Dedicated to @essenell for the covers. Thank you so much. I love them <3 They're located at the top and the bottom of the chapter :)

Chapter Nine: "It's A No Now. It's A No Forever. And Don't Bother Asking Again."

"AFTER EVERYTHING, ROSALINA," I nudged my head towards Isabella, my best friend in the film who stood off to the side looking ashamed. "What the hell?"

Isabella opened her mouth as if she was about to explain when Jake took a step towards me. "Addison-"

But instead of following through with the script, I managed to pull on tears, grabbing the backpack I was going to end up carrying with me anyways near the end of this scene. "Do you none of you realize what your stupid actions do to people? Bryan's in the hospital for God's sakes and now I have to see you two-"

I wiped harshly at my eyes, showing frustration. Since a specific writer had made my character the overly emotional one, she would cry tears of frustration with everything going on in her life. I sniffed, slinging the backpack over my shoulder.

Wiping my eyes with the back of my hand once again and I figured Jake went along with what I was going at because he looked surprised at my sudden tears, taking a step towards me. "Addison."

I stepped back and out of his reach, almost stumbling for the sake of my character's personality. "Don't. I'll see you tonight-just-just don't." My sudden sadness turned into a moment of anger as my eyes darted between both of them before heading towards the door and making sure to slam it hard behind me. The cameras were already placed at the front of the house, catching me take my Beats headphones out of my pocket and putting them over my ears in a haste as I walked right by the cameras.

"Cut!" AJ hopped off his seat, squeezing me on the shoulder as he passed by me. "Nice addition."

I took the Beats off of my head, handing them over to Kady who gladly accepted it along with the jean jacket I was wearing over my spaghetti strap. As Kady walked away, Jake headed over to me, a small smile on his face. "That wasn't in the script," Jake whispered, his eyes flickering over my head.

"I know," I shrugged as we headed over to the side. "But AJ liked it. It fits my character anyway."

Jake's eyes went over my head again. "I don't think Caleb did."

I was puzzled, making sure he saw my confusion. "Why?"

"He looks kind of pissed off," Jake mumbled.

For what?

I glanced at Caleb where he was sitting next to AJ and the two were talking. Caleb shrugged at what AJ was saying and proceeded to type onto his phone. His fingers were flying hard and fast. Jake was right. If I didn't notice that Caleb was irritated from his body posture I would have noticed it by the look on his face. His eyebrows were furrowed and every now and then he let out a breath that looked as if he didn't, he may have combusted right then and there.

"He wrote the whole thing, right?" Jake asked, both of us still looking at him.

"Yeah," I answered, turning my head away. "He doesn't seem to like the idea of someone altering their work a little bit." I thought back to the day Caleb saw my script highlighted and noted with little parts I had to emphasize and put emotion into. He obviously knew that there were a tiny bit of things I deemed fit for my character that I was going to add to filming. He knew that. Right?

"That can't work out," Jake said as one of our other co-workers, Isabella who played my best friend headed over to us.

"What are we talking about?" Her Italian accent came out. She hid it in the movie seeing as we played two girls who came over to Italy during the summer holiday.

"Caleb," Jake answered.

"Oh, he's cute."

"Right?" Jake high fived her and I rolled my eyes. "Octavia here is his number one fan."

"That's an exaggeration." I pointed out.

"What about him, though?" Isabella asked in confusion.

"Caleb seems a little mad that I added in a couple of lines but Jake," I patted my good friend on the chest. "Went along with it perfectly."

Jake shrugged. "It made sense."

"Well, uh," Isabella glanced at Caleb then back at us. "He can't be mad. Especially if AJ liked what you did. It's his movie. Caleb handed over the script and it was approved. This is why, no matter how attractive Caleb is, it's best for screenwriters to not be part of the product directly."

"I know," I said, crossing my arms and wishing it was night time. The sun decided to grace us with its presence and no clouds were present to block it from my view. If my brother was with me he would've called me a vampire. "You guys want snacks? I'm heading over to the table."

