A/N: Hey guys, this is my NaNoWriMo project this year, so expect more frequent updates assuming I can hit my goal of 50,000 words and finish this thing! Fingers crossed and please pray for me because with my schedule, I'll need it.

Hope you guys enjoy!

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Chapter 6

I stood near the entrance to the waiting room, waiting for my time management challenged best friend to show his face. I was only at this audition to support Blake – and get food with him afterwards – and he wasn't even here yet.

I took my phone out and sent him a quick text to check up on him. Where are you?

He responded almost immediately. Leaving my place now.

I rolled my eyes. Fam. I've been here for ten minutes already.

Another quick response. My audition isn't for another 45 minutes...

Oh. Damn it. I must have gotten the time wrong. That meant I was an hour early. What was I supposed to do for an hour? Stand here and watch newbie actors flop their auditions or fawn over me and ask for advice? I could have been doing better things with my time, but I was already there. There was no point in leaving and then coming back. If I left and didn't come back, Blake would probably get pissed. Damn.

One of the girls seated in the lobby kept glancing over at me like she wanted to come over. She wasn't the best looking girl in the room – and there were only two other girls in the room, so it wasn't like she had a lot of competition – and I was struggling not to make a face at her, hoping the lack of attention directed towards her clearly said, "Please don't talk to me."

My back was to the entrance when it happened. I just so happened to subconsciously take a step back as I was texting Blake again and by sheer bad luck, someone rammed right into me right as I did so. The cup of Starbucks coffee that I was holding fell to the floor and splashed all over the floor and my shoes as a voice grunted at the impact. "Sorry!" she said.

"Watch where you're going," I snapped. What the fuck? This was the last thing I needed today. I shouldn't have even been here at this time. This was just my fucking luck.

I turned around and looked at the girl who had run into me. Of course. Of course it had to be Sophia Hastings. Why was it always her?

Her apologetic tone quickly disappeared, maybe because of my less than understanding reaction, or, more probably, because it was me she had run into and she for some reason hated my guts. "Why don't you?" she snapped right back.

The coffee managed to splash on her somehow even though I'd been standing between her and the drink. I could see coffee droplets on the bottom of her legs. My eyes traveled up her legs until I finally made it back to her face. As much as I hated to admit it, she would probably have won the title of most attractive girl in the room if she were in competition with the rest of the girls here.

I mean, she was alright. She would be hotter if she liked me more.

"You're the one who ran into me," I finally said. My thoughts had started drifting, making me look like an idiot with my slow reaction. I looked down at my poor coffee. I only got to drink about half of it because of her. This girl was starting to turn into the bane of my existence. "Can someone clean this up? This is a mess!"

"If you hadn't been standing right at the entrance, this wouldn't have happened," Sophia said, checking the folder in her hand, probably to make sure the contents weren't harmed. Why did she have a folder?

"No, if you had been watching where you were going, this wouldn't have happened," I said.

"And if you had been watching where you were going, instead of blindly walking backwards right into the entrance, this wouldn't have happened."

"I don't have to do anything. That's your problem, not mine."

She shook her head like she couldn't believe this was happening to her. Oh, boo hoo. It wasn't her coffee that was now gone. It was mine. "You're unbelievable," she said.

"How am I the unbelievable one? Thanks to you, I spilled my coffee. Speaking of coffee, why hasn't this been cleaned up?" I looked around for the receptionist that had been there a few minutes earlier, but she was nowhere to be found.

"How about we reenact this? Just stand there and do whatever you were doing when I ran into you," she said, stepping away from me.

"I was texting," I said slowly, waving my phone at her.

Sophia rolled her eyes and appeared to take a small, calming breath. "Okay. Now, I was walking inside the lobby and I looked down for a second. Then boom." She ran into me again. "We collided. Now, Mr. 4.0 GPA, why did we collide?"

My response was immediate. "Because you weren't paying attention to where you were going."

This time, her small, calming breath was an outright obnoxious exhale. "No. We collided because I looked away for a moment and you were on your phone and walking backwards. Do you know what that means?"

"What?" This ought to be good.

"It means we were both at fault. Of course, you were the one texting, so it was mostly you."

So what if I had been texting? She was the one who had walked into me. If she had been paying attention to where she was going, this never would have happened. For someone so clever, she was acting incredibly dense.

"I'm perfectly capable of texting and walking at the same time," I said. Well, most of the time. I wasn't going to mention the time I ran into a pole because I was texting while walking down the street. That was kind of embarrassing, especially when people turned into a meme. It was probably still circulating to this day.

"Considering you just ran into me, I beg to differ," Sophia said.

