A/N: Okay, so I opened this up just for fun to re-read it, and I saw that chapter one for my multi-chapter was posted as the story! It didn't used to be that way! I was seriously freaking out, so I am changing it back lol. BTW, this happens directly after Grady with a Chance of Sonny. We were all ticked how Chad didn't find out about Blake and Grady, right? Well, here he does :P

Maybe Not Such a Jerkthrob

She honestly wasn't feeling very 'sunny' at the moment. She felt almost like it was her duty to be smiley all of the time, but that was very hard considering that your taste in guys seemed to have hit a dead end. Sonny's first date since she had arrived at the studio, James Conroy, ended up being nothing but a jerk who played girls like you would play a deck of cards. Her first kiss, which to her displeasure hadn't been insightful and romantic, had been with a nice enough guy named Hayden who did it just because of a stupid Kiss Cam. Finally, when she had worked up the courage to participate in the dating game again, her expectations were crushed like they had been before. Blake Rattison had turned out to be nothing but a jerk who couldn't accept her friends for who they were. She had had a celebrity crush on him since she first laid eyes on the Tridark movie poster. He had seemed like a sweet guy, especially after he'd taken the time to come ask her out after she'd practically given him a ketchup shower. Apparently he only was nice to 'good-looking' people.

Sonny sighed unhappily and sat down in an empty Commissary chair at the usual So Random! table. She almost decided to get up and get a fro-yo that she had been craving only moments before, but her desire had suddenly disappeared. Overall happy that she was able to help her friend Grady and his relationship with his brother (yet another player), she couldn't help but think of herself for a moment. After all, all she seemed to do was things for other people, right? What was wrong with thinking of herself once in a while? She couldn't bring herself to suck it up and be happy for her friend no matter how much she wanted to. The depressing fact that she seemed to lack the ability to find a boyfriend that she could go on more than one date with hung over her head.

"Sonny?"

Sonny continued to scowl and rested her chin in her palm. Was it really the guys that she asked out that was the problem, or was it maybe her? There went her insecurity talking again. Or was it not exactly the guys' faults, but her fault for having horrible judgment? Should she really blame other people for her bad taste in guys? Why did she always go for the jerks or the players? And the worst part was, she didn't even know about it until it was too late and she got her heart broken! Too bad she didn't have some special kind of fortune cookie that could tell you whether or not the guy you are about to date will get through more than one date with you…

"Hello?"

Hmmm, that wasn't a bad idea actually! Maybe she could use her momentary lapse in perkiness for the forces of good! Magical fortune cookies that told you about the person you wanted to date… that wouldn't be a bad idea for a sketch. But as the sketch ideas started to overtake her mind, the sadness did as well. This only caused her frown to deepen.

"Earth to Sonny! Are you there?"

She faintly detected shadows going across her face. She blinked a couple of times, her thoughts subsiding as she watched the hand waving in front of her face. As if suddenly realizing that someone was trying to talk to her, she jumped back in her chair and nearly tumbled backwards.

"Whoa!" she exclaimed in surprise, readjusting herself ungracefully in her seat before looking up to see who she was talking to. She draped a hand over her chest, breathing a little heavily. She replayed the previous events in her head quickly, trying to gather her scrambled thoughts. Sonny recognized the voice. "Oh, Chad, it's just you. You scared - oh my gosh, what are you wearing?" She erupted into a fit of giggles. Just looking up to face her rival, Sonny was shocked by Chad's jungle explorer costume.

"I'll tell you what I told the rest of your cast," Chad said as-a-matter-of-factly, straightening his vest like it was his coveted Mack Falls jacket. "Mock all you want, but the important thing is that I have a breakfast bar. And you don't." He added the end with extra self-superiority.

"Really?" Sonny asked, smirking the smallest bit. It was not, however, filled with the energy she usually put into their daily bickers. "Tawni and Nico told me that you ran off your set screaming because it was 'Poison! Poison, I tell you!'" Chad huffed indignantly.

"Hey, it's not like I checked the label before selling the stuff," he pouted. "All I see is my name on the bar and my name on the giant check they hand me for endorsing their product."

Sonny rolled her eyes. Listening to Chad ramble about all of the money he made and the publicity it would give him just reminded her of the current dilemma. Here stood yet another jerk that she socialized with daily. What was up with her and her taste in boys? Why couldn't she befriend someone that wasn't completely compassionless? At the most, flirt with someone with a heart! Maybe Tawni was right. She didn't know how to flirt! There went another blow to her fragile self-esteem.

"Sonny, you're zoning out again," Chad's voice floated back to her. Sonny muttered an apology before burying her head in her arms and staring at the table that was inches from her nose. Sitting in this position was quite uncomfortable, considering she had been too down in the dumps to bother changing clothes from her date. It wasn't normally in her habit to stay after work was over, but she didn't feel like driving home just yet. Sonny heard a long, drawn out sigh, and not long after the sound of someone pulling out a chair and taking a seat themselves.

If Sonny didn't know better, she'd say Chad almost sounded a little peeved that he had to sit down. She didn't understand why. It wasn't like she had asked him to stay! "What's wrong with you today?" he asked, letting the whole sentence flow out in one long, continuous breath.

Sonny's cheeks felt hot, which was another reason she didn't look up from the table. She didn't really want to talk about this with a guy. This kind of thing was something you discussed with a mother or a friend, not a somewhat-enemy-somewhat-friend-sometimes-maybe-more boy!

