Chapter 14
One Small Favor
You've got to be kidding me was the only lucid thought that ran through my mind as I stared at my phone screen during my morning social media check.
Christian Ryder and Sophia Hastings: Hollywood's Hottest New Couple?
I clicked on the Facebook link, already imagining and dreading the load of crap I was about to bear witness to.
Christian Ryder and Sophia Hastings, the stars of the upcoming teen flick "Kidnap My Heart" are Hollywood's hottest new actors. Could they also be Hollywood's hottest new couple?
Ryder, 21, and Hastings, 18, play love interests in the teen rom-com inspired by the New York Times bestselling novel.
The newly single Christian has assured the public and the press there is nothing going on between the two. Sophia and her newly hired manager have also denied the rumors.
Yet an inside source on set reports that "sparks fly" around Christian and Sophia, and "they always seem to be together."
"Kidnap My Heart" stans worldwide are already rooting for the pair, but one person who isn't too excited about this news is Christian's ex: Cassie Lovett. A source reports she's had it in for the newcomer since before the rumors started.
Luckily for Cassie, Rystings are keeping their relationship on the down-low for now.
"Relationship?" I read out loud. "What relationship?" Clearly someone had taken Renee Brown too seriously.
"Sophia," Tori squawked from the living room. My room was only a hallway away and I could hear her loud and clear. "How could you not tell me you were dating Christian Ryder?"
I heard her loud stomps as she stampeded her way over to my room. The door swung open and Tori appeared. "I better be the maid of honor. No, you better name one of your kids after me."
"Tori, there is no wedding."
"Is he not a Christian?" she asked, her eyebrows furrowing. "That's ironic. Is he Jewish? I can't remember. It's okay, though. We can work with whatever."
"Tori. There's nothing going on. They're just rumors."
"Oh." She walked over and glanced at my phone screen before looking back at me. "So what are you gonna do now? Are you gonna pull a Britney and shave your head and attack Christian's car with an umbrella?"
"That's plan B. I'll keep you posted."
My phone began to vibrate in my hand and turned my attention away from Tori and the article. When I saw who it was, I let it go to voicemail. It didn't take Tori very long to realize why I hadn't answered. She tried to talk me into calling him back so she could hear his voice, but ultimately, it was Christian's persistence that made me answer just so he'd stop bothering me.
"What do you want?"
"Well, hello to you, too."
I could see Tori straining herself trying to listen in out of the corner of my eye. "His voice is hot," she mouthed.
"Stop talking." Conveniently, this was directed at both of them. "What do you want?"
"I can't answer your question if you want me to stop talking," he said.
"You're the one who called me. I'll just hang up if you don't answer my question."
"Damn it. Fine. I need you to meet me in front of my trailer right now."
"Can I come?" Tori whispered, poking me in the ribs.
I rolled my eyes. "No."
My Tori-related interjections were clearly confusing Christian. Not that that was a hard task. "What?" he asked.
"Nothing. Why do you need me to meet you there?"
He paused. "Frank wants to talk to you."
Frank was pretty high on my list of people I was happy avoiding whenever possible. In fact, he was rivaled only by the person who decided it was a good idea to call me four times early in the morning to get me to meet him and his sketchy manager on set. "Last I heard, he was your manager, not mine," I said. "Why do I need to talk to him?"
"I don't know. He just told me to call you. Don't shoot the messenger."
"If I had a gun, I would."
"Just get over here."
"Your manager's not exactly my favorite person," I said. "I'm going to have to pass."
I didn't give him a chance to protest – because I knew he would – and hung up on him as soon as the words had left my mouth. I was ready for Tori's whines, but they never came. She remembered she'd left a pancake cooking on the stove and was out of the room before I could blink. I'd never seen her run so fast in my life. Not even in gym class junior year when she decided she wanted to impress her crush by being the fastest mile runner in the girl's section and ended up spraining her toe. (I didn't know how, either.)
While she tried to salvage our breakfast, I took a quick shower and got dressed. As I was struggling to get my jeans on and over my butt with freshly showered legs, there was a knock at the door.