"Get me an apple," Jake said.

"Just an apple?" I knew Jake better than for him to be eating just an apple.

"And one of those little chocolates everyone keeps eating." Of course.

"Got it," I turned to Isabella and she said the same, omitting the apple.

I headed over to the snack table, grabbing a plate when I saw the same guy that I had borrowed the longboard from the other day. "Hey," I said to him, grabbing four of the chocolate pieces out of the bowl.

He was chewing on one already, leaning against the table. "Hi, Octavia, right?"

"Yeah," Although, I'm certain he already knew that but wanted to be polite. "What's yours?"

"Nathan." Nathan stood at the same height as me with dark blue eyes and dark hair.

"Longboard's not in sight today?" I asked with a smile, reaching for an apple for Jake.

"Nah, the first time I tried bringing it in security they almost took it away. Only for the night shoots."

"It's a good thing a lot of the filming takes place during the night then."

"Another chance for you to steal my board and almost run someone over with it."

"I didn't steal it," I pointed a finger at him and he laughed in response. "I asked, and you gave it. Second, the person didn't move even after making eye contact. It wasn't my fault for the almost accident."

"You mean your almost hit and run."

"Don't." He chuckled, and I cracked a smile. "You don't sound Italian," I mentioned, grabbing a bottle of water for myself.

"I'm French actually," He said. "I moved here a year ago and saw that they needed extras, so I came."

"You want to be a French actor?" I asked, uncapping the water bottle and taking a sip.

"Nah, I just need extra money. I'm a painter."

"Isn't that a cliché? A French painter."

"Maybe," He grinned. "I don't really care for clichés. It's just something I'm good at."

I added a banana onto the plate for myself, setting it on the table. Nathan grabbed a tangerine and started peeling it, putting the skin on a napkin. "How'd you stumble upon this movie?" He questioned me.

"My agent," I shrugged, remembering that my very same agent, Erika who I had to reply to if I bothered heading over to my trailer to get my phone anytime soon.

"How long have you been acting?" He popped a slice of the tangerine in his mouth.

"In general?" I leaned against the table. "Or in movies?"

"Movies."

"Since I was seventeen."

"What about in general?" He questioned with actual interest.

"I've wanted to be an actor since I was, like, four years old. I got into little commercials and things growing up." I admitted, leaning my arm on the table.

"What'd your parents say when you got into movies?" He didn't mean it intentionally when he said 'got into movies'. But the way he said made it seem as if it was easy and a part of me was irked that my mind allowed me to think that he meant it that way. Because it wasn't. This isn't a 'got into' industry.

"My parents are," I rolled my lips into my mouth before answering. "They're like a lot of Nigerian parents. So, they'd expect their kids to be something that's hard but realistic. Like a doctor."

"Or a lawyer," He suggested, popping another part of the tangerine in his mouth. "That kind of thing?"

"Yeah," I agreed. "And my sister fulfilled their wishes by going to law school and my brother kind of did because he's a real estate agent. But I went to an art school. I've always seen myself as an actress and they never stopped me. Neither did the rest of my family but it doesn't mean that they were happy with my decisions."

"Well, it paid off." He pointed a piece of the tangerine at me before popping it in his mouth.

"Yeah, it did."

"Say," I watched him take the rest of the tangerine and put the rest of it in his mouth. He threw the peels into the garbage by the side, chewing and swallowing before asking. "You have a longboard of your own?"

"Surprisingly, no." I always took someone else's to ride when I was younger and rarely ever touched one when I was in my twenties. I could remember my slight panic when I had asked my parents if I could get one at fifteen and my dad gave me his 'it's a no now, it's going to be a no forever, and don't bother asking again' look.

"Invest in one," His blue eyes looked like they were sparkling. Well, there's one benefit from the sun being out today. "Let's go riding one day."

