Chapter 20

~Adrien's POV~

I was lying in bed with my arm over my stomach, pretending to sleep. Ambrose was curled up on top of the covers. I opened my eyes as if waking up suddenly and looked over at my phone that had been ringing for the past few seconds, then reached over and picked it up.

I propped myself up on an arm as I looked at the screen.

Chloe.

I raised my phone to my ear and answered in a quiet voice, making myself sound as if I had just woken up.

"Hey Blair."

"Good morning." Chloe responded as she looked into her mirror, a woman pretending to work at the designer clothes she was wearing. "Did I wake you?"

At the moment she was in one of the dressing rooms that my father has for some of his models. Nino was here at Marinette's house filming me, while Alya had gone with a few others to film Chloe. Later we would edit the film so Chloe and I would both be shown as we said our lines.

"No." I responded. "I slept in. My shift doesn't start till this afternoon."

After a moment's hesitation, in which Nino will later insert a meow for Ambrose, Chloe asks, "Is that the cat I hear? You're not letting him sleep in your bed, are you?"

As she asked the second question, I looked down at Ambrose. "Absolutely not." I answer, then after a second I add, "Sometimes." Then finally, "Yes."

Chloe rolled her eyes before responding. "Zachary, that is just too much!" She said as she fixed her hair, using her reflection. "You know what? Tomorrow we're going to take it to my father's pet supply store to find someone to adopt it. It's either that, or it goes to the shelter."

I looked at Ambrose again after I had narrowed my eyes slightly at her suggestion. "Well, he's pretty easy to take care of." I said. "I... pretty much just feed him."

"What if we want to go to Mount Everest on a whim, or go sky diving, or parasailing." She said, and I raised my eyebrows slightly in response as she talked. "Who are we going to find to watch it?"

"You want to do those things?" I asked.

Chloe made an amused look of disgust. "No." She answered as if he were insane for thinking she might want to. "I don't have a death wish." She turned around and looked at some of the models behind her. "I'm just saying do we really want to be tied down?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but was interrupted as Nino called for the end of the scene. Chloe immediately started to talk all about how she should be a model in reality, and found many different ways to ask me why my father hasn't offered her a job yet.

"Adrien! We could be models together!" She was saying, and by now she was talking rather quickly. "We could do those couple photos and- Oh! We'd look so great together!"

"Yeah, uh, that would be great Chlo." I responded, cutting her off before she could go on. "I'm going to talk to Nino about upcoming scenes, so I'll talk to you later, okay?"

We ended the call not too long after and all I did was stare at the phone.

"What do you need dude?" Nino asked as he was packing his camera away. "I heard you tell Chloe you were going to talk to me about some scenes?"

"Oh, um." I said kind of awkwardly. "I don't really need to talk about that."

"I didn't think so." Nino chuckled. "I mean, you play Zachary so well! I mean, we didn't have to make another take! Chloe makes a great Blair, too, so that helped."

"She does play a pretty good Blair." I agreed. I couldn't stop thinking about how I had almost responded to her last line. Not that I knew what I was going to say, but just the fact that I was really getting into the conversation. It was almost as if I forgot Chloe and I were acting...

"Nino, why did Alya write Blair as she did?" I asked.

"Alya meant the character for Chloe." Nino responded. "She's created each character for the person who best fits the role. Why do you ask?"

"No reason." I tried to say, but I could tell by the look Nino was giving me, he was not convinced. "Fine. It's just... I sort of thought it was Chloe I was talking to instead of her character... as if she wasn't really acting."

Nino's expression changed to one that showed sympathy. "That's because it's not hard for Chloe to act as Blair." He said. "I know she's your friend and everything, but-"

"Blair is just another version of Chloe..." I finished, and looked at Nino. "Yeah. I'm starting to see that now."

"Sorry." Nino repeated, and I could tell he was really sorry about my disappointment.

"Thanks, but it's okay, really." I said, and really, it was. I guess it was about time for me to see Chloe as she really is. Someone who cares only about herself, and maybe a select few. I just don't know how or why it took me so long to realize that.

But, with all that being said, I think about how well Alya had written Blair to be another Chloe. My mind wanders to some of the other characters. Rose, who plays Marilee's friend, is a hopeless romantic. Marinette can be just as awkward as Marilee is at times. And me... what about me?

Sure, Blair is into Zachary like Chloe is into me, but there's got to be more to me being Zachary, right? It's not just that Zachary is the leading male role, and everyone expected me to play that part. There's got to be more to Alya's creation than that... Right? But what is it?