I knew this was going to suck. I just didn’t know exactly how much until one week passes and I already want to quit.

It’s not that Jackson is being obnoxious. In fact, after that first conversation at the table reading, he actually backed off a little bit. He still gives me these looks that make my entire spine shiver, but he’s not coming up to me and trying to talk to me.

Which maybe is even a little worse, because now he’s spending most of his time with his coworkers and the crew. Everyone loves Jackson on set. He’s charming, funny, attractive, and a hard worker. There’s no bullshit with Jackson, which is actually surprising. Most Hollywood guys come with huge egos, but not Jackson. He works his ass off to get every single shot right the way Lionel wants it.

And he’s actually pretty good. I knew he could act a little bit based on his last movie, but I hadn’t seen him in person yet. Jackson is actually a talented actor working with limited material. I mean, he’s an action star, so there’s always going to be a little bit of leeway there, but he doesn’t need it. Jackson is a talented man, which I’ve known for a very long time.

I still remember him back then. Everyone loved him. I knew he was going to go places, and I foolishly hoped he’d bring me with him. That only made it so much worse when he disappeared. Not only did he leave me, but I felt like he was throwing away so much of his potential by signing up for the military.

Of course, I was wrong, but I was a stupid kid back then. I thought he was going to go get blown up overseas or something, but instead he had a long and successful career as a SEAL. And now he’s an action movie star, and I’m just a script girl, hopelessly angry with him for something he did over ten years ago.

“Scene nine, take three. Action!” The clapper slaps down and the set is dead silent. I glance down at the script in front of me, trying to keep focused on what’s happening in front of me.

“They’re coming back, you know,” Jackson grunts.

“Let them. We’ll be ready.” Holly pumps her shotgun, making that exaggerated loading sound. Her shirt is slightly torn and she’s sweating, making her look absolutely stunning. If I weren’t straight, I’d have a total lady boner for her.

“We can’t win every fight.” Jackson pushes her shotgun down, glancing at the window. “They’ll come tonight. We have a few hours though. And in the meantime, we’re going to run.”

Holly stares hard at him. “Run? Are you joking?”

“Run,” he says, stepping closer to her. The tension ramps up, and the way he’s staring at her… he really does want to fuck her. I mean, I know he’s acting, but he really wants to do it. I bet he would take her right here, and I wouldn’t blame him one bit. She’s begging for it and…

Oh my god, I’m being a jealous psycho. I take a breath and glance away, steadying myself. They’re acting right now. It’s Jackson’s job to make it look like he wants Holly right now. I mean, maybe he doesn’t have to be so good at it, and maybe he doesn’t need to stare at her breasts like that, but still. The scene is clearly working.

“I won’t run. Not after what they did to my sister.”

“We’ll avenge her,” he whispers, and I glance down at my script. I frown at the words, We’ll get revenge for her.

As Jackson leans in for the kiss, I lean in toward Lionel and show him the page. He looks at it and frowns. “Cut,” he calls out.

Jackson and Holly stop, inches before their lips meet. “What’s wrong?” Jackson asks. “Was that too much?”

“No, no, you two were great. But Jackson, your words. They are, ‘We will get revenge for her,’ you see?” He holds up my script for him.

Jackson looks at me and smirks, and I look away. “Sure,” he says. “I understand.”

“Okay, good. Reset, take it from the top.”

I can tell from his smile that he thinks I stopped that scene just because he was going to kiss Holly, but that’s not the case. I know he’s going to kiss her a lot, it’s his job. I can’t be that jealous. I’m a professional, I’ve watched plenty of actors kiss, I know how it goes. Then again, I haven’t seen the boy that broke my heart kiss a beautiful woman right in front of me before.

The scene restarts, and this time they get through it all, including the passionate kiss. As he’s kissing Holly though, I could swear that he’s looking at me with a grin on his face, but of course that’s impossible.

Still, I keep thinking about that moment for the rest of the day. I could have let that little line go, and most of the time I do. I don’t know why it mattered that he phrased it slightly differently. Did I just stop that because he was about to kiss her?

No, that can’t be it. I was just doing my job. I’m supposed to make sure that they’re following the script and not deviating too much, and I guess I felt like that was too different. That has to be all there is.

We break for lunch not too long after, but I just keep thinking about that moment. I didn’t break in again after that, and I’m sure nobody else thought anything of it. But I know Jackson noticed, and I know he liked it.

I’m cleaning up the set and making sure the crew is putting stuff in the right spot when I hear him just behind me.

“What do you think so far?”

I turn around and Jackson is grinning at me. “It looks good,” I say, which is what I’d say to any actor asking me that question.

“I couldn’t help but notice that the very first time you interrupted to fix a line was during that scene earlier,” he says slowly.

“What do you mean?” I ask him, eyes narrowing. “You were the one that got it wrong.”

“Barely worth changing,” he says, and shrugs. “But you’re just doing your job.”

“Right. Exactly.” I glare at him. “Did you just come over here to criticize me?”

He laughs and shakes his head. “Not at all. Look, we have a long shoot ahead of us. I don’t want things to be weird.”

I sigh and cross my arms. “It’s not weird.”

“It’s weird,” he says, his grin getting bigger. “You’re still angry with me, and I probably deserve it. But let’s call a truce, at least until we’re done working together.”

I sigh and watch him for a second. I’m trying to decide if this is some kind of trick, but if it is, I don’t see it.

