Chapter 7

Christian

I should not have taken that role. I had been right to say no at first. Why had I given in? I should have asked more questions before saying yes. I mean, I asked questions before signing the contract, specifically about who I'd be working with besides Blake, but they only said that "nothing was official yet" and that they'd "keep me posted."

Maybe no one else had signed a contract yet, but I was sure they had an idea about who they wanted and who they were calling next. I was sure leaving out the fact that they had given the role of Emma van der Bilt to Sophia Hastings wasn't an accident.

"Who gives a leading role to a newbie? To someone who's never worked in the business a day of her life? Who does that?" I shook my head.

"Whoever gave you your first role," Blake said without looking up from his phone. "Your first role was a lead. So who gave you that role? There's your answer."

"Dude. You're supposed to be on my side."

"Oh. Right. Those bastards. How dare they give a newcomer this role?"

"That's what I thought." I ran a hand through my hair. "Well, I said I wanted something different. Something tells me this isn't going to be like my other movies."

Blake and I both looked up when the door opened. The entire cast – or most of it – was meeting up for the first time to do a read through of the script. We were just waiting on Sophia, as far as I knew.

When she finally walked through the door, I found myself speaking without really meaning to. It just kind of came out automatically. I wondered if I had the same effect on her. It would explain a lot if that was the case. "Is this a sign of how working with you is going to be?"

She looked like she was trying to catch her breath or gather her composure, or maybe both. "I could say the same to you. Your fans nearly trampled me out there."

"They just get a little excited," I said, feeling the need to come to their defense. It wasn't my fault they loved me so much and were excited for my new movie, and it wasn't their fault I was so lovable.

She ignored me and addressed Nora instead. "I'm sorry I'm late, Nora. I had some trouble leaving my hotel."

I would've called her out on her bullshit had it been bullshit. Details about the read-through had been leaked. Even I'd had some trouble getting here, and I was used to this.

"We haven't been waiting long. You're fine," Nora said. "Go ahead and take your seat so we can start."

The only seat open was the one right next to me. She looked like she wanted to sit anywhere else, but there was a tabletop sign with her name and her character that she couldn't really ignore even if she wanted to.

I watched her take her seat out of the corner of my eye. I was trying not to overtly stare at her to avoid getting called out on it. I almost felt a little bad for her when I heard her take a small, shaky breath. I just figured she was overwhelmed by all of the familiar faces. She was easily the lowest-ranked actor here, since she didn't even have a rank yet.

"How about we start with some introductions?" Nora asked. "We're going to be stuck with each other for the next few months, so we may as well get this over with."

Nods and words of agreement filled the room. Introductions it was. I didn't really think I needed to introduce myself, but maybe I would remember everyone else's names for once.

Nora pulled a bedazzled orange baton out of the bag that was hanging off the side of her seat. "This is the Thespian Stick. If someone hands it to you, you say a few words about yourself and then pass it on. I'll start. I'm Nora Harding. I'm your director for this project. I'm exactly as scary as I look, which is not very, so don't be afraid to approach me. I want this to be a fun experience for everyone. Personally, I think shooting this movie is going to be a blast. We've got a great cast and a great script to work with. A fun fact about me is that... I would eat seafood for every meal if I could." She handed the stick to Blake. "You're up, Blake."

"Sweet." He flipped the stick around in his hands.

"Please don't break that," Nora said, her hands hovering nearby in case he dropped it, which was pretty much 50/50.

"Right. Sorry. Alright, well, my name is Blake Grey, and I'm playing Eric Knight. I've been in the business for a few years, but somehow I always end up back here. Probably because Nora and Rachel promised to stock my trailer with as much popcorn and Skittles as I could ever want. A fun fact about me is that my buddy Chris and I co-parent a dog." He reached over to slap me on the back and grinned. "He likes to shit on his bed."

"Thanks for that. Really. Thanks." I yanked the stick out of his hands, happy to revoke his speaking privileges. I glanced around the room, realizing everyone was staring at me expectantly. "Do I really have to introduce myself? I think everyone knows who I am."

I could almost hear Sophia rolling her eyes next to me. I glanced over at her out of instinct and confirmed my suspicions. "What? It's true."

"He's got a point," a girl with short blond hair interjected. While I couldn't remember her name, I knew I'd seen her around before. "I mean, he's Christian Ryder."

