I’m sweating slightly, my breath coming faster as my body works to normalize itself. We just spent the last hour shooting the same ten-second fight sequence over and over again, and although I’m worn out, I’m still exhilarated.

There’s nothing like a real fight to get your blood jumping, though this is pretty decent. I’ll never feel like I did back with the SEALs when I was doing real deadly work. Back then, the fights weren’t scripted, and my life was genuinely in danger.

A film set is fun and it’s a nice workout, but I’m not in any real danger. And I’m not taking real lives. Out there on the battlefield, I killed America’s enemies, because that was my job.

Here though, I don’t have to worry about that. It feels good and it feels strange to be free of the constant nagging fear that my next mission might be my last.

“How was that last flip?” I ask her as we watch the playback on the monitor. Lionel is already off talking with the lighting guys, and so it’s just me and Tara watching the footage.

“It looks good,” she says without turning around. “I think it’ll fit right.”

I nod and lean in closer. “They really sell it, don’t they?” I ask her.

She glances back at me. “Huh?” she asks.

“The stunt guys,” I say, nodding at the extras that I was fighting with. “They’re really impressive.”

“Oh. Yeah, definitely.”

“I mean, I’m the star or whatever, but I’d be nothing without guys that could do that. I mean seriously, watch him take this punch. It looks so…” I trail off as on screen, I punch a guy in the face and he collapses in a realistic way.

“It looks real,” she finishes for me. “Yeah, I can’t argue with that.” As the footage ends, she turns and looks at me, a strange curiosity on her face.

“What?” I ask her.

“It’s just, I’ve worked on more than a few big budget movies like this, and I’ve never had a lead talk about the crew like you do.”

I blink at her, surprised. “What should I talk about?”

“Well, normally it’s about how you look.”

I grin at her. “I’m not that kind of guy. Besides, I know I look good.”

She rolls her eyes and starts walking. I fall in beside her as we head across the set.

“Fact is, I’m new to all this,” I say to her. “I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

“You seem pretty confident to me,” she says.

“It’s easy to fake. I mean, two years ago, I was fighting on a battlefield in Syria, risking my damn life. And now I’m here, in front of cameras all day long.”

She hesitates for a second. “That must be weird for you.”

“Very weird,” I say. “Bizarre, actually. I was hoping…” I trail off a little bit as we walk though a group of stunt guys coordinating the next scene.

“You were hoping what?” she asks, stopping and facing me.

“I was hoping you could help me. You know this business better than I do.”

“You don’t need my help,” she says, not even thinking about it.

“I think I do,” I answer. “I’ve gotten lucky so far, but if I’m going to do this job for real, I need to learn how to be an actual actor.”

“And how can I help with that?” she asks, not batting an eye.

“You know how to act on these sets. I have no clue, I’m just faking it.”

She watches me for a second, and I can’t help but look into her gorgeous deep eyes. I keep seeing that strong, serious girl that I knew so long ago. She’s still there, just buried under the years and so many experiences that I don’t know a damn thing about. I barely know Tara anymore, and yet I feel like I know her so well. She’s barely changed.

“Sorry,” she says. “I can’t.”

“Just have dinner with me tonight. We’ll talk about it, let me pick your brain.”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “Sorry.”

Before I can say a word, she turns and walks off. I think about going after her, but I can’t see the point in that.

The conversation bugs me for the rest of the day. I figured we had reached some kind of truce and maybe we could start being friends. But she was a little distant, maybe even a little cold.

Maybe I’m stupid, but I can’t see where this resentment is still coming from. I know she’s still angry about what I did to her all those years ago, but this feels like it’s fresh or something like that. I don’t know what I’m doing to push her away, but it’s not like she’s going to open up and tell me.

I spend the rest of the day slightly distracted, but I get through shooting. We have a bunch of action sequences to get through, which is actually good for me. I like to get physical when I have a problem, and I find that doing these scenes over and over is pretty cathartic. By the end of the day, I’m tired, but I feel productive and my stress is gone.

At the end of a shooting day, the crew cleans up the set and starts to prep for tomorrow’s scenes. I take a shower while that’s happening, and by the time I’m done, people are usually heading home. Sometimes I go back to my apartment, have some scotch, and get some sleep. Sometimes I meet the crew guys out for a few drinks.

Today, I go looking for Tara. I’m not happy about how that conversation earlier went, and I want to know what the deal is. I asked her for help and she just outright turned me down. I want to get through that shell she has, and I can’t keep waiting for her to come to me.

