Fairytale Love - Becca & Brian (6 page)

Becca couldn’t believe how long it was taking. Brian had been back there for at least half an hour. Which was probably a good thing. For him. And that was what mattered—what was good for
him
.

For her, well… Every time she thought about Brian competing on a dating show, she got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. The thought of girls lining up to be with him made her want to vomit. But she had to remind herself that, whether or not it was being filmed, girls did line up to be with him. Even in junior high, girls had thrown themselves at him. He’d enjoyed the attention, like any preteen boy would, but Becca had always known that
she
mattered more.

Last year, when Brian had been dating Skylar, Becca had thought for little bit, that he might have found the one. At the time, it hadn’t bothered her in the least. She’d actually been
happy
for Brian. Skylar seemed like a sweet girl, and she was
beautiful
. But by the time Becca had received the call from Brian around Thanksgiving about how he’d ended things with Skylar, Becca had to admit that she’d been relieved.
Very
relieved.

Which was ridiculous. Logically, she knew that. She wanted Brian to be happy, and Brian was definitely a ‘relationship’ guy. He was what she’d heard people call a serial monogamist.

So she should have been sad when it hadn’t worked out with Skylar. Brian had seemed happy in that relationship. The girl was zero drama, and from what Becca had been able to glean from thousands of miles away, she had really appreciated Brian—not just his filled-out body, but also his heart and his sense of humor. Instead of feeling bad—like a good friend—when they’d called it quits, she’d gotten off the phone and jumped up and down on her bed.
Literally
. Jumped. On. Her. Bed. Not only that, she’d also worn a perma-grin on her face for the next week or two. People in her classes had asked if she was on something. Yep. She’d been high on the fact that her
best friend
had broken up with his girlfriend. How pathetic was that?

Shaking her head, she was reaching down to grab a magazine and try her hardest to get her mind off all things Brian-related when she heard his deep voice coming from the hall.
Mmmm
. His voice. That voice was as familiar to her as her own. Although, she didn’t get all tingly and break out in a sweat when she heard her own voice.

Becca looked up to see the object of her unwanted desires talking to the girl with the clipboard and another woman who looked to be in her forties with curly, brown hair falling close to her shoulders and red-rimmed glasses, that reminded her of Sally Jesse Raphael, dominating her face.

Becca quickly surmised that she must be the casting director, because she noticed that the energy in the small, square waiting room had shifted, drastically, since the woman had appeared with Brian. All of the guys had sat up a little straighter and their eyes kept slicing over to her. Becca could practically smell the desperation.

She just didn’t get it. How people could put themselves out there again and again, basically walking into a room and saying, “
Like me. Please like me,
” just to be rejected nine times out of ten. Or maybe the odds were even worse. Then if you actually succeeded in getting the job, the amount of judgment and media scrutiny that came with even a small degree of success sounded horrible to Becca. It was essentially handing over your private life to a tank of sharks and saying, “Bon appétit.” It held no appeal to Becca’s sensibilities.

The woman was still talking to Brian as she glanced around the room. Becca wasn’t sure what the woman was looking for, but the moment her assessing green eyes skimmed past Becca, she felt suddenly self-conscious. When the woman did a double take, landing once again on Becca, she actually wanted to climb under the chair and hide.

With laser-like focus, the woman held up her forefinger to Brian and began walking over to Becca with purpose. Anxiety rose up in Becca as she stood. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to be in the waiting room since she wasn’t auditioning.

As the woman’s eyes scanned her, Becca felt very much on display. “Did I see you yesterday?”

“Um, not unless you were in California,” Becca joked, trying to lighten the mood since every pair of eyes in the place was focused on
her.

The woman just nodded. Not even cracking a smile, her eyes narrowed, “I normally don’t make exceptions for missing a casting, but in your case, I will. I’ll see you next.”

“Oh, no.” Becca quickly tried to explain as Brian approached them. “I’m not here to audition, I’m just… I’m with him,” she finished lamely as she pointed to Brian.

The woman’s head spun around towards Brian. She didn’t sound too happy as she snapped, “I thought you said you didn’t have a girlfriend.”

