Find You There [Discontinued]

The Auditon

*9 Months Later*

I ran towards the door yelling to Ashton, "Bye! I'm going to my audition, I'll be back later!" "Don't forget you're covering my shift while I go to the dentist!" she responded, "Wait, do you have your key?" she called suddenly. I came to a stop by the door and tore back across the living room to my room and grabbed my purse and then tore back to the door calling, "Thanks Ashton! Almost forgot it!" "Figured! Break both legs!" she yelled as I opened the door and ran down the hall.

I tapped my foot while I waited on the elevator and when it opened I quickly walked in, not noticing that someone else was there. I was about to press the button for the lobby when I saw it had already been pressed. I looked behind me and saw someone I hadn't seen in a while. "Hey." he said softly, laughing a little. "Where're you off to in such a hurry?" he said curiously. "Audition, I overslept a bit." I said, blushing. "Me too, want a ride?" I looked uncertainly around the elevator and then said, "Sure." I really didn't have anything to feel guilty about, Cody and I had broken up a couple weeks ago, and so it really didn't matter that a guy was giving me a ride somewhere. But it was still a bit awkward.

We got off the elevator and he led me to his car. He opened and shut the passenger door for me before going around to the driver side. 'Funny,' I thought to myself, 'Cody never did that and we were dating, this guy barely even knows me, other than he ran me over once, and we occassionally wave when we see each other.' Travis started the car and quickly pulled out of the lot and we were on our way to our auditions, and, little did we know, a very close friendship.

Travis played his radio loud and rolled the windows down as he drove through LA and he would sing along some and I wondered what he did aside from audition for movies. I mean, I had found out when we first met that he wrote, but I didn't know what, and then it hit me. The dj of the pop station we were listening to said, "Now for the throwback on this Thursday morning, this song from 2007 was the first hit for this Florida based band, so we'll throw some of you back to middle or high school on your way to work or appointments or just whatever adventure you're going on today. Go on ahead and feel free to jam out to Check Yes Juliet by We the Kings. I smiled as the opening chords of the song that I had danced to with my then-boyfriend at my first homecoming dance began to play. "Da nana nananana nana nana nana nananana nana." I softly sang as we sat at the stoplight and out of the corner of my eye I saw Travis smiling and playing air guitar. The light turned green as the words started and I sang as much of the song as I could remember. But both when I was singing and when I wasn't I noticed that Travis was singing the whole thing effortlessly, as if he had it memorized, and was matching the voice on the radio just about note for note.

When the song ended I looked over at him and there was a smile playing on his lips as he watched me put the pieces together. The final piece came into place as I looked at him, I thought of the music video for the song we had just sang to and realized that he looked exactly like the guy that my friends and I had drooled over whenever we watched it. I turned a light pink as I thought of that part of it and then realized what that meant...this guy that lived in the same building as me, was the voice I had just heard on the radio, and therefore was the guy that I had drooled over my freshman year of high school when this song came out; and I wanted to scream and just jump out of his car and run the rest of the way to my audition.

The car slowed down as the light in front of us turned red and I started unbuckling my seatbelt and then leaned towards the door. He placed his hand on my arm before I pulled up on the door handle to get out, "What are you doing?" he asked, eyebrows scrunching toghether. "I, I, I," I stuttered out, just now starting to think about it, "I don't know." I concluded, pulling away from the door. I rebuckled my seatbelt and Travis left his arm resting on the back of my seat as he continued driving. We were both silent the rest of the ride and not long after I had tried to get out of the car we were pulling into the parking lot.

After we got into the building we joined the growing line and a guy in a black polo and black pants with a headset handed us some papers to fill out. We sat down against the wall and started filling everything out. As we finished another guy dressed similarily to the first took the papers and gave us a sticker and said we'd have our photos taken right before we went in to audition.

We sat in the growing line silently, I was listening to music on my phone with my head back against the wall. After half an hour one of the black clad guys called out, "Now we need Mr. Brandon Johnston, Ms. Mary Chapton, Mr. Travis Clark, and Ms. Jessica Donner." Travis and I stood up, along with the two other people they had called. I took my headphones out and shoved them in my pocket with my phone as we followed along in a line to the room the guy was taking us to.

Finally he stopped and opened the door and said "Brandon and Mary first, Travis and Jessica wait out here with me." Brandon and Mary walked through the door and Travis and I waited, leaning back against the wall. We talked to the guy while we waited, finding things out about the people sitting at the table in the room. The man that would be sitting in the center of the table was the director and he was a laid-back, funny guy, as long as you stayed on his good side. The man on his left was his brother and he kind of balanced him out and he just sat in on auditions and other things as sort of a reality check, he had the same sort of power as the assistant director when it came to swaying his brother's decisions. And finally, on the right of the director was the assistant casting director. She looked scary and very businesslike in her straight, perfectly pressed white button-down shirt tucked into her black dress pants, with a pearl choker around her neck and diamond stud earrings, but she was apparently really nice.

About 5 more minutes went by after he had given me and Travis the description of everyone in the room and the three of us stood in the hallway quietly, waiting to be allowed in. Finally there was the sound of a female laughing and a few other chuckles and the door opened. "You guys can go in now." said Mary. Travis high-fived Brandon as they passed each other and we walked through the door. It was shut behind us and it was me, Travis, the director, his brother, and the assistant director. "Travis and Jessica?" the assistant director asked, looking at her list. "Yes" we both answered. "Alright then" she replied as the director's brother stood up and handed us each a script. The director finally looked up from finishing his notes on the last group and introduced the group, "My name is Jack Brown. On my left is my older brother Jonathan and on my right is the lovely Ms. Cindy DuBois." When he said Cindy's last name he made an elaborate motion with his hands and she blushed. As she blushed, Jonathan said "Page 35, Jessica, you'll be reading for Ashleigh, Travis, you'll be reading for Jake. You'll be reading from Jake's first line at the top of page 35 through Ashleigh's line in the middle of page 38." As Jonathan finished speaking Jack spoke up. "In this scene Ashleigh and Jake are in the hall at school talking about the dance next month. Ashleigh is going to be looking around distractedly at other boys walking by, and Jake is going to be moving closer to her, suggesting to the people watching that he wants to ask her, but she isn't picking up on it." He looked at us expectantly, seeing if we understood what he wanted to see and we shook our heads yes and he said, "Alright then, let's start!"

About 10 minutes later we were done and walked out of the room. We walked back down the hall and then found one of the guys clad in black. He told us that we could head on home and so Travis and I went out to the parking lot and got in his car. He turned on his car and we both looked directly at the clock, it was 11:30. "Want to go get lunch somewhere?" he asked after a minute. "Umm, sure, where to?" I responded, my stomach growling to remind me that I hadn't eaten breakfast. He smirked and said, "So, where do you want to go?" "I don't care." "Ok, how about Chipotle?" he asked. "Sure." I said, pulling a smile, I hadn't been there in a couple of weeks, not since Cody and I broke up, too many memories there. But you can't let something like that keep you away from good food, right? "Sounds like a plan then." he said, putting the car into reverse and pulling out of the parking lot and out onto the empty street.