She could. She had been hungry her whole life. For approval, for rent money, for a role that didn’t make her feel like a prop. This was just… a different kind of craving.
“I know,” she said. “I’ll pay double.”
“Hi,” she said, her voice softer than she intended. “I’d like to place an order for delivery.”
Nina took a bite.
The address was a converted warehouse in the Arts District. Inside, it looked less like a film set and more like a test kitchen. A long steel table held a single pizza box, still warm, sweating a little grease onto the cardboard. Two cameras faced it from opposing angles. A third, handheld, would follow her.
She ate three slices before she remembered the cameras. Then she looked directly into lens B—the tight shot—and smiled, mouth full, utterly unashamed.
The room was silent except for the cooling fans of the cameras. Then the sound guy laughed, then the PA, then D himself. AdultAuditions 23 12 29 Nina Auditions My Pizza...
Steam curled upward, carrying the sharp green scent of arugula and the sweet bite of balsamic. The egg had baked into a soft, sun-like disc in the very center, its white set, its yolk still trembling. She lifted a slice. Cheese stretched like a slow confession. The yolk broke—golden and slow—and ran down over the prosciutto and into the crust’s chewy rim.
“You’ll call a local place. Any place you like. You’ll order a pizza—your perfect pizza. Toppings, crust, all of it. Then you’ll wait. When it arrives, you’ll eat it. On camera. That’s the audition.”
And the world fell away.
He walked over, peeled a single slice from her pizza, and took a bite. “You’re hired,” he said, mouth full. “Not because you were sexy. Because you were real . That’s the audition, Nina. You passed.”
She opened the lid.
They rolled cameras.