He had waited until almost 4:00 in the afternoon, but now that his audition was over and he had nothing standing in his way, Rome sat down on the edge of his bed and purposely called the number he’d accidentally called the night before. He prayed Ella was working and that she was the one who answered. For all he knew, Sinders had a whole bunch of customer service representatives.

“Sinders Cinema Marketing. This is Ella.”

Her message was shorter this time, and it seemed like she knew it was him. There was an excitement to her voice he hadn’t noted the day before, at least not when he’d initially...