I find her chatting with some extras near the catering tent. I walk up to the group with a smile on my face.

“Hey guys, mind if I steal her for a second?” I say to them.

She looks at me with narrowed eyes but doesn’t say anything as I steer her away. We walk over to a more private part of the set. Above us, an enormous clock is ticking away, part of the scenery for tomorrow’s shoot. The face is glowing yellow, casting an eerie hue down on top of us.

“What’s up, Jackson?” she says to me.

I watch her for a second, measuring her. “Why did you turn me down earlier?”

She sighs. “We don’t have to get into this.”

“No, we do. You said we had a truce.”

“I did say that.” She turns away from me, but I grab her arm and turn her back. Her eyes are wide as I look down into hers, and goddamn, do I want to take her right here, right now. She’s so fucking sexy, and there’s a little anger in her gaze, which only makes me want her that much more.

“I don’t trust you,” she whispers.

“You don’t trust me?” I cock my head and slowly let her arm go. She crosses them over her chest.

“No,” she says. “I’ve heard rumors about you, Jackson. And you know what? We don’t know each other anymore.”

I stare at her for a second, surprised that she listens to that sort of shit. “You’re still that girl I knew,” I say to her softly.

“I doubt it,” she says. “You’re not the guy I knew.”

“Yes, I am. I’ve just been through some shit, like you have. But we haven’t changed, not fundamentally.”

“I don’t know if I agree with that. And anyway, just because we have a truce, doesn’t mean I want to get close to you.”

“I don’t believe that,” I say, smirking at her. “I see the way you look at me, Tara. You still remember what it was like back then, and you still wonder…”

She glares at me. “Wonder what?”

“What it would feel like to have me do exactly what you want me to do to you.”

She’s quiet for a second, but she doesn’t argue. My heart is beating fast and she’s not running away, not turning away from me. She tips her chin up and stares into my eyes.

“Do you have any idea what it was like when you left?” she asks me suddenly.

I frown at her and sigh. “No, I don’t,” I admit.

“You just disappeared. One day we were as close as I’ve ever been with someone, and then you joined the military without even telling me. You never wrote, you never called.”

“I got your letters,” I say softly. “I still have them.”

She hesitates but shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter now. You decided to leave me, Jackson. That wasn’t my choice. And now you’re back and what, you think it can go back to the way it was?”

“No,” I say to her. “I don’t think that. The man I was when I was out there… you didn’t want to know that man, Tara.”

“Maybe but you didn’t give me that choice, did you?”

I watch her quietly for a second and sigh. “Remember that guy, Silas Lerain?”

She hesitates, a little thrown off balance. “Yeah, I remember Silas. Never shut up.”

“Yeah, that was Silas. Always talking shit.” I grin at her. “One day, we were walking to school and he goes, ‘Hey man, why the fuck do you hang around that Tara chick all the time? You could have any girl in the school. So why her?’ And you know what I said?”

She shakes her head. “I have no clue.”

“I said that she’s the only girl worth my time. He fucking made fun of me for saying that for weeks, but it was the truth. Still is the truth.”

She smiles a little bit. “I think I remember that. He used to call you a bitch boy.”

“He was an asshole,” I say, smiling a bit.

“Didn’t you end up punching him?”

“Yeah, well, that was because he called my little brother a faggot and tried to steal his iPod.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot that. Silas really was a piece of shit.”

“Not as bad as Marty, remember that kid?”

“Oh god,” she groans. “I haven’t thought about Stinky Marty in years.”

“That asshole never showered after gym class. Not even once.”

“We all paid for his mistakes.”

We laugh together and for a second, it feels normal between us. The feelings we both have, complicated by time and distance and anger and resentment, seem a little less sharp. The more we talk about them, the more it feels like we’re getting it all out. And maybe that’s what she needs, to get it all out.

She glances down at her phone and sighs. “Look, I have to go. I’ll think about dinner.”

“I appreciate that,” I say. “I promise I’ll be on my best behavior.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you will be.” She smiles up at me as I grin at her. I want to kiss her so badly, but I know I can’t. Not yet at least. She’s still angry and still holding on to something, but she’ll let it all go eventually. She just needs to understand that I wasn’t leaving her. I never meant to leave her. I thought it would be better if I cut it off, but god, I was so stupid back then.

“See you tomorrow, movie star.” She grins at me and walks away.

I watch her go, yearning to touch her skin again. Soon, I’ll taste her again, and show her what she’s been missing all these years.

But for now, I’ll try and be patient, although that’s not my strong suit.