by J. J. McAvoy
“Hold the elevator!” I yelled, rushing for it. I noticed the person inside push the button a few more times trying to get it to close.
Ass!
Running fast, I stuck my bag between the closing doors and instantly wished I hadn’t. I wished I had let it go. I still had time. But when the doors opened, leaning against the elevator wall, wearing sunglasses, dressed in dark jeans and a button-down shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled up to his elbows, was none other than Noah fucking Sloan.
Shit.
“Take the next one, babe. I’m not signing anything,” he said, scrolling through his phone, not even bothering to look up.
“Good. I wouldn’t want anything of yours anyway, Noah,” I replied, stepping inside.
He took off his sunglasses and tilted his head to the side, his eyes wandering down my body and back to my face again.
“Amelia?” His eyes widened, and a wicked smirk spread across his face. “Amelia London? When did you get you get tits?”
“Fu—Sometime after I dumped you,” I spat through my teeth, crossing my arms over my chest.
He snickered. “You dumped me? Is that what you tell yourself? Alright, if it helps you sleep at night.”
Rolling my eyes, I pushed the button a few more times, but I could still feel his eyes burning into my back.
“I know I’m pretty. You don’t have to keep staring.”
“Your ego hasn’t gone down, either. I wasn’t staring. I’m just stunned. I thought you left Hollywood.”
I’m dead, people. Stop beating me over the head. Jesus.
“Nope. I’ve been doing indies.”
He didn’t look impressed. “Why are you here?”
“For a movie.”
“Obviously. What movie?”
I thought about not telling him for a moment, but there was no point in that. He would find out sooner or later, even if I didn’t get the part.
“Sinners Like Us.”
“No, seriously, what’s the movie?” he said, as if he couldn’t even waste a second to think about it.
I lifted the script for him. “Sinners. Like. Us.”
“You can’t be serious,” he snickered, taking the script from my hands. “There is no way you could play Blair Hawthorne.”
“And why not? You got the part of Damon Shaw, didn’t you?”
“A bad boy playing a bad boy isn’t that much of a stretch. You, on the other hand…” he drifted off as the elevator doors opened on my floor.
“You’re Amelia London.” He frowned, handing me back the script when we got to the doors. “Sweetheart Amelia. There is no way. You’ve got the cursing down, but you do know you’ll have to shoot nude right? Besides, you’ve always had one hell of a bitchy temper. Save yourself the stress. I heard Freeman is working on a rom-com. You should try that.”
He opened the door to the casting room, handed me back my script, and proceeded to close the door in my face.
I stood there in shock for one second before I grabbed the door handle in such a rage that I wanted to rip the whole door off its hinges. He had only made it in few feet, but I dropped my shit at the door, took off my shoe, and threw it at his back.
I missed.
“I had a temper, you son of a bitch, because you made it your mission to piss me off when we were young!”
He turned back, eyes wide. “Did you just throw a shoe at me?”
“Be thankful it’s just a shoe! What makes you think I can’t do this role? You think I won’t go naked?” I tore off my shirt and threw it on the ground, followed by my bra. I stood in front of him with my nipples hard, suddenly aware of the chilly office air. “Skin is skin. I’ve been at this for almost two decades, and I’m not scared of anything, least of all your second-rate-acting ass.”
His jaw clenched as he stepped closer to me, not stopping until my back was pressed up against the wall.
“Second-rate acting?”
“You heard me.” I stood up to him. “Second. Rate. The only reason you got this part is because people are under the delusion that you are attractive.”
His nostrils flared, and his eyes dropped down to my body once more. He was staring at me so intensely I wanted to look away. Despite the frigid air, my skin felt hot.
“Fine.” He frowned. “You want to act? Okay, right here, right now. Be Blair.”
“What?”
He didn’t wait to explain. He started to recite a few lines.
“‘You lost your head again, Blair. You’re always jumping without goddamn looking, and then you get upset when nothing goes your way. When in the hell are you going to grow up?’”
