Act Like You're in Love {Niall Horan}

Chapter 18: An Extra

~Mariah's P.O.V.

John tagged along with One Direction and I to the movie set. Everyone seemed totally fine with it except Niall, and it really bothered me. Why won't he at least tell me what's wrong?

It makes me really sad because we haven't had a fight or any sort of disagreement since we met. I thought we were becoming really good friends, too, but maybe he doesn't want to be really good friends.

Why does that thought hurt so much?

"This is Mary Jance," Paul's voice rings through the all-too-familiar conference room. I instantly forget all of my thoughts and concentrate on my job.

"Hello, it's a pleasure to meet you," I greet her cheerily. We shake hands professionally, and I get a good look at her. She has smooth, blond hair that's about shoulder length. It's curled, and on one side there's some hair tucked neatly behind her ear. Surprisingly, she doesn't have much makeup on. A bit of mascara and some lipstick is really about it.

I still don't know who she is though, so I look at Paul for an explanation.

"Ms. Jance is your agent, basically your management. She has worked with many different celebrities and so she is quite experienced. Although, she's one of the nicer ones, that's why I tried to get her for you. I knew you wouldn't like someone too strict and mean," Paul commented with a small smile visible on his face. I giggled, knowing that was true.

"Well," Paul starts up again. "You ladies will get to talk later, but right now you need to get acting," he says, looking at me. He turns to Ms. Jance. "And I'll help you get settled in around here in the meantime."

I agree and begin to head off to the set when Paul talks again. "Oh, and after the acting for the day, please join us in the conference room with John. We need to have a little discussion about behavior in public and such."

I instantly get all defensive. "I didn't even do anything, I swear! Paul, I had no intention of kissing him or anything, it was just the way they took that picture!"

"Yes, well we'll talk about that later," Paul says a bit sharply.

"Okayyy," I say in an annoyed tone. I'm practically itching to go perform, so as soon as it looks like Paul is done talking as much as my mother, I run off down the hallway.

It took about a minute to get to the set where the actors and crew members were all scurrying around. I immediately saw John standing off to the side, so I approached him.

"Hey, John," I greet him.

He looks up from his phone. "Hey, Mariah. Are you all gonna start acting anytime soon?"

"I think so. Do you want a copy of the script or anything else? I mean, I don't know if you'll be bored. We tend to repeat scenes a lot," I warn him.

John shrugs. "Nah, I think I'll have fun watching."

"Okay! I'm going to head over now, have fun," I laugh.

As I walk over to One Direction, I notice that Niall is constantly glancing irritably at the place where John is standing. Protective much? It's really sweet, but I have to make him understand that I'm independent.

Although, part of me loves it. More than I should, I mean. I'm not sure if he's doing this on purpose, but he's reminding of what a dad would be like. Maybe he's trying to be that person for me since he knows I don't have my family anymore. My parents disowned me, my brother is dead. I only have contact with 2 of my cousins who are on my side.

I start to tear up a little bit. I'm not even sure what from. I feel sad when I remember my family, but I feel almost overwhelmed with happiness at the thought of Niall caring so much.

I brush my eyes and continue walking to the little crowd.

In one of Niall's glances toward John, he looks at me and jogs over, concern etched on his face.

"What's wrong?" he asked me, his eyes wide with worry.

I paused for a minute, debating if I should lie and say that it's nothing or if I should tell him. I decided lying wouldn't help; he'd see right through anyway.

"Wait, it's visible?" I questioned pressingly.

"A little, but that doesn't matter. Answer my question."

"I was just thinking about something and it gave me happy tears," I told him carefully. That's part of the truth, anyway.

"Are you sure?" Niall double-checked like he was unsure.

"Yep, I'm good," I reassure him and then change subjects. "Now, what are we doing today again?"

"Uhhh, I think it's the scene where you're tricking Randy after he captures you."

I groan. "Ugh, I don't wanna kiss him."

Niall laughs and puts his hand up. "Sorry, don't complain to me."

"What am I supposed to do, complain to the people in charge that gave me my first real job?" I joke.

"Mm, yep, sounds about right," Niall teases me back, his face shining happily.

This time, another voice starts talking. It belongs to James. "Okay, everybody, let's get ready! Go get into your outfits, get your makeup, review your lines, and come back here in half hour!" he shouts to the now quiet room.

Before we head out the doors, I catch Niall giving James one last glance. I follow Niall's eyes and see James pulling out his phone. Well, I guess he can keep himself occupied.

Getting ready for my scene doesn't take very long, as usual. Almost all the time a nice conversation occurs between me and whoever is doing my hair or whatever.

