare ignored his remark, being finished with the whole conversation. She had a headache, and Eli wasn't really helping. "My purse is on the dresser." She told him as she walked into the bathroom, unscrewing a cap of travel sized concealer. "Get my Advil. One is okay, but two is ideal."

"A please is what really is ideal here." Eli joked even though he was still doing as she'd asked.

"Oh, fuck off. I'm so hung over." Clare admitted. She wasn't a fan of appearing weak in front of anyone. It might have been when she'd been rejected by Declan that made her want to be stronger. He'd seen her look so desperate, pathetic, and she hated it. Loathed it. She had something to prove now. She was putting on a thin line of eyeliner when he dropped three pills into her hand.

"Three for good luck."

"I don't take three. Not risking it." She dry-swallowed two of the pills. "It's recommended to only take two."

Eli laughed. "So? It's not like it's going to kill you."

"So I'm not risking anything." Last thing she did, right after pinning back the right side of her curls was coat her lips in the perfect shade of pink lip stick. He was watching while she did it, too. Kind of like he'd been watching the night before, but it was different this time. And he also didn't remember how he'd watched her last night. Noticing his staring, she raised an eyebrow. "Is there a reason why you're still here? I feel like you could go now. I don't have to see you for," she glanced down at her watch, having to squint as she saw double. "…for five more hours. Besides, I have to get my morning bagel and call my boss to give him a recap on last night." She groaned at that and added: "Would rather off myself."

Nodding, Eli scrambled around the hotel room for his cell phone. "Pizza Leslie at three, right?" He clarified, to which she replied mmmhmm… from the bathroom. "Okay, I'll be there. Probably on time. Maybe fashionably late."

"Okay," Clare mumbled, the Advil starting to sink in, but not enough for her to feel significantly better. "See you at three."

The hotel room door shut and she was alone again. She hit the floor a lot slower than she thought she would, taking a seat against the cold bathroom floor and feeling too many waves of emotions flowing over her. It wasn't like her to forget so much of the night before and it definitely wasn't like her not to hold her liquor. She'd tried so hard to maintain a professional, strong composure in front of Eli that her chest ached. He'd seen her weak last night, unless it had been erased from his memory. But she didn't see him have too much to drink.

Clare wished she could remember bits and pieces. Some of her even wished she could remember at least just the sex, if anything. Was it good? Could he have possibly been good? He was good looking, and funny-ish. He could have been good at sex if he wanted to be. If he had been terrible, his writing made up for anything remotely bad. The way Stalker Angel had taken her by surprise was nearly as good as sex… sex she so deeply desired from her boss.

Oh, right. Declan.

She had to call him.

Reaching her arm out, she grabbed for her cell phone which was conveniently left on the ground nearby, she dialed her boss's number, hoping to be able to appear strong. Or at least not hung over. Anything but weak was good.

"It's Clare." She said punctually. "So, these are the awards given out last night."