When I first came to LA, I hated it here. I hated the perfect weather, hated the perfect people, and really hated how fake everything felt.

But I was determined. I came to this town with a dream, and I’m not the kind of girl to give up just because I get a little homesick. And so over the years, I met people, made friends, built up a life, and landed the best job I could ever imagine working for one of the largest studios around.

But over the years, personal stuff kind of fell by the wayside. I’ve dated, sure, but never seriously. Guys never stuck around, and I guess I never cared all that much. I was dedicated to building my career.

And now here I am, twenty-eight years old, living with an awesome roommate, but totally, chronically, impossibly single. I haven’t met a decent guy in months, and I’m starting to feel like I never will.

There’s something missing in my life. I love working as a script girl, even though I despise that title. But basically, I’m the liaison between the writer, the director, and the script itself. I make sure that we’re following the plot, that things make sense, that we’re keeping continuity. If lines change, I mark the main script up, and I make sure it makes sense in the greater story. If a character says his name is Timmy, and later in the movie his name randomly changes to Tommy, well, that’d be my fault.

I love it. I love working with different directors, actors, and writers. I do a bunch of different things on set, and I’m like a jack of all trades on top of my usual script duties.

And I’m looking forward to this upcoming job. My roommate, Laney Lane, not her real name, is one of the best action writers in Hollywood. But because she’s a woman, it’s harder for her to sell her scripts. Fortunately though, I was able to get her script for Brutally Dishonest into the right hands at my studio, and the rest is history. Now I get to work as script girl for my closest friend’s film, and I can’t wait to get started.

I wake up early and roll out of bed. Our apartment isn’t the nicest thing in the world, but I like it enough. It’s basically a little bungalow at the edge of town. I head into the bathroom, do my usual morning routine, and find Laney already up, drinking coffee, and typing away.

“Your work ethic is inspiring,” I say to her, grinning.

“Gotta keep the grind going,” she says, a little bleary-eyed.

“Wait, did you sleep last night?” I cock my head at her.

She grins at me sheepishly and looks up from her screen. “How can you tell?”

“Well, the dead-eyed stare, the messy hair, and the general disheveled appearance kind of gives it away.”

She sighs and leans back, yawning. “I got sucked into this story and now I can’t stop.”

“What’s it about?” I ask.

“I think it might be the sequel to Brutally Dishonest. It’s about Brock Brockhard and his huge, ah, gun, you know.”

I grin at her. “Sure, I get it.”

“Anyway, he’s sent to deal with some Nazis down in South America, but when he gets there, he finds out that the conspiracy goes so much deeper.”

“Deeper how?” I ask. I’m already a fan. Nothing wrong with killing some Nazis.

“Aliens,” she says, her eyes a little wide.

“Laney,” I groan. “You can’t be serious.”

“Aliens,” she repeats. “Brock finds out that the Nazis are working with the aliens to overthrow the American government, but really, the aliens are just using the Nazis. They’ve already infiltrated the government to the highest level, and it’s up to Rick to root them out.”

I look at her for a second and decide just to be honest. “You need to sleep,” I say.

She frowns at me. “That bad?”

“Maybe,” I say. “I haven’t read it.”

“Damn.” She stretches and yawns again before shutting the laptop lid. “I probably should sleep. The aliens only appeared in the third act, which I started writing around three in the morning.”

I can’t help but laugh. Laney is always doing stuff like this, staying up too late and writing crazy scripts. Most of the time, I can convince her to make them a little more conventional, but every once in a while she writes a masterpiece and shops it around. Those don’t usually sell, but she has sold a few other movies.

Brutally Dishonest is her biggest though, and it’s looking like the budget is going to be huge.

I head into the kitchen and pour myself some coffee. At least she was nice enough to make some for me, too. I sip my mug and pause when I catch sight of the magazine on the kitchen table.

“Laney,” I call out, walking over to it and slowly picking it up. “What’s this doing here?”

“You’ll have to be more specific,” she answers from the other room.

I stare at his face, his handsome, familiar face, and I want to vomit. I hate seeing him around town. I hate how popular he is, how everyone knows his name. Women want to throw themselves at him, men want to be him. He’s a real action star and people love him.

But they don’t know Jackson like I do. He’s a liar, a filthy asshole, and a bastard. I don’t want to ever see him again, and yet now I can’t seem to freaking get away from his face.

I walk out into the living room, holding up the magazine. Laney looks up and grins at me. “Oh,” she says. “That.”

“Yes, this. Since when do you read this stuff?” It’s a gossip rag that basically writes about upcoming and in-production projects.

“Did you read that front cover?”

“No,” I admit. “You know this thing is wrong more often than it’s right.”

“It’s not wrong this time. Read it.”

I look down at the cover, and I think I have a heart attack.

“No,” I whisper.

“Oh yeah,” Laney says, sounding so excited. “I couldn’t believe it either when I first heard, but it’s true. I got the email last night. He signed the papers a couple days ago, and it’s official.”

“Shit,” I whisper to myself, and I feel like my whole life is crashing down.

In big, bold letters, the headline read, “Big Jackson Hendricks to star in Brutally Dishonest.”

“Isn’t he so hot?” Laney says to me. “I’m a little jealous. You’ll get to see him every day. You’ll be working pretty close with him. I’d give anything to get close to that guy.”

I drop the magazine and shake my head. “No, no, hell no, Laney,” I say. “I won’t work with that asshole, absolutely not.”

I storm away, back into my bedroom. I slam the door behind me and climb back into bed. I wrap the sheets around my head, but I know that won’t make a difference.

Jackson is going to star in Brutally Dishonest, and I’m going to have to see him every single day for the whole shoot. That could last months.

Laney doesn’t know. Nobody knows what he did to me. Nobody knows how we lived next to each other for years, grew up together, made promises to each other.

Nobody knows how he disappeared one day, leaving me brokenhearted, and never once answered a single letter I sent him.

I moved away, moved on, and thought I was over him. But now that he’s back, and in the freaking business no less, I can’t escape my feelings. I can’t escape the hurt, the anger, and yes, the desire that still lingers inside of me.

Having to work with him is like my biggest nightmare. He was the boy next door. He was the man I wanted to give myself to. He said I was too young, since he was older than me, but I just had to wait.

I was patient. I was waiting. We kissed, held hands, talked all day long about what we wanted to do when we got older.

And then he turned eighteen and he vanished.

Now I’m stuck with him. I can’t back out of this movie, despite my little meltdown. Laney has been really good to me and she’s helped me through some tough times over the years. I can’t turn my back on her now and not work on this. She’s my closet friend. Heck, she’s probably my only friend.

I can’t let her down. So I’m going to do this movie. I’m going to work with Jackson Hendricks. I’m going to relive that pain every single day during this shoot, all for a movie with a totally lame title.

This is going to be a lot harder than I could possibly have imagined.