Becca was snapped out of her fascination-name-fog as one of the guys in the room, who had been waiting there almost as long as Brian and Becca had been there, stood up. "Can we move this along? I have another audition across town."
Cherry turned to him. "What's your name?"
"Peter French." The guy looked happy to finally have the attention focused on him. He even rolled his shoulders back and flexed his muscles, which made Becca roll her eyes.
Cherry scanned down her clipboard and checked something off. "Okay, Peter. You're free to go." The man started towards the hallway, but Cherry stepped in front of him. "No, you're free to leave. I've removed your name from the sign-in."
"What? Why did you … I was just saying"-the guy turned towards Becca, breathing loudly through his nose as his hand flew up, motioning to Becca-"she needs to stop playing hard to get and go in already."
Brian stepped between Steroid Boy and Becca, "You need to leave. Now."
Brian hadn't raised his voice. It was totally calm, but not in a passive-nice-guy way. Oh no, no, no-Brian's deep baritone voice had been deadly calm.
Becca couldn't see around Brian to what Hulk Junior was doing, but she could feel the same alpha-like strength radiating off Brian he'd had when they were in sixth grade and they'd seen about five high school guys-who were on the varsity football team-throwing pebbles at a developmentally challenged kid in a wheelchair as they walked to school. Brian had stepped in front of the bullies and told them to leave the kid alone. One of the teenagers had laughed and thrown another rock. It bounced off of the sidewalk and hit Becca in the arm. Brian saw what happened, and the next thing Becca knew, there were fists flying and three of the five football players were laid out on the cement. The other two were yelling out threats as they ran away.
She was scared that the older boys were going to make good on their threats, but as it turned out, she'd had nothing to be worried about. As soon as her cousin Riley had found out about what had happened, those guys were taken care of. As a matter of fact, from then on, if they saw her and Brian walking down the street on the way to school, the guys, who had been acting so tough when they'd been throwing rocks, would quickly cross the street and walk on the other side.
Becca knew that the guys were doing that because of her cousin, but she remembered being in awe of Brian still. Overnight, he'd replaced Dr. Corbin and had become her personal superhero. Defending the defenseless.
The same feeling washed over her now.
Hulk Junior grunted and headed towards the door to leave. Becca heard him say, "I bet you're a cock tease, too," under his breath.
She ignored it. Brian didn't.
"What did you say?" Brian moved with ninja-like speed and was standing in front of Hulk, blocking his exit.
"Brian, it's fine." Becca stepped in front of him.
She heard Hulk Junior behind her saying, "Nothing, man. What's your problem?"
"Is there a problem out here?"
They all turned and saw Mary standing in the doorway that led down the hall.
"No," Cherry said quickly. "No problem."
"I'm ready to see you now," Mary said to Becca.
"She's not-" Brian began.
"I'll be right there," Becca interrupted him, placing her hand on his arm.
This whole thing had gotten completely out of hand. She didn't want to ruin this opportunity for Brian. So she decided that the fastest way to settle things down would just be to go in and get this over with.
"You don't have to do this. We can just leave," Brian said as he placed his large hand over hers.
Becca squeezed his arm and tried not to swoon as she felt his muscular forearms beneath her touch. "It's fine. Seriously."
His light-brown eyes stared into hers, and the rest of the crowded waiting room melted away. That had been happening a lot over the past year. Every time Brian looked at her, the rest of the world just disappeared.
He stared, searching her eyes to make sure that she was, actually, okay. Finally, his jaw tensed as he nodded. "Fine. I'll be right out here if you need me."
Becca smiled up at him as brightly as she could. She hated seeing him worried or stressed. She wanted to be the thing in his life that put a smile on his face, not the thing that made him make that tense face.
"I got this, B," Becca said with a cocky gangsta nod. It was an inside joke between the two of them. They always said that to each other whenever one was worried about the other.
Brian shook his head slightly as the corners of his mouth turned up into a smile.
Seeing that Brian was smiling again and not looking stressed, Becca turned and quickly made her way across the waiting room. Best to leave the waiting room debacle on a good note. Plus, she just wanted to get this over with.
As Cherry began walking beside her, she handed her the same paperwork Brian had been given to fill out when they'd arrived. "Fill this out."
Becca nodded as she looked down at the questionnaire. She tried to focus on the words in front of her eyes, but she was having a difficult time. She needed to get over this-whatever this was that she was feeling for Brian-but she had no idea where to start. Taking a deep, cleansing breath hadn't seemed to help in the least.
Her mind was swimming with not-so-innocent, Brian-related thoughts. Her body was flooded with sensations. Her heart was filled with emotions she didn't want to qualify. Her hormones were all present and reporting for active duty.
How was she ever going to find her way through this Brian-forest of desire, need, and love that she had found herself smack-dab in the middle of, with no compass and no map? She felt like she'd been hit directly in the heart with Cupid's arrow, and she wanted to pull the sucker out and give it right back to the chubby cherub with a note saying, "No, thank you."
Obviously it was true that you didn't get to pick who you fell in love with. Even if she could, it was too late for Becca to stop it. That ship had sailed, and now she just needed to figure out how to navigate through the choppy waters of the Brian-love-sea she was getting thrashed around in. Her only hope was that maybe, just maybe, she could control who she fell out of love with.
When they got to a green door at the end of the hall, Cherry handed Becca a pen and turned the knob. Before Becca stepped inside the small room, Cherry stopped her.
"So you and Brian? Are you really just friends?"
Becca wasn't sure if Blondielocks was asking for a personal reason or if she was concerned because this was a dating show, so ideally, they would probably be looking for the contestants to be single. Either way, the answer was the same.
"Yes. We're just friends."
Chapter Five
Brian's finger pressed the button on the console to turn the radio station to Becca's favorite, which happened to be oldies. He hoped that it would inspire one of Becca's infamous sing-alongs. She definitely didn't have the voice of an angel. Honestly, Brian was pretty sure that Becca couldn't stay on key if her life depended on it, but hearing her sing was one of the sweetest sounds in the world to him.
She'd been so quiet since they left the audition, and for the first time ever, he had no idea what to say to her. It was one of the most frustrating feelings in the world. He was really banking on the fact that the music playing through his speakers would break her out of the pensive shell she was currently residing in. When he heard the first notes of one of her favorites, Dion's "Runaround Sue," he looked over to see Becca staring out the window, seemingly oblivious to the fact that there was music playing at all.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Brian asked for probably the tenth time in the last hour.
He knew that it was the very definition of crazy to repeat the same behavior and expect a different outcome, so he must be crazy because that is exactly what he was doing.
"Yeah." She sounded disconnected.
He looked over to see Becca nodding. He could only see her profile as she stared out the window. Becca might, physically, be sitting beside him in his Jeep as they drove down the freeway, but mentally, she wasn't here.
Brian decided to go with a different tactic, since crazy wasn't working. "What are you thinking about?"
"Nothing. I'm just tired," she sighed, and her tone was flat.
Her voice did sound like she was exhausted, which would make sense. She'd had a crazy schedule for finals before she flew home, only to be whisked away to an audition that took hours. Even though that explanation added up, Brian knew Becca and there was definitely something else on her mind.