20
Shane woke to the blaring of Lilah’s phone alarm. They didn’t have anywhere they needed to be, so she’d probably forgotten to turn it off the night before—and knowing her, the alarm was set at least a full hour before she intended to get up, so she could keep snoozing it over and over. It had driven him crazy when they were together, but now, there was something oddly comforting about the familiarity of it.
Lilah groaned and leaned over the nightstand to silence it, settling back against him and stretching languorously. He barely restrained himself from grinding into her in return.
“It’s not last night anymore,” he murmured into her neck. “Do the rules still apply?”
She didn’t say anything, just sighed and nuzzled her face into her pillow, baring the long stretch of her throat to him. He couldn’t resist gently raking his teeth over the spot where her neck met her shoulder, which made her sigh again, closer to a moan this time. He pressed a kiss to the same spot, and he felt her pulse race beneath his lips, felt himself get even harder in response. It was still second nature, touching her like this, knowing exactly how she’d respond, even after all this time.
He let his hand slide down her ribs, past the dip of her waist, onto the mostly bare skin of her hip, then rested it there, waiting. She exhaled shakily.
“I think we’re past the ‘sex without feelings’ stage of our relationship,” she said quietly, placing her hand over his and guiding it back to her stomach.
“So what stage are we in, then? Feelings without sex?”
It was meant to be a joke, sort of, but the words hung ominously in the air as soon as they were out of his mouth.
She was silent. They lay there, still, for another few breaths, before she rolled out of bed and padded to the bathroom.
He sat up, leaning against the headboard. “Do we need to talk about this?” he called after her.
A few moments later, the bathroom door swung open again. “Probably,” she said through a mouthful of toothpaste. She disappeared to spit, and he heard the sound of water running.
“But are we going to?” he asked, not even bothering to hide the ripple of annoyance at how closed off she was being, as if the previous night—whatever the fuck it was—had never happened.
In the light of day, he almost thought maybe he had imagined it, with how unlikely it seemed that they’d spent the better part of the last eight hours wrapped around each other. But he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept that soundly and woken up so rested, so it must have happened after all.
She reappeared, leaning against the doorway. “I don’t know what there is to talk about. We both agree that it would be a bad idea to start sleeping together again while we’re still working together, right?”
“Right.”
She shrugged.
“So…that’s it? We’re just going to forget it?” he asked, unsure what he even meant by “it.”
“I think we need to focus on the show for now. Whatever this is…” She waved her hand between them. “It’s a distraction. It always has been.”
He felt his irritation swell. Of course she was able to compartmentalize like that. Put him and her feelings in a box, label it “distraction,” and ignore it until it was convenient for her.
Fuck it. If she could, so could he.
She must have sensed the change in his demeanor, because she softened, her shoulders sagging. “It’s just…I’ve done this before, you know? Trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”
“With Richard, you mean.”
“Yeah.”
He bristled at the comparison, but he could tell by the way her posture had already gone rigid again that it wasn’t worth pushing back.
“Right. Sure. You’re right.” He watched her go over to her overnight bag and dig around. “What time do we need to be out of here?”
“Not until eleven. I was going to head out now, but you can stay if you want.”
If he didn’t know better, he’d think she was talking to a mediocre one-night stand she was desperate to give the slip.
“No, that’s okay. I’ll get going, too.”
His gaze fell on the unfamiliar pattern of black ink on her hip. The symbol of the failure of their first go-round, which she’d rushed to cover up and forget about as soon as she could.
Now that he knew what to look for, it was easy to understand how she’d never allowed herself to fall in love. With him, or with anyone. She still had that same tendency to snap shut like a bear trap at the first hint of vulnerability, leaving him grateful he’d escaped with all his extremities intact.
It was so different from his own approach to relationships, especially when he was younger—offering up his heart indiscriminately, perpetually optimistic that it would be taken care of. Like being consumed by the act of loving, the validation of being loved, would give him some clarity of purpose. Tell him who he was, who he was supposed to be.
But then, neither perspective seemed to have served them very well, since they’d both ended up in the same spot: still single, still messing around with their ex from a decade ago.
As he dressed in silence, folding his sweatpants and handing them back to her, trying to ignore the ache in his chest that had nothing to do with his bruised ribs, he brushed off the question that had popped into his head—one that now seemed too ridiculous to say out loud: What if we’re different now?