"Can you get that?" Tori called out.
"Yeah, I got it." I ran to open the door once I was decent and immediately slammed it back into place when I saw who it was.
Unfortunately, Christian must have seen it coming. He stuck his foot in the doorway before I could fully close it. "Not so fast," he said.
I still did my best to try and push the door shut and keep him out. When he started pushing back, I had to admit defeat and back away. Christian came inside, followed closely by Frank.
"Sure, come on in," I said, making a mental note to make it harder for them to get through that door in the future.
"Don't worry. This won't take long," Frank said. "I have places to be, and it's quite... small... in here."
Oh no, Christian Ryder's manager didn't like my apartment? How was I going to live with myself after this devastating revelation?
Christian's reaction to seeing the inside of my apartment was pretty much the opposite of Frank's – and also a little weird. "It reminds me of my mom's house," he said. "Well, kind of. You don't have nude paintings up like she does."
Okay, Christian. Okay.
"I have a proposition for you," Frank said, ignoring Christian's comment. "I assume you've seen the news."
"Yes..."
"Then you know everyone is already sure there's something going on between you and Christian. I think it could be good for your careers if you go ahead and give the public what they want. Pretend to date for a little while – just long enough to make it believable. Then the two of you can amicably split and go on with your lives. Believe me, the publicity will be great."
And there it was. I had a feeling nothing good was going to come from this intrusion. "No, thanks. I'm not interested in that kind of publicity."
"Give me a reason why not," Frank said. I had a feeling 'no' wasn't going to be enough for him. "I don't understand why you're not jumping at the chance to be involved with Christian. There are girls whose names are now out there because they've been tied to him. Music careers and acting careers have been launched with the help of his name."
"I'm just not interested. Sorry."
I wasn't the least bit sorry, but I figured I'd try being polite and see if that got them out of there faster. A screaming match wasn't going to do much.
"At least take some time to consider it," Frank said. "What do you think, Chris?"
Christian looked between the two of us like he was trying not to step on any toes with his answer. "Well, I don't know. I guess –"
"Whose side are you on?" I interrupted. I didn't like his hesitation. "It's not happening, guys."
And just like that, Frank stood down. "You know what? Fine. Your loss. Let's go, Christian."
"Don't let the door hit you on your way out," I muttered as they finally left, giving me the peace and quiet – that was only interrupted by Tori – back.
***
After eating breakfast, I headed off to work and things went smoothly for once. Christian and I were shooting separate scenes and weren't around each other long enough to do any damage or get on each other's nerves.
I mostly worked with Bill that morning – the man who played Jack, my character's bodyguard – shooting the few scenes we had alone. He was a pretty cool dude for being over twice my age. His company was much preferred to Savannah's, although he didn't have as many scenes as the four core characters and I didn't see him as much.
Ironically, in the movie, my character does her best to get away from her bodyguard whenever possible and clings to her best friend. In real life, I did my best to get away from the actress playing my best friend and clung to Bill on the few occasions we worked together and I didn't want to deal with Christian or even Blake.
Tori sometimes came on set, but she'd recently gotten a job of her own at a tanning salon. It was temporary, just until cosmetology school started in September. If she decided she liked it enough and wanted the spending money, she'd probably stick around and work part-time.
When lunchtime came, Bill headed home for the day and I headed to the catering wagon for some food. Christian and Blake walked in not too long after and joined me without asking. They no longer asked. They just assumed it was okay. I didn't know what it was about my face that made them think I wanted them there. I guess they just sat with me in spite of my resting bitch face.
"Where's your partner in crime?" Blake asked.
Tori was going to die when I told her Blake had asked about her. She had her own thing with that guy, Nick, but she still couldn't help but fawn over these two stooges.
I filled them in on Tori's latest endeavors, adding that it'd be a while before I trusted her with scissors around my head. Or hair dye. Or, like, anything. I loved the girl, but I liked my hair the way it was.
We split up after eating, Christian and I heading back to our own trailers until it was time to start our next scene and Blake heading home for the day.
