A/N: Sorry for the late update, but the end of the semester is the worst time of the year for a college student and I'm just now catching my breath. But I'm on summer break now and I'm hoping to finish this before going back to school. I'll be taking 2 classes and working but I think it's doable. Next update will be up soon!

***

Chapter 21

As much as I wanted to reclaim the upper hand in this crazy war between Sophia and me, I had officially run out of my ideas and my retaliation was even more pathetic than the last.

The last had admittedly been pretty good, just cruel and untrue. This one was another lie and not exactly well received by the public. I sent one of those tabloids that kept talking about me a sex tape that was supposedly of Sophia but in reality, it was probably just some porn star. It was just a snippet, though, and you never saw her face or any real indication that it was her besides the fact that they were both brunettes in good shape.

Most people didn't buy it. The only people who did were the ones who wanted to believe it was true because they were perverts.

While this didn't guarantee me a win, it was the last straw for our director and clinched us a long lecture about maturity and our reputations. She didn't even bother making the lecture private. That was how pissed she was.

"I don't know what's going on here, but you two need to stop it," Nora snapped. "When we said we wanted publicity for the movie, this is not what we meant. This movie doesn't need two leads with soiled reputations. I want you two for this movie, and I've fought for you up until this point, but if this continues, that may have to change. I won't put up with this any longer."

I, of course, took the mature approach and pinned it all on Sophia. "Sophia was the one who started this whole mess."

Sophia looked at me in disbelief. "I made an indiscretion and you turned it into World War III."

"You were the one who declared war," I said.

"No, you made it war when you made people think I had herpes."

"You got me involved in a gay scandal!"

"You started a rumor that I was in an amateur adult film," she said, pointing an accusing finger at me. "Don't even try to deny it."

Amateur adult film. She was such a prude sometimes. Sex tape. It was a fucking sex tape.

"Enough!" Nora yelled. "This ends here. You two need to keep your images in mind and stop this ridiculous game you're playing."

"We'll stop," Sophia said. I couldn't help but look at her in surprise. I hadn't expected her to give up so easily. My shock faded when she added, "As soon as Christian surrenders."

I snorted unattractively. "Why would I surrender?"

"Because you're already running out of ideas, and I'm just getting started. I haven't even gotten to the drug scandal, the prison scandal, the pregnancy scandal, the—"

"Okay, okay, I get it," I said, cutting her off. "You have a lot more ideas."

"If you surrender, I'll let you off the hook. It's in your best interest, Chrissy, and you know it."

"Don't call me that."

She looked at me expectantly. "Well? What's it going to be?"

I didn't answer immediately. My ego was telling me not to stand down, but common sense was telling me that not only was she right, but this war had already cost me enough and I didn't want it to cost me the paycheck for this movie. I hadn't spent all this time suffering under the wrath of Sophia to just walk away empty-handed.

Finally, I sighed in defeat, looking at our growing audience with contempt. Why couldn't people mind their own business? "Alright. Alright, fine. I give up."

***

And so I did. I could have kept it going once she had her guard down, but I just didn't see the point in it anymore, especially after seeing how much smoother work went when Sophia and I weren't at each other's throats.

There was finally a feeling of peace after the storm after I surrendered and honestly, it made the ego-blow worth it. That wasn't to say Sophia and I just magically became best friends and spent our days in our trailers trading war stories and braiding each other's hair – that was never going to happen.

But we did manage to occasionally get along and more importantly, we managed to stay out of the spotlight – for the wrong reasons, that is. I would never fully be out of the spotlight. I was Christian Ryder, after all. The spot light was pretty much made for me.

A few weeks passed and with each week that passed, I felt Sophia growing more and more tolerant of me. And by more and more I meant slightly more tolerant of me – but hey, I would take whatever I could get.

A lot of the producers and directors were still less than happy with us, understandably, but our scandals had died down by that point. It helped that it had all been a game and news to that effect leaked and softened the blows we had made.

