Chapter 9

Nora stood between the two of us, sporting a pretty convincing poker face. I had a feeling she was just trying to mask the fact that we were pissing her off already. Sophia avoided eye contact with me while I gave her a dirty look, hoping she would at least glance up so my efforts wouldn't go to waste.

When Nora realized neither of us was going to come forward and speak first, she used her hands to gesture at us to speak. Pretty much all of what followed was gibberish, at least when we were both trying to speak over each other.

"One at a time, guys," she said.

Sophia opened her mouth to speak – and spew her usual bullshit – when I interrupted her. "Why should you speak first?"

She raised her eyebrows at me. "Haven't you ever heard of 'ladies first'?"

"I would hardly call you a lady."

"Last I heard, you're not a lady at all," she said.

Nora still had that same indifferent look on her face, like she had all day to deal with us even though she probably didn't. "Are you two done now? Have you gotten it all out of your systems?"

If I'd gone with my real answer, I would've said "no" but I had a feeling that wasn't what she wanted to hear. Sophia must have realized the same thing because we both went with "yes" instead of the truth.

"Good. Now, we have work to do, and we need to get started. You two need to learn to control yourselves. If you want to fight, do it on your own time. Better yet, do it on screen. Use your anger for your scenes together. Okay?"

Neither of us really had anything to say after that besides mumbles of reluctant acceptance. With that, we followed her back inside.

Sophia and I ignored each other for the remainder of the introductions and things went smoothly from there. Finally, we were able to start the actual read-through, which was as simple as its name suggested. It just consisted of reading through the script.

Sophia's character had the first line, so she began the read-through. "No, no, no! I said gardenias. Gardenias! Is that so impossible to comprehend?"

The owner of the flower shop started to respond. "We have some very nice tulips and lilies available—"

"Did I ask for tulips or lilies? No, I didn't. I said gardenias. We want gardenias."

Jesus. No wonder they gave Sophia the part. Emma van der Bilt was as much as a raging bitch as she was, if not worse.

"Miss, you must understand—" the owner began.

"There's nothing to understand," Sophia said. "We want gardenias. Not tulips. Not lilies. Gardenias!"

"Sophia sounds a little stiff to me," I impulsively interrupted. "Give us some emotion, sweetheart."

She gave me an annoyed look. "Call me that again and I'll show you emotion."

"Well, if you're so worried, Christian, how about we do some exercises to loosen up?" Nora suggested with an evil look in her eye.

Shit. Shit. Shit. That was not what I meant. "Did I say stiff? I meant great. She sounded great to me."

"No, I think this is a good idea," Nora said. "We're all doing these. Not just the cast. It'll be fun!"

From what it sounded like, she was the only one who thought that sounded like a fun time. Everyone else looked like they wanted to complain, or they were actually complaining. I couldn't blame them. I thought I'd left behind acting exercises when I stopped doing theatre.

The first exercise was the animal exercise, which literally was just the entire cast running around and making animal noises for five minutes. Who came up with that exercise and decided that would be helpful?

The second exercise was an improv exercise. It wasn't quite as bad as the first one. At least I didn't have to make any elephant noises. I did, however, need a partner – apparently. I still thought I could've been my own partner. That would've been the ultimate improv exercise but whatever. Just as I was about to go with Blake, Nora stopped us and made me partner up with Sophia. Blake ended up partnering up with Savannah. He helplessly shrugged at me as we were separated.

Nora walked to the front of the room and addressed us. "This exercise is called 'Yes And.' The first person in each pair starts by establishing the setting and the plot. The second person goes along with it. You have to keep agreeing with each other until it's time to stop. How about we have our protagonists show us how it's done?"

Blake pushed us to the front of the room when Sophia and I hesitated, forcing us to be the example for this stupid game.

Once we were in the front, neither of us spoke immediately. Sophia was the one to break the silence. "Standing next to Christian Ryder is a nightmare."

Well then.

"Not exactly what I had in mind, but she did establish the setting and the plot in one sentence," Nora said.

