I walked down the corridor towards Chad.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him, pretending to be annoyed. I mean, I probably would be annoyed in a minute, so it wasn't much of stretch.

He looked taken aback. Damn. Those puppy baby blues were killing me. I opened the door to my dressing room. He brightened up and followed me inside.

As soon as the door swung shut he said, "I know your secret."

"My secret?" I replied, totally nonplussed. I didn't have a secret. At least, I didn't know of any.

He leaned back cockily against the door, crossing his legs.

"You like me."

"I can't stand you Chad."

"Nope. I have proof," he smiled.

Proof? I wracked my brains, wondering what on earth I had done that would give him that idea. I mean, he did have nice abs. And eyes. And glutes of steel. But he was also a jerk. Who had nice abs, and eyes…

"What proof?" I asked, quickly adding, "Not that it's true."

"You helped me out," he said smugly.

"So? You would have ruined the sketch," I had no idea where this was going.

"You told me to get to the other stall. The one you were going to strip in."

"Yeah, so? Zora and Twani were going to use the other ones. You had to get out of there, they might have accidentally let on." As I said this, it dawned on me. No – he didn't think –

"There were four stalls Sonny." His eyes glittered triumphantly.

"Psh... Um… Yeah… But…" I stammered, trying to give myself time to think. Why had I done that again?

"No no, no need to make excuses now," he said. "You totally want me. Just the sight of my delicious abs -"

Stupid abs.

"Your abs mean nothing to me," I said, desperately trying to keep my voice steady.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Fine," he said, pulling Nico's hoodie off over his head, and revealing his glorious physique. Damn. He was still wrong though. I didn't like him or want him. He just had pretty abs.

"Mea-" My voice caught in my throat. I cleared it. "Means nothing to me," I said, trying not stare at them.

He smirked, bringing my attention back to his eyes. His icy blue, captivating eyes.

"What were you doing there anyway?" I asked, trying to distract him. Surprisingly, it seemed to work.

"I… Um… The coffee incident this morning."

"Right, yeah," I said, remembering. "You were standing on the set holding two cups of coffee and you stood in my way and I ran into you 'cause I was late for rehearsal."

"Right, well, I spilled the coffee all over myself, and it was boiling hot, so I took off my clothes before I burnt my beautiful body. Then the stage hand was coming, so I hid in the toilet."

Huh. That actually seemed… reasonable.

"Why didn't you shout at someone to get you clothes?" I asked, pretty sure I already knew the answer. "Wait, let me guess, Chad Dylan Cooper doesn't spill stuff on himself?"

"Right. And you know I wouldn't have if you hadn't crashed into me. I wouldn't even have been over here if it wasn't for you. Like I said earlier, your fault," he accused, seeming satisfied with himself.

I stopped listening at some point during this. His abs were just so well defined.

"Sonny?"

"Chad…" I said dreamily, then caught myself. "I mean, um, what?"

My brain finally caught up on what he'd said.

"It was definitely not my fault. What were you doing with two cups of coffee on our set anyway? Was one of them for me?" I asked jokingly. His eyes fell, and I suddenly realized – one of them had been for me.

"Well, yeah, I guess," he said. Watching him squirm was fun. "We had that big fight over the parking spot the other day, and…" he trailed off.

"And…?" I lead him.

"And I don't like when you're angry with me. Proper angry angry anyway, not just annoyed angry."

His words stumbled together, and suddenly I realized maybe he wasn't a total jerk. Just mostly a jerk. With great abs. Which were right in front of me. And were beautiful.

He noticed me staring again, and stretched happily. I shook myself.

"Yup, you totally like me," he said. "You like my abs."

"Do not."

"Do too."

"Do not."

"Do too."

"I do not Chad," I said, trying to think of the least attractive thing possible. "I might as well be looking at cheese." Ha. Got him.

"Cheese?" he said, looking totally taken aback.

"Yeah, cheese," I smiled.

"Wait, you're from Wisconsin. You love cheese," he said.

Damn. He had me there.

"Wait, you remembered that. And you were bringing me coffee. And you came to the dressing room. And you took your shirt off. Again." It hit me like a tonne of bricks. "You like me Chad."

"Do not," he defended himself. It was completely unconvincing. Fireworks were going off in my brain. It all made so much sense – why he was always at So Random when he claimed to hate everything to do with it. Why he was always fighting with me one minute and being sweet the next.

"Do too," I totally had him. "That's what this is about."

"No, I don't," he said.

"I'll prove it," I answered. Crap. How was I going to prove it? Then it occurred to me – two could play this game. I pulled down the zipper at the back of my dress.

"Sonny, what are you doing?" his voice was all crackly and high. Ha.

"This." I let the dress drop to the floor, standing in front of him, for the second time today, in my bra and panties. I took a moment. This was nuts. What the hell was going on? I didn't want him to think I was freaked out (which I was), so I stood up a little straighter and stared him down.