It took me a second to remember where that line was, and I could see him already giving up on me, pulling away.
“‘Fuck you,’” I sneered in his face. “‘The great, almighty Damon Shaw, pissed that I didn’t follow his rules. But the thing is, I’m never going to be your pet. I’m not always going to do what you want me to do. My life does not revolve around you!’”
“‘Keep pushing me, Blair! Keeping venting all your goddamn insecurities at me! Maybe that will make you feel better, huh?’”
“‘Insecurities?’” I snickered. “‘Let’s not pretend that I’m the damaged one here, Damon. Tell me the reason you feel the need to tie me up and pin me down whenever I so much as look away from you. I’ll tell you: because you’re afraid I’ll leave, just like your mother, just like your father. People are always leaving you.’”
He paused, took a step back and bent down to grab my shirt. This reminded me for the first time since I had taken it off that I was naked from the waist up in front of him.
“‘You’re right,’” he whispered, pulling my shirt over my head. Without a bra, my nipples poked out. “‘You’re all I have, Blair. I love you enough to die for you, to kill for you. But you can’t keep blaming me for things that are not my fault. I can’t fix those things.’”
His hand cupped my cheek, brushing circles on it with his thumb. “‘And don’t pretend you don’t know the reason that I tie you up is that you like to be tied up.’”
We stared at each other. He was too close to me, and I couldn’t do this with him right now. When he leaned in for a kiss, I slapped him as hard as I could across the face, not caring how my fingers burned.
“In your dreams. You’re not my Damon. You’ll always be my shitty ex, Noah,” I said, grabbing my things from the ground and then pulling open the door. I made it about two steps before I realized I was still missing a damn heel. Not just any heel, but a thousand dollar heel.
Fuck.
On top of that, I had completely lost my cool! I couldn’t even remember who else was in the room! After that scene, I couldn’t go back in there. I just kept going, walking with mismatched steps until a few people gave me strange looks, forcing me to take off the shoe and rush to the elevator. I blew my chance. How long did that take? Five minutes with Noah, and I was already acting like a crazy person. Whenever he was around, even when we were kids, I always lost it.
What is wrong with me?
“Wait!” Someone yelled as the elevator doors closed. My first instinct was to push the “close doors” button, but I didn’t want to be like him. So I wiped the corner of my eye and pushed the “open doors” button.
“Ms. London, congrats.” Some woman with red hair came to me with my heel in her hands. That alone made me want to kiss her.
“‘Congrats?’” I questioned slowly.
“The director wanted me to tell you that you’ve got the part. We want you to be Blair Hawthorne. We’ll contact your agent by morning. We would like to announce this by the end of the week, so be prepared. Things will be happening fast after that. Your life is about to change. The fans for this movie…are intense, to say the least.” She smiled, waving at me before backing up.
The door closed, and I stood there, stunned. And then it hit me: for the next year, Noah and I would be playing lovers.
Lifting my hand, I placed it over m
y chest. My heart was still racing, and we hadn’t even started yet.
Chapter Two
Amelia
It had only been three days since they had announced the cast list, and to say people were taking it a bit too seriously was an understatement.
This is not our Blair Hawthorne! Sign this petition to change Midnight Empire’s mind! Don’t screw up our movie with this random kid actor! Blair is our almighty heroine guys, don’t let her be treated this way! Sign now! WE CAN DO ANYTHING GUYS, ANYTHING!
Under the caption was my name and the worst photo they could possibly find anywhere of me, complete with frizzy hair and glasses. On it was a giant X along with ten thousand signatures. I knew I shouldn’t, and everything within me said not to, but I couldn’t help it: I scrolled down to the comment section.
“She’s so fucking ugly.”
“I don’t mind her, it’s just that Amelia is kind of like your big sister...I can’t picture her in this movie at all.”
