Page 55 of Love Scenes

This time it’s me who pulls back. “You said no sleeping together in this trailer. I’ll take that to mean intercourse. Right?”

His cheeks turn bright red. “Christ, you’re as forward as ever.”

“I want to make sure I’m understanding what you mean.” I make a point to look down. “Because lucky for us, you’re not wearing a belt today.” His eyes grow wide as my finger traces a line from his jaw to the button of his jeans, working it open. “There areplentyof other things we can still do.”

Late in theafternoon, Tyler pulls me aside while the crew sets up for a new scene. She has her hands in her pockets and she’s not meeting my eye. Immediately my stomach flips. She knows. Somehow. Even though Joseph and I haven’t so much as looked at each other between takes.

“I want to talk to you about something,” she says.

She has a sixth sense, and she’s figured it all out, and I have to stand before her humbled, forced to admit a truth I’m barely ready to face myself. At least it won’t be a lie when I tell her it’s nothing more than a casual thing.

“You’re not gonna like it,” she prefaces.

“Oh my god. Say it please. I’m sweating.”

“We figured out a way to add more days to the schedule without adding on too much extra time on the lot.”

“Oh.” I relax. “When?”

“Well, originally we’d had days off before and after your gala...”

The panic inside me is replaced with the first flames of anger. “No.”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck, Tyler.”

“I know.” She stops staring at the ceiling to look at me. Her expression is solemn. “If we use those days to reshoot the stuff we did on the first two days and the sex scene, we might be able to get out of this mess without it costing a fortune.” She’s near tears. “Please, Bub.”

This is the fourth year we’ve held the gala, and it’s a well-oiled machine. It’s less than two weeks away now, and while I’ve been so focused onHorizons, the gala has been my respite. I’ve been telling myself that when it comes, I will have three days where this movie doesn’t consume me. Three full days dedicated to the life I have outside of this set. Three full days to sort out what’s happening to me here.

Now it’s only one. One busy, hectic day making sure everything goes as planned, then it’s back to my red lips and Mary Janes, fighting the urge not to undress my costar between takes.

“You’re not asking me. You’re telling me,” I say to Tyler.

“Mom says we will be hemorrhaging money for no good reason if we don’t.”

Tyler should look familiar to me in this moment. She should look like the sullen little girl from my childhood, always the onechosen by our parents to deliver the worst news, because she’s the one we were all least likely to attack. But she looks brand new. A full-grown adult that’s sprung up before my eyes, hosting secrets and pains and wishes she no longer shares with me, a whole life outside of this place that I know nothing about.

Tears flood my lower lashes without warning. “Fine.”

I march off toward craft services to grab a piece of fruit I don’t want.

“Bub, please don’t be mad,” Tyler calls out.

“I’m not.” But I so obviously am that I don’t know how to hide it. So I stare at the bananas and the oranges and the random wayward mango in the fruit bowl, waiting for my tears to dry up.

Joseph comes up beside me. “Is everything all right?” He places a gentle hand on my shoulder. Nothing too far over the line, and yet the least casual thing he’s done yet, because the urge to fall into his arms is almost hypnotic.

It proves to be the one thing strong enough to pull me out of my fog. I wipe my tears with the back of my palm and compose myself with a small smile in his direction. “It will be.” I step away from his touch to grab a granola bar, sincerely hoping with every fiber of my being that what I’ve said is true.

14

It’s not my alarm that wakes me up, but a text message from Joseph.

Will we be rehearsing as usual today?

Of course, I respond, my eyes half-closed.