A/N: ONE PART LEFT and I finally get to mark this baby completed! Epilogue should be up soon!
***
Chapter 37
"You're fired."
"Chris." Frank looked at me like he really hadn't seen this coming. "You can't be serious."
"Oh, I've never been more serious about anything in my life. What the hell were you thinking?"
"What was I thinking? I was thinking all of the bad press you've been getting was taking a toll on your reputation and something needed to be done. And what did you do? You piled more of the blame onto yourself and told everyone you were a terrible, terrible person for whatever the hell happened with you and Sophia back in high school."
"I was a terrible, terrible person back in high school. And after high school, for that matter. I deserved the backlash – and I didn't need a damn death hoax to move forward from it."
Frank, in an off-handed way of trying to help me return to the good graces of the public I'd disappointed recently, had started the rumor that my flight was lost and I was dead. Not only had he needlessly upset the people who knew me, but he'd also worried the families of all of the other people who were flying out that day and were unaccounted for because of the power outage. It was the final straw after a string of bad judgment calls and showed his judgment wasn't going to get any better. If that was the sort of help he had to offer, I didn't want it.
"Chris –"
"Save it, old man." I shook my head. "We're done. I gotta get going. We're shooting our last scene today, and moving forward, Katherine Davis will be helping me book gigs. You have the next 30 seconds to get off this set before I call security."
I left him standing damn near open-mouthed in my trailer. My mom, Sophia, Blake, and countless others had been worried sick because of him, and he was officially out of "get out of jail free" cards.
I made my way over to the bedroom set we were using for our last scene for the project. Nora had at the last minute decided she wanted a sex scene between my character and Sophia's after all. It wasn't in the original script, and it wasn't even in the book, but she felt it would add something to the story. I didn't really think it was necessary, but what did I know?
Plus, neither of our contracts said anything about half-naked sex scenes being off-limits, so there really wasn't much we could've done to say no. I wasn't going to protest, because it meant hanging out in a bed with Sophia while we were both half-naked. I mean, sure, it was kind of awkward with other people in the room and with all of those lights surrounding us, but I wasn't going to oppose the idea outright just because of that. We were actors. It was just another scene.
Sophia was less open to the idea – and she became less and less open with each take. When I first got there, she was standing off to the side looking less-than enthused, and to be honest, it just made the situation kind of entertaining. Her face didn't change until it had to because the camera was rolling, and by the last take, she was searching the floor for her robe, ready to bolt out of those doors and never look back.
"Please tell me that was the last take," she said, still searching for the robe. Except she wouldn't find it because I stole it.
I stood up and looked around the set. It was closed off to give us privacy, at least, but I was no stranger to having a camera around while I was in my boxer briefs. I'd had to do it for several movies before this, and I'd even done a Calvin Klein shoot once. "I don't think so. They look like they're getting ready for another one."
That was a lie. It looked like they were getting ready to clear out, but I just wanted to see her sweat a little.
"Chris."
I looked over at her. "Hmm?"
"Where's my robe?"
"Your robe?" I asked, pretending I had no idea what she was talking about. Damn it. I'd been had.
"If you value your ability to have children in the future, you'll give it back."
I rolled my eyes. "Oh, fine." I reached under the bed we were laying on and gave her the fluffy robe she had been using to cover herself up between takes. "It, uh, fell."
She snatched it out of my hands. "Jackass."
She pulled the robe on and, when she realized we were done filming, walked over to Nora, who was sitting in her director's chair. I quickly followed suit because I was a nosy motherfucker.
"Quick question," Sophia said. "Why was this scene added at the last minute? I don't understand."
"Come on," I said. "It wasn't that bad. Though you could've turned the heat up for us or something. It was getting pretty chilly, and no one needs to see my stiff nips."
Nora and Sophia both looked like they were 0.5 seconds away from face-palming or sending me far away from them.
"Though if Sophia hadn't been against using body heat to warm us up, no one would've had to see that..."
Sophia smacked me in the stomach like it was a reflex, but it must have hurt because the next thing I heard was a tiny, "Ow."
"Abs of steel, half-pint. Abs of steel."
"Whatever, Sasquatch."
My smirk disappeared, prompting a wave of laughter from her.
"You see how she treats me?" I asked Nora.
"You knew what you were getting yourself into when you decided to go after me. No take-backs."
I was a little surprised at how casually she had pretty much confirmed we were dating, or at least involved or something, but I wasn't going to complain.
A smile spread across Nora's face. "I knew there was something different about you guys this week. That, and an intern swore she saw you kiss off-set."
Whoops. We'd both thought we were being discreet all week. At least, that had been the goal until we publicly announced the news. I was surprised this intern hadn't told more people. We probably would've heard about this sooner if she had. Discretion wasn't what people on our set were known for.
"This is probably good news for you," I said. "The publicity might just make up for all the shit we pulled. And we didn't even have to fake it."
Nora looked like she was actually considering how this could be a perk to having us as part of the cast. "That's likely true. Although, I do have a confession to make."
"What?" Sophia and I both asked.
"... There was never a sex scene."
"Wait. What?" Sophia asked, eyebrows furrowed. I could almost see the steam building up in her head, ready to pour out of her ears.
"From the beginning it was just an idle thought, and afterwards it was just something I used to scare the two of you into getting the harder scenes done," Nora said.
"Are you..." Sophia paused, taking a shallow breath. "Are you saying we went through that for a literal hour today... for nothing?"
Nora tried to hold in her laughter but failed after not even a few seconds. I had never seen her laugh like that, and I'd worked with her before this. "The... camera... was... never... rolling," she said in between bouts of laughter. Her laughter was so contagious that I couldn't help but laugh, too. It helped that I wasn't the one who thought this was the most embarrassing thing in the world.