…
Lilah didn’t see Shane again until production resumed the following Monday. She’d kept herself distracted over the weekend, tagging along with Margaux and Brian for some sightseeing when she wasn’t trying unsuccessfully to sweat out her restlessness in the hotel gym.
She’d already gotten back in her team’s good graces without even trying. Margaux had posted a handful of photos from Thanksgiving on her Instagram, captioned “ty mom&dad,” the last slide of which was a candid of Lilah and Shane. Lilah had no memory of it being taken, but it must have been during the Taboo game; they’d somehow ended up next to each other on the couch, too close, their knees brushing. Shane’s face was inclined toward her in midsentence, trying and failing to suppress a grin; Lilah’s head was thrown back in genuine, unselfconscious laughter in response to whatever he was saying.
Seeing the picture for the first time had given her the same squeamish jolt as the screengrab from the After Hours episode—but worse. That had clearly been a performance—cameras shoved in their faces, studio audience staring them down, everything as inauthentic and manufactured as the skyline backdrop behind them.
This wasn’t that. She didn’t fault Margaux for taking or posting it, but there was something mortifyingly private about the moment she’d captured. Even though it was irrational, the more she stared at the picture, the more irritated she got. He had no good reason to be looking at her like that, like she was the only person in the room, or possibly the universe. It would just add fuel to the contingent of rabid, intrusive fans obsessed with figuring out what was going on between them offscreen.
Then again, maybe she could use their help, since she’d never been more confused about it herself.
Her publicist informed her in a tone of barely restrained glee that the photo had quadruple the engagement of any of Margaux’s other posts, and several news outlets had already picked it up. Lilah had tried her best to sound excited. She was thankful that the Jonah stuff seemed to have blown over so quickly. But mostly, it was an unpleasant reminder that the most likable thing about her was Shane.
When they returned to work, they were introduced to the local director the network had hired to replace Jonah, a woman named Fatima Alami—fortysomething, petite, with a long braid of dark curly hair and a warm, dimpled smile. As soon as Lilah met her, she felt a wave of relief that Fatima would be the one working with them for their kissing scene, and not Jonah.
Once they began shooting again, Fatima quickly proved to be one of the best directors Lilah had worked with, equally adept at handling actors and keeping the set running efficiently. Within a few days, they’d made up a good portion of the time they’d lost from Jonah’s dicking around.
When she’d expressed her sympathy that Fatima was being brought in to clean up the mess Jonah had made, Fatima had just grinned mischievously.
“Don’t worry about it. My manager got me the same day rate he was getting, plus a bonus if I get us back on schedule. I’m cleaning up in more ways than one. Besides”—she’d winked—“I’m a fan.”
The night before they were scheduled to shoot the kiss, Fatima called Lilah and Shane in to meet with her in one of the hotel conference rooms. Shane was already there when Lilah arrived, flipping through his script. He looked up and nodded but didn’t say anything.
They hadn’t been outright avoiding each other since their night together, but they weren’t exactly sitting next to each other in the van anymore, either. She suddenly felt a wave of regret that they hadn’t kissed that night after all—it would have been a terrible idea, but at least then the last time they’d done it wouldn’t have been the day they fucked in his trailer.
Thankfully, Fatima arrived before she had a chance to spend too long weighing which option was worse.
“Thanks for meeting with me. I promise I won’t keep you too long,” she said, half sitting on one of the conference tables. “I thought we might want to do some extra preparation for this one, since this is such a crucial moment, and you know there’s never enough time to work through it day-of. We weren’t able to book an intimacy coordinator on such short notice, but I want to stress that your comfort is the most important thing here. How are you feeling about everything?”
“Fine,” said Lilah, at the same time as Shane replied “Good.” They exchanged uneasy glances before looking back at Fatima.
“Great.” Fatima pulled out a chair and gestured to them to take a seat. “Let’s talk through it a little bit, and then we’ll run it up until the kiss. Now, Lilah, how do you think Kate’s feeling here?”
Lilah eased into one of the rolling leather chairs as Shane did the same. “I think…I think she’s frustrated that they obviously have these feelings for each other, but he can’t admit it. Especially after everything they’ve been through. It’s hard for her to understand why he’s shutting down and pushing her away. I think it really hurts her.”
She avoided looking at him as she said it, but her face heated under his gaze, the irony of the situation not escaping her.
Fatima nodded. “Absolutely, I think that’s spot-on. And Shane, why do you think Harrison is so reluctant to pursue things with her?”
