Chapter 11

As useful as Frank was most of the time – and as admittedly lost as I would be without a manager – he was really fucking annoying sometimes. He had been bugging me for the last few days to schedule a meeting with Sophia to "discuss things that are pertinent to all of our careers."

I wasn't sure what these "pertinent things" were, but I had a feeling this meeting wasn't going to go the way he was expecting. If he was going to suggest what I thought he was going to suggest, he had another thing coming.

I knew what was most likely going to happen, yet I still let it unfold before me because I thought it would be entertaining. Looking back, I realize how wrong I was.

Wednesday morning, I finally humored him and sent Sophia a text message to try to get the ball rolling. Hey, Frank and I need to talk to you.

She actually had the nerve to reply: Who is this?

Christian. Who else would it be?

It took her a few minutes to respond, but at least she responded instead of ignoring my message, which was what I half-expected her to do. It probably would have been better to just ask her in person, but this was the kind of thing I could only pull off via text where she couldn't harass me into admitting what this was all about. Who is Frank?

Seriously? Frank Renaldo. My manager. Come on, Hastings. Get it together.

How did you even get my number? I never gave it to you.

I paused. Technically, I still had her number from when Frank tracked her down and gave me all of her information, but I didn't think that was the safest response. It would just freak her out and was admittedly really creepy. Instead, I said, Blake gave it to me. I figured you already had my number.

She had given Blake her number but not me. I had a feeling Blake exaggerated how close they were and how often they texted to piss me off, but still. Blake and I were pretty fucking similar, hence the friendship. What was it about me that she hated but didn't mind when it came to Blake? I called bullshit.

Why would I already have your number?

Oh, for fucks sake. Just meet us at my trailer in 30 mins.

She was insufferable even over text. She didn't even use any emojis, either. What kind of girl didn't use emojis? Or maybe she did and just didn't want to use them with me. Girls were petty like that.

She didn't reply, which I took as a "yes." I texted Frank and told him to meet me here in 30 minutes. He actually replied, which was just as well because I would have been pissed if he hadn't. I knew for a fact that man was on his phone 24/7.

Thirty minutes later, Frank was in my trailer and Sophia was nowhere to be found. She was probably in her trailer – which was right next door – and was just taking her sweet ass time getting over here.

"Where is she?" Frank asked, looking annoyed at me, as if her lack of timeliness was my fault.

"How am I supposed to know? I'm not her keeper." I turned around in my seat to look out the window and managed to knock my beer can down and spill it all over myself.

"Oh, fuck me." This was just what I needed. She was going to show up right when I needed to change my clothes and would twist it around so she could go around telling everyone I was having a drunken affair with my manager or something fucked up like that.

Frank looked at me with disgust. "Clean that up before she gets here. I'm trying to discuss business here."

"Because I really needed you tell me that," I said. "I was just going to walk around soaked in beer for shits and giggles."

I walked towards the back of the trailer to find a change of clothes. I'd managed to change my jeans when there was a knock on the door. I was about to ask Frank if he could get that but of course he couldn't be bothered to get up and get off of his phone.

Shaking my head, I walked over to the door to let Sophia in. She wrinkled her nose at me as she walked by. "Dude. Go put on a shirt. No one needs to see your moobs."

"I don't have moobs!"

What was wrong with this chick? I worked my ass off to get to this point, partly because it was required for most of my roles and partly because I liked being jacked.

"Sure you don't. Seriously, though, cover that shit up."

I tried not to look so offended so she wouldn't see how much her comment bothered me, but I don't think it really worked. Despite my annoyance, I still grabbed a black t-shirt from the rack in the back of the trailer and put it on.

When I walked back to the front of the trailer, Sophia and Frank were in the middle of a stare down. Sophia looked like she was analyzing Frank, while Frank was just frowning at Sophia.

Frank was the one who snapped out of the trance and spoke first. "Well, this is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about, actually."

"What is?" Sophia asked. "Christian's moobs?"

"I don't have moobs!"

"No. The problem lies in your unnecessarily rude comments. You're well aware Chris doesn't have moobs, as you call them. You need to stop. Now. All of it needs to stop, because it always gets out."

Oh, God. Here we go.

"All of it?" Sophia made a face. "You might as well be asking a pig to fly."

"Well then fly, little piggy," Frank said, standing up and walking over to Sophia.

This was not going to go well. This was not going to go well at all.

"Did you just call me a pig?" She looked like she didn't know whether to laugh or hit him. Maybe we would get lucky and she would just find this funny.

Instead of answering her question, Frank went on his own little tangent. "You can't keep making comments like that. Renee Brown wants you two on her show next week, and you're not going with that attitude. You're not even going to the pre-interview with that attitude."

"Interview? Why am I learning about this interview just now?"

"Because you don't have a manager," Frank responded impatiently. "If you had any idea what you're doing here, you'd have one by now."

"That doesn't make you my manager. You can't just plan appearances for me."

"Well, it's already done," Frank said. "And I'm telling you right now that you're not making a fool out of Christian on national television again. I couldn't stop you the first time, but this time will be different."

Sophia rolled her eyes and said nothing. Neither of them looked towards me for any input, which was probably for the best because I wasn't sure how to de-escalate this situation without redirecting their anger towards me.

"Those videos went viral. Christian was ridiculed for a week after that little stunt of yours. It isn't going to happen again."

"I thought there was no such thing as bad publicity," Sophia said.

"This isn't a joke." Frank had dropped his frown and had a killer poker face instead. "Don't test me, Hastings. You're not going to be out of line this time."

Sophia looked at me as if she expected me to say something, but I didn't want to make things worse. I had a feeling nothing I said was going to help. Besides, they both made fair points. Frank wasn't her manager and shouldn't have arranged anything for her without her permission, but it was also shitty of her not to agree to stop trying to publicly humiliate me.

"I'm sorry, but who exactly do you think you are? You have no say in anything I choose to do or choose not to do. You can make requests. You can voice your opinion. But you can't control what I do."

"When your actions directly involve Christian, I do have a say in what you do or don't do. As his manager, it's my job to look out for his best interest and control the publicity he gets or doesn't get. He doesn't need this kind of publicity."

"He might let you control him, but you're not my manager. You can't control me."

Frank pretty much just lost his shit and decided to latch onto Sophia's arm, as if that was going to help at all. "Do you really think I couldn't use you as a puppet if I really wanted to? Do you really think —"

If they were just going to argue like cats and dogs, I probably would have stayed out of it unless I was directly addressed. But as much as Sophia got on my nerves, I wasn't going to stand there and let my manager physically and verbally threaten her or hurt her.

"Frank, that's enough," I said. "Let go of her."

"I'm not hurting her," Frank said in his defense.

"Let go of me," Sophia said through gritted teeth, struggling against his grip.

Instead of letting go of her, he tightened his grip on her. "Not so fast. Are you going to listen to me now?"

"Of course I'm not going to listen to you now, you ass," she snapped. "Let. Go. Of. Me."

When he tightened his grip on her, I started to step in, but it apparently wasn't necessary. Sophia maneuvered her way out of his grip by bending Frank's arm and twisting it in a way that was undoubtedly painful as fuck until she was finally out of his grip.

Frank let out a stream of curse words and rubbed his arm. He didn't lay a hand on her after that.

I turned towards Sophia. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." She didn't even look up at me. She was still looking at Frank. "If you think this is the way to get me to behave the way you would like, you're delusional."

She shook her head at him and stormed out of my trailer. I wanted to say something, apologize for his behavior, make amends somehow, but I stood in that same spot and said nothing else.