"Irm ubet becu I can't pind a guy!" was all Chad could make out.

"What?" he asked, not catching a single word.

"Irm ubet becu I can't pind a guy!" Sonny repeated, upset.

"Sonny, I can't understand you when your head is down," Chad said obviously, rolling his eyes.

Her head snapped up, her cheeks burning as her eyes stung in reaction. "I'M UPSET BECAUSE I CAN'T FIND A GUY!" Sonny yelled in humiliation, burying her face in her arms again the second it had escaped the confines of her lips. This was so embarrassing. She wasn't supposed to venting her dating problems to Chad Dylan Cooper! What in the world? She refused to look at his face. Her cheeks burned hotter when silence is all that followed.

"You have dating problems?"

Sonny finally gathered the courage to lift her head, but not the bravery to look at him. She just stared at the table. "Yeah, I guess," she shrugged, playing with her nails. "I mean, if you think about it, all of my… sort-of relationships all ended horribly." She laughed at herself in only a way that Sonny could. "I'm starting to think something's wrong with me." She said it all with a forced smile.

Sonny finally sneaked a quick glance in Chad's direction, and she regretted ever mentioning anything at all. He just sat there, not saying a word and looking terribly uncomfortable. He was looking at his lap, twiddling his thumbs, biting his lip the tiniest bit. Before he noticed she was watching him, she hastily glanced back at the tabletop. She was surprised when she heard his voice, becoming so accustomed to the dead silence.

"Nothing's wrong with you, Sonny," she heard him say quietly.

"That's nice, Chad, but you don't have to say that. My record speaks for itself."

"Record?" Chad laughed the smallest bit. "What record? There's James and there's that Hayden guy that you… went to the Lakers game with."

Sonny sighed again and frowned. "Yeah, there's James. Hayden wasn't even my date… then Blake ended up being a jerk."

"Blake?" Chad questioned suddenly, almost accusingly. "Who's Blake?"

"Um, Blake Rattison," she explained, still looking at the table discouragingly. "You know? From Tridark? I went on a dinner date with him tonight and he couldn't even accept my friends. That hurt me because I thought maybe I had finally met the one guy who is famous and liked me for me, you know?"

Sonny heard an odd noise come from the base of Chad's throat. "Ah, vampire boy? He seemed like a jerk."

"Oh, he was. And it was all because of Grady's stupid brother who was another player and Grady wouldn't dump me because he couldn't let Grant get me and -"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, what? Grady and you were dating? Grant wanted to date you? I am so lost!"

"No, no, I was Grady's fake girlfriend. We were only doing it so his brother would stop teasing him."

"And so his brother was trying to make a move on you while you were 'dating' Grady?"

"No, but he told Grady that it wouldn't be long until we broke up, and when we did he would 'get the rebound'."

Sonny glanced at Chad, seeing as the conversation seemed to be getting a little more casual. She was not expecting to see, however, that his face was twisted with a rage she had seen only once before: in the hallway with a Tween Weekly magazine in his hands with her kissing Hayden on the cover.

"Hmph," his voice came out in a deadly whisper. "Well, you have a few additions to your record that I didn't know about, Sonny." Sonny scowled again and almost slammed her head down to the table, but Chad stopped her. "No, stop hiding your face." Slowly, for some reason that she didn't know, his face started to contort from that of anger to amusement. "That's funny, Sonny."

"What's funny?" she wanted to know.

"You counted your fake relationship with Grady, didn't you?" he asked, smug.

"Um… yeah."

"I just find it funny that you seemed to forget our night-long fake date."

Sonny wasn't exactly sure how to respond to that. She was already stressed out enough as it was, she didn't need this. "I just - just thought it was implied," she finally managed to say.

Chad was silent again, suddenly looking awkward out of the middle of nowhere.

"Well, I'd probably better get going," he cleared his throat, standing out of his chair.

"Oh, um, right," Sonny nodded, happy and sad all at once that he was bidding her ado. She looked up to watch him go, but he remained rooted to the spot, not moving but staring straight ahead, still looking nervous. He finally looked down at her as he unfroze and removed the explorer hat from his head. He smiled the smallest bit.

"Well, uh, I don't know exactly how much I can help with this particular problem, but I can tell you this much," Chad said, winking, his normal composure back to normal. He strutted to the spot directly behind her chair and leaned down until his face was beside hers. They were both reminded of when Chad had tried to convince Sonny to come join The Falls. "The problem's not you. The problem is the guys you keep choosing to date. So, stop beating yourself up about it." Chad switched to her other side and grinned as heart-stoppingly as he could. "And I can tell you this." He threw his hat into the air and twirled it around in his hands a couple of times. The heartthrob placed the large hat on Sonny's head with a playful snicker. "They're missing out."

Sonny smiled bashfully. "Aw, thanks! Wait… you think they're missing out?" She turned until she was face-to-face with him, reaching up to tilt her new hat back to where it wasn't blocking her view. Her face turned tomato red as his gaze drifted all the way down to her feet and back up again.

"Definitely," he grinned sincerely, standing up straight again. "But, really, I need to leave." Chad, in his exploring vest and all, swaggered from the room, but not before turning back to wink at Sonny. "By the way, keep the hat. It looks good on you."

Sonny grinned as he turned and left for the day. Maybe he wasn't such a jerkthrob after all. As much as she didn't want this thought to run through her head, it did.

Maybe not every guy is non-boyfriend material.

Review, people full of awesomeness!