Chapter 4
Chapter four
Cora
“Sorry! Sorry!” Jinx shouted, racing into the abandoned factory past a row of guys sitting in cheap, plastic folding chairs.
Cora eyed her frazzled best friend but forced down the irritation that sparked in the pit of her stomach. She firmly believed that Jinx really did try her best in life, but a higher power was clearly out to get her.
Jinx plopped into the seat beside Cora and dropped her messenger bag on the floor. “Some bitch parked her POS behind my car, blocking me in,” Jinx ranted. “I had to knock on five doors to find the woman and convince her to move it before I called a tow truck.”
Cora nodded sympathetically. Something similar happened almost every other month.
“So, who do we have?” Jinx asked, digging a pen and paper out of her messenger bag.
Cora handed over the stack of headshots and tried to hide the depressed look on her face.
Tapping Jinx’s wrist to get her attention, she said, “We have four guys who have never acted before but are willing to contribute money, and six guys who are trained actors that believe their ‘superior skills’ will make up for their inability to contribute funds.” Then, knowing Jinx would be able to pick up the majority of it, she mouthed, “There is also one guy with no money and no acting experience who seems to think this is a porn shoot.”
Jinx giggled and scanned the waiting men before turning back to Cora, her eyes sparkling with curiosity. “Ooh, which one is he?”
“Second from the end,” Cora replied silently, then suppressed a laugh at Jinx’s shudder once her friend located the guy in question. “Yeah, that was my thought too.”
Taking a second to sift through the headshots again, she compared them with the men seated in front of her.
Most didn’t look even remotely close to their picture.
Not that she was surprised since it was fairly common in Hollywood, but she was pretty sure at least one guy’s photo was over ten years old based on the thinning hair and deep crows feet he was now sporting.
Pasting on her professional director persona, she decided to get the pain and suffering over with. “Max Castor?” she called out, and the first guy, a stocky ginger with a face full of freckles, stood up.
“That’s me,” he announced eagerly as he hurried forward.
Cora gestured to the blue X on the ground and flipped the switch on her camera. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Two hours later, Cora was contemplating throwing herself in the L.A.
River. Granted there was no water in the L.A.
River, and all she would likely do is end up with two broken legs and a head injury, but at least a few days in a coma might scrub the memory of eleven guys butchering her screenplay.
She cringed when she remembered the porn star wannabe.
He’d made it three seconds in before he started taking off his pants.
There wasn’t enough bleach in the world to scrub away the image that had been seared into her brain.
Cora packed up her camera and turned to Jinx. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m in desperate need of a drink. Tiny’s Hi-Dive?”
“You know I’m down,” Jinx replied, her eyes twinkling.
Jinx was nowhere near becoming an alcoholic, but at the same time, she was also never not down for a drink. Cora handed over the stack of headshots and waited for her friend to make eye contact. “I need to clean up first," she said. "I’ll meet you there. Do me a favor and burn these, will you?”
Jinx nodded but took another second to shuffle through the pile.
“I don’t know. The one with the British accent was kind of cute.
His acting career might be limited to Grey Poupon commercials, but you gotta admit something about the way he said ‘dahling’ was enticing.
” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
“He’s all yours,” Cora dismissed. She agreed the British guy was attractive, and the accent was a plus, but every part of him screamed romantic vampire. The kind that begged to be saved from their own darkness if only they could find their one true love.
Cora tried not to vomit in her mouth. Maybe she was asking for the impossible—a guy that radiated menace and danger.
The kind that looked like he would brutally murder you and then go home and watch TV like it was just another day at work.
Her vampire wasn’t a bad boy. He was a bad man. A villain in the truest sense.
Where the hell was she supposed to find someone like that?