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Chapter Two
Cade
My phone pings with a notification, and I glance up from my sandwich prep. Tim has surprisingly been off my back, although he did leave a message the day before stating that I was due in Vancouver for the first read-through in one week, with filming to begin shortly after.
Joy.
There hasn’t been word on who they casted for the part of Jess, my love interest, but at this point, I figure they’re keeping that quiet so that I won’t back out. I just know that it isn’t Tatum.
I’d done a basic search on the girl and, based on her audition reel, wasn’t at all surprised at the number of hits her named yielded. She may not have been a person I recognized, but the woman was an actress. She knew what she was doing.
All the search hits said the same thing: she was MIA.
There were paparazzi images of her with her last co-star, Grant Maxwell, as well as some not-so-nice headlines—eluding to her having tried to ruin Grant’s marriage—but those headlines were a dime a dozen; it was part of the business. Surely, these ten-words-or-less statements weren’t the reason she’d gone in hiding.
Her IMDB—Internet Movie Data Base—account showed she’d been in the acting business since she was twelve; she’d have to have a thick skin, after six, seven years on the small and big screens.
So, basically, I was giving up on casting finding her and getting her to sign on to the movie. Without anything solid to work from, and with just the knowledge her agent was not sending Tatum messages…
I had to give up the idea of her.
But then the question was, who? Who on that list of nine, was going to show up in Vancouver?
Sure, I’d prefer to work opposite a woman that I can at least pretend to like. It’s not just the movie that I’ll have to been seen with her—there are the PR tours, and the carpet, and sightings around L.A. that would all have to be accomplished. And if I was walking next to a woman I didn’t like…
I mean, I’m an actor.
I can act.
The Oscar nods can attest to that.
But you can’t fake chemistry.
However…
It wasn’t like I have anything to fall back on if this production were to be cancelled.
No movies in the works.
I’m not allowed on my dirt bike yet.
So, nothing.
I have to get back to work. Sitting in this big, high-rise condo isn’t doing anything for me.
Resigned by my thoughts, I cap the mayo and lick the butter knife, walking toward the counter my phone rests on. Swiping against the screen, I wake up the phone and punch in my keylock to see what caused the device to ping.
An Instagram notification.
Picking my phone up, I walk to the sink to deposit the used knife and open the notification.
It’s a tag; a picture of Charleigh and me, back in elementary school.
#tbt to that time this kid started kindergarten. Back when it wasn’t called 5k. You’re old @mx_caj
I can’t help but smile at the image. We were really young; five and six. Where Charleigh has always had the same shade of dirty blonde hair, my now brown hair was once super light—nearly white. In the still shot, Charleigh and I are standing in front of the White’s house and hugging one another, big smiles on our faces. Because we went to a private school, we both wore similar uniforms—navy blue slacks with button-down shirts; mine that day was light blue and hers was white.
The picture feels like ages ago.