My lips turned upwards into a smug smile. Thank you, random citizen.

I didn't say anything else, figuring that was that. Everyone else remained silent until Sophia spoke up.

"Are you going to introduce yourself or not?" she finally asked.

"You want to hear my introduction, huh? Maybe you are a fan after all."

"Hardly. I've just come to realize that every time you open your mouth, you give me an opportunity to make you look bad."

"You introduce yourself, then." I threw the baton at her without bothering to give her a heads up. She barely caught it even though she was sitting right next to me.

"Fine." She carefully turned the stick over in her hands before looking around the room. "My name is Sophia Hastings. I'm playing Emma van der Bilt. This is my first movie role, and I couldn't be more thrilled to be sitting here. It still sort of feels like a dream I don't want to wake up from."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Blake give her an encouraging smile. Traitor. "How about that fun fact?"

She paused. "This is kind of random, but I can do a pretty good chipmunk voice."

"Like on a computer?" Blake asked.

"No, like... with my mouth."

Blake shot her an amused look. "Really? Let's hear it."

She shrugged and looked over at me. When she spoke, she sounded just like the chipmunks in that live-action kids movie. "Hey, Christian, why did the chicken cross the road?"

I tried to stop my lips from twitching upwards, but the voice got to me. I couldn't help it. "I don't know."

"To get away from you," she said in that same voice.

I rolled my eyes. "Very mature."

"I'm known for it. Your turn." She threw the stick back at me without warning and almost hit me in the face.

"Hey, watch it. Not the face."

She just shrugged.

I tried to get out of my introduction again to no avail. Once the other girls at the table started urging me to do it, I had to oblige. How could I say no when my adoring fans were requesting it of me?

I smirked at the girls who had insisted on my introduction. "Alright, I'll go. My name's Christian Ryder. I'm playing William Knight. I'm not sure how I got roped into doing this again, but I guess there are worse ways to spend the next few months. Maybe I'll use this time to impart my wisdom on the less-fortunate."

To my surprise and disappointment, Sophia didn't take the bait. I decided to up the stakes when one of the other girls asked me what my fun fact was.

"I hate it when girls play hard to get," I said, glancing over at Sophia as I spoke, well aware I was mostly lying. I didn't mind when girls played hard to get. Like I'd said before, I liked the thrill of the chase, but I also liked knowing the chase had an end in sight. That didn't seem to be the case here.

"Why are you looking at me?" Sophia looked genuinely taken aback. "We've been over this."

The girl who was playing Taylor Williamson, Emma's best friend, spoke up. I looked at her tabletop sign to figure out what her name was and saw it was Savannah. "I knew it was all an act. You're secretly just as crazy about him as every other girl in this room, aren't you?"

"Of course," Sophia said. "You can tell by the way I stare longingly into his eyes, hang onto his every word, and find every excuse I can to join his conversations. Oh, wait. That's you."

Savannah looked like she was about to clap back before I cut her off. As much as I loved catfights, now wasn't the time or place. I didn't want this read-through to take up my entire day. "Ladies, ladies, please. No need to fight over me. There's plenty of me to go around."

"And we all know you get around," Sophia mumbled to herself, except I was close enough to hear her quiet commentary. Maybe that was by design. She hadn't been shy about voicing her opinions before this.

I opened my mouth to respond but was interrupted by Nora. It was probably for the best, honestly. "We're getting off track here. I'm sure none of us want to be here all day, so let's move on, shall we?"

She took the lack of protests as agreement and launched us into the read-through, which was as simple as the name suggested. It merely consisted of reading through the script.

Sophia's character had the first line. "No, no, no. I said gardenias. Gardenias. Is that so impossible to comprehend?"

The owner of the flower shop started to respond. "We have some very nice tulips and lilies available —"

"Did I ask for tulips or lilies? No, I didn't. I said gardenias. We want gardenias."

Jesus. Emma van der Bilt almost made Sophia seem soft in comparison. Almost.

"Miss, you must understand –"

"There's nothing to understand. We want gardenias. Not tulips. Not lilies. Gardenias."

Without even fully realizing what I was doing, I interrupted. "Sophia sounds a little stiff to me. Give us some emotion, sweetheart."

She looked up from her script impatiently. "Call me that again, and I'll show you emotion."