Lilah glanced over at Shane, meeting his eyes. He looked away first.
“He’s afraid. Opening himself up to her means making himself vulnerable to getting hurt. I don’t think he ever really got over her death. He doesn’t want to take the risk of caring about her again. It’s easier to just close himself off, even if that means sacrificing his own happiness.”
“Well, we don’t know they’d be happy,” Lilah blurted out before she could stop herself. Shane and Fatima both looked at her with curious expressions. “I mean…they’ve never actually been together for real. We don’t know what their relationship would look like. I don’t think it’s wrong for him to take that into account before jumping into things. Especially after all this buildup. There’s no way it could live up to whatever expectations they have for it.”
Fatima pursed her lips and cast her eyes to the ceiling, considering it. “Hmm. That’s an interesting angle. If you want to play up the uncertainty, it could definitely add to the drama of the moment, but I wonder if it’s denying the audience the catharsis they need.”
“Right. You’re right. Of course,” Lilah said hurriedly. “Sorry. Just…thinking out loud.”
“No need to apologize. No bad ideas here.”
“For the record,” Shane added, “I don’t think Kate is that hurt by it. By Harrison being withholding, I mean. I think she finds it more annoying than anything. Like, when is this guy going to get over himself already?”
She whipped her head in his direction, embarrassed he’d caught her slip. He had that look he always got when he was messing with her, a gloss of wide-eyed innocence he never wore otherwise. Lilah rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t help but feel a little destabilized by the whole conversation, unsure how much of it was real—from either of them. Fatima watched them with a pensive expression, her eyes flicking back and forth between them.
“Okay. Well. Good to know you have just as much insight into each other’s characters as your own.” She stood up. “Should we get it on its feet?”
They cleared the center of the room, rearranging the chairs and tables to give themselves some space. The scene was the last of the two-parter—Kate confronting Harrison about why he’d been so distant with her after rescuing her from her kidnappers.
Shane sat in one of the chairs, facing away from her, using his script as a stand-in for a prop book. Lilah approached the nonexistent doorway, and they exchanged the first few lines of small talk. She paused, gathering her courage as Kate.
“Did I do something wrong?”
Shane’s face was a blank mask. “What do you mean?”
“It kind of feels like you’ve been avoiding me.”
“I haven’t been avoiding you,” he said in a monotone. He held her gaze for a long moment before closing his script and putting it aside. “Will said your memory’s been coming back.”
“Yeah.”
“So? What do you remember?” His expression was cold, but she could see a flicker of emotion roiling under the surface. She was surprised he was bringing this level of intensity to what she’d assumed would be a glorified blocking session, but her competitive streak flared, pushing her to step her game up to match him.
She approached him slowly, without breaking eye contact. “I remember my name. I remember my tenth birthday. I remember the sound of my mom’s laugh.” She paused when she reached the desk, leaning against it and crossing her arms. “It’s all pretty jumbled together, though. Like, it kind of feels like it all happened at once, and my brain is still straightening it out, trying to make sense of everything.”
“Sounds confusing.” He seemed almost bored.
“Yeah. It is.” She paused. “You know the most confusing part, though?”
“What?” He wasn’t looking at her anymore, but she waited to respond until he met her eyes again.
“Even when I couldn’t remember any of that,” she said softly, “I knew I was in love with you.”
The script called for a long, loaded pause before Lilah’s next line, so she gave it the space it needed.
Shane’s gaze dropped to the floor. She watched his chest rise and fall. It felt like there was a string pulled taut between them—tighter every second, refusing to snap. He finally looked up at her, his expression so conflicted and stormy that her lips parted automatically, her heart rate speeding up, her stomach twisting. Those physical responses told her she was connected to Kate, fully present in the scene.
“Please say something.” She was startled by the desperation in her voice, barely above a whisper.
He shook his head and looked away. When he spoke again, his voice was low and gravelly, sending a thrill through her. “What do you want me to say? That when you were gone, it felt like I was half a person? Like all the best parts of me were missing? Like I died all over again?” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard, his jaw tense. He got to his feet abruptly, making her flinch, but she stood her ground as he slowly moved toward her, even though she felt like her legs might give out.
She uncrossed her arms and braced them against the table, his gaze bearing down on her, a force stronger than gravity. He continued, his thin veneer of control slipping. “Do you want me to tell you that I’ve been avoiding you because every time I’m around you, all I can think about is how badly I want to touch you? That it drove me half-crazy that you came back and I still couldn’t?”
