Chapter 3

3

The production offices for Intangible were nestled in the Valley, on the same back lot where they shot the interiors. Even when the traffic was bad, it never took Lilah more than thirty minutes to get there from her house in Beachwood Canyon—the main reason she’d settled there in the first place.

The show had offered her a driver, of course, but she’d always been a nervous passenger—plus, she got carsick in the back seat. Ever since the first season, driving herself had been an essential part of her routine, a meditative buffer at the beginning and end of her workday. She’d driven down that same stretch of the 101 dozens of times since she’d quit without so much as a second thought. But now, en route to the table read, she was hounded by memory after memory that, up until this moment, she thought she’d successfully suppressed.

The first day, when she’d overestimated the amount of time it would take her to get there from her Los Feliz sublet, and arrived so early she’d sat in the parking lot for an hour.

The beginning of things with Shane. The pains they’d taken to hide it from everyone else. She’d roll out of his bed (or he out of hers) and they’d stagger their arrivals, each of them commuting alone, floating in on the fizzy high of good sex and secrets.

Then, when everything had blown up after the first season wrapped, her knuckles would clench white on her steering wheel every morning, her mind racing, and she’d try her best to put on a professional face and leave her irritation confined to the doors of her sedan. But once the sharpest edges had dulled, she’d spent most of the subsequent drives staring blankly out at the highway, arriving on set or back in her driveway with zero memory of how she got there.

This drive, though, felt interminable. It wasn’t her performance she was nervous about—as expected, she wouldn’t be appearing in the episode until the very last page, resurrected as a ghost without any memory of her former life. She could’ve predicted that they would want to drag out Kate and Harrison’s final arc for as long as they could. That’s why people were watching, after all.

But that was the irony. As much as the fans were dying for them to get together, it would’ve been the kiss of death for the show once it actually happened. That tension was the engine that kept it running. As soon as they consummated things, either the relationship would become bloodless and boring or the writers would have to resort to an endless cycle of breakups, makeups, and manufactured drama.

The promise of their relationship—the fantasy of what could be—was what was appealing. Not the reality, after the honeymoon period was over and one heart or another had been broken, when they couldn’t be in the same room without sniping at, undermining, or just plain ignoring each other.

And, as expected, without that engine, the well-oiled machine of Intangible had begun to falter. After some trial and error, it had shifted to a Shane-led ensemble cast, picking up some recurring characters from previous seasons and adding a few new ones.

Which meant that Lilah was about to walk into what felt like the first day at a new school, but worse. She wasn’t coming in with a clean slate, the chance to reinvent herself. All she could do was keep her head down, do her job, and hope Shane hadn’t turned too many people against her while she was gone.

On the passenger seat next to her was a box of vegan, gluten-free, refined-sugar-free donuts—her signature move when she wanted to win new people over with treats, without alienating them further by offering something most of them would refuse to eat. Mitzi’s was a neighborhood favorite and one of L.A.’s best-kept secrets, since somehow, despite not containing any ingredients that would indicate it, the donuts were genuinely delicious.

Lilah balanced the box on her hip and slung her bag over her shoulder as she headed toward the entrance, breathing a sigh of relief when the door buzzed and clicked open without issue at the press of her key card. As she padded down the hallway toward the main bullpen, the uncanny feeling of déjà vu mixed with dread got stronger with every step.

She rounded the corner and yelped as she nearly collided with Walt London, Intangible’s showrunner. Walt looked stricken—but then, he kind of always looked like that. He was in his early forties, tall, pale, and sallow, with long black hair and three deeply etched lines on his forehead that reminded her of dragging the end of a paper clip through Silly Putty.

Walt had been running Intangible since the third season, after the show’s creator, Ruth Edwards, had departed due to creative clashes with the network. Once he’d been hired, the tone had shifted drastically. Intangible had started as a quirky, somewhat philosophical exploration of grief, with the ghost characters filling a role that was as equal parts metaphorical as it was paranormal. Walt’s main innovation had been to bring in every mythological creature under the sun, as well as open the show up to the world of larger supernatural conspiracies (government and otherwise).

Lilah had been less than thrilled about the turn things had taken, but she couldn’t deny it got results. The show had been a breakout hit in its first season, but by the end of season two, the ratings had hit a slump. After Walt took over, they reclaimed their spot as the top show in their time slot. Until she left, that is.

When Walt realized it was her, he smiled, an expression that somehow only made him look more worried.

It was difficult to tell if he still had hard feelings about her departure, since hard feelings seemed to be the only kind he had. She’d already met with both him and the network months ago, ahead of her return, and he’d seemed just as distressed then as he did now.