I knew Sophia had to be itching to say something, but she didn't. To be fair, we deserved this and more after the shit we had pulled throughout the last couple of months.
Nora even said as much after she was done laughing, wiping a stray tear out of the corner of her eye. "Just consider this my payment for having to put up with you two for three months. Don't get me wrong – I like you guys. But you were a nightmare at first."
Sophia and I both knew damn well we couldn't argue with her. We were lucky we hadn't been fired and replaced after all of the drama we had started on set. Having us do a fake sex scene in a frigid room was the least we deserved.
I chuckled. "Well played, Nora. Well played."
***
As effective as Nora's "payment" had been, I figured Sophia and I could still help boost the reputation of the project we'd spent the last three months working on by making a bigger deal than we would've liked out of our announcement.
We started going out in public as a couple and regularly did interviews. Out efforts did just what they needed to. The public saw us as the personification of Emma and Will in real life, seemingly forgetting about our past scandals because our current relationship was more interesting. Still, we were careful to keep the press out of our actual relationship, only allowing them to see the bits and pieces we were willing to share with the public. The rest we wanted to keep between the two of us.
"I think that was our cue," I whispered, trying my best to see the set for the Mark Stavros Show without actually going out there and messing up our cue. There was a hallway between us and the set, though, so that would have been pretty hard to do from where I was standing.
"I don't think it was... I think that was just a hand twitch," Sophia whispered back.
I pointed at the hand of the guy who was supposed to be giving us our signal to enter the set. "How about that one?"
"Pretty sure that was another twitch."
Eventually, the guy gave us what we were 87 percent sure was our signal. It could have still passed off as a twitch, but it looked like a more deliberate one, at least.
We walked down the hallway leading to the set, making it out just in time for Mark to introduce us. We made our way to the guest couch, and I purposely sat as close to Sophia as I could, partly because I wanted to be close to her, and partly because it made us look like we weren't just quietly bickering back there.
It didn't take Mark long to dive into what we knew he wanted to ask.
"So things have been rocky with you two in the past, but you guys seem to finally have it on track," he said. "I mean, just look at you. Last time you were here, we could've fit a meter stick in between the two of you. Now, I don't think we could fit a pebble in between you guys. I don't know about everyone else, but I'm curious how you got from point A to point B there."
"Well, it was a long and dark road," Sophia said.
The studio audience laughed, clearly thinking she was being funny, but she wasn't. It was actually long, dark and kind of awful at times.
"Very long and dark," I said. "Believe me, it took a lot of groveling, a lot of apologizing, and a lot of embarrassing speeches to get to this point."
"Frankly, I was surprised to hear you two had not only made it off that set alive, but together," Mark said. "I have a vague memory of something Sophia said when she was here before..."
He grabbed a small remote from a drawer in his desk and pressed one of its buttons. A short clip of Sophia on a previous episode began to play on the screen behind him.
"No, I'm not interested in taken guys."
She had been referring to me and the conversation she'd overheard between me and Whipped Cream Girl. Not my finest moment, but not hers, either.
"Do you think if things were different and you were both single, you might be interested?"
"Definitely not." Sophia wrinkled her nose on-screen. "He's not my type."
Okay, that still stung a little, but I just had to remind myself I'd clearly forced myself to be her type if I'd managed to convince her to be my girlfriend. I had to be doing something right now.
"Not your type? Are you female?" Mark shook his head on-screen. "Sorry to all you Rystings fans out there, but it's not looking good. I think Christian Ryder may have met his match."
Mark clicked a button on the same remote back in real-time. The screen went black behind him.
He looked at Sophia expectantly, and she shrugged. "Yes, I know I look like an idiot showing up here with Chris as my boyfriend months later. But to be fair, I don't have a set type. If I'm wooed, I'm wooed."
Mark switched his attention over to me, waiting for me to give my input.
I just shrugged. "To be fair, I'm pretty sure I really am everyone's type."
The studio audience laughed, probably in agreement because come on. I'd never met a girl who didn't like me. Okay, yes, Sophia didn't like me for a long while there, but I l managed to win even her over. If that wasn't enough proof, I didn't know what was.
"Whatever helps you sleep at night, Chrissy."
I nudged her arm. "Hey, we're in public. Use my manly nickname."
"You mean Sasquatch?"
"No."
Mark looked between us and smiled. "I mean, I'm convinced. I don't think this is a publicity stunt. If it is, you guys are dang good at it. What do you guys think?" He turned to the audience, and they gave a deafening roar of applause in response. "There ya have it, folks. Alright, Chris, before I forget – rumor on the street is that Frank Renaldo is no longer working for you."
I opened my mouth to confirm the news and was cut off by my phone – only it wasn't the generic iPhone ringtone I usually had. It was that fucking song about milkshakes bringing boys to the yard.
Yes, my milkshake brought people of all genders to the yard. No, I didn't need that sentiment to play as my ringtone on live television.
I scrambled to pull my phone out of my pocket and end the call so it would stop ringing, but it had already played long enough for anyone to recognize the song. When I finally shut it off, I turned to Sophia. "Really?"
Instead of answering, she let out the laughter she'd clearly been trying to hold in while I was scrambling to end the call.
"Well..." Mark glanced towards the audience, which was also laughing at my extent, and at the tiny, wheezing figure next to me. "I'd say this is a good sign it's time to take a break. We'll be right back, folks."
I fought the urge to laugh for as long as I could to avoid encouraging her, but there was only so much I could do to stop myself. Eventually, I caved in, and she didn't look like she was going to stop any time soon. She buried her face in my chest, her shoulders shaking as wave after wave of laughter went through her body.
I wrapped an arm around her and chuckled. "God, I love you."
"I love you, too." It was muffled and it was choked out between laughter, but it was there. She loved me, too.