A/N: This chapter accidentally turned out really long (at least compared to my usual updates) but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Next update will be up this weekend!

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Chapter 22

The last thing I expected to receive at work was homework. Yet what did Sophia and I receive? Exactly that. Except this time, it was homework I could actually get behind – because our homework was to practice the scene that ended with our characters making out.

Well, technically it ended with Sophia's character pushing mine away and running out when she realized what she was doing, but it was close enough.

We both thought Nora was kidding when she suggested practicing this scene on our own before we had to shoot it on Monday. I mean, we were actors. Sure, we didn't exactly have a history of getting along, but when the time came for a cheesy or passionate scene, I was sure we'd manage somehow.

I guess it was easy to speak for myself. Personally, I had no problem getting half-naked and making out with Sophia, even if it was in front of a camera. This wasn't the first time I'd done this. All of my movies had one of these scenes. What was one more?

Sophia laughed at her suggestion at first before realizing she was serious. "Wait, you seriously expect us to practice making out?"

"Not just the making out," Nora said. "While that is the area I'm most concerned about, it's also important that you two are able to make the transition from being at odds with each other to falling in love. The scene we're doing on Monday is that stepping stone, where you use passion to go from 'I hate you' to 'hold on a second... do I have feelings for this person?' And it wouldn't hurt to practice that a little."

I stared at her blankly. "So you want us to make out for practice. Sweet. Count me in."

Sophia looked at me like I'd just betrayed her and smacked my arm. "How are you not on my side here? We don't need to practice making out!"

"Well, I know I don't need to practice making out, but I'd have to kiss you to find out if you could use some practice," I said, fully expecting to get another smack for that comment.

And I did. It was still worth it. "How about I use you as target practice instead?" she said.

I wasn't sure what exactly she'd be shooting me with, but I had a feeling I didn't want to know.

"Just work on something, guys," Nora said. "Something that will prepare you for the scene. Because I guarantee you struggling through this scene in front of an entire crew will be worse than struggling through this scene on your own. And we won't have all day to waste on it. Don't forget we're on a schedule. I'll see you guys on Monday."

Nora patted us both comfortingly on the arm, as if that would soothe the currently silently seething Sophia, and left us to it.

We went back to my trailer and just sat there awkwardly staring at each other at first. Usually I was the one to make the first move, but not with Sophia. If I moved too fast – or at all – I'd get kicked in the nuts and I wasn't about to risk that. As much as I liked making out with hot girls, I liked getting kicked in the nads considerably less.

"We could always say we practiced and go home instead," Sophia suggested.

"She'd know. I bet she has someone out there spying on us."

"Then what are we supposed to do?"

I shrugged. "Stay in here long enough that she thinks we practiced the scene. Or just man up and go through with it, I guess."

Seeing the look on her face, I rolled my eyes and added, "Seriously, Soph, it's just a kiss." She looked like she was about to interject so I fixed my statement. "Okay, okay, it's a little more than a kiss, but it's still not a big deal. You'll be the thousandth girl I've made out with."

"Because that makes me feel so much better," she said.

"I'm kidding. Lighten up." My number was high, but it wasn't that high.

I stood up to get my script and she followed my lead with a dramatic sigh. She picked up her own and started flipping through it.

"So where should we start?" she asked. "They have a really long conversation before making out. We'll be here all day if we practice all of it."

"We probably don't need to practice all of it," I said, looking through the lines to refresh my memory. I already had them memorized so it was mostly just to look like I was being productive. "Just some of it to help lead up to the more intense part of the scene."

She nodded and sat on the couch, placing her script on top of her legs. I tried not to stare. If I accidentally got a boner during any of this shit, I'd never hear the end of it.

I sat down next to her, keeping enough space between us to a) not scare her off and b) allow me to move closer as our argument became more heated and we eventually started making out. If we even got to the making out part, that was. Somehow I doubted we'd get to more than a peck or a grandma kiss.

"Ready?" I asked.

She took a deep breath and nodded without looking over. I would've liked to tell myself it was because she was nervous to be practicing this with me, but she always did that before starting a scene. I'd worked with her long enough to know that.

"Did you suspect something was going on between them?" I asked, officially making the transition from Christian to Will. Personality wise, we were pretty alike, but our situations were a little different. He was broke and irrelevant, whereas I was loaded and famous. He was hopelessly in love with someone who couldn't return his feelings, whereas I had never really been in love.