She nodded at him. “You, too. Is everyone else here already?”

He shook his head. “They’re still trickling in. You know how it is.” That was one of his catchphrases, almost always delivered with a world-weary exhale. Whenever he deployed it, the only option was to nod contemplatively, even if she did not, in fact, know how it was.

She nodded contemplatively. “Cool. I’m just gonna put these down, then.”

His gaze alighted on the box in her arms. “Oh. That’s nice of you. I think Shane brought something, too.”

Lilah felt her smile falter. Of course he had. The annoying thing was, Shane was so naturally goddamn likable, he didn’t even need to bribe anyone with baked goods.

Her mouth suddenly went dry. “I think there’s only one North Star.”

He inclined his head gruffly and shrugged. “Well. You know how it is.” He released her arm and continued his journey down the hall. Lilah took a deep breath, heart hammering in her ears, and pushed open the door that led to the writers’ floor.

The Intangible offices were drab and unpretentious: fluorescent lighting, nubby gray carpet, the lingering smell of stale coffee. It was only the framed promo posters from past seasons lining the walls—plus the shelf sporting a handful of Emmys and Golden Globes—that separated it from any run-of-the-mill accounting firm or insurance office. As far as Lilah could tell, nothing had changed since the last time she’d been there.

In the center of the room were four long folding tables arranged in a square shape, surrounded by molded plastic chairs. On the tables were lines of tented cards, one in front of each chair, each printed with a different name. Even though she couldn’t see hers, she knew exactly where she’d be: right next to Shane.

He was already at the table, studying his script. She was a little surprised not to see him mingling; there were at least a dozen people in the room—actors, writers, producers, assorted coordinators and assistants—mostly gathered around the table by the wall where the coffee was laid out.

As she approached the group, her eyes instinctively glued on Shane, she considered Walt’s comments. She and Shane did have a responsibility to lead the show. Could they put aside their history, their differences, their long-simmering resentments—at least for the next few months? After all, they’d gotten along once before, though that practically felt like a fever dream at this point. But wasn’t it a little immature, after all these years, to still hate him as fervently as if he’d wronged her yesterday?

Maybe the tension between them at upfronts was just a fluke, the last of the residual poison working its way out of their systems. Maybe they’d both changed. Grown up. Now that she was in her thirties, having a nemesis felt slightly undignified, anyway.

Once she got closer to the coffee station, though, all thoughts of a cease-fire evaporated. On the table, lying open next to the mugs, was a pink cardboard box with pale green flowers around the border. An identical box to the one she had braced against her hip.

That motherfucker.

She dumped the box on the table, not even bothering to open it before turning on her heel and making a beeline for Shane, who still seemed oblivious that she was even in the room.

Don’t say anything. Don’t say anything. You can still take the high road. Just brush it off.

She kept her tone nonchalant, though inside she was seething. “Well. I hope it was worth it.”

He shrugged, returning to his script. “I don’t know what you’re so upset about. All I see are two identical boxes of donuts. Unless you had each of yours inscribed with ‘Courtesy of Lilah Hunter’ in icing so everyone knows who to thank.” He punctuated his sentence with an enormous bite of the half-eaten vanilla-lavender donut in front of him, releasing a moan so loud it bordered on orgasmic. A few heads turned in their direction.

It was uncanny how quickly he had her careening from angry to gaslit to belittled to ashamed—all over something as insignificant as donuts. He was right. It didn’t matter that he’d brought his own box. But there was no doubt in her mind that he’d done it to rile her up and then make her feel ridiculous for even caring; and, of course, it had worked. It always did.

No one else knew how to push her buttons quite like Shane. She just wished he didn’t feel the need to pounce on every opportunity to do so.

Lilah pushed her chair back with a dull scrape against the carpet and took off in the direction of the bathroom without another word.

She wasn’t going there to hide. That would be beneath her. She was thirty-one years old, and, as much as it might feel like it right now, she wasn’t in high school anymore. She just needed to be alone for a second. And if that second happened to last all thirteen minutes before the table read started, well, that was just a coincidence.

She locked herself in the farthest stall from the door, plunked herself on the toilet, lid down, and scrolled idly through her phone. She was halfway through responding to a text from her sister asking how things were going (which mainly involved searching for the GIF of Real Housewife Dorinda Medley shouting “Not well, bitch!”) when she heard the door of the bathroom open, along with the tail end of a conversation.

Lilah froze as a stall door swung shut near the bathroom’s entrance.

