𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒂𝒓 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 || baxter radic (discontinued)

4.

𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒂'𝒔 𝒑𝒐𝒗

"You know you could stop hovering when I'm doing scenes." I cross my arms as I shove past Josh. It seems as though he's decided he wants to invade the only time I get to be without him, which is when he's not in my scenes. I don't appreciate at it. No matter how cute his face is, he will always irritate me.

"I'm being supportive." He calls out to me as I storm off.

"I'd rather you not." I call out, not even looking over my shoulder at him.

When I arrive to my room he's hot on my heels. "You need to cool it. I haven't done anything wrong here. We don't need any bad apples. I don't care if you need to force a fake smile. Don't ruin our experience because you want to be a brat."

"Just because you end up my boyfriend in the show doesn't mean that you have to act like it out of it." I reach for the door to trying and shut it on him, but he puts his arm out to stop it.

"Is this where I'm supposed to tell you I like a challenge?" Josh raises his brows and walks off before I have a second to process what he's said. I swear he's made his life goal to make me miserable.

I pick up my phone to call my best friend, but when I realize what time it is back home, I hold off. Instead to grumble to myself in anger. It all continues to boil until I'm being swept off to film another scene I'm just not prepared for.

My head has never been out of the game. I've always been the one to push bullshit like this off to the side. I was always professional. But something about Josh's smug face rubbed me the wrong way. The too perfect attitude. The I don't give a fuck attitude. I hated it.

I understood the wanting to have fun aspect. It was work but we should be able to have fun doing what we love. And they did that. I guess maybe I came in all offensively because I feared not fitting in. They were too much like family. Me stepping in here was going to disrupt that. And it was clear I had.

As I exit, I pass by Josh, who shoots me the stupid perfect smile he has. It takes everything out of me to not flip him off, but I hold back and shoot him the fakest smile I can back. Two could play this game, but eventually one of us had to win.

I shouldn't have smiled though, because he drops everything he's doing and walks over to me. "Good luck Buttercup." He places his hand on my shoulder as we walk, and if looks could kill he'd be a dead man.

"What have I told you? The name is Stella." I mumble under my breath trying not to call attention to us. People were watching, then again people were always watching.

"Sorry Madam, I shall refer to you as Princess Stella from the land of Buttercups." He bows toward me as I continue to walk away.

My cheeks heat with both embarrassment and anger. My usual self-composer is lost, even when I step in front of the camera. The heat doesn't leave my cheeks, and no amount of makeup will cover the red that's leaking onto my skin—like a welting slap.

"Stella, what's going on?" Sky mumbles under her breath in between takes. It's a clear indicator that I need to pull myself together. If she can see it, that means the director can, and I can't have that.

"Nothing, it's fine." I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. The same action only worsens the feelings I'm trying to rid myself of. "Fuck me." I groan and start to pace around while we wait to start filming.

"Seriously, talk to me Stell, we're a team here." Sky places a soft hand to my shoulder and I nearly aggressively shrug it off but I hold my composer.

"Just Josh getting under my skin. I'm fine I'll get over it." I look toward the camera and see a glimmer of pink hair and I nearly catch myself on the edge of a scream.

"You'll learn to love him. He's just a massive pain in the ass sometimes." Sky assures me, but I wish she wouldn't have because it doesn't make me feel any better.

"Does he always linger?" I nod my head in his direction. She chuckles ignoring my question as our scene begins to unfold again.

We're on what feels like take eight and I'm fumbling over my lines. I can't remember one line from the next. It's all tangled together. I was fucking losing it. A mess up here or there was fine. But completely forgetting everything after multiple attempts, that wasn't okay. "Let's take five." The director calls out, staring me down.

I walk off set and drop down to a squat, running my hands through my hair. Josh walks over and perfectly recites the entire scene line for line. There isn't one that he falters on. There's emotion rolling off every word. I believe he's feeling what he's telling me. That couldn't be told in the way I was acting. I was a blank stare, nothing behind my eyes. I hated that he was this good.

"I know you can do it Stella." Josh assures me. He drops the act. A kindness radiating off of him that I want to hate but I can't. He was trying to help me—at least right now. I didn't know if it was for ulterior motives, but right now that didn't matter. What mattered was bringing this scene to life. And right now, I was failing at that miserably.

"You've learned." I comment, freeing my mind from the spiral it had been slipping into. The incoming distraction was what I needed to get my head back in the game. Right now, my head wasn't even in this country, maybe not even on this planet. I was going to be lucky if my head was even in this galaxy. But thanks to this boy I despise, I was returning back to earth.

"I only push buttons when it's needed. Right now, all you need is support so..." he motions to me reciting one of Summer's lines. I spew mine out effortlessly after. We go back and forth until the lines are engrained into my brain. I was ready.

I guess you could say, Josh one point, Stella zero.