It even looks like I'm one of the first ones done, which is surprising. Callie is done though, and as we're friends, we start talking right away.

"Mariah!" she cries dramatically. "You haven't been keeping me in the loop!"

"What do you mean?" I ask, genuinely confused.

Callie rolls her eyes. "Your love life, obviously. Niall is always staring daggers at that friend of yours, John is it? I'm curious to know what's going on between you and that hottie." She wiggles her eyebrows, smirking.

"Shut up, nothing's going on! Although, it'd be nice if something did," I sigh, looking at the tripod for filming.

"Oooooooh!" Callie squeals, jumping up and down excitedly. "Tell me about this one!"

"Oh, it's nothing much," I blush and examine my fingernails. "He's just changed so much since I knew him in middle school. At first when he started to flirt I was repulsed because he was a strictly a friend before, but then I realized that if he changed and he likes me, maybe it wouldn't be bad at all."

"Ahh, I see. And what about Niall?" Callie asks more calmly.

"Uh, what about him?"

She looks at me like I'm stupid. "You guys are fake dating. I mean, you have to kiss sometime, and anyway, you two obviously like each other at least a wee bit."

I get hot. That's weird. Me and Niall? I'm pretty sure we're just friends.

Then why is my heart beating a tiny bit faster than usual?

I finally reply. "No way. We're just friends."

Callie gives me a look. "Whatever you say," she sing-songs.

By this time, the other actors have filed in. James comes in, too, and starts to talk.

"We're starting with Scene 69. Mariah, Randy, get in your places. Niall, Louis, get ready to run in. We'll see how this one goes."

I quickly walk to my place in the semi-dark. I'm standing on a dirt floor with wooden, rotting walls that are a bit broken in. This set is designed to look like some abandoned shack because Randy, who plays the mental guy in the movie named Tyler, finally kidnapped me and is hiding me here.

The scene begins, and Randy walks in through the door. Quickly, the light from the fake outside disappears as he slams it and locks it.

I avoid eye contact with him until he grabs me by the shoulders roughly and pushes me up against the wall.

I scream. "What do you even want from me?" I cry out.

"You know what I want from you, babe," he snarls, putting more pressure on my shoulders.

"Don't call me babe!" I retaliate, wiggling under his grip.

"Why? Might as well get romantic if we're about to do it anyway," he sneers.

I cringe at what he just said. That's really gross. It's nice that they're implying rape in a movie that probably ten-year-old Directioners are going to watch.

I quickly flash a look of realization on my face. "Fine, but know I won't enjoy a second of it," I sass.

"But I will," Randy laughs. Gosh, he's a really good actor. He is so nice in real life it's unbelievable that he could be this.

Before he released me a little bit from the wall, but now he pushes me back. He puts his face really close. "Enjoy it, babe, or else," he growls threateningly.

I cower in fear a little and nod my head shakily. Randy's hands lighten and my shoulders feel better. His hands start to slide down me. Thankfully, they actually recognized the audience this time and made him slide his hands down my back to my waist, not taking any detours.

He begins to kiss me very roughly, and I reluctantly kiss him back. I make sure it shows on my face for the cameras to catch, but not for Randy's character to catch.

At that moment, I see movement in the corner of my eyes. Because I read the script, I know it's Niall and Louis. Since the walls were kind of broken in, they found a way in without banging the door open. This way, they could take Randy by surprise.

I make a jolt as I fake my surprise of seeing the two boys, but I keep my lips pressed to Randy's. He makes a grunt, obviously thinking it's from my pleasure (or at least, his character thinks that). Yuck.

All of the sudden, Randy's body is wrestled away from my own and shouting begins.

"Sofia, run!" Niall shouts while he fakes a punch on Randy. He goes for another, but he slips.

That definitely wasn't part of the script. I laugh as John does as he casually says, "Yeah, cut."

Niall blushes as he looks up at me. Aw.

"Blooper!" I tease him, laughing.

"Oh, shut up. If only they could catch you on camera when you're at home," he teases back. Then he glances up at John, who looks a little smug if you ask me. That's weird.

"Okay," James's voice cuts through the air. "Let's start where we left off, just for a practice!"

We usually do that, actually. James likes to first run through the whole thing once without any interruptions, no matter how many mistakes there are. Stopping was kind of inevitable this time because everyone was kind of laughing at Niall's clumsiness.

Cameras start rolling again as we start acting again.

Niall successfully fake punches Randy again. It's actually hard to fake punch in acting. The boys all had to have a little training session for that.

Now Randy is lying on the ground. I was supposed to be paralyzed with fear even though Niall told me to run in the movie, so I witnessed it.

