Brielle Smith

I didn't know what Ben's reason was for pulling me out of set, but I didn't like it. It made me seem so new to this. I was new maybe, though not so new to have felt that way. Dylan's reaction was the nail to my career coffin. How many chances could they give me to get this right?

"What is wrong, Brielle?" His scratchy voice made me stiffen. I couldn't say. "Is it a boy?"

"Sorry?" I frowned confusedly and let the confusion overwhelm me as I realized how completely unapologetic he was. "I don't..."

"You don't have a boyfriend," he said and laughed, cracking his knuckles in the most obscene way I've watched a man do it.

"I don't know what you're talking about. Is what a boy?" I'd sincerely thought he was asking about Camila's baby's sex. But now that I knew he hadn't overheard me, I thought he was too intrusive a man.

Why did he want to know if I had a boyfriend?

Then, miraculously, he answered the question. "You seem to be too uptight. So I'm asking if a boy is your challenge."

Bewildered, I swallowed. This was an interrogation—one I needed to run from. "A boy shouldn't be my challenge. I'm twenty four, actually, I'm turning twenty-five next weekend. So no, it's not a boy, but a man."

Beautiful question was - what was I doing?

"Is that so?" He eyed me to my bootstrap and came back to my eyes, seeming to glue my feet to the hard ground. "Tell me something, Brielle, this man, is he against you getting on these scenes?"

"He cannot be against me getting on these scenes if he's the one I'm filming with."

All the air that apparently wanted to blow me away had disappeared. The street looked stiff and airless. My heart was racing with an unusual rhythm. I wanted to race with it, but for obvious reasons, Dylan wasn't done with me.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Yes, Dylan. Yes," I admitted. "You make me nervous. You get too close to me on set and even off set—"

"Because I'm trying to build a good relationship with you!" Was that a yell, or a demand? "In case you haven't read the book like you should have, I'll spell it out—"

"Please, I'd rather you don't." I was tense as it was, what did I need to know how Cullen shoved his nearly six inches length into Ashley, and how she called out his name in response?

That wasn't me.

"It'll pass," Dylan croaked out with a daunting smile. "It goes away after a while, you just need to relax and trust the entire cast."

In the real sense of things, it was him I needed to trust. The entire cast didn't make me nervous. He did. But of course I couldn't say that again or he'd catch on that I was having a weird feeling for him.

I was doing just fine today until he showed up and couldn't stop staring at me to either spot my mistakes - as I'd like to think, or because he wanted to take Fred's place - as I'd thought.

"Would you fuck Fred?" His smile had faded and he was giving me a pointed look.

I moved from my spot to process his directness. Heat was traveling up and down my spine. I'd become so self-conscious. "Well, the plot doesn't—"

"Ignore the plot, Brielle. If Fred was a real person, would you want to fuck him again?"

What I'd want? For him to tone down the use of the f-word. "I can't say." Truly, I couldn't say what I'd want from my ex, but begging him for sex was a no. "I wouldn't strip for him."

Dylan's chuckle brought my eyes to his smirk. He stepped closer. "And if Cullen was a real person, would you have given him your number?"

"Why all these quest—"

"Answer me," he seemed to be begging me. "How immoral are you?"

I cracked a small laugh, but my nervousness hit all the notes of this laugh. "My apologies, Dylan. Some things are rather personal to some of us." I almost died trying to keep a straight face.

His expression was completely void, I wanted to rephrase my statement but I should not have been sorry. My sex life wasn't his business whether I was playing a sex role with him. Fiction was fiction, and reality was reality.

I wanted to go back inside, I turned around and faced the entrance. Dylan called me back after my first step. I halted but I didn't look back.

"One more thing," was all he said to get me wheeling around without shame.

"Please go ahead."

"What day is it?" Noticing my confusion, he stopped chewing his lip in wait for my answer. "You said you're turning twenty five next weekend. I want to know what day exactly."

"Because you want to get me flowers?" I laughed at my own joke, but surprisingly, Dylan nodded.

"I can do that."

Did I want him to do that? I was already getting too infatuated by him, getting flowers from him on my birthday was a way of hitting my feelings up a couple of notches. I didn't want that.

"What day is it, Brielle?" He shot me another demanding look and I almost broke a sweat.

"Sixteenth."

"That's"—he slitted his eyes in a calculative way—"Saturday." I nodded in response. "Alright then." He pointed the entrance and nudged his head. "Ben will need you now."

* * *

Pushing the door to the apartment open, I slotted myself inside and shrugged my jacket off my shoulders.

I'd thought of Dylan throughout my ride home. I'd been thinking less of my script and more of my co-actor. It was getting more and more intense, my attraction towards him. And with him prying my life the way he always did, I doubted I could continue filming with him. I was ready to make the decision of talking to Ben. He needed to see that I wasn't professional enough for the role and let me go.

I fixed my jacket on the rack and turned the lights on, coming in sight of Camila and Josh at end of the hallway.

Camila, spotting me as I approached, palmed her face and backed me. She was crying, I launched forward to know why.

"Give us a minute, Josh." Before I'd finish talking, I'd slammed the door at his face. I led Camila to the bed and put her to sit there. It was enough to get her to pour out the tears she'd held back for whatever reason. "Cam? What's happening?"

She didn't speak. She kept sobbing, so I rubbed her back and waited. A mirror was in front of me, at a point, I was staring at myself and how I was playing mother to my elder sister. It was what we did for each other.