“She can’t even act! She was cute when she was young but all of her stuff now is shit.”
“OMG I laughed so hard at her serious face in Deep End.”
“She still makes movies?”
“I seriously hope they reconsider this or else I’m going to be so upset.”
“Leave it to Hollywood to screw up.”
“She probably got this job because of her mother anyway.”
“Does anyone think she’s kind of fat now? She looks like she’s about to give birth in some pictures.”
“Hey at least we got Noah! He’s going to kill it as Damon. I’m hot just thinking about it.”
Slamming down the screen, I pushed the laptop off to the side of my bed and rose to my feet. I wanted to scream. My whole body shook with rage and frustration. Then I froze when I saw the bag of popcorn I was preparing to eat. Clutching it, I stomped out of my bedroom, down the stairs, and into the kitchen of my apartment before I ripped up the bag and threw it away.
“She’s fat.”
“She looks pregnant right?”
“So fat.”
No matter what, I couldn’t get the words out of my head. Moving to my fridge, I tugged it open, preparing to throw away everything “fatty,” but I realized there was nothing there to throw away. Salads, water, soups, and seafood my chef had made for me previously and returned to my mother’s mansion…the popcorn was my only treat.
“What is wrong with you, Amelia?” I whispered to myself, closing the refrigerator door and sliding down to the ground.
I was not fat.
I could act.
And my mother did not get me this role.
I knew that, yet seeing their words still got under my skin. I was still waiting for the moment where I would “toughen up” about this type of criticism. But it never happened. If I ate a salad and someone caught me on camera, the tabloids said I was worried over my weight. If I ate a hamburger, somehow I was letting myself go. It was fucked up. It was beyond fucked up, and yet it was my life.
Just when I thought my night couldn’t get any worse, I heard the doorbell, followed by the very last voice I wanted to hear.
“Amelia!”
Oh no…No. No. No.
Slowly I sat up, crawling on my knees to peek at my now-opening front door from behind the kitchen island.
Who the hell gave her a key?
“Amelia, darling, you can’t be sleeping—”
Sighing, I pushed myself off the ground and stood up straight. “I’m right here, Mom.”
“There is my new super star!” She somehow managed to grin despite the obvious new round of Botox she had gotten while away. She ran to me, wrapping her arms around me and jumping up and down. “I flew in the moment I heard. Why didn’t you call me, sweetheart? This is huge! Not as big as when Spielberg made me his leading lady in The Beast Within, but still!”
“Mom, I can’t breathe.”
“Oh sorry. Say, do you have any wine? We need to celebrate!” She let go of me, walking toward the wine cooler. “So…”
I drowned her out at that point. My mother, Esther London—four-time Oscar winner, two-time Tony Award winner, and three times divorced—was pretty much an old-school Hollywood legend. She was known for being a femme fatale, with her classic blue eyes and black hair, which now had turned pure silvery white thanks to old age and a box of dye39. Between her failed marriages, poor management, and her love for the finer things in life, she went broke around the same time I started acting. Since then, I was her daughter, therapist, and most importantly, her ATM. To pay me back for my hard work, she adopted two younger sisters for me: one from South Korea, Mayko, and another from Nigeria, Antigone. They would both be starting their freshmen year at Stanford soon, but I’m sure she wouldn’t remember to call them until she needed something. I loved them both, but sometimes I wondered why my mother even bothered. We saw each other more now as adults than we did when we were kids because when we were kids, I was always gone, always working.
“Amelia. Amelia?”
“Huh? Sorry,” I said brushing my hair back behind my ears.
She looked me over and placed her hand on my forehead, holding a wine glass in the other hand. “You look pale. Amelia, I swear, you better not get sick. Not now!”
“I’m fine, Mom.” I pulled her hand off of my head. “I just wasn’t expecting you to be back so soon. What happened to Clément and running away to Paris?”
“Ugh.” She rolled her eyes, moving to my couch. “Who needs men when my daughter is about to make her breakout role?”