Randy moans in pain and attempts to get up. Niall shoves him back down and grabs his collar aggressively.

"Don't mess with my girl," Niall threatens. "Mariah is mine."

As soon as the words come out of his mouth, I see the frustration appear on Niall's face. He said Mariah instead of Sofia.

I fight a smile though. It was a little nice hearing him say that about me.

The scene continues on with Niall making small mistakes like that. It's hard to concentrate on my own acting because I'm concerned for Niall. He usually doesn't mess up, and I'm wondering if something is bothering him so that he can't focus.

Soon James announces that we should take a break. I head over to some friends that I made in the past two weeks, but James stops me.

"We don't want to hold you up too long after work today, so we were just going to have that little meeting with you and John now," he explains.

We go fetch John and head into the conference room where Ms. Jance is already seated. James and John stayed out of the room for a minute to talk about something else, so I tried to get to know my agent a little bit better.

"Hello!" I say cheerily, taking a seat next to her while she greets me in return.

"So, how long have you been in this business?" I ask her curiously.

"About ten years. I actually used to be a secretary for managements, but I got bumped up. Then I met my fiancé when I got this job," she tells me very openly with a smile.

"Oh, that's so sweet! When are you getting married?"

"After this movie is finished. The date is set for October 15th," Ms. Jance smiles. "You're welcome to come if you want. It's at the St. Patrick's Cathedral."

"That's so sweet of you! Thank you. And what's your last name going to be?" I ask excitedly.

"Leclair," she tells me happily.

The door clicks open, but I finish up what I was saying. "Congratulations, I'm so happy for you!"

Mary thanks me and then we turn our attention to James, who is sitting down across from us and next to John.

"I believe Paul told you we would clear this up," James starts out immediately. "We will. But we want you two to know that you have to be careful out there. Mariah is fake dating Niall for a reason, and we don't want to mess that up. It'll look like she's cheating, even though really she could be with you, John," he says, turning to his left.

"Don't do anything in public, and watch out. Mary, do you have anything to add?" James continues, now looking next to me at my new agent.

"No, you covered everything, really."

"Okay," he says, looking back at John and I. "I believe that's really all we need to tell you two because I trust that I won't have to say this again?"

"Yes, sir," John replies.

"Yep," I agree.

"Good." James put his hands on the table and stands up. "Off you go. Take your break, Mariah."

John and I exit the room and walk back to the set. I get water because screaming in the scene kind of makes me need it. Only a few minutes of socializing is given to me before I have to go back and act out the scene over and over and over again.

I thought that a break might have improved Niall's performance, but I was wrong. He kept making the silliest mistakes, and it only frustrated him more. Thank goodness we only had to work until after lunch because I don't think Niall could've lasted a whole day.

When we ate lunch, I talked to John about it. He seemed to be too happy to really give me much of an answer.

"I don't know, maybe he's just having a bad day or something," John had said.

Then when our workday ended, I approached Niall when he was walking through the hallways towards the exit.

"Hey, Niall," I said, catching up to him.

"Hi," he replied with a dull tone.

"What was wrong today?"

"So you thought I was bad?"

"No, no!" I quickly denied it. "It just didn't seem like your usual performance, that's all. I was just wondering if you were focused on something that was bothering you."

"Why do you care anyway?" Niall asked harshly. He shoved open the door and walked through it.

I put my hand on his shoulder to stop him. He turned around with my hand still on his shoulder and looked at me expectantly.

"Why wouldn't I care, Niall? You've been so many different figures to me, and it means a lot. I haven't had somebody care about me like this in a long time, Niall. And the least I can do is return it." I smiled slightly at him before I said the next two sentences that I meant with all of my heart.

"Niall, if you aren't okay, I'm not okay. You mean way too much to me."



~
Aw aw aww.

*Dedicated to Derectioner4Ever for reading the A/N and sending the message!(:

INFO: A lot of people don't like reading gibberish author's notes and I personally like being organized. So from now on I'm gonna put like section labels in all caps in my author's notes so that you can just skim those and skip my personal blabbing sessions about my life and just pay attention to when the next update will be or whatever. I'm also going to put the little asterisk star thingys in front of the sections I think you SHOULD read. Kay? k.

*UPDATE INFO: (woo see haha I used the section thingy :P) next update is probably late on Friday, at least in my time zone haha. After that I might not update until Tuesday, I'm sorry D: I have a bunch of things to do before I leave for vacation, on which I may not be able to update too often on :(

PERSONAL BLABBING. I feel like a terrible person for using caps. I feel like I'm yelling aaah I hope you don't feel like I'm yelling at you :( haha.

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