“Come on,” he says. “Just a temporary truce. Make this job easier on both of us. Afterward, you can go back to hating me if you want.”

“Fine,” I say, a little reluctantly. “Just for filming. You’re still a dick.”

He laughs. “Fair enough. Come on, let’s grab some food. They can handle it over here.”

I hesitate but I decide to follow him. He’s right, we need to bury the past, at least for now. If we can get to the point where things are at least passably friendly between us then maybe this might not be so bad.

As we head over to the lunch counter and get some food, I can’t help but feel like I’m in school all over again. I used to walk through the halls with him and just bask in the glow of how popular he was. It’s the same on the set, everywhere he goes, people want to talk to him and say hey. He seems to know everyone’s name, and he seems so totally genuine in his interest with every single person that I’m almost jealous of him.

He’s always had this natural charisma. Obviously it’s part of what drew me to him when we were kids.

“Hey, you remember Camp Neshaminy?” he asks me as we move away from the lunch line and head off toward an empty table.

“I was just thinking about that too,” I admit to him.

“It’s the line and eating outside, right?”

I can’t help but smile. “Yeah. Feels so much like camp.”

“Remember what I said to you when we first met?” he asks as we sit down together.

Of course I remember. I remember every single word he ever said to me, but especially that moment. We were just little kids back then attending the same summer camp. I was pretty shy, and he was already king of the whole place. He had the counselors eating out of his palms and the kids all worshipped him.

“You said, ‘hey four-eyes, come here and let me make you laugh.’” I grin at him. “You were always an asshole.”

He laughs and nods. “Especially back then. But you looked so fucking grumpy all the time, I just had to try and make you smile.”

“Yeah, well, I was better off without you.”

He scoffs at that. “Hardly. I made those camps fun.”

“I don’t think anything could make that place fun, Jackson. I’m pretty sure their budget was ten dollars, and the director drank it all away.”

He laughs at that and shrugs. “You’re probably right. I liked it, though. We used to sit on that dock after we were supposed to be in bed and talk. Remember that?”

“I remember,” I say softly, smiling at him. “So is this your plan? Bring up good old memories and hope that I don’t think about the bad stuff?”

He shrugs a little, smiling softly. “Guess so. How’s it working?”

“Not bad so far. But you’re still an ass.”

He laughs and digs into his food. I watch him for a second, smiling despite myself. Those summer camp days and nights were some of the best of my life, especially after he made me his friend. And later, when we got a little older and started to understand certain things, he made me more than that. Our first kiss happened on that dock, and while all the other guys were trying to finger their girlfriends and pressuring them to go further, he always respected me back then. We took it slow, and that only made me respect him more.

Now, looking back on it, I wish I had done more with him. I wish I had gotten to experience what it would have been like with Jackson. I’ve always wondered. I can’t really help but wonder. Jackson is so damn handsome and charming and good at everything. Sex with him would be like…. well, like a dream, I guess.

“How’s your family?” he asks me.

I shrug a little. “Not bad, I guess.” I hesitate for a second. “I heard about your mom. I’m really sorry about that.”

He goes quiet suddenly. About a year after Jackson left, his mother died of cancer. I don’t know when she was diagnosed or really much about it. I was so angry with him in those days, I didn’t really look into it at all. I wish I had, because I know that his father wasn’t exactly a good guy. In fact, I know his father was a damn drunk, and they never had much money.

“Happened on my first tour,” he says to me. “I tried to get back home for the funeral, but…” He trails off, shaking his head.

“That must have been hard. I’m sorry I never… you know.”

“Yeah, I get it,” he says. “Don’t worry. She was sick for a while, so in a lot of ways, it was a relief.”

I pause a second. “She was sick for a while?”

He nods. “I never talked much about it. She got diagnosed like a year before I signed up, died a year later. Cancer came back and got worse, you know how that can be.”

“You didn’t tell me that,” I say softly, surprised. He never once mentioned it, not even back then. We were together when he found out.

“I couldn’t talk about it,” he admits. “Dad was drinking more. My brothers were too young to do anything about it. I helped as much as I could.” He shrugs and forces a smile. “That was all a long time ago now, though.”

I watch him as he goes back to eating, surprised as hell. I knew things were bad for him at home. We never really went to his place, since his father was such a shitty guy, but I had no clue about his mom. As far as I knew, she was pretty decent. He has two younger brothers, both of them grown now, but back then they were just kids. I know he did a lot for them, but there’s only so much an eighteen-year-old kid can do for his family.

He turns the subject back onto the movie we’re filming, and we idly talk shop as we finish our lunch. I keep thinking back to what he said about his mother and the timeline, and things just seem so strange. I can’t believe he didn’t tell me back then and I can only imagine how hard that was for him.

But it only confuses me more. I don’t get why he joined the military and ran away, unless he was trying to get away from his parents, especially his father. I always assumed that was the case, he was just trying to get out of town, and he left without bringing me along. I always assumed he was too ashamed, and that’s why he never wrote back to me.

But maybe not. There’s more to this story than I realized. He doesn’t seem to want to talk much about it, unless we’re talking about the good times, so I don’t press. It’s just good that we’re talking normally, and I don’t want to risk getting pissed off at him all over again.

Still… things are strange. I need to know more. I still want to understand what he was thinking back then. He’s a bastard that broke my heart, but I have to be around this bastard.

So it’s a truce for now. And who knows how long it’ll last.