In some parts of the world, rain on an important day is usually considered bad luck. Since we’re in Los Angeles, where drought is part of everyday life, the mood is a combination of cheer and wariness. Every time thunder booms and lightning brightens the sky, everyone on set jumps. We need the moisture, but we aren’t used to the accompanying show.

It’s three hours into what is scheduled to be a twelve-hour day and we’re already two scenes behind. It’s raining hard enough that the camera operators have to cover their gear and their bodies in special tech ponchos, but I’m still holding out hope that the clouds will close so we can finally get to the scene we’ve been delaying for the past hour.

Right now I’m starting to think I’m not going to get my way.

Hurry up and wait. Again.

I usually handle the on set stop-and-go with a good amount of patience. Today, not so much. It’s taking all the energy in my body not to bite every nail off my fingers. People are huddled in the craft services tent, sipping steaming cups of coffee and chatting while I just want to scream