I gave her a dirty look, hoping it communicated the fact that I was only agreeing because that was the whole point of the exercise. "Yeah, it's almost as much of a nightmare as talking to Sophia Hastings."

"Yeah, well, I wish I'd brought some nose plugs because it's clear that someone is overdoing the cologne again."

Hey, I did not overdo my cologne. No other girl had ever complained about the amount of cologne I wore or the type of cologne I wore. Hell, no girl had ever complained about me like this, period.

"Yeah, well, over-doing the cologne is better than not wearing anything at all. Clearly no one told you that."

Alright, so she didn't smell bad. She smelled like standard girly shit – cologne or perfume or shampoo or whatever it was that made girls smell like fucking flowers. But that didn't mean I couldn't make her think she smelled bad.

Nora interrupted just as Sophia was about to make a rebuttal. She told the rest of the cast to go and try the exercise themselves. Sophia and I, on the other hand, were told to try a different exercise instead. The Mimicking exercise. This was going to go well. About as well as the last two had gone, at least.

As soon as Nora was out of ear-shot, I went for it. I was going to do the best damn impression Sophia herself had ever seen. "I'm Sophia Hastings and I'm a raging, hormonal bitch," I said in a girly, high-pitched voice. I was kind of laying it on thick, but that was the point.

Sophia audibly gasped at my impression. Her shocked expression faded quickly. The response that followed was even quicker. "I'm Christian Ryder and I'm a narcissistic piece of shit," she mimicked. She had deepened her voice several octaves, probably as far as her voice was capable of going.

She made me sound like a surfer dude. What the fuck? I didn't even surf.

"I take pride in being so much better than everyone else because I'm original and don't give into the norm," I said in that same voice, adding a hair flip for good effect.

"I take pride in sleeping with everything that has a vagina without contracting an STD," she shot back in that same surfer dude voice. "Oh wait, just kidding, I have one."

I almost broke character to deny that I had an STD but managed to stop myself in time. Instead, I continued with my imitation of her. "I always seem to be on my period because I just don't know how to be in a good mood," I said, placing my hands on my hips for attitude.

She narrowed her eyes at me. "If I had a period, I would probably brag about the size of my tampons."

Well... alright, she wasn't wrong. "I'm way worse, though, because I act like I have one in 24/7!"

I wasn't sure how long we continued that stupid exercise. It was surprisingly addicting. Everyone else finished the "Yes And" exercise, the mimicking exercise, and two others while Sophia and I went on with the same one.

We wrapped up the exercises not too long after that and continued reading through the script. The read-through took what felt like forever, but not as long as I thought it was going to take after our rocky start to the day. It probably would have taken longer if Sophia and I hadn't gotten all of our anger out of our systems during those exercises.

Most of the cast and crew left as soon as the read-through was finished. Sophia and I were among the only ones left. Even Blake had to leave. He had a meeting with his manager to get to that he was oh, two hours late for. Our read-through had understandably taken longer than most of us had planned for. It was almost sunset by the time we finished and everyone was probably late to something.

I wasn't sure why Sophia hadn't rushed out of there along with the rest of the cast. I would've thought she would have been the first out the door if it meant getting away from me. I was done thinking it was because she secretly wanted me. It was more likely that she was trying to slip poison into my drink when I wasn't looking.

The only reason I was lingering was because my ex-girlfriend, Cassandra, was currently camped out in front of my house waiting for me to get home and I didn't feel like dealing with her shit after dealing with Sophia's shit all day. Dealing with Cassandra's shit would probably lead to more breakup sex, but I wasn't sure if the parts that led up to the sex – a.k.a. listening to her whine about the death of our relationship – were worth it.

I noticed Sophia was about to leave when she stopped all of a sudden. Her face contorted with focus as we both heard Nora's voice and both of our names being said.

All I heard was, "Are we... to... Christian?"

Sophia turned around. "I think they're talking about us."

"No shit," I said.

Sophia started walking towards the source of the sound. Curiosity got the best of me and I followed suit. Once we were close enough that we could hear everything they were saying, we stopped and listened.

"Anne, I promise you, it'll be worth it," Nora said from behind the door. "I know it will. I have faith in them."