“I’m not his girlfriend,” Becca spurted out before Brian even had a chance to answer. “We’re just friends.”

Something that looked to be in the ballpark of hurt flashed in Brian’s eyes, but it was there and gone before she could know for sure. Calmly, Brian stepped beside Becca and reiterated, “Mary, this is Becca Sloan. Becca, this is Mary Willis. She is the casting director.” Turning towards Mary, Brian explained, “Becca and I have been friends—best friends—since we were kids.”

Brian’s hand rested on Becca’s lower back, and before she could stomp it down or ignore it, her body responded to his touch and a shiver ran down her back.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Becca said politely as she reached out to shake the woman’s hand.

Mary didn’t lift her hand to shake Becca’s. “You’re not an actress.”

Becca wasn’t totally clear on whether or not that was a question or a statement—not that it really mattered since her response would have been the same either way. “No, I’m just a college student.”

Brian tensed beside Becca, and she could feel his fingertips digging into her lower back. “Becca is pre-med at Stanford.”

She could hear the pride infused in his tone. Brian had always been so supportive of her and her scholastic achievements. Even more than her parents, sisters, or cousins. He hated it when she told people that she was just a college student. But that is what she was.

“Wow. Impressive.” Mary looked between the two of them. “So you two are just friends?”

“Yep,” Becca tried to answer as cheerily as possible.

“Yes,” Brian’s deep voice sounded beside her.

Mary snapped her fingers and the girl who had gotten all blushy when she’d called Brian into the room was standing next to the casting director before Becca even had a chance to blink.

“I’ll see her next,” Mary announced and spun around on her heels. “Give me five and then show her in.”

Clipboard Girl nodded, not seeming too happy about the turn of events, which meant that she and Becca had more in common than just thinking Brian was blush-worthy. Becca was also not pleased about how this conversation had gone.

“No, I’m not here to audition,” Becca called out to the retreating curly-haired form.

“Fill this out,” Clipboard Girl snapped as she handed Becca paperwork. “And hurry. You only have a few minutes.”

Becca tried to give them back to the girl, not quite understanding why everyone was totally ignoring the fact that Becca was
not
here to audition. “No, I don’t need these. I’m not auditioning.”

“Look, I have a job to do.” The young, pretty blonde seemed to be getting irritated. “Just fill out the paperwork, then let me take you back there to talk to Mary. You’re not going to book it,” the girl said as she gave Becca a once-over that Becca clearly did not pass. “Just let me do my job.”

Becca looked up at Brian for backup.

“Listen, Cherry…” Brian began, and Becca was sure that he was going to stand up for her, explain the situation, but Becca didn’t hear any of that because all she could think was…
Cherry
?! This girl’s name was
Cherry
?

Becca was snapped out of her fascination-name-fog as one of the guys in the room, who had been waiting there almost as long as Brian and Becca had been there, stood up. “Can we move this along? I have another audition across town.”

Cherry turned to him. “What’s your name?”

“Peter French.” The guy looked happy to finally have the attention focused on him. He even rolled his shoulders back and flexed his muscles, which made Becca roll her eyes.

Cherry scanned down her clipboard and checked something off. “Okay, Peter. You’re free to go.” The man started towards the hallway, but Cherry stepped in front of him. “No, you’re free to leave. I’ve removed your name from the sign-in.”

“What? Why did you… I was just saying”—the guy turned towards Becca, breathing loudly through his nose as his hand flew up, motioning to Becca—“she needs to stop playing hard to get and go in already.”

Brian stepped between Steroid Boy and Becca, “You need to leave. Now.”

Brian hadn’t raised his voice. It was totally calm, but not in a passive-nice-guy way. Oh no, no, no—Brian’s deep baritone voice had been
deadly
calm.

Becca couldn’t see around Brian to what Hulk Junior was doing, but she could feel the same alpha-like strength radiating off Brian he’d had when they were in sixth grade and they’d seen about five high school guys—who were on the varsity football team—throwing pebbles at a developmentally challenged kid in a wheelchair as they walked to school. Brian had stepped in front of the bullies and told them to leave the kid alone. One of the teenagers had laughed and thrown another rock. It bounced off of the sidewalk and hit Becca in the arm. Brian saw what happened, and the next thing Becca knew, there were fists flying and three of the five football players were laid out on the cement. The other two were yelling out threats as they ran away.