Recognizing that this conversation was going nowhere, I finally changed the subject. "What are you even doing here?"

In a very Sophia-esque manner, she redirected the question back at me to avoid answering it. "What are you doing here?"

"Can you just answer a question the first time around? Or is that impossible for you?"

As always, she was quick with a comeback. "Can you just quit asking me intrusive questions?"

My questions weren't even that intrusive. They were just questions. It wasn't my fault she was so sensitive. "All I've done is occasionally ask you innocent questions. I'm sorry if that's too much for you."

My sarcastic tone must not have been lost on her. Her response made it clear she didn't take it as an actual apology. "No, you ask stupid, intrusive questions and then you wonder why I purposely give you stupid answers."

"The questions aren't stupid," I said in my defense. They were just questions. Just normal questions.

"Hmm, let's see," Sophia said, scratching her chin with a faked wondrous expression. "'What are you doing here?' Well, genius, I'm in the waiting room for the private auditions of Kidnap My Heart, holding a folder in my hand, so what do you think?"

All of a sudden, it all made sense. The folder, her being here, her being in Hollywood all of a sudden, her attitude – everything. She was an actress. "You're auditioning?"

"No, I just like to hang around these auditions for fun," she said sarcastically. "Of course I'm auditioning."

I didn't realize we had drawn attention to ourselves until the receptionist spoke up. She was standing right next to me. I hadn't even noticed her approach me. "Um, I can clean up this mess," she said. She looked to be around my age, maybe a little older, and looked like the secretary/receptionist type of girl. "It's no problem!" She let out a nervous laugh.

"Finally," I mumbled.

The receptionist crouched down and wiped up the mess we had made with some paper towels.

"Is there a problem here?"

I looked over at the source of the voice. It was Nora Harding, a pretty well-known director that I had worked with before. She was a good director to work with. I guess she was the director for the film Blake and Sophia were auditioning for. I had a feeling Blake would get one of the main roles and Sophia would get a one-liner – if she was lucky, that was.

There were two other women standing with her. One of them looked familiar, but I couldn't remember her name.

I said, "Yes," just as Sophia said, "No."

"Well?" Nora raised a blond eyebrow at us. She was in her thirties with blond hair and blue eyes and was kind of a MILF. "Which is it?"

"Yeah, there is," I said, glancing over at Sophia. "She's being a brat."

"What?" She honestly looked shocked that I had called her out in front of the director. The look on her face turned my whole day around. Finally I had the upper hand. "Why can't you just accept that you're partly to blame in all of this?"

"Because I'm not to blame," I said. To be honest, I knew I was partly to blame, but denying it seemed to rile her up. This little show of ours could lose her this gig, and I was petty enough to let that happen. She wasn't cut out for Hollywood, anyway.

"We've been over this," she said with what I could tell was forced calmness. "Why can't you just get it through your... engorged head?"

"Do you see what I'm saying?" I nodded over at Sophia. "Do you see what I'm dealing with?"

I was hoping Nora would look more sympathetic, but she just looked amused by our antics. Damn it. That wasn't what was supposed to happen. She was supposed to get pissed and kick Sophia out. "You're here to audition, you said?"

Sophia opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by the entrance of another woman. I wasn't sure who she was, but she was tall and looked like she was in her thirties.

"Lea. I almost thought you wouldn't make it," Nora said.

"I'm glad I did," she said. She turned her attention towards Sophia. "This must be Sophia Hastings."

How did she know who she was? As far as I knew, Sophia was a nobody in this town. I guess she had managed to make a connection to get this audition.

"Your teacher told us all about you. Nothing but good things, don't worry," Nora said to Sophia, adding that last part when Sophia looked worried for some reason. "And it looks like you're up next."

She started walking towards the auditioning room. Sophia and the other two women followed her. Nora turned back towards me and said, "Christian, why don't you tag along? You don't have anywhere to be, do you?"

"Well..." I mean, technically, I didn't have anywhere to be, but I didn't want to keep interacting with Sophia, and I had a feeling that was what they were going to expect me to do if I tagged along.

"Blake's not here yet, and I'm assuming you came for him," Nora continued.

"I did," I said. I didn't want to admit to it, but I couldn't think of a good lie on the spot. Besides, why else would I have been there? I was approached with the role but I had done too many romantic comedies in my short career. I wanted to branch out and take on more serious roles.

"Then I'm sure you could spare a few minutes and tag along," she said.

I quietly sighed. If she thought this meant I was going to be involved with this movie in any way, she was sadly mistaken. I needed to shed my teen heartthrob image, and I had a feeling doing a film with the name Kidnap My Heart wasn't the way to go.