Our mother was here in Miami, but we'd grown too much to call her at the slightest inconvenience, even though we knew she'd head down immediately.

"Have you told mom?"

Camila immediately laughed a laughter that was laced with sobs. She nodded. "I don't know if I want to keep the baby."

I opened my mouth in shock. She'd sounded happy earlier. Now what? "Is it Josh? He's not ready to be a father?"

"If that was it, it'd be easy to make the decision," she replied, wiping her face. "I didn't tell you this because I thought it was a slight problem, but with this baby involved, I don't know—"

"What is it?" I squatted to her level and lifted her chin so that she was looking me strictly in the eyes.

"Josh lost his job last week."

"Shit," I exclaimed, covering my mouth at once. "Oh, no."

"We're not ready financially, and even mentally to have the baby."

I understood that, so I should have been supportive, but I was more worried. "Calm down, Cam. You can take a day or two to process this before jumping into a decision."

I didn't know anything better to say. The last few minutes had been a gale of terrible emotions. I couldn't even think.

Camila whipped her head in my direction. She had stopped crying, and was even smiling, but that smile spoke more of sadness than any other thing. "How was filming today?"

The randomness made me pause. This was what she did; tell me a bit of her worries and hide the rest by focusing on me. I breathed out a small laugh and shook my head. "Today isn't for me, it's for you."

"No. No. No." Now smiling fully, she brushed her legs off the carpet and curled up. "We aren't choosing days, but interests."

What did that even mean? Even though I had no idea, I smiled. She was looking better. Maybe tomorrow we'd need to address the baby issue, but for now, we could play around a bit.

"Is the script coming out well?"

I nodded. "This is it, Cam - me in all your faces in the next nine months."

"Impressive." She looked genuinely proud of me, and I couldn't trade that expression for anything else.

Unfortunately, I wasn't telling her that I was thinking of calling in sick. I was so uncertain, but one thing was sure; if I wasn't feeling better after I and Dylan's next scene, I'd fake a doctors report from templates online and I'd quit.

Ben was nice, but it didn't mean he could handle a broken contract well. I could get sued for that. So, writing that I needed to undergo surgery with a recovery period of four mouths, could save me from Wild Reverence. They'd even wish we well.

"What's wrong?" Cam asked me as I got up and walked towards the window.

"I think I like Dylan."

Camila gasped and started laughing confusedly. She knew I couldn't have openly said that unless I had no other choice. "You like Dylan how?"

I shrugged. "He's confusing, Cam. I don't know if he's half the time flirting with me or being normal Dylan, and it's because I don't know him, but he makes me so nervous."

"Well," she dragged the word like she was using the time to think of what to say. "I don't know what it's like to like my colleague, but that must be uncomfortable."

More than uncomfortable.

"Do you want to tell him?"

"What?" I yelled, facing her. "So you can walk up to Theo James and start professing love?" I just couldn't stop myself my chuckling.

Rolling her eyes, Camila replied, "I mean, he's my celebrity crush, but of course not."

"Then tell me why you expect me to do that to Dylan Walker?"

She fell quiet for a few seconds. Then, "You two should have built some level of closeness by now." She wiggled her left brow. It was always awkward when she controlled both brows separately. "Dylan Walker is your colleague now. Theo James is my crush."

Truly, but that didn't change anything. "He's thirty-two, I bet he has a long list of women that he ticks from."

Camila deepened her voice to play the fuck-boy role. "…Brielle for this week and Anita for next week." She adjusted her fictitious tie.

"No one does that!" I laughed, yet I played it out in my head and made myself believe someone like Dylan could keep up with that. After all, he was talking about me not wearing panties, and asking if I had a boyfriend, and even going further to ask if I could fuck Fred.

Goodness. He was too direct for my sanity.

"You know what to do when he flirts with you again?"

Nothing Camila said concerning romance could sit well with me, she was the most insane woman I knew. She could literally have sex with Josh in front of me.

"Please don't tell me." I groaned and covered my face instead of my ears because being anxious didn't stop me from being curious about how insane it'd be, despite that I knew I could not do it.

"Walk up to him with confidence"—she got up and walked up to me with the exact confidence she spoke of—"and you'll say, 'hey, Dylan, stop beating around the bush. Do you want to fuck me or not!' Simple."

My goodness, now I needed to cover my ears. "Are you crazy?" There was no need to ask, she was crazy.

"There you have it." Then she walked back to the bed. "That will throw him off balance and make him feel uncomfortable for a day or two. You'll be even."

"You shame me." I started laughing again, walking to the door. "But honestly, I wish I had your balls."

"Should I tell you how I got them."

I shook my head and ran out of the room before she'd start talking about how Josh gave her by ejaculating inside her. I'd heard that before.

Camila was my sister but she was a handful sometimes, especially when it came to sex. She said anything and did anything. I didn't like hearing about her escapes but I knew everything, seeing that she didn't think twice to open her mouth and start spilling.

As I got into my room, I remembered Dylan again. And shamelessly, I played out a scene in my head. I walked up to him and asked if he wanted to fu…

Shit. I couldn't even use the f-word in my head. How could I use it on him? My problem was my morals. I loathed them. I wanted to be able to say and do anything I wished, but it was so hard to just…try. Movies were the only place I could bring out the immoral side of me, and even then, there was so much I could agree to.

That reminded me of Dylan's question - how immoral are you?

Honestly? I wasn't religious at all but I didn't know that word for more than a second. My moral compass was pointing north.