"Well, if you're so worried about the energy being put into this read-through, Christian, how about we do some exercises to loosen up?" Nora suggested with what I could only describe as an evil glint in her eye.

Shit. That was not what I meant to happen. "Did I say stiff? I meant great. She sounded great to me."

"No, I think this is a good idea, actually," Nora said. "It'll be fun, and it'll be another way to break the ice."

She was the only one who seemed to think that sounded like a fun time. Everyone else either looked like they wanted to object, or they were actually objecting. I couldn't blame them. I thought I'd left behind acting exercises when I stopped doing theatre.

The only bright side was that she'd settled on doing improvisation exercises. It could've been much worse. She could have made us run around making animal noises for five minutes. Theatre teachers called it the "animal exercise." I called it torture. I did, however, need a partner for these exercises – apparently. I still thought I could've been my own partner. That would've been the ultimate improv exercise, but whatever.

Just as I was about to go with Blake, Nora stepped in and made me partner up with Sophia. Blake ended up partnering up with Savannah. He helplessly shrugged at me as we were separated.

Nora walked to the front of the room. "This exercise is called 'Yes And.' The first person in each pair starts by establishing the setting and basic plot. The second person goes along with it. You have to keep agreeing with each other until it's time to stop. How about we have our protagonists show us how it's done?"

Blake pushed us to the front of the room when Sophia and I hesitated. Once we were in the front, neither of us spoke immediately. Sophia was the one to break the silence. "Standing here next to Christian Ryder makes me want to jump off the nearest cliff."

Well, then.

"Not exactly what I had in mind, but she did establish the setting and plot in one sentence," Nora said.

I gave her a dirty look, hoping it communicated the fact that I was only agreeing because that was the whole point of the exercise. "Yeah, well, I'd help you find the nearest cliff if I could. We both know directions aren't your strong suit."

"Yeah, well, at least when I'm dead, I won't need nose plugs to block out the stench of your cologne."

Seriously, this again? No other girl had ever complained about the amount or type of cologne I wore. Hell, no girl had ever complained about me this much, period.

"Yeah, well, over-doing the cologne is better than not wearing anything at all. Clearly no one passed that message along to you."

Alright, so she didn't actually smell bad. Quite the opposite, actually. She smelled like standard girly shit – perfume or shampoo or whatever it was that made girls smell like flowers. But that didn't mean I couldn't make her a little paranoid.

Nora interrupted just as Sophia was about to make a rebuttal. She told the rest of the cast to go and try the exercise themselves. Sophia and I, on the other hand, were told to try a different exercise instead. It was called the mimicking exercise. This was going to go well.

As soon as Nora was out of earshot, I went for it. "I'm Sophia Hastings, and I'm a raging, hormonal bitch," I said in a girly, high-pitched voice, purposely laying it on thick.

Sophia let out an audible little gasp at my impression. Her shocked expression faded quickly. The response that followed was even quicker. "I'm Christian Ryder, and I can't walk past my own shadow without stopping to check myself out." She had deepened her voice several octaves, probably as far as her voice was capable of going, and had made me sound like a surfer dude in the process. What the fuck? I didn't even surf.

"I take pride in being so much better than everyone else because I'm original and quirky and don't give into the norm," I said in that same voice, adding a hair flip for good effect.

"I sleep around so much, my number is higher than I can count," she shot back in that same surfer dude voice. "What comes after a thousand again?"

While I had admittedly lost track of how many girls I'd slept with, she was, as usual, exaggerating the situation. "I always seem to be on my period because I just don't know how to be in a good mood," I said, placing my hands on my hips for attitude.

She flipped her hair out of her eyes. "If I had a period, I would probably brag about the size of my tampons."

Well... alright, she wasn't wrong. "I'm way worse, though, because I act like I have one in 24/7."

I wasn't sure how long we kept it up. The exercise was surprisingly addicting. Everyone else finished the "Yes And" exercise, the mimicking exercise, and two others in the time it took us to finish this one.

We wrapped up the exercises not too long after that and continued reading through the script. The read-through felt like it took forever, but not as long as I had feared. Most of the cast and crew left as soon as it was over. Sophia and I were among the only ones left. Even Blake had to rush out of there. He had a meeting with his manager to get to that he was oh, two hours late for.