He stopped short in front of her, both of them breathing heavily. His hands hovered, then dropped to his sides.
“You can now,” she murmured, her gaze flicking from his lips to his eyes. “Why won’t you?”
Fatima’s voice broke in, sounding like it was coming from another planet. “Okay, let’s hold here.”
Lilah blinked a few times, jolting back into herself. Shane exhaled heavily as he stepped away, running his hands through his hair, not looking at her.
“Really good stuff, you guys. I appreciate you bringing it like this, even in a rehearsal.” She flipped through her script thoughtfully. “Now, I know there’s some description about how it goes from here, but I think we can do a little exploring to find what feels the most organic. You two know these characters as well as anybody. And it’s not only about the kiss. That first contact has to feel just as explosive.”
Under Fatima’s guidance, they worked through the next few beats. Shane brought both his hands to Lilah’s shoulders, then slid them slowly down her arms, drawing her closer. He caught hold of her hand and brought it up to cup his own cheek. She held it there for a moment before sliding it to the nape of his neck and nudging him forward until their foreheads were touching. He gripped her waist with both hands, the warmth of his palms radiating through her whole body.
“Okay, good, let’s break again.”
They dutifully separated, Lilah wrapping her arms around her midriff, suddenly cold despite her sweater.
“So, you have your last couple of lines here, and then…bam. The moment everyone’s spent the past nine years waiting for. Is it tentative at first, or do they go all in?”
“I think they’re all in,” Shane answered immediately, without bothering to look at Lilah. “They’ve been waiting for this forever. Thinking about it forever. I don’t think they’re going to hold back once they decide it’s going to happen.”
Fatima turned to Lilah, who just nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Fatima clasped her hands together. “Let’s give it a shot, then. Take it from your last line, Lilah.”
They squared off again. Lilah wasn’t sure if she saw nerves in his expression or if she was just projecting her own. She fought to stay focused, her hands trembling against the desk.
“You can now. Why won’t you?”
They moved through their choreography carefully, fluidly: his hands trailing down her arms. Her palm on his cheek. Their foreheads pressing together.
Shane’s mouth hovered millimeters from hers, drawing out the moment as long as possible.
“What if—what if this ruins everything?” he asked quietly. After the hard edge he’d brought to the rest of the scene, she was shocked by his softness now: the tremor in his voice, the genuine uncertainty in his eyes.
“What if it fixes it?” she murmured, and his mouth was on hers before she knew it, every muscle in her body immediately going rigid in response, as if she could somehow form a protective shell that would prevent her from feeling anything.
His tongue nudged the seam of her lips, but she kept them firmly closed, and he didn’t try to force it. They continued that way, alternating smaller closed-mouth kisses with longer ones, hands planted in their starting positions like they’d been superglued in place, their bodies otherwise resolutely separate.
After a moment, they broke apart, looking at Fatima expectantly. Fatima had her hands on her hips, her brow creased, looking at them with dissatisfaction.
“Okay. That was…that’s a start.” She walked toward them slowly. “How do we feel about getting a little more…passionate with it? Tastefully, I mean. Not sloppy. And only if you’re comfortable. I’m just not sure if the closed-mouth peck approach is really giving us everything the moment needs, you know?”
Both Shane and Fatima were looking at Lilah, who dropped her gaze to the ground, chagrined. She thought back to their photo shoot several months earlier, where they’d also been chastised for holding back.
But that had been different. Back then, her discomfort had stemmed from her physical attraction to him, but at least it had been safely swaddled in animosity. And though there was attraction now, too, there was nothing safe about the genuine fondness trying to hitch a ride on its back.
She forced herself to look at it objectively. At this point, there were very few places on her body his tongue hadn’t been—and vice versa. There was no reason to get prudish about it now, especially since she wouldn’t have given it a second thought if it were anyone else.
Lilah shook her head, trying to get herself back in the game. “Okay. Sorry. Yeah. That’s fine. I just needed a practice run.”
“Great. Not a problem, that’s why we’re here. Let’s go again from that same spot.”
This time, she pounced first, diving in with an almost animal ferocity. After a stunned, frozen beat, he followed her lead, digging his fingers into her waist and plunging his tongue down her throat.