I guess they'd been softened enough to allow Sophia and I to have a civilized conversation once in a while and even enjoy our lunch breaks together. Okay, enjoy was probably pushing it. We tolerated each other – more like she tolerated me – during our lunch breaks when Blake was off shooting scenes with Savannah or wasn't needed on set.

Blake was usually the mediator that kept things civilized between us, but sometimes we didn't need him. And to be honest, I kind of liked hanging out with Sophia, even if she usually managed to insult me at some point every time we did so.

"Seriously, Bubba has got to stop peeing on my bed," I complained, taking a bite out of my sandwich. "Do you know how much it sucks to get home to that? I almost laid in it."

I tried leaving him in his crate when I knew I'd be gone for hours at a time, but I felt so bad leaving him in that thing all alone. I hired someone to check up on him and let him out to do his business on the days I was gone for a while, but a lot of the time, he was left to his own devices because I couldn't handle seeing him whine in that crate by himself. And this was what I got in return – soiled sheets.

"Maybe you should stop locking him in your room," she said, making a face at me as she watched me eat. What? Did I have something on my face? I impulsively reached out to check, but there was nothing. What was wrong with my face?

"I don't always keep him in there. Just when he's decided he's man of the house."

"Peeing is how he's showing his dominance. Face it, Chrissy. You're the woman of the house. I can let you borrow a few dresses if you want. I'll even throw in a pair of Spanx to give you some curves."

I rolled my eyes. There it was. "Why do I talk to you again?"

"Because you have no one else to talk to," she said, taking a bite of her own sandwich.

"What about you? You have any pets?"

She shook her head and waited until she was finished chewing to speak. "My parents wouldn't buy me one as a kid. They didn't trust me."

"Do you think you'd be a dog or cat person?" I asked right after taking another bite.

Probably not my most attractive moment, but oh well. Sophia had seen worse and still talked to me. Maybe not because she wanted to, but still. And by worse, I meant a lot worse. I had a feeling she hadn't forgotten about the time she'd walked in on me in my trailer but was just pretending to have forgotten because it made her uncomfortable.

Not that my dick made girls uncomfortable. I didn't think it was unattractive or anything. I thought it was pretty nice for a dick and none of the girls I'd been with had ever complained so I was going to take that as a good sign.

"Cat person," she said, completely oblivious to the ramblings going on in my head. Thank God. She'd never let me hear the end of it if she could hear my thoughts. "I've always wanted a cat. Not just any cat, though. I want an orange munchkin."

Wat. "A munchkin? What the hell is that?"

"It's like a midget cat."

I couldn't help but laugh. Sometimes she was actually pretty funny. Just not when she was being funny at my expense. "That's terrible. You want one because they're midgets?"

"No! They're perfectly normal cats. They just have stubby little legs. It's cute."

"Sounds like someone I know," I said. When I realized how my comment could have come off, I backtracked and made things ten times worse. "The stubby legs part, I mean. Not the cute part. Not that you're not cute. I mean, you're not cute, but you're not terrible looking, either. I mean – you know what I mean."

She raised an eyebrow at my rambling but thankfully didn't address it directly. Instead, she just said, "I'm sorry we can't all be giraffes."

I snorted at my next comment, completely forgetting about my previous faux pas. "No wonder you want one. It'd be your soul cat."

Like a soul mate – but a cat. When I was finished laughing at my own joke, I asked, "Why does it have to be orange?"

"So I can name him Garfield," she said. The look on her face was completely serious. I'd thought she was kidding at first because this seemed kind of childish for her, but apparently she wasn't.

"You're basing this whole dream off of a cartoon character?"

"Yeah. This is a serious desire, okay? I want my own Garfield."

"Whatever you say, Jon. Are you gonna cut your hair short and start wearing dorky sweater vests?"

She rolled her eyes. "You know what? I'm done here. Have fun eating alone, Johnny Bravo."

"Hey, that's just low, Soph," I called out as she walked away.

I wasn't Johnny Bravo. Unlike Johnny, I actually succeeded in picking up chicks. They all loved me too much to shoot me down like that. Well, not all of them. There was one who didn't. But she was starting to kind of, sort of, maybe warm up to me a little – and that was a start.