Only You by Jerry Cole (the top 100 crime novels of all time TXT) 📕

of how good looking she was; it gave her a coolness and self-confidence that always had her at the center of attention growing up. When she got a little older it just made sense that she give acting a try. Even now, she was the only one that didn’t have her hands folded under her, choosing to instead lean back and drum her fingers on the hard-wood floor.

“I wonder what her favorite position to fuck in was,” she whispered out the corner of her mouth to Bradley.

Bradley, caught completely by surprise, burst into laughter at the joke. It wasn’t overly loud, but it was enough to have the entire class turn on him, including Ms. Perdy.

“Something amusing, Mr. Haas?” Ms. Perdy asked. She was a tiny woman, standing at no more than 5 foot. Her head was also a little too big for her body, and her eyes were a little too big for her head. For anyone else, it would have looked comical, but she was so commanding that it was almost frightening.

“Ah... no, no,” Bradley shook his head. “Just um... pins and needles in my foot?” he offered, even though it made little sense.

“Good one,” Isabelle said out the side of her mouth again.

Ms. Perdy pressed her lips together, looked like she was about to get over it and pick-up on where she had been so rudely cut off, when she suddenly caught site of the time and jumped on the spot. “Oh! Deary me, is that the – time's up, I’m afraid class.” She clapped her hands together.

There was a collective groan as the acting students slowly pushed themselves to their feet. Each to the last was barefoot too – as demanded by Ms. Perdy – which had each student then hurrying to the side of the room where their shoes were stacked neatly.

“Monologues next week!” Ms. Perdy shouted out as the students exited. “You all know the rules – and remember, learn who your character is! If you don’t know that, I don’t care what words come out of your mouth because they will fall flat. Flat I tell you!”

Bradley was one of the last out the door... but not because he was a particularly keen student, or because he wanted to have a quick word with Ms. Perdy. Rather, he received a text message that he had been waiting for all day and simply had to check it.

He did so, smiling at what it said. It was nothing too interesting either, merely a confirmation for a phone call later tonight. But the phone call itself was exciting, which was why Bradley wore a huge smile as he sent his response, pocketed the phone and then made his way from acting class. The day had started well and now, it was going to end even better.

Truth be told, there was little for Bradley to complain about in his life at the moment, and if he was being completely honest, or if he even stopped to think about it, he might have said that this was easily the best period of his life thus far.

It started with his acting. Before going to Europe, Bradley was an actor in name only. Sure, he’d wanted to be an actor more than anything, but he hadn’t actually done anything to achieve that goal. He had always just kind of assumed that a role would just fall into his lap one day, and was happy to ride it out until that happened. Well, Europe changed that.

It was his constant lying to Sherman that did it. All the roles that he had invented for himself, even the character that he had been playing, was one that Bradley really, really liked. He was sick of pretending things were going to happen for him, without actually doing anything about it. So, when he got back from his trip overseas one of the first things he did was sign up for an acting class.

It had been nearly two months now since his first class, and already he could see the changes. In terms of his skill level, that was skyrocketing at a pace that even he couldn’t have predicted. And although he hadn’t landed any jobs yet, he had made a ton of connections and had even started going on auditions! He went to three different classes a week now, often had half a dozen auditions every week, and was even lucky enough to get a few call backs. Bradley wasn’t a working actor yet, but soon he would be.

There were other benefits to his hardened pursuit of acting, and the main one greeted Bradley the second he walked out of that class.

“Yo!” Isabelle waved at Bradley from across the road. She was standing with three other students from the class: all in their mid-twenties and all ridiculously good-looking. The four of them together looked like a Calvin Klein commercial.

“What’s up?” Bradley hurried across to greet them. It was late in the afternoon by now, and Bradley was very aware of that fact. He had to be getting home soon so he could deal with his mother before taking that phone call.

“What were you doing in there?” Isabelle queried. “Hitting on Ms. Perdy – I hear that if you sleep with her, she’ll give you the number for an agent.”

“Ha!” Bradley threw his head back. “Even if I wasn’t gay, honey, I don’t think I could do it to myself.”

“That’s the business though,” Sandy, a platinum blonde whisp of a girl pointed out. “How do you think these actors get the best roles?”

“Ah... talent?” Bradley offered.

“Puh-lease,” Sandy rolled her eyes.

“Enough of that,” Isabelle waved them down. “We’re going out to get sloshed. Want to join – it's still happy hour at El Loco and there is a tequila shot with your name on it.”

Ordinarily, Bradley would have loved to have gone.