Lights! Camera - ; Tyrus

Scene 7

Cyrus

The phone is ringing. 

It's two thirty in the morning and the phone is ringing.

I roll over the side of the bed and straight onto the floor. Bumping into nearly every object due to the darkness that is two thirty but also just me not having spacial awareness. I make it to my kitchen table where I left my phone a few hours ago among many scattered papers of script and budget and cast.

The caller ID reads: Mr Kippen

"Very professional," I say quietly to myself before answering. "Hello?"

"Cyrus!" I hear TJ shout from the other line, then something large must hit him across the head because the line goes muffled.

"Are you okay?" Nobody calls at this hour if it wasn't an emergency. What if he got kidnapped or jumped on the street?

TJ actually laughs, like my thoughts were irrational. "I'm fine Cy, Amber just through a pillow at me for interrupting the movie."

"You guys are still watching movies this late?" I would have thought someone like TJ would be in bed by nine with his strict diet plan and exercise, or out partying with some other pretty boys.

"If it makes you feel any better we're also going over my lines." He replies and I can feel myself smiling. I shake it off. "Anyway, I want to know what you're doing tomorrow. Or I mean, later today."

"Why do you care?" I meant to say it jokingly, but it comes out bitter, "sorry, I meant, why want to know what I'm doing, what about Amber, or Kira or pretty boys?" Realizing what I said, I slap my forehead. 

"Pretty boys?" TJ giggles. Like the word. Which I am too stubborn to say made me blush. Cause it didn't. "Cyrus, I'm just at home watching hall mark movies with my sister and thought that maybe later we could meet up and go over the script. It would be so much better if you could go over lines with me then Amber- hey!" Another pillow, I assume, hits his face.

"Like at Starbucks or something?" I'm trying not to smile at this. Really, I am.

"Well yeah! And if we get in early enough we can get a booth." He sounds super enthusiastic about this.

I mean, I can't let him down. I don't want to hurt his feelings.

"Okay Mr Kippen, I'll see you to that." I say it like I'm shaking his hand.

"It's a date then, darling." TJ replies smoothly, my pulse picks up noticeable speed. He can't really mean that? Can he?

"Relax I'm joking Cy, being professional, I know." Comes after a moment of hesitation on my half. Then TJ hangs up.

I don't fall asleep until the sun rises.

🎬

"I just... everything. Every little thing I do seems to be mocked and ridiculed. And if not, than that though I had wasn't even mine! It's like I don't even have a brain sometimes, I'm just stealing off other peoples.... I'm invisible, and nobody cares what I have to say..." TJ acts with as much conviction as you can when you're in a coffee shop with others watching and you're speaking to a muffin.

The Muffin is actually mine ("once a muffin man, always a muffin man," TJ muttered), but for some reason it's easier for him to do a monologue to some carbs then actual faces.

I yawn and reach for my food back. "Hey! I wasn't that boring was I?" TJ takes a grab for the pastry, but I already have it.

"No you weren't. It's just some random person called me at two thirty in the morning and disrupted my sleep." I break off a large section of the chocolate goodness, looking at him accusingly.