"Oh yeah?" he said.

"Yeah," I nodded, sounding a lot more confident than I felt. I could see his eyes raking up and down me, landing on my old blue bra. I wished I was wearing better underwear. Actually, why did I wish that? I didn't care what he thought of me.

"Right!" he said. He looked back at me, and, without breaking eye contact, slid Nico's pants down around his ankles. I tried to control my expression of shock as he kicked the pants off his foot and halfway across the room.

There was a noise from down the hall.

We kind of stood there staring at each other's bodies for a minute. I noticed Chad's eyes kept returning to my breasts. There was that strange navel sensation again – what was that?

"Fine, I'll find her!" Tawni's voice came from outside in the hall. Crap. The others were coming back from their icecream.

Chad and I looked each other in the eye. I could see his trepidation – this looked bad. Even though it was totally innocent. And reasonable. And innocent. Definitely innocent. Nothing going on here.

There wasn't time to convince myself. I quickly gathered the clothes from the floor, grabbed Chad by the hand and dragged him behind the curtain in my changing area. He raised an eyebrow at me, just as Tawni pushed the door open.

"Sonny?" she called.

I was about to answer, to tell her I was changing, but Chad put his finger to my lips.

I could hear Tawni dialling her phone, but there was a nearly naked Chad standing about an inch away from me with his finger on my lips, and it was a bit difficult to think clearly.

There was a loud mooing.

That was weird, I thought distractedly. Why would there be a cow here? About five seconds later – I swear, it would have been much sooner had it not been for the circumstances – I realized it was my phone.

"Huh." That was Tawni again.

Someone else knocked on the door. Chad seemed to be twirling my hair. He was clearly just trying to piss me off and make me give myself away. Well, he wasn't going to get away with that. I began to trace the shape of his stomach muscles. It was really hard hot – I mean not – to laugh as I felt his sharp intake of breath.

I heard Zora's muffled voice over the thumping of my heart.

"Find her?"

"No. Her phone is here though," Tawni replied.

"Let's try backstage," Zora suggested, and the door slammed shut as they left. Chad and I stared at each other. I giggled in relief. Chad's finger drifted away from my lips, but he left his hand by my face, cupping it gently.

"This has been a really weird day," I said, under my breath, not completely sure why I hadn't stepped away yet. Or taken my hand for where it had settled on his very firm chest. Or, you know, put on my clothes.

"Tell me about it," he smirked. But sort a nice smirk. Not his usual I'm-up-to-no-good smirk.

"So you do like me then," I said. I'm not really sure what I wanted the answer to be. If it meant doing more of this and having more navel sensations I wasn't totally against it.

"Do not," he said. His face was telling me something different. But it was Chad. This was too strange.

"Do you like me if I do this?" I asked, stepping closer, our bare skin just barely grazing against each other, the spots where we touched tingling slightly.

"No, but I think you like me," he said softly. What the hell would give him that idea? Jerk.

"Do not," I answered indignantly.

"What if I do this?" he asked, grabbing me around the waist and pulling me ever closer, until our bodies pressed firmly together. There were these furiously fluttering butterflies of hate in the pit of my stomach. I gazed angrily into his eyes. His blue blue eyes. How dare he?

"Nope. I feel absolutely nothing."

"Nothing?" he whispered, eyes searching mine. I could feel his breath on my cheek.

"Nope, definitely not not nothing."

"Wait. Was that a quadruple negative?" he asked, looking like his brain was working overtime. "So, you do feel something?"

"Not no," I answered, really confused. I wasn't even sure what I was saying. He looked as befuddled as I did. This had to be some surrealist nightmare.

His fingers trailed softly down my back, right around where he'd touched in the cubicle earlier. It tickled a bit. There was that feeling again. If it was a nightmare, I didn't really want to wake up.

There was a noise really really far away. I neither knew nor cared what it was.

"Chad?" I asked.

"Yeah?" his voice was husky in a way I'd never heard before.

"What the hell is going on?" I really hoped he knew, because since I'd walked into that stall on the set, I was totally lost. The feel of his abs pressed against my stomach, and the feel of other parts of him pressed against other parts of me were definitely not helping.

"I have no idea," he gasped, and his lips suddenly got really close to mine. I kind of wanted to meet them. With my lips. Make his lips and my lips meet. That seemed like a really good idea.

They pressed together softly.

Suddenly everything stopped. Time stood still. And the pit of my stomach exploded. There were hands – in… places. And – I realized this later – there was kissing. I think, I don't know. The next couple of minutes, or possibly years, are a bit fuzzy.

All I know is that, all of a sudden, it was a whole lot brighter. Then the world around us existed again. I registered that the curtain was open, and there was a shout of "I think I found- Oh… ooooh."