Chapter 23

"Are you even listening to me?"

I didn't even need to hear the answer to that question. I already knew it. Sophia had the bad habit of tuning me out when I spoke for more than thirty seconds. Or at all.

She looked over at me as we walked to our trailers. She had definitely been spacing out. "No, not really," she said.

"I'm trying to warn you, Soph," I said. "Cassie came looking for you last week and said she'd be back today."

My bat-shit crazy ex apparently came looking for Sophia last week when she and I were shooting a scene off set. I only found about it yesterday through Blake, who apparently didn't think it was worth bringing up until the day before Cassie was planning on showing up.

I hadn't talked to Cassie in a while, but considering our on-again, off-again type of relationship, I was sure she thought we'd eventually be getting back together. Seeing my name popping up alongside Sophia's all the time had to have been getting to her – and apparently she'd had enough.

I had no intentions of getting back together with Cassie, if I was being honest. Sure, she was hot and we looked good together, but frankly I was done putting up with her shit. She was too much of a diva. Being a diva was fine on the red carpet, but when it constantly seeped into your personal life, it got old.

"Cassie?" Sophia asked. "As in your overly-attached ex-girlfriend, Cassie?"

I nodded. "She thinks I have a thing for you. Crazy. Right?"

Except maybe it wasn't so crazy. I kept thinking about our practice kiss and the filmed one that was coming up today – and not in an "I'm dreading this" kind of way but in a weird "I want to do that again" kind of way. But I wasn't going to tell her that.

Sophia was about to reply when she stopped in her tracks. I turned to look at what had gotten her attention and it was none other than Cassie herself.

"Speaking of the devil," Sophia said.

Cassie and I locked eyes for a moment. She looked flawless, as usual. She was every guy's dream girl – at least physically. In reality, she was a pretty shitty girlfriend. I didn't know many guys that liked being yelled at constantly, cyber-stalked to make sure they weren't cheating, even though I'd never cheated on her or anyone, or micro-managed. Not to mention the time she threw a vase at my head when we got home because I'd looked at our waitress for one second too long.

People could say whatever they wanted about me, but one thing I wasn't was a cheater. If I slept with multiple girls, it was because I told them we weren't exclusive and we were both free to do whatever the fuck we wanted. If I made things exclusive – and Cassie had been the only one I'd done that with so far – I kept things exclusive.

That didn't count the breaks Cassie and I took. I guess they were break-ups because we never planned on getting back together. We just somehow always ended up back where we left off after sowing our wild oats on our own for a while.

Why did I go back to a girl who threw a vase at my head for checking out our waitress? A few reasons. Cassie was hot, it was good publicity, especially when we starred in movies together, and she was good in bed. It had seemed like a fair trade-off at the time, but I was done. She wasn't the only girl who had those things to offer.

"Can I have a word with you, Sophia?" Cassie asked before looking directly at me again. "Alone?"

I looked at Sophia to see if it was okay for me to leave. Honestly, I wanted to stay and listen to their conversation, but I also wanted to make sure they wouldn't end up on the ground pulling each other's hair out because I left them alone. I wouldn't put it past Cassie to turn it into a physical fight, and I knew Sophia wouldn't just stand there and take it. She looked like she'd be pretty scrappy in a fight.

Sophia just nodded at me, signaling it was fine.

I wasn't convinced their conversation wasn't going to get ugly. Still, it technically wasn't any of my business even though I knew I was the reason Cassie wanted to talk to Sophia. In a way I couldn't help but feel responsible. Not because Cassie was my responsibility, but because I'd inadvertently brought this onto Sophia.

In the end, curiosity got the best of me. I walked away, but just barely. I was still within earshot and could hear everything they were saying.

"What do you want?" Sophia asked.

"I wanna talk to you about Christian," Cassie said.

And here she went. Why couldn't she be a normal ex-girlfriend and just stalk Sophia online instead?

"What about him?"

"Actually, I came here to warn you."

"That's sweet, but I can watch out for myself," Sophia said. Despite her words, she didn't sound at all thankful for Cassie's "warning."

"Not when it comes to him. I don't want you to fall in love with Christian. I'm makin' sure you don't. I'm tired of seein' your name and his everywhere. I don't care if you're makin' a movie. Some of the talk isn't even because of the movie. I don't know if you two have somethin' goin' on, but you better end it here because Christian is mine. He always has been and always will be. Everyone knows that. So you better step in line."

