Better Than Revenge (Special Edition)

Chapter 4: Christian

"I tracked down the theater we got the footage from and called them. One of the workers knew her. One of her friends, a – what was her name – a Bianca something. I don't know why I bothered. I think Twitter beat me to it."

I guess that meant I had to stop calling her my "Mystery Girl," or my personal favorite, Contest Entry #587.

"Well, what took you so long, then?" I asked. I quickly back-tracked when I saw the less-than-amused look on his face. "I'm just kidding. I knew I hired you for a reason, old man." I affectionately slapped him on the shoulder before opening the limousine door. I just wanted to get this over with.

The girl I was seeing, Heather Meyers, was an up-and-coming country singer with a lot of promise. Professionally, I mean. Romantically, I couldn't see this going anywhere. It was one of those things our publicists set up.

My publicist, Lila, thought it would be good for me to go out with someone new after breaking it off with my ex-girlfriend a few months ago. I didn't feel like exclusively dating anyone new, but both she and Frank thought it would look bad if Cassie moved on before I did.

It wasn't like Heather got nothing out of the deal. Dating me, even for just a few weeks, had already given her career enough of a boost to land a decent opening act gig.

Unfortunately, I was pretty sure Heather thought we were going to get married someday. I don't think she fully understood the symbiotic nature of our relationship. I went out with her a few times, let the paparazzi take some pictures of us together, and all of a sudden, she thought I was actually her boyfriend. I kind of felt bad for her, but not bad enough to stop me from figuring out a way to end things.

I stepped outside and looked up, still going through different "breakup" scenarios in my head. I had to get the message across to Heather, but I didn't want to look like a dick and render the stunt a waste of time.

My eyes locked with a pair of hazel eyes, snapping me out of my thoughts. I could only see the part of her face that wasn't covered by bushes – why was she hiding behind bushes? – but the part of her face I could see looked familiar.

Really familiar.

Why did she look familiar?

And then it hit me. It was her. It was my "Mystery Girl." It was Sophia Hastings. It felt kind of weird referring to her by her actual name, but it also felt natural, like I'd known her in a different life.

Her eyes widened, and she stopped dead in her tracks, an admittedly endearing deer-in-the-headlights look on her face. Maybe she was star-struck. Or maybe she was just as surprised as I was to run into each other in person after the conversation we'd had on air just a couple days ago. It was even weirder for me because I had literally just figured out who she was right before getting out of the limo. That couldn't have been a coincidence. Fate had to have been messing with us. 

A voice resonated from inside the bushes. "What are you looking at – oh, my God."

Sophia seemed to snap out of whatever trance it was that held her in her place and turned away, falling out of the bushes less than gracefully. She looked up at me one more time before bolting. She was actually running away from me, as if we were in a scary movie and I was chasing after her with a knife.

"Sophia," the voice from the bushes called out. "What are you doing?"

But Sophia didn't listen to her friend. She just kept running, albeit not very fast. She didn't appear to be particularly tall or athletic.

"Hey, wait," I called out, finally snapping out of my own trance. I pulled the hood of my jacket over my head and took off after her, completely forgetting why I was at the recording studio in the first place.