"Sure." He handed me his phone to put my Instagram in and I was grateful he didn't ask for my phone number. That wasn't given to people unless they were very close to me. What other people I didn't trust do with my number never helped me. I made that mistake once and had to change my number at the load of messages that were being sent to me by strangers.

A youth mistake but I learned from all the ones I made when I was younger.

Maybe not all but most.

I felt someone standing beside me and Nathan glanced over at the person before flashing me a smile as I handed him back my phone. "I'll see you around."

"Yeah," I said, smiling tightly at him before turning to the person as he walked away. "Hi."

"Hi, Bella." Giulio gave me a tired smile and the air around him made me want to take a step back.

"Were you smoking?"

He shrugged. "Yeah and what about it?" He drawled, taking a piece of chocolate and putting it in his mouth.

I narrowed my eyes at him. For him to suddenly get back into smoking meant he was stressed beyond relief and I felt guilt crawl into my stomach at the thought of being the cause of it.

No, I pushed that thought out of my mind. Just because I ended our sexual relationship, knowing he had feelings for me didn't mean that that of all things would make him resort to smoking again.

"You okay?" I asked warily, my fingers needed to distract themselves. I ended up playing with the loops on the belt of the brown belt holding up my white pants.

"Yeah, I'm okay," He grabbed a strawberry, plopping that in his mouth as well. "What about you?"

"I'm alright."

My eyes widened when I felt someone else stand on the other side of me. "Sorry to interrupt this incredibly painful and awkward conversation."

My nostrils flared at Caleb's words and his mocking tone and I had no choice but to turn to face the demon of a man.

There's a reason why I said demon of a man.

Let's forget that Friday night or early Saturday morning happened. That we didn't share cookie dough ice cream and he wasn't acting like a complete and utter dick and I had actually enjoyed his presence. To the point where I found his company nice and could possibly, with a few more nights or moments like that, blossom into friendship. Friendship so that when he and Angie started dating or whatever the hell they were doing, it would be easy to tolerate him and his big personality.

I looked at Caleb now and I could feel his irritation practically rolling off his skin in forceful waves. And the waves were directed right at me. His own irritation made me irritated. "Caleb, what do you want?"

"Can I talk to you for a second?" He may have said his words in the form of a question, but he didn't give me a chance to answer. Caleb gently pried me away from Giulio and the table by taking my wrist and meters away to have a private conversation.

"Caleb, what's wrong?" I pulled my hand out of his hold, crossing my arms.

He stared at me for a good second before asking, "What was that?"

"What was what?" I asked slowly.

"What was that little," He flaunted his hands in a way that made me stifle my laughter and he was grinning at the same time. I was certain that the smile on his face was merely masking his emotions. Yikes. "Addition you did."

"Were you following the script that closely to know that I added anything in?"

"You did that scene twice before," He threw up two fingers for good measure and his smile immediately dropped. As if I was five and had no idea what twice meant. "I notice when someone throws something new in. Because I wrote it all, Octavia. However, you add in a lot."

"It was just a couple extra lines," I shrugged it off. His gaze upon me was suddenly getting a little more unsettling to handle. This is what I meant. Now that I see that Caleb was on the verge of getting angry, his whole eye contact thing made him more intimidating then he allows himself to be. And I wasn't going to be one to stand against it. "Just a couple. Not a whole ass paragraph." I retorted.

Now I knew what Isabella meant by screenwriter's getting attached to their work, I thought, as he seemed to be processing exactly what I had told him.

"Did AJ send you?" I asked him.

He wiped his hands on his dark jeans, breaking his gaze with me for a split second because returning with what I deemed to be an even more intimidating stare. When he crossed his arms, my eyes immediately went back to his tattoos. Shit, not the time. "No," He distracted me when he spoke. A part of him probably knew where my gaze went at that moment before I returned to his stare. "I sent myself."