She was scared that the older boys were going to make good on their threats, but as it turned out, she’d had nothing to be worried about. As soon as her cousin Riley had found out about what had happened, those guys were taken care of. As a matter of fact, from then on, if they saw her and Brian walking down the street on the way to school, the guys, who had been acting so tough when they’d been throwing rocks, would quickly cross the street and walk on the other side.

Becca knew that the guys were doing that because of her cousin, but she remembered being in awe of Brian still. Overnight, he’d replaced Dr. Corbin and had become her personal superhero. Defending the defenseless.

The same feeling washed over her now.

Hulk Junior grunted and headed towards the door to leave. Becca heard him say, “I bet you’re a cock tease, too,” under his breath.

She ignored it. Brian didn’t.

“What did you say?” Brian moved with ninja-like speed and was standing in front of Hulk, blocking his exit.

“Brian, it’s fine.” Becca stepped in front of him.

She heard Hulk Junior behind her saying, “Nothing, man. What’s your problem?”

“Is there a problem out here?”

They all turned and saw Mary standing in the doorway that led down the hall.

“No,” Cherry said quickly. “No problem.”

“I’m ready to see you now,” Mary said to Becca.

“She’s not—” Brian began.

“I’ll be right there,” Becca interrupted him, placing her hand on his arm.

This whole thing had gotten completely out of hand. She didn’t want to ruin this opportunity for Brian. So she decided that the fastest way to settle things down would just be to go in and get this over with.

“You don’t have to do this. We can just leave,” Brian said as he placed his large hand over hers.

Becca squeezed his arm and tried not to swoon as she felt his muscular forearms beneath her touch. “It’s fine. Seriously.”

His light-brown eyes stared into hers, and the rest of the crowded waiting room melted away. That had been happening a lot over the past year. Every time Brian looked at her, the rest of the world just disappeared.

He stared, searching her eyes to make sure that she was, actually, okay. Finally, his jaw tensed as he nodded. “Fine. I’ll be right out here if you need me.”

Becca smiled up at him as brightly as she could. She hated seeing him worried or stressed. She wanted to be the thing in his life that put a smile on his face, not the thing that made him make that tense face.

“I got this, B,” Becca said with a cocky gangsta nod. It was an inside joke between the two of them. They always said that to each other whenever one was worried about the other.

Brian shook his head slightly as the corners of his mouth turned up into a smile.

Seeing that Brian was smiling again and not looking stressed, Becca turned and quickly made her way across the waiting room. Best to leave the waiting room debacle on a good note. Plus, she just wanted to get this over with.

As Cherry began walking beside her, she handed her the same paperwork Brian had been given to fill out when they’d arrived. “Fill this out.”

Becca nodded as she looked down at the questionnaire. She tried to focus on the words in front of her eyes, but she was having a difficult time. She needed to get over this—whatever
this
was that she was feeling for Brian—but she had no idea where to start. Taking a deep, cleansing breath hadn’t seemed to help in the least.

Her mind was swimming with not-so-innocent, Brian-related thoughts. Her body was flooded with sensations. Her heart was filled with emotions she didn’t want to qualify. Her hormones were all present and reporting for active duty.

How was she ever going to find her way through this Brian-forest of desire, need, and love that she had found herself smack-dab in the middle of, with no compass and no map? She felt like she’d been hit directly in the heart with Cupid’s arrow, and she wanted to pull the sucker out and give it right back to the chubby cherub with a note saying, “No, thank you.”

Obviously it was true that you didn’t get to pick who you fell in love with. Even if she could, it was too late for Becca to stop it. That ship had sailed, and now she just needed to figure out how to navigate through the choppy waters of the Brian-love-sea she was getting thrashed around in. Her only hope was that maybe, just
maybe
, she could control who she fell
out
of love with.