Monday morning at Blackwood Studios was supposed to be a cause for celebration. It was the day of the official table read for the *Teen Wolf* pilot.
There was just one massive problem. They still didn't have a Jackson Whittemore.
Donovan, Jake, and Chris were sitting in a small casting room with Sarah, the casting director. They had exactly one hour before the table read started, and the tension in the room was ridiculous.
"We are going to have to read the script with an empty chair," Jake said, rubbing his eyes. "This is embarrassing. We are a premium television production, and we don't have our main antagonist."
"He's not really the antagonist, he's just a jerk," Chris corrected him, spinning a pen on the table. "And we can just have Sarah read his lines. It will be fine."
"I am a fifty-year-old woman, Chris," Sarah deadpanned, glaring at him. "I am not reading the lines of an arrogant teenage boy who drives a Porsche."
Donovan sat in the middle, perfectly relaxed. He was drinking a cup of black coffee and checking the time on his watch. He didn't feel any panic about the missing actor. He knew the industry well enough to know that sometimes, the best pieces of the puzzle fall into place at the very last second.
"We have one emergency audition left," Donovan said calmly, setting his coffee down. "Sarah called his agent yesterday. He just finished a show in New Zealand, so he is fresh on the market."
"Let's just bring him in," Jake sighed. "If he doesn't howl like a dog, he gets the job."
Jake pressed the intercom button. A few seconds later, the door opened.
A nineteen-year-old guy walked into the room. He had short blonde hair, a sharp jawline, and a completely relaxed posture. He was wearing a simple white t-shirt and jeans, but he walked with a natural, slightly cocky swagger.
He didn't look nervous at all. In fact, he looked like he found the entire audition process slightly amusing.
"Hey guys," the actor said, offering a charismatic, lopsided smirk. "I'm Ryan. Ryan Gosling."
Chris immediately stopped spinning his pen. Jake sat up straight.
Donovan smiled. He knew exactly who this guy was. Ryan was incredibly talented, famous for playing a young Hercules recently, and he had the exact kind of punchable but lovable face that Jackson needed.
"Nice to meet you, Ryan," Donovan said smoothly. "Thanks for coming in on such short notice. We are in a bit of a rush today. Do you have the sides?"
"Yeah, I read them in the waiting room," Ryan said casually, holding up a single piece of paper. He leaned against the wall, not even bothering to walk to the center of the room. "The guy is a rich, entitled lacrosse captain with a massive ego. Sounds fun."
"Alright," Jake said, pointing to the script. "I'll read for Stiles. Just jump in whenever you are ready."
Ryan didn't even take a deep breath. He just looked at Jake, his lopsided smirk completely disappearing. His eyes went cold, and his posture shifted from relaxed to intensely arrogant.
"Are you going to move, Stilinski, or do I need to run you over with my car?" Ryan delivered the line with perfect, effortless cruelty.
He didn't yell. He didn't try to look tough. He just looked at Jake like he was a piece of trash on the bottom of his expensive shoe. It was absolutely brilliant.
Chris let out a low whistle of appreciation. Sarah quickly started writing on her clipboard, her headache completely disappearing.
"And scene," Ryan smiled, instantly dropping the character and returning to his charming, relaxed self. "How was that? Too mean?"
"That was perfect," Donovan said, standing up and extending his hand. "Welcome to the pack, Ryan. The table read is in thirty minutes down the hall."
Ryan shook Donovan's hand, looking pleasantly surprised. "Awesome. I'll go grab a coffee. See you guys in there."
As soon as Ryan left the room, Jake threw his script on the table. "Thank God. The guy is a natural jerk. I love him."
"We have a full cast," Sarah smiled, packing up her bags. "I am going to take a three-day vacation. Don't call me."
Half an hour later, the main conference room of Blackwood Studios was packed. Writers, producers, and the entire cast were sitting around a massive glass table.
Donovan was sitting at the head of the table. Jake and Chris were on his left. Ryan was sitting near the end, casually chatting with the actress playing Allison.
Then, the door opened, and Scarlett Johansson walked in.
She was wearing a comfortable gray sweater and jeans, looking effortlessly cool. When she saw the boys, her face lit up with a bright, genuine smile.
"Hey everyone," Scarlett said, taking the empty seat next to Donovan. She nudged his shoulder playfully. "Did you practice your Pac-Man skills this weekend? Because you are going to need it."
"I don't need practice to beat you, Scarlett," Donovan shot back, offering her a confident smile.
Jake rolled his eyes from across the table. "Please tell me you two are going to focus on the script first."
"Don't worry, Jake," Scarlett laughed, opening her binder. "I can multitask."