"You can send yourself away now," I told him with a tight smile. I wasn't going to tolerate his attitude when he acted like a whiny kid.

And to think I considered him bearable for a while and that all gets ruined at this moment.

"You going to change more of the vision if you're going to keep doing shit like that." He held his hands up, pointing his index finger horizontal and his thumbs up and down to make an imaginary box.

"Caleb," I grabbed his hands, moving them so that he formed a giant x. "The vision is always changing. Wake up and realize it."

"You can't just change a vision. You can't just change stuff like that." His eyes narrowed at me.

"Have you seen my script?" I rhetorically asked him, letting out a mock laugh. "Watch me."

"You really love testing people, huh?"

I scrunched up my nose and he rolled his eyes. "Just you, friend." I playfully punched his arm and he stood still, keeping the same expression on his face as if I hadn't said anything.

"All this to be friends with you?" He mumbled.

"Take it or leave it," I told him, holding his stare.

"I'm leaving it for today," Caleb said with a blank face.

Dick.

I stared at him for a few seconds before sighing. "Caleb. It's just a script. People add changes to a script all the damn time."

Caleb licked his lips, still looking at me with that expressionless look on his face. Well, if he wasn't going to say anything then I wasn't going to waste my time looking at him. But my mind said one thing and my body did another. I held his gaze and took a step closer. "Caleb."

"What?"

"Are you seriously mad at me because I added like three lines?"

"I'm not mad."

"Tell that to the face you're making."

"I'm not mad. I'm annoyed."

"At me?"

"Obviously."

I gave him a tight smile. "That's fine." I turned on my heel.

"Octavia."

"I said that's fine. Stay annoyed. I don't give a shit what you think," I was starting to walk away from him but I turned again to say something more to him. "It was filmed, AJ was fine about it. You may be part of the movie, you may have contributed to the movie, you may give him the ideas, but AJ has the final say at the moment. If you want someone to cry to about-"

Caleb sighed loud and dramatically to try and cut me off. "Octavia."

"I wasn't finished."

"You are now." He turned around to started walking away but I wasn't going to let him cut me off from talking.

"If you want someone to cry to about your script being changed and shit being added that makes sense, then go cry to AJ, not me. I'm doing my job."

Caleb whipped around, slight anger flashing in his eyes that paralleled my own. He walked forward until he stood in front of me and despite him being taller than me I felt that mentally we were equal when it came to this emotion. "Doing your job? Follow the script."

"Playing the role. That's my job. Don't talk to me like that." I all but hissed at him,

"Then don't talk to me like that." He spat back, looking down at me. And just like that as we stared at each other, any moment of even the slightest friendship between Caleb and I faded away. It wasn't just on my side this time.

Has anyone ever talked to him like that? Was he always so used to having his way? Always?

Not when I'm involved.

Caleb almost shoved his hands in his hair looking as if he wanted to scream out in frustration. I watched him take a deep breath when someone called his name, his eyes still on me. "Coming." He said too calmly to the person that had called his name. He held my stare for a second longer before stalking away in the direction of the voice.

For fuck's sake.

I took a moment to calm myself down from the heated conversation, rubbing the column of my throat with one hand.

He's such a damn prick. Holy shit. I do one thing and his dumb ass overreacts like that? What if someone changed a whole damn scene? Is he going to throw a fricking tantrum and run off or something?

Why the hell did he even react like that?

But I was tired of asking questions. Forget what the hell just happened. Forget Caleb. But how the hell would we be if he was hanging out with Angie these days? Jesus.

I shoved Caleb out my mind, not wanting any negativity clouding my mind with each step I took farther and farther away from where we argued. I was certain people witnessed that debate and I wouldn't be surprised if someone started talking about it.

I tried calming myself down again as I reached Jake and Isabella again, I realized I forgot things at the table after all the commotion. And Jake knew it too. "Where's the chocolate? And my apple? But most importantly, the chocolate?"