The first woman laughed, flushing the toilet and emerging from the stall. “Noooo thank you. You better lock down your Instagram now, before the Karrisons come for you.”

The second woman groaned. “God. Maybe I should go into witness protection. Just, like, fuck it, new identity.”

Lilah’s stomach twisted, her mind racing. Her first instinct was to get defensive. Fuck ’em. If they wanted to resent her for something that was out of her control—tilting the balance of the show back toward her and Shane—there was nothing she could do about it. But maybe that was unfair. It wouldn’t hurt her to be the bigger person in this situation, especially since they were upset about the idea of her, not anything she’d done.

Should she go out there and confront them, break the ice, get it all out in the open now? Or just pretend she’d never heard it, and try to kill them with kindness once she met them? She sat, stone-still, paralyzed with indecision, as the two of them laughed and chattered their way back out of the bathroom.

After a long, slow count of ten, she followed them.

…

Shane had always had a thing for redheads.

Not that he was weird about it or anything. For the most part, he didn’t have much of a physical type, his mind wandering whenever bro-talk inevitably turned to debating the hierarchy of tits versus asses. It felt like a Frankenstein-esque approach to attraction, one that had never resonated with him. He’d dated and slept with women of a variety of shapes, sizes, and backgrounds (and hair colors, for the record), and found it was usually the complete package that did it for him, rather than any individual piece.

But all that aside, there was only one feature guaranteed to turn his head every time. Real or fake, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t sure if he’d always been wired that way, or if he’d just seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit one too many times at an impressionable age. Whatever it was, it had started early, it was embedded deep, and it was completely out of his control.

Which was why, the first time he’d met Lilah, it had felt like some kind of cosmic plan—which would later feel more like a cosmic prank. Like the Intangible creative team had reached into the depths of his subconscious and pulled her right out of his horny teenage fantasies.

The worst part was, her hair was just the cherry on top, so to speak. She didn’t have a bad angle—not to be taken for granted in their line of work. He should know. He’d logged more than enough hours spitefully studying her, trying his damndest to catch a glimpse of something weak or drooping or asymmetrical.

But unfortunately, no matter the perspective, she was all angular jawline, cut glass cheekbones, eyes and lips that were about 30 percent bigger than they rightfully should’ve been. His Botticelli wet dream come to life, sent from hell to drive him crazy.

And, since she was a natural redhead, her skin was covered head to toe in a constellation of golden-brown freckles that were only visible up close. More than once, he’d attempted to count them all as she giggled and squirmed beneath him, always getting too distracted somewhere in the low double digits to finish. But that might as well have been a lifetime ago at this point.

That was the problem with fantasies. They were shallow, passive, one-sided. Easily controlled. They always crumbled under the revelation that the object of your desire was not, in fact, an object but a flawed, willful, three-dimensional human being. No fantasy could withstand what the two of them had been through: the years of grudges and ego clashes and betrayals, amplified by a demanding schedule that had them spending every waking minute together.

Lilah wasn’t his dream. She was just a person. A person who, most of the time, he couldn’t fucking stand—and it was no secret the feeling was mutual. For the most part, they’d become experts at ignoring each other whenever they were off camera. It was the only way to survive working in such close contact with a hostile ex.

Still, he’d never been able to shake his constant, involuntary awareness of her, like there was some Lilah-specific radar burrowed deep beneath his skin that couldn’t help but ping out a warning whenever she was in close proximity. Worse, it seemed like their time apart had only made it stronger: without even looking up, he immediately knew when she’d returned to the bullpen. But maybe he could just tell from the way the chatter around him suddenly dipped in volume, full-throated conversations turning to murmurs several long moments before she slid back into her seat beside him.

Walt stood up from his seat on Shane’s other side and cleared his throat, prompting the last stragglers to find their spots.

Shane looked down at his script as a modest smattering of applause traveled around the room. He didn’t join in.

Walt had them all go around the table and briefly introduce themselves before kicking off the reading without much fanfare. Shane struggled to keep his focus, feeling uncharacteristically self-conscious.

He’d sat beside her at dozens of table reads, of course, but this one felt different. Before, even if they hadn’t gotten along, she’d still belonged there. Now, she felt like an interloper, sitting there in stiff, judgmental silence. He could practically feel her scrutinizing his every line reading, whether he’d gotten worse in the three years she’d been gone.

But when they reached her one and only line—the final line of the episode—it was obvious she hadn’t been paying as close attention as he’d assumed. She still appeared to be studying her script, but as the silence stretched, every eye in the room turning toward her, she was clearly zoned out, lost in her own world. When she looked up again, it was to meet his gaze with a scowl—though it only took a second for her to realize her mistake.