The table read was absolute magic. The chemistry between the actors was instant.
Chris brought a perfect, lovable clumsiness to Scott. Jake's comedic timing as Stiles had the entire room laughing out loud. Ryan delivered Jackson's arrogant lines so well that people actually wanted to throw things at him.
And Scarlett was phenomenal. She flipped between Lydia's superficial mean-girl persona and her hidden genius with terrifying ease.
Donovan anchored the entire reading. When he spoke his lines as Derek Hale, his voice naturally dropped, carrying a heavy, intimidating weight. He didn't need to try hard; the dark, brooding alpha energy just rolled off him effortlessly.
When they finished the final page of the pilot, the room erupted into applause. The executives were smiling. They all knew they had a massive hit on their hands.
"Alright," Chris announced loudly, jumping up from his chair the second the meeting ended. "Work is officially over. Who is ready for the arcade?"
An hour later, the four of them were standing inside 'Neon Galaxy', the loudest, brightest arcade in downtown Los Angeles.
The air smelled like cheap pizza and hot plastic. Dozens of arcade cabinets were flashing with neon lights, and the sound of electronic explosions and retro music was deafening.
"Prepare to die, Gyllenhaal!" Chris yelled.
Chris was aggressively mashing every single button on a *Street Fighter II* cabinet. He had absolutely no strategy; he was just hitting the plastic buttons as fast as humanly possible.
Jake was standing next to him, calmly playing as Ryu. Jake didn't mash buttons. He was quietly executing perfect, mathematical combos.
"You are just pressing everything, Chris," Jake sighed, easily blocking a wild attack and immediately knocking Chris's character out. "You have to actually learn the moves."
"Rematch!" Chris demanded, throwing another token into the machine. "That was just a warm-up!"
A few feet away, at the classic Skee-Ball lanes, things were much more intense.
Donovan and Scarlett were standing side by side in front of two retro *Pac-Man* cabinets. They both had a small mountain of tokens resting on the glass screens.
"Are you ready to lose, Blackwood?" Scarlett asked, stretching her arms and popping her knuckles. She gave him a highly competitive sideways glance.
"I bought the rights to *Harry Potter* this weekend," Donovan joked, grabbing the red joystick. "Beating you at a video game is going to be the easiest thing I do all week."
"Oh, you are so arrogant," Scarlett laughed, shaking her head. "Three rounds. Highest combined score wins. If I win, you buy the pizza."
"And if I win," Donovan countered. He pointed across the room toward the arcade's prize counter. Hanging on the wall was a giant, bright pink cowboy hat covered in cheap glitter and neon pink feathers. It was the ugliest thing in the building. "You have to wear that ridiculous pink hat to the studio every day for a week."
Scarlett looked at the hat. It was a complete fashion disaster. She laughed loudly. "You are on. Deal," she smirked. "Ready? Go!"
They both hit the start buttons at the exact same time.
The classic yellow circles began moving through the neon mazes. Scarlett was incredibly good. Her reflexes were sharp, and she knew the ghost patterns perfectly. She leaned closer to the screen, completely focused, biting her bottom lip in concentration.
Donovan was completely relaxed. He didn't even look stressed. He played with a smooth, effortless rhythm, navigating the maze without making a single mistake.
"How are you doing that?" Scarlett complained loudly, watching his score slowly climb past hers. "You aren't even looking at the pink ghost!"
"It's all about predicting the future, Scarlett," Donovan teased, smoothly eating a power pellet and clearing the board.
By the end of the third round, the machines flashed their final scores.
Donovan had won, but only by a very small margin. It was the closest game he had played in years.
Scarlett groaned, resting her forehead against the cool glass of the arcade cabinet. "I can't believe it. I missed one cherry on level five. One cherry!"
"A deal is a deal," Donovan laughed. He walked over to the prize counter, traded in a mountain of tickets, and walked back holding the giant, sparkly pink cowboy hat.
He gently placed it on top of her blonde hair. It looked completely ridiculous.
Scarlett looked at her reflection in the arcade screen and sighed heavily. "I look like a disco flamingo."
"You look fantastic," Donovan joked, giving her a thumbs up.
Scarlett adjusted the silly hat, a bright smile breaking through her fake annoyance. "You got lucky. Next time, we play Skee-Ball. I am a master at Skee-Ball."
"I look forward to it," Donovan said warmly.
He looked over at Chris, who was currently screaming because Jake had beaten him for the fifth time in a row. He looked at Scarlett, who was already walking toward the Skee-Ball machines with a handful of tokens, wearing the brightest pink hat in Los Angeles and demanding a rematch.
The studio was secure, the cast was perfect, and the real world felt a million miles away. It was just another perfect day.