The Switch / Shourtney

Chapter Twelve: My Big What If

November 1st, 2017

I was getting out of shower at the gym, when I saw that Ian had texted the group chat. Drying off my hair with a towel, I clicked on the group to read the message.

Ian: Hey guys, change of plans. We're moving up production on the Real Cost sponsored video. We're going to film it all today because they want the video out by Monday. I sent you guys the script, look it over quickly and I'll see you all at the office in half an hour.

I quickly pulled on my work clothes, packed up my stuff, and headed to the parking lot. I decided to go straight to work and look over the script once I made it to the office. I was the first one to get there and I pulled out my laptop to look over my scenes.

The video was titled, 'What if Smoking Ruined Iconic Movie Moments'. It was a video idea we had discussed to bring awareness to the harmful effects smoking has on your body. Real Cost was a campaign or service mark of the US Department of Health and Human Services, who sponsored us to create a comedic but informative video for our audience. I read through the first few scenes before the others arrived, followed by Ian.

"Sorry that this is sort of last minute guys," he said hurriedly, "Defy just emailed me late last night about the change of plans."

"No worries," Courtney said. She had sat down at the table and pulled out her laptop as well to open the script.

"Alright, so we'll get this shot today and shoot the show with no name tomorrow morning instead. Did you look through the script yet?" he asked us.

"I got through about half of it." I replied and the rest of the squad nodded that they had as well.

"Ok great. The crew is setting up the studio, most of the scenes are going to be shot in there, but we're going to be filming a couple of them at the park later on because we need the water. Sorry about that by the way." He smiled sheepishly at us. "I'll leave you guys to get the lines down for now and then head over to costumes by 9:30. We're gonna have to hustle today."

Ian left the room and we all sat down at the table running lines. We went through lines for a Jurassic park scene, the 'Luke I am your father' scene, and a 'sleeping beauty' scene. I was feeling confident with the memorization as I scrolled down to the next page of the script. It was the scene in the rain from the notebook. My breath caught in my chest, I was playing Noah, and Courtney was playing Allie.

"Ohhhh, you guys are gonna kiss!" Noah snickered. And I rolled my eyes to cover up the full-blown freak out that was happening to me internally.

"Real mature Noah." Courtney drawled.

"Well it's about time you guys went through with it." Keith said.

"Wait, what?" I did a double take. Yeah, Damien knew, but I definitely hadn't told anyone else about my feelings for Courtney.

"I just mean that you guys are the only ones who haven't yet." He said innocently.

"True, the closest we came was me making out with Courtney's fake eyebrows" I quipped, referencing the 2007 vs 2017 video we did earlier that year. My heart beat slowed down a little as I realized he hadn't found me out.

"Don't forget our sims-like sex scene for EBE Sex Ed" Courtney shot back.

"How could I? That drawn on beard took forever to wash off." I joked.

I felt myself relax as we continued running the lines. It was just another day of filming, it was just a scripted kiss, I could get through this. I always had the opinion that the key to a successful love scene is to be dead inside. That was definitely going to be more of a challenge today. I would just have to keep reminding myself that these feelings were only one sided and it would all be ok. Or so I hoped.