Her transformation was so seamless that he’d almost believe she wasn’t flustered, if her cheeks and neck weren’t stained scarlet. She’d always blushed easily—her only tell. He used to relish his ability to trigger it: undeniable physical proof that she wasn’t as unflappable as she appeared on the surface.

As Walt took over again to wrap things up, Shane slid his glance back over to Lilah just in time to see a split-second flash of misery cross her expression before she composed herself again, the color draining from her face. He felt a stab of something undefined in the pit of his stomach at the sight of it. He wanted to blame it on scarfing that donut down too fast, but he knew that wasn’t all it was.

For the first time in years, he found himself questioning why he felt the urge to antagonize her. What he wanted from it, what he got out of it. She’d given him more than enough reasons to dislike her, but even the most recent one—her parting shot before she’d left, arguably the worst of all—was years behind them at this point. Besides, there was no doubt that he had the upper hand in this situation. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea to extend an olive branch. Try to leave the past in the past, and move on like they should have long ago.

The room dissolved into murmurs and chatter as everyone stood, stretched, and gathered their things. He looked over at Lilah, who’d shoved her script in her bag and gotten up in one abrupt motion. He hurried to his feet, too.

Say something nice. Something supportive.

He realized immediately that was the worst thing he could’ve said under the circumstances. She shot him a look that could’ve stripped the paint off a car.

She swept out of the room before he could respond.

Well, he’d given it a shot. Now he could go on hating her with a clean conscience.

…

When he arrived back home, his younger brother, Dean, was watching TV in the living room. Dean had been his stand-in on Intangible since season two but was somehow still “crashing” in Shane’s “guest room” as if he’d just moved to L.A. the week before.

As Shane’s stand-in, Dean wasn’t needed at the table read—he notoriously never read the scripts at all. But then, he didn’t have to. His job was to be roughly the same size and coloring as Shane and stand on Shane’s marks as they adjusted the lighting and cameras. No context required. Sometimes he’d even played the back of Shane’s head when he and Lilah were having a particularly bad day. It hadn’t happened that often, but it had happened more than Shane was proud of.

Colin was Shane’s stunt double—yet another person whose job it was to look vaguely like Shane. On the days that all three of them were on set, it was a little uncanny. When he’d found out that Colin and Dean had an occasional friends-with-benefits arrangement, Shane had been slightly unnerved, unsure if it crossed the line into pseudo-incest or was just regular narcissism.

Shane unwrapped the first of his tacos. “Oh yeah? Is that back on?”

Dean shrugged, leaning over to grab a few tortilla chips from the bag. “He was seeing someone for a while, but I guess it’s over.”

Shane’s phone buzzed in his back pocket. He shifted to the side to pull it out.

Dean shook his head, muting the television. Shane answered the call and put it on speaker, setting the phone down on the table as he wiped his hands on a napkin.

Renata chuckled. Shane had asked her years ago if she wanted him to tell Dean to cut out the flirting, but she’d waved him aside. She didn’t wear a wedding ring, but other than that, her personal life was something of a mystery to him, as was her age—she could’ve been anywhere from forty to seventy. But if it didn’t bother her, it didn’t bother Shane, and it always stayed playful enough that they both seemed to be having fun.

Shane tried to steer the conversation back on track. “So what’s up?”

Dean snorted. “They probably can’t Photoshop him into that one, huh?”

Dread brewed in the pit of his stomach. “How much skin?”

Shane stared down at his taco, feeling Dean’s eyes on him.

Dean groaned, swiping the bag of tortilla chips out of Shane’s reach entirely. “He always gets so grumpy when he’s dieting.”

Shane cracked a smile, too, despite himself. “I don’t think we need to go that far. They can do amazing things with makeup these days. I’ll just get them painted on.”

Renata laughed again. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll let them know you’re up for it.”

When Shane hung up, Dean turned the volume back up on the television, and the two of them sat in silence that bordered on uncomfortable. Lilah had been a touchy subject ever since the season-five wrap party—the last time Shane had seen her until upfronts. The night that had shown him once and for all what kind of person she was.

It was obvious they were both thinking about it. Shane considered saying something, but the idea of hashing it all out again this long after the fact felt both exhausting and unnecessary. He wasn’t really the confrontational type, anyway, especially when it came to Dean. Even though he was pushing thirty, Dean was still the baby of the family, and no matter how annoyed Shane got with him, his protective instinct always won out.

Almost always.