I wasn't sure who Anne was. She was probably a producer or something.

"I don't know." A woman who I assumed was Anne sighed. "I won't deny that they're both talented. I know it was Rachel's choice, but I can't help but wonder if it will work."

"It will work," Nora said. "We've never hired anyone under these circumstances before, but I have a good feeling about this. You just can't fake what they have."

Sophia glanced over at me. Her hazel eyes looked like they were searching for some sort of explanation from me, but I had no idea what was going on, either.

"You know what? This is ridiculous. I'm going in," I said.

Sophia opened her mouth to protest but I ignored her. I wasn't just going to stand back and listen to them gossip about us. I wanted to know what exactly they were talking about and I wanted to know it at that second. I barged through the door. If Sophia had planned on hiding or running, she no longer had that choice. Nora and Anne could clearly see her crouching by the door.

"What were you saying, Nora?" I asked.

Nora didn't seem too phased by my intrusion. Then again, she had worked with me before so I doubted there was much I could do by this point to surprise her. "You guys are quick. I thought this conversation would happen later on."

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

Nora pressed her lips into a tight line. "Well, to be honest, Rachel cast the two of you because of your rotten chemistry."

Rotten chemistry. That made it sound like the chemistry between Sophia and me was dirty, and not the good kind of dirty, either.

"Our rotten chemistry?" Sophia asked. "Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?"

"Usually, yes," Nora said. "But this is different. Will and Emma can't stand each other throughout a good chunk of the film. They can't even be in the same room without starting an argument."

Sophia and I glanced at each other. Alright, so maybe I could see where they were going with this and why they had thought of it in the first place. That didn't mean I agreed with it. I still thought they could have hired a hotter, nicer chick to be my leading lady. Actually, I still couldn't believe I'd agreed to do this in the first place.

Nora noticed our shared glance and chuckled. "Sounds familiar, doesn't it? When Sophia came in and you two kept fighting, Rachel and I started talking, and we said, 'Well, who better to portray Will and Emma than two actors who literally can't be in the same room without arguing?' It was perfect."

"But this is acting," Sophia said. "Shouldn't any capable actor be able to portray that?"

Why was she disputing their choice? It was that idea of theirs that got her hired in the first place. If it hadn't been for that logic of theirs, Sophia would probably have been cast as Natalie, and that was only if she was lucky.

"They should, but that's not always the case," Nora said. "Rachel was concerned that any girl she cast would fawn over Christian and be unable to truly embrace her character. It's happened before, and she wasn't planning on casting Christian because of that any more than Christian was planning on being a part of this film. But then you came into the picture."

Sophia looked taken aback by Nora's words.

"You did the impossible," Nora continued. "You put Christian in his place and treated him like he was just any other guy, and you weren't even acting. You didn't know anyone was watching. It just came naturally to you."

I started to complain but gave up when I realized no one was paying attention to me.

"That's when we realized that with you by his side, Christian could be cast after all. I know the scenes where William and Emma get along may be tough, but I know you guys can do it."

We were both silent for a while. I didn't really know what to say. They gave her the lead because she didn't like me and wasn't afraid of showing it. What was there to say to that besides, 'What the fuck?'

Sophia finally spoke. "Wow." She shook her head. "Wouldn't that make a great headline? 'I got the lead role in Kidnap My Heart because I hate Christian Ryder.' How much of your fan base do you think you'll lose then? All of the hopeful actresses and celebrity wannabees?"

And there she went again. I knew it was too good to be true that her sarcastic commentary had momentarily ceased.

"That would pretty much be most of your fan-base, wouldn't it? That's a lot of anti Ry-Turds, you know. Think you could take the heat?"

Why did I agree to do this? Why? I reluctantly turned to face Nora and Anne, rubbing my face out of sheer frustration. "I have to deal with this for three months?"

Nora shrugged at me. "You knew what you were getting into when you agreed."

Except I didn't because they just so happened to leave out the part where they gave Sophia the lead role when they asked me to play the part of Will.

I let out a loud exhale. "Just shoot me now."

"Don't have to ask me twice," Sophia said. "Where's the gun?"