Page 22 of Love Scenes

The table starts shaking. It’s Joseph’s leg, jittering.

My role as perpetual nuisance is the safest version of myself to be, so that’s where I start. “Did you remember all of your lines without me?”

“Most of them.”

I drop my menu down to stare at him. “Really?”

“I’m kidding.”

“Hilarious.”

“I’m known for my humor,” he deadpans. “No, I wasn’t the problem. Not exactly.”

This piques my interest. “Was it Guy and Tyler?” I gulp. “Or my mom?”

“Your mom is a force of good. Guy could talk a little less, but he’s great. Tyler has a real eye. I like when she gives me direction. Dead-on kind of woman.”

“What was the problem then?”

“I thought I was imagining it at first, but—”

A wonderfully jovial waiter appears for our drink order. We both get coffees. Joseph adds on a strawberry milkshake. All thewhile his unfinished sentence hangs in the air between us, a cloud that could either pass or bring rain. He waits for the waiter to get farther away, craning his neck to track his distance from us.

Then he turns back, and there doesn’t seem to be any Joseph Donovan Brand here. He is open. Maybe even nervous. For a fleeting moment I entertain the idea that he’s about to admit he also thinks we have unresolved sexual tension between us.

Great. I’ve managed to create more problems in three days than most film sets have over the entirety of their shoot.

The exit isn’t very far from here, and it’s a straight walk. I can call a Lyft on the way. Would he follow me? That would be mortifying.

I could also stay and hear him out. It would be validating to know that I’m more than some solemn girl in blinding light who never kisses people in the dark. Then again it would prove something to my mom that isn’t even true in the first place.

God. I need to order a drink.

“—she is very nice and all. There’s just nothing between us,” Joseph says, continuing a thought I haven’t been following.

“What?”

“On-screen, I mean.”

“Wait. Who are you talking about?”

He gives a strange look. “Haven,” he says, clearly repeating it. “She’s a bit—”

“Wooden,” I finish before I can stop it from coming out of my mouth. I promised myself I wouldn’t say that to anyone. And here I am blurting it out to Joseph Donovan in a twenty-four-hour diner while theGreasesoundtrack plays in the background.

“God. Yes. I thought I was the only one.” Joseph lights up, excited to have me engage in this conversation. “When I touch her in a scene, she stiffens up. And that’s after I’ve made sure it’sokay in the first place. We’re acting. What can I do? I try chatting with her between takes. Making her feel comfortable. She seems like she is. She’s quite funny in real life. I think she may be a bit—I don’t want to sound like an asshole saying this—I think she’s in over her head?”

“You do sound like an asshole saying that.” I start massaging my temples. There was a flicker of time where I was considering letting him tell me he has feelings for me. Now I’ve admitted I think Haven isn’t a very good actor.

This was a bad idea indeed.

Joseph taps his fingers along the table in some kind of mental piano arpeggio. “Today was worse than yesterday. Tyler had to call for at least three more breaks than we needed. And they weren’t for me, if you can believe it. Guy started running the scene with us between takes, playing each part for us. God’s truth, he and I had more chemistry than me and Haven.”

“I see,” I say carefully. “It takes some actors a little time to settle in. Look at you,” I dig. “And also, you apparently watched the first season ofThe Seeker.Hardly anything to go on my highlight reel in there.”

“That’s not true. That scene with you and Colfax when he asks you to explain to him the spatter pattern from his brother’s death, and you have to tell him it was suicide.”

“You need to watch better television.”