to be a star is to be a narcissist

one

"Okay everyone, welcome to the first script reading of the new season for Night Shift!" Mr. Hartford announced excitedly. Every moment he gets as a show runner had the man practically bouncing out of his seat.

Molly, too, was shaking the table, but hers was a nervous knee bounce and fluttering fingers. This was the worst part to her. Meeting her cast members and learning how they like to act. Figuring out the director's eccentric personality- they all have one- and deciding which of the crew would smuggle her cookies. It's why she wanted to do television. You suffer through the introductions once and then not again for however many season you get.

"But before we start-,"

Here comes the first eccentrics.

"-Let's all take a moment to scream together like always. Let out all of your previous soul so that we can start anew. And truly become your characters."

Molly's leg only shook harder. Craig Danworth's biggest quirk was wanting to be called Captain, which she avoided by never speaking to him without being spoken to first. Tyrell Davings just kept a python is his trailer, so Molly never went in there.

Screaming in front of a table of her peers, that was uncharted territory.

"Stop shaking your leg." A voice grumbled.

Molly froze on instinct. She turn to her left to see JP Vonn still staring straight at Hartford.

"On the count of three. One. Two. Three."

The walls rattled with the screams of the Molly's fellow costars as she gave her own half hearted yell.

"Hush." Hartford demanded as he flicked his wrists. "Night Shift. Season Two. Episode One. Scene One. We open on a run down pizza restaurant..."

As Hartford begins to read the actions, Polly examined the stars around her.

Pauline Woddly was a television veteran at this point. She was also the person Molly was most excited to meet. She won an Emmy for the previous season playing the recently retired dishwasher at their fictional restaurant of Bartholomew's Pizza.

Next to her sat Richie Michaelson playing Bartholomew himself. Richie was similar to Molly in starting off in film. But his transition was less dramatic through his work in limited series before an outright sitcom.

Next were the newcomer breakout stars- or at least the lesser knowns before the show started. Tony Kaluza and Viggy Plaza were playing line cooks. Mya Faltuicci is the hostess and Bryan McGornia is the busser.

Then there's JP. He was famous as long as she remembered. Of course he was. He comes from a long line of actors and performers. His mom, Magenta, ran the R&B world and his father, Prewett Vonn, directed more Oscar nominated movies than Molly's watched. Besides child acting in his dad's movies, Molly hadn't ever seen JP doing pretty much anything.

That was until Night Shift.

After the show started, he blew up. Twitter's first black white-man of the month. Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. Being told he's more famous than his parents (he isn't). And becoming every thirteen year olds wet dream.

And he was hot. Rich people had to be hot in Molly's opinion. Ever since she blew up herself, she was constantly being offered consultations from every plastic surgeon in the country. She may not have taken the offers, but she knows how many celebrities had. The surgeons don't ever care to much about patient-doctor confidentiality if it means that they get another client.

But JP hasn't had any work done as far as she knew. His cheekbones and jawline were all thanks to his perfect parents and his perfect genetics.

Despite the jealousy that Molly would openly admit to, she was still excited when she met him as well. And he was the reason she was even casted. They wanted to give his character, Tyler (the pizza cook), a love interest. And she absolutely crushed her chemistry reads with him.