She didn't answer.

"Or did you come up with this to talk yourself out of something?"

She chuckled without humor, still not looking at me. "If you're trying to say I came up with this because of you, you couldn't be more wrong."

I shrugged. "Just calling them as I see them."

Again, she didn't answer.

"So have your parents picked someone out for you?" I asked.

She finally looked at me. It took her a moment to answer. "No. They haven't. Not yet."

"Yet?"

She shrugged. "It's going to happen eventually. Just not in the way you'd think. It's subtle. It's not like, 'Date this guy and in a few years, you're marrying him.'"

"Then how is it?"

I thought she'd stumble at least a little on the mini-monologue that followed, but she nailed it.

"Like I said. It's subtle. I saw it happen with my cousin. It started with family dinners. Their two families got together and just had dinner once in a while. Then they started suggesting things for her and Grant to do on their own. They invited her on their family vacation. They encouraged Grant to bring her to a friend's wedding as his date. Eventually, they just gave in and started dating. And it went from there. They're getting married next year."

This poor sucker was in love with a girl who was destined for an arranged marriage. I honestly felt bad for him until I remembered he was fictional.

I chuckled without amusement. "No room for the cat onesie, then."

This script had this weird-ass metaphor where the poor guy (a.k.a. my character) was a cat onesie and the rich guy was a fancy outfit. I didn't know why, either.

She looked at me, but I was staring at the ground now. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were convinced you're the cat onesie."

I looked over at her and our eyes finally met. "Aren't I?"

"No."

"How did you describe the cat onesie again? Comfortable? I mean, I'm no expert or anything, but I'd say you're pretty comfortable with me."

We were getting closer and closer to the moment I snapped and kissed her, but I was getting so into the scene that I barely remembered it was coming up.

"Will."

"What was the other one?" I asked. "Right. It never fails to make her laugh or smile. Even if you're just laughing at me, not with me, I'd say it's a rarity if I fail to make you laugh or at least smile."

"Okay, stop," she snapped. "Maybe you're a cat onesie. But you're not my onesie."

"Like hell I'm not," I said, slowly inching closer and closer as the conversation escalated.

"Why the hell would you want to be my cat onesie, anyway? God, Will. When I came up with this stupid metaphor, it was supposed to stay a stupid metaphor. You weren't supposed to put so much thought into it."

"Then why did you?"

"I didn't," she snapped. She had moved closer at some point, too, to the point where our faces were almost touching.

"Admit I'm your cat onesie."

"No. God, why does it even matter?" She looked exasperated, but her eyes never left mine. I couldn't know for sure – I never did with her – but it seemed like she was as lost in the scene as I was. She was a lot of things, but a bad actress wasn't one of them.

"I don't know, okay? Just admit it."

"No. Just let. It. Go," she enunciated with the same fiery look in her eyes. It felt pretty real. She was good.

So I did it. I went ahead with what the script had laid out for us. We were both caught up in the scene and this was as good a set-up as we were going to get. Was there still a chance she would push me away and maybe kick me a little? Absolutely. But I was willing to risk it.

I grabbed her face, leaned in even closer, and I kissed her. And not a cowardly little kiss, either. Not the way I'd kiss my grandma. A real kiss – I mean, a manly kiss. Well, not manly on her part. She was soft and feminine. I was the man here. Okay, you know what I mean.

She put her hands on my chest as if to try to push me away, and I couldn't tell if she was following the blocking from the script – because that was exactly how Emma reacts at first – or if she was actually trying to push me away. Since she didn't actually shove me, I figured it was okay to keep going as long as I treaded carefully. These were some dangerous waters.

I put an arm around her waist – I'd never realized how tiny and fragile she was, probably because she was always trying to fight me – and brought her closer. And she actually kissed back like she meant it – for about 2.5 seconds. Then she pushed me away like she meant it.

"Okay, okay, that's enough," she said, wriggling out of my grip and laughing nervously. "See? Nora was wrong. We can do it."

"Except you ran away like a minute too early," I said, raising an eyebrow and trying to act like my mind hadn't just been blown. We'd barely even kissed so I wasn't sure why the fuck I felt like we'd just had our hands down each other's pants.

"How about we do a different scene?" she asked. I couldn't help but notice the rosy hue her cheeks had taken on.