Like the last time in his trailer, it felt more like an extension of one of their fights than anything else. Even though it was heated, it was clearly more about aggression than affection, as if they were waiting for Fatima to ring a bell, raise one of their hands above their heads, and declare a winner.
When it felt like they’d grappled long enough, Lilah broke away, wiping her arm against her mouth. Shane seemed slightly more affected by it than she was, rumpled and red around the ears and throat, verging on wild-eyed.
But when she looked at Fatima, she knew they hadn’t fooled her.
“Well, I definitely felt the passion that time,” she deadpanned. “But it’s coming off a little…angry. There should be some softness to balance it out. Remember, they’re madly in love. And they’ve been to hell and back, literally, to get to each other. They’ve waited nine very long years for this moment. We should feel all that, too.”
Once again, they reset to the moment just before the kiss.
Lilah opened her mouth to say her line but made the mistake of catching Shane’s eye first. Something about the way he was looking at her wiped her brain clean of not only her lines, but the reason she was even there in the first place, her stomach turning to jelly.
Fuck him for still being able to do that.
She glanced at Fatima, stalling. “Could we take it from the top for this one?”
Fatima nodded, and Lilah returned to her original mark, taking advantage of the few extra seconds to try to get her heart rate under control. At the last moment, she stripped off her sweater and tossed it on one of the desks, the heat of it suddenly unbearable.
Running the scene felt different this time. The nervous frisson of the unknown was gone, replaced by a heavy, pulsing inevitability.
The moment before he touched her for the first time, he hesitated, his hands close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from them. When he finally wrapped his fingers around her bare shoulders, she exhaled involuntarily, eyelids drooping with sensation, the point of contact almost too intense.
Only then did she realize how long it had been since she’d let herself get this absorbed playing opposite him, tapping into that live-wire connection she’d never felt with another scene partner in quite the same way. In the early days of the show, their onscreen chemistry had almost annoyed her, since he was so green and untrained—like he’d skipped the line and lucked his way into something most people (herself included) had to work their asses off to learn. Now, though, she had enough experience to know it couldn’t be taught.
The air thickened as they moved through all the places they’d been instructed to touch each other. Her arms. His neck. Her waist. Their foreheads. Lilah looked into his eyes, fighting to keep her breath steady.
How would Kate do it? Kate was brave. Much braver than Lilah. She’d jump in without a second thought.
This time, when Shane’s tongue brushed against her lips, she opened her mouth to him, meeting him with gentleness, not force. And, just like she’d been afraid of, she felt the telltale heat brewing in her stomach, tingles chasing down her spine.
It would be different when they shot it, she told herself, when the set would be full of people watching them, and she’d be preoccupied with the lighting and the camera angle and whether she looked weird doing it.
But she didn’t have any of that to distract her now. As the kiss deepened, she lost herself in the taste of his mouth, the hot slide of his tongue against hers unlocking something inside her, the last traces of her reservations melting away.
She slid her arm all the way around his neck, pulling him closer, and at the same time he wrapped his arms tightly around her, sealing their bodies flush against each other. He let out a sharp, needy breath and she inhaled it, nipping at his bottom lip, drawing a rumble from the back of his throat.
She was so in the zone that kissing him felt like a fucking revelation, like they were both brand new. She could never kiss him like this as herself: a kiss that was sweet with possibilities, not bitter with regret. It didn’t feel like Shane was Shane, either, which helped. He was holding her with such care and affection, like she was something precious, but it didn’t matter: she still felt like she was a breath away from shattering.
She let herself sink into it, deeper than she thought possible, Lilah and Kate and Shane and Harrison getting all jumbled up until her whole world was narrowed to the weight of his hands on her, the pressure of his lips, his tongue, his teeth, alternatingly soft and firm and hungry and tender. Blood rushed in her ears, her pulse drumming hot and insistent between her thighs as she fought to keep up, to match him, to show him how much she loved him, how long she’d been waiting for this—
How much Kate loves Harrison. How long Kate has been waiting for this.
Finally, Shane pulled away gently and planted a soft kiss on her forehead, bringing his thumb to wipe away a tear that had collected at the corner of her eye. She closed her eyes, too flustered to look at him, her face so hot she felt like that tear would’ve sizzled into vapor if it had made it down to her cheek.
When they turned back to Fatima, her eyebrows were in her hairline, a bemused grin creeping across her face.
“Wow. Okay, then. If that looks half as good on camera, we don’t need to worry about disappointing anyone.”