He gave me an inquisitive look and I filled him in on her whereabouts after we left him.
“What? With Connor? Doesn’t she know how dangerous that is?”
“Never mind the fact that he’s married,” I pointed out. “But that’s Sarah, she’s never let things like rules stand in her way.”
“Might have been good to know before we admitted her to the school,” he muttered. “Anyway, which part are you auditioning for?”
“Uh.” I shrugged. “They wouldn’t cast me twice in a row for a lead, would they?”
“It’s an impartial outside panel, so it’s possible.” Liam grinned at me. “I got an email from that Sites TV producer this morning.”
“Oh, you remember that!” I had been dying to ask him since he knocked on my door.
He raised an eyebrow. “You think being a vampire impairs my memory?”
“I thought you were focused on other things. What did it say?”
“They want to shoot on Thursday, and asked me for a list of places they should visit. You’d host the entire segment, start to end.”
“Thursday?” I asked, shocked. “This Thursday?”
“That’s the way TV works,” Liam reminded me of his days in Hollywood. “They would tell me things the night before and expect me to be on set the next morning with 24 pages of dialogue memorized.”
“You didn’t do… like, a lot of TV though?” I questioned. “You did mostly film.”
“Film is even worse.” He buttered a bagel and handed it to me. “They give you line changes on set and expect you to be ready in 20 minutes. The day you start doing film, my love, is the day I will get you on anti-anxiety meds.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” I grinned at him, tearing into the bagel. Despite my hair being a mess and my PJs being overly baggy, I felt so comfortable and wonderful beside Liam. Everything felt so right, being snuggled in bed with him in the early morning. I wished more than anything that he could have fallen asleep with me the night before as well, but this was the reality that we had to endure. “What are you doing during the auditions today?”
“I’ll be there. Just my vote doesn’t count for much.” He kissed me on the head. “Is Thursday ok then?”
“Yep.” I took a deep breath.
“I’ll be there too,” he reassured me. “They’ll need a staff escort, it’s our policy, and there’s no reason why it can’t be me.”
“That would make me feel about a thousand times better.” I leaned up against him, closing my eyes, and stifled a yawn. “We still have two hours before my first class. Time for a nap or something?”
“Hmmm.” He nuzzled into my neck. “Or something.”
I turned my face up to kiss him full on the mouth, and he responded, his tongue darting in and out of my hot lips. We snuggled lower in the sheets, hands exploring as if it were the first time. The tray clattered to the floor, but neither of us cared. We had other issues to attend to.
***********
Later, formally dressed and showered, Liam and I entered the Red Theater from two different sides. I smiled at him as he caught my eye and took his place in the front. Shuffling into the rows with Sarah, I had a sense of déjà vu. This was so much like my audition on the first day, the day my life changed.
“You used to dance, right?” I asked Sarah, while Miss Katya, the head of the drama department, stood up to go over the procedures of the auditions. “Are you going to tell them that?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think it matters. They’ll cast dancers for the dance parts. Are you nervous?”
I thought a moment, and then shrugged. “Not really. I’ve had worse. I think I’m more nervous about the… final show…” I gave Sarah a meaningful look. “Than the audition.”
“It’ll be fine.” She took my hand, squeezing it. “We will kill that bitch dead.”
“Sarah!” My mouth fell open, and I laughed a little too loud. Katya gave me a look as she finished her announcement.
“Thank you for volunteering to go first, Amy!” she called. “The rest of you, exit by row and line up and we’ll see you one at a time.”
“Geez.” I said, getting up.
I was perhaps a little nervous as I made my way to the front. It’s not like I had a lot of experience auditioning. I had auditioned three times in my life, and gotten two parts out of it. Someone had once told me that a working actor only got ten percent of the parts they auditioned for, so I thought I was doing pretty well. Plus, no matter what part I got in this show, I would have to pretend everything was perfect and happy, while trying to orchestrate the ultimate vampire takedown plot and finish a grad school thesis.
My father had warned me that grad school would be hard, but I didn’t imagine it would be like this.
When I got up there, however, the first thing I saw was Liam’s smiling face, looking back at me with those warm eyes that had looked deep into mine all morning. I was never able to describe the connection that we shared that first day, as if we were meant to act together, both on and off the stage.
“And what do you have prepared for us, Amy?” he asked, as if he didn’t know me.
My shoulders relaxed as I spoke, “A monologue from Beauty and the Beast.”
He waved his hand. “Let’s hear it then,” he said, gently, and I knew all would be well.
*************
When Thursday came, however, I was a real bundle of nerves. The audition results would be posted at the end of the school day, which was about when I was supposed to be done filming. Even Liam didn’t know the results, having not sat in on the casting meeting. No matter how much I begged him, he declared that it wouldn’t be ethical.
“You wanted to be chosen based on your talent alone, right?” he said, as the makeup artist that Sites TV had sent began to pin back my hair. “Now’s your chance.”
“If I’m a chorus girl, I’m going to cry.”
“Amy.” He reached out to take my hand with a smile. “You’re going to be much more than that.”
“So you say.” I tried to grin, but my hand was shaking with nerves.
Last night, I had gone on Sites TV, only to find out that the show was broadcast every morning and seen by millions of people nationally, never mind the international numbers. If I flubbed up today, it pretty much guaranteed I wouldn’t be cast in anything else ever again. Sites had a huge following. Celebrities often hosted segments on film sets or in their own houses, and the Sites vans were recognized everywhere.