I left my trailer early so I could grab another snack before the scene began – I needed energy to deal with Christian for an entire afternoon, alright? – and passed his trailer on my way there. It sounded like he was talking on the phone. Curiosity got the best of me, and I couldn't help but eavesdrop a little.
"I can't tonight, babe," Christian said in a low voice.
I was guessing he was talking to the latest girl he was stringing along, unless he called his mom or Blake "babe." I really hoped he didn't.
"God, I wish I could, baby. That sounds perfect. But I'm stuck on set tonight and then I have a publicity thing."
I couldn't hear the girl's replies, but as their conversation progressed, I realized that was a blessing in disguise. I thought I'd hear something better than soft phone-sex. Gross. I was better off getting a snack.
We worked until a little before eight that night. As I was heading towards the parking lot, Nora saw me and stopped me in my tracks. "Can you do me one small favor and give this to Christian? The screenwriter made some changes to one of his scenes and he needs to look it over. I'd go and give it to him myself, but I'm in a bit of a hurry." She handed me a white folder.
"Yeah, sure," I said.
She nodded gratefully and left in a rush. I didn't really want to pay Christian a visit, but I wasn't going to tell Nora no. I headed towards his trailer, ready to hand this over and get home already, barging in without knocking or asking for permission. He usually locked his door so people – a.k.a. Blake and me – wouldn't just enter, but that day he didn't.
I wished he would have.
When I walked in, what I saw made me scream bloody murder at the top of my lungs. I almost ran into my wall in my rush to get out and go find a 24-hour therapist.
Before I ran out, I saw Christian fall out of his chair in astonishment, struggling to cover his junk and pull his pants up.
Once I was outside, I slowed to a walk, assuming he would be too embarrassed to follow me.
Unfortunately, I was wrong. He did just that.
"This is why we can't have nice things," he called out. "You should've knocked."
I didn't bother turning around. I didn't want to look at his face. Although his face would be better than the current image I currently had ingrained in my mind – albeit, not by much. "I know. I'm just gonna go bleach my eyes now."
There was an awkward pause, followed by an awkward-sounding response. If there was a prize for awkward situations – and situations that called for the overuse of the word – this would take the cake. "Sorry," he said.
I didn't reply. Instead, I sped up, seeing the parking lot was so close – yet so far away.
For some unknown reason, he continued to follow me. Why was he following me? Why wasn't he absolutely mortified? I knew I was. "You know, you can stick around if you want and—"
"Bye, Christian," I said, still refusing to turn around. How was he not getting the memo that I wanted to get as far away from him as I possibly could in the shortest amount of time and forget this ever happened?
Then I remembered why I was here in the first place and stopped in my tracks. Damn it. I wished I'd dropped the folder in my initial shock. Then I could have just told him to check his floor for a white folder. Better yet, I wish I would have just left earlier. Nora could have found someone else to deliver the folder – someone who probably would have knocked and saved themselves the embarrassment.
Reluctantly, I turned back around and walked towards him.
"So you do want to stick around?" He looked smug. Too smug. Smug enough to make me want to wipe that stupid look off of his face with the nearest object. "I knew you'd come around."
"Ew. No. The only reason I came over here in the first place was to give you this. Nora asked me to bring it to you. One of your scenes has been updated and she wanted you to look over the revisions."
She couldn't have just emailed it to him? Texted him? Faxed it? This was the 21st century. This felt like the equivalent of a courier pigeon.
I held the folder out, gripping it by the very edge and avoiding Christian's hand when he grabbed it.
"What?" he asked. "I'm not a leper."
"I'm not touching your hand."
"Why not? ... Oh."
I felt my lips forming a flat line. "Yeah... well, I'm gonna go now and try to repress the memory of the last five minutes for oh, I don't know, the rest of my life."
What started as a speedy walk away from Christian turned into a jog, and before I knew it, I was outright sprinting. Too bad I couldn't run away from the memory. This was worse than the time someone accidentally airdropped me a picture of a dick while I was at a McDonald's once.
Why hadn't I just left?