Honestly, I was feeling pretty objectified right about then. I wasn't a piece of meat she could just claim. I wasn't her "boy toy" as her friends always referred to me. I mean, if I was, I'd be a hot piece of meat, sure, but I wasn't.

I wasn't "hers" anymore. We'd been broken up for six months. Why did she think she still had a claim on me? Just further evidence that she was nuts.

Funny thing was, she'd never confronted the girls I'd actually slept with when we were broken up. But Sophia? I guess Sophia was a real threat to her.

Sophia didn't appear to be taking her very seriously if her laughing said anything.

"Stop laughin'. I'm serious," Cassie snapped. "I don't want you fallin' in love with him like his other costars. Like me."

Cassie sure had a funny way of showing her love. She'd been nothing but overwhelmingly jealous and possessive when we dated. Even the hot make-up sex after our many fights couldn't make up for that. Alright, it came close – close enough for me to keep seeing her – but not close enough.

Sophia shook her head. "That's got to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

"It's not. It's happened before. I don't want it happenin' again, and I don't want him fallin' for you either."

"You're delus—"

"I see the way he looks at you!" Cassie blurted out. Her words rang in the dead silence that surrounded us and got the attention of anyone within 100 feet of us. If their confrontation hadn't gotten the set's attention yet, it was about to.

Sophia remained surprisingly calm despite Cassie's outburst. "How? You don't even work on this set."

"I saw you guys last week. I found where you were shooting off set. I saw the way he looked at you. I'm not stupid."

Damn. Well, that wasn't creepy at all. Cassie had just reached a whole new level of stalker.

"I don't think you're stupid," Sophia said. "A little creepy, maybe, but not stupid. What I do think is that you need to go wash out your contacts. I mean, are you blind? Can you not see that Christian and I can barely stand each other?"

Cassie's tone went from shrieky and defensive to downright bitchy. There was a reason Cassie often got antagonistic roles. She played them well because she was a bitch in her everyday life nine times out of ten. "I don't care. He's out of your league and you know it, so don't even try."

"Stop worrying. I'm not interested in your precious little boyfriend and he's not interested in me."

Alright, I'll admit it. That stung just a little even though I already knew it was true. But no one liked hearing that someone wasn't interested in them.

"How do I know that for sure?" Cassie asked.

Sophia shrugged. "You don't."

And just like that, my feelings of rejection faded just a little by the hope those two words instilled in me. I didn't know what she meant by that, but it was better than "not interested."

Cassie, on the other hand, went off thanks to those two words. "I don't know who the hell you think you are, but let's get one thing straight once and for all. Christian is mine. He always has been. Who else has he dated? Oh, that's right. No one. He will always be mine. You're nothin' to him. You've never stood a chance and you're foolin' yourself if you think otherwise. He'll never like you. You're just an ugly, mouthy cow who got lucky landin' this gig."

Jesus. I knew Cassie had jealousy issues and could be pretty awful, but that was uncalled for. That was my cue to step in.

I walked back over to them, erasing the small amount of distance I'd put between us. "Cassie. Stop it. This is between you and me. Quit bothering her."

Sophia, of course, completely ignored my interjection and attempt to smooth things out between them, even though I did it for her benefit. I didn't care about Cassie's feelings. I was too tired of her shit to care. But Sophia's – well, that was a different case. "I'm just telling you the truth," she said. "You don't know for sure because you're not a mind reader. And unless you want your next period to come out of your nose, I suggest you shut up and end this here."

Here I was rushing to Sophia's defense, and here she was, once again proving that she didn't need me to. She could handle herself, like always. But part of me couldn't help but feel the need to rush in just in case she needed backup.

Cassie's mouth fell open, but Sophia's comment had effectively shut her up. Sophia took this as her chance to leave. Instead of going to her trailer, she walked in the other direction.

As she walked past me, she said, "Don't you know how to pick them?"

I looked at her, unsure if how I was feeling was because I was trying knot to get a boner from watching two hot girls fight over me – maybe it wasn't over me, exactly, but technicalities – or if it was because Cassie was right about me.