I shrugged, still trying to act nonchalant. I was Christian Ryder. I did this and more all the time. No big deal. Not a big fucking deal at all. "Okay. We'll do something else."

She nodded and stood up, probably to try to get away from me. I followed her lead and pretty much disrupted her plan to get some space.

"What about this one?" I asked, pointing at a later scene in the script.

"Okay," she said. "Uh, you start."

I paused. "We have to get a little closer, Soph."

"You have feet. Get to it."

And there she was. Honestly, I was kind of relieved to hear her insult me. Things were starting to get a little awkward.

I did as she said without arguing for once and was surprised at her lack of negative commentary. I was expecting a comment about my cologne blinding her. I'd been more mindful of how much I put on every morning, and I guess it paid off.

We went through the entire scene without a problem again, but when it came time for the kiss, she – okay, we – chickened out this time. I guess the almost-moment we – or our characters, I didn't know anymore – had had was too much.

"Sorry." She let go of me and backed away. "I chickened out."

I scratched the back of my head nervously. Why was I scratching the back of my head nervously? "Yeah, me too."

We tried it again but didn't do much better and decided to take a much needed break. When we got back into place to try it again, our lips finally met, but she pulled away as soon as they did. "Okay, stop. I feel like I'm kissing a toilet."

What? I didn't even use any tongue, what the fuck? "No girl has ever complained about my kissing."

"Well, there's a first time for everything, isn't there, Chrissy?"

"You weren't complaining about it earlier," I pointed out, regretting my words as soon as I said them.

She stared at me blankly, displaying zero emotion thanks to her poker face. How was she so good at hiding what she was really feeling? She wasn't good at hiding what she was thinking considering she had no fucking filter, but her emotions were completely walled off 24/7.

"Let's take another break," she finally said, walking over to the couch and taking a seat.

I guess it was getting kind of late, because the next thing I knew, Sophia was fast asleep on my couch. I wasn't sure how she'd managed to fall asleep in the time it took me to go to the bathroom and call my dog sitter to make sure she was with Bubba, but she did.

I didn't want to disturb her – partly because I didn't want to get kicked or punched by a half-dead Sophia and partly because she looked so peaceful for once I couldn't bring myself to do it – so instead of waking her up, I draped a blanket over her and put a pillow under her head.

Not wanting to leave her alone in my trailer for the entire night, I spent the night there, too. This thing came with my own mini-bedroom with a queen sized bed so it wasn't exactly a sacrifice on my part, but I did have to coerce Blake into staying at my place with Bubba.

I texted him without giving him any explanations, but Blake wasn't one to take vague requests without asking questions. Who's the girl and why are you staying at her place instead of urs?

Sophia. Not what you think. She fell asleep in my trailer while we were practicing a scene and I'm too scared to wake her up haha

Fell asleep eh? 😉 I got ya... 👉👌

I shook my head, glad Sophia couldn't see our texts. She'd kill us both. Not what happened... have you met her???

I didn't say whose finger that was or where it was going 🤷‍♀️

And that was the end of that conversation.

I woke up before Sophia did and purposely walked around without changing into regular clothes. I always slept with my shirt off and was just making myself comfortable in my own trailer.

"Morning," I said when she finally woke up. I leaned against a counter in the kitchen. "Do you want some breakfast?"

She looked me up and down but tried to play it off like she hadn't just checked me out. "Okay. Did you stay here, too?"

Obviously. "Yeah. I didn't want to wake you up or leave you here so I just stayed. This thing has a pretty nice bedroom."

Did that sound like I was coming onto her? That kind of sounded like I was coming onto her.

Luckily, she didn't say anything to that effect. "I probably would've kicked you in the face if you'd tried to wake me up."

I chuckled. That had been my exact reasoning behind letting her stay. I guess being stuck with someone for six weeks forced you to get to know them at least somewhat.

"I could try to make pancakes, but I'd probably burn them."

"Or we could have something you can't set on fire."

I rifled through my cabinets and grabbed a box of cereal. "I don't think even I can set this on fire."

"I'd be impressed if you did."

I just smiled and served us both a bowl. After we'd eaten breakfast, she left my trailer. I warned her that the set had closed for the weekend, but she just shrugged and said she'd find her way out and to the parking lot. We sometimes worked weekends, but this weekend was one we actually had off.

I watched her walk away and couldn't help but laugh as I watched her climb over the fence and leave. She was something. That much I could say with confidence.