I wasn't sure why Sophia hadn't rushed out along with the rest of the cast. I would've thought she would have been the first one out the door if it meant getting away from me. I was done thinking it was because she secretly wanted me. It was more likely that she was trying to slip poison into my water bottle when I wasn't looking.

The only reason I was lingering was because my ex-girlfriend was currently camped out in front of my house, waiting for me to get home. She had heard about my "breakup" with Heather and was like a vulture waiting to swoop in. I'd been trying to figure out a way to end my fake relationship without screwing Heather over, but as it turns out, standing her up that day at the recording studio had done the trick.

Except I didn't feel like dealing with Cassie's shit after dealing with Sophia's all day. Although dealing with Cassie would probably lead to more breakup sex, I wasn't sure if the parts that led up to that – listening to her whine about the death of our relationship, mostly – were worth it.

Sophia was about to leave when she abruptly stopped in her tracks. Her face contorted with focus as we heard snippets of a conversation from behind a closed door.

"Are we... to... Sophia... Christian?"

Sophia turned to look at me. "I think they're talking about us."

"No shit."

Sophia started walking towards the source of the sound. Curiosity got the best of me, and I followed suit. Once we were close enough to listen in, we stopped.

"She may be a wild card, but you saw her in there," Nora said from behind the door. "She's good. And the chemistry they have is hard to fake."

Sophia glanced over at me, her eyebrows furrowed. Her eyes looked like they were searching for some sort of explanation from me, but I had no idea who Nora was talking to, either.

"I'm going in," I said. I wasn't just going to stand back and listen to them gossip about us. I wanted to know exactly what they were talking about, and I'd never been a particularly patient person.

Sophia started to protest. "Christian, wait." I ignored her, barging through the door instead. If she had planned on hiding or running, she no longer had that option. Nora and the woman standing with her could clearly see her crouching by the door.

"Hey, guys. What are we talking about?" I asked, casually striding up to them. Sophia reluctantly followed, hanging back to let me take the lead for once.

Nora didn't seem too fazed by my intrusion. Then again, she had worked with me before, so I doubted there was anything I could do by this point to surprise her. "Alice here had a few concerns about your pairing, so I was just offering a different perspective. She's one of our lovely producers, in case you guys haven't met."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, glancing between the two of them.

"Well, there's the fact that you two bicker like an old married couple... and the fact that the two of you had that run-in on Hollywood Tonight just before securing your roles. But if we're all being open and honest here, those are some of the reasons we wanted you two on board."

"I wouldn't say we bicker like a married couple," Sophia said. "Maybe like a Republican and a Democrat in a Facebook comment section."

I held up a hand. "Wait a minute. Are you telling me you gave her this role because she won that damn contest and used her prize to roast me on live TV?"

Nora hesitated to answer. "Well, I won't lie and say that's not part of it. Some people seem to think it was all a publicity stunt for the movie, so we're rolling with it and making it part of our marketing strategy. I think Rachel mentioned as much to you, Sophia. But you two also happen to be mirrors of the characters you're playing. There's a reason the audition came so naturally to you both. I think the audience will be able to feel that same tension and chemistry between you."

"Tension and chemistry?" I repeated incredulously. "She doesn't even like me. I'm not sure she even likes men."

Sophia rolled her eyes. "You're so full of yourself. I like men. I just don't like you."

Nora just nodded as if we'd just proven her point.

An awkward silence fell upon us. I didn't really know what to say. While I was starting to see where they were going with this, that didn't mean I agreed with their reasoning. I still thought they could have hired someone who actually liked me, "tension" and "chemistry" be damned. Instead, they gave her the lead because she wasn't subtle about her disdain for me. What was there to say besides, "What the fuck?"

Sophia finally spoke. "Wow. Wouldn't that make a great headline? 'I got the lead role in Kidnap My Heart because I hate Christian Ryder.' How much of your fan base do you think you'd lose then? All of the hopeful actresses and maybe the Instagram model wannabees?"

And there she went again. I knew her lack of sarcastic commentary wouldn't last.

"That would pretty much be most of your fan-base, wouldn't it? That's a lot of anti-Ry-Hards. Think you could take the heat?"

Why did I agree to do this? Why? And was it too late to get out of this contract?

Rubbing my face out of sheer frustration, I said, "You're telling me I have to deal with this for three months?" I let out a loud exhale. "Just shoot me now."

"Don't have to ask me twice," Sophia said. "Where's the gun?"