That was code for “he dumped me.”
“Mom, it’s hardly my breakout role—”
“Everyone is talking about it. Where is the script? I can run lines with you, just like old times. Oh! I heard you’re working with that sexy Noah Sloan? Didn’t you guys hate each other as kids? When is your flight? It’s not shooting here in LA is it? Have you made sure to get everything waxed? I know this great Vietnamese woman—she will having you looking ten again—”
“MOM!” I yelled, putting my hands out. I felt like I was about ten right now. “Breathe. I’ve got everything handled. I have an early morning flight to catch, so please giving me some space. If I need anything, I’ll ask. I promise.”
She frowned, no longer drinking. “You want me to leave?”
“Mom, it’s just—”
“No, I get it. You’re not a child. I just wanted to celebrate with you because this is a big moment. Sorry for bothering you.”
She slowly gathered up her purse and shoes, even pretending to sniffle. I fought the urge to roll my eyes.
“It’s only 9:00. You can stay for a little bit longer,” I said, giving in and taking a seat on my couch. She grinned and pressed herself beside me like we were best friends about to share some secret.
“Are you excited? Oliver must be over the moon,” she questioned before placing the glass back to her lips. Sometimes it was more troublesome to fight her, so I often lied.
“Yeah, I’m excited. So is Ollie.”
“You’re not worried about the sex scenes and whatnot? You’re going to be fully naked, aren’t you?”
I nodded. “Yeah, but it’s not a big deal. Like you always said: it’s only real if I make it real.”
She tapped my nose. “Aren’t you glad you had me? Most girls would be panicking. But not you. You’re a professional. I made you one. So never forget that. You’re going to shock everyone in the best way.”
I was actually so nervous that I felt like I was going to be sick. But how could I tell her that? And what would be the point? She never listened.
“You really think so, Mom? I doubt this will get me any awards or anything.” I forced myself to smile as I leaned on her.
“So? I had a few by the time I was your age, but times are changing. This is just the door to something greater. When you get a whole league of fans, your name will suddenly be gold again. Never let them stop talking about you, Amelia. The moment they do, your li
fe is over. And that’s a horror you shouldn’t have to face at twenty-two.”
I’m twenty-five.
“I know.” I didn’t want to hear that, but I agreed with her anyway. She glanced up around my apartment.
“Don’t you think this place is kind of small?” she asked, frowning.
“Mom, it’s a three-thousand-square-foot apartment. It’s more than enough.”
“If you say so. But whenever you want to move back into the mansion, let me know.”
Seeing as how I paid for it, I wondered why I had to let her know.
“Thanks, Mom.”
She patted my arm. “My sweet baby. I’ll let you get some rest. Remember, you aren’t just anyone. You are my daughter, the fabulous Amelia London.”
“I could never forget.” Because you tell me every single time you see me, yet I feel anything but fabulous.
I stood up with her, moving to the door. She handed me her glass and kissed my cheeks before leaving. When she was gone, I exhaled deeply, placing her glass in the sink. I was tempted to have a glass myself, but the last thing I needed was to get wasted the night before we went on location.
It all started tomorrow.
Noah
Out of all the women in the world who could have been cast as Blair Hawthorne, it had to be Amelia. Fucking Amelia. Goddammit.
“I can’t do this movie,” I said to Austin as I glanced around the club. I had no idea what I was looking for until I found it.
“You’re kidding, right?” he yelled over the roaring music, reaching for the champagne bottle in the middle of the glass table.
Looking him dead in the eye, I shook my head. “Austin, get me out of this movie.”
“No.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you cannot keep running from her for the rest of your life, Noah. Don’t you think you’ve punished yourself enough? It’s been almost a decade already.”
Snatching the bottle from him, I stood up. “You are not my therapist. Your job is to get me what I want. And I do not want to be in a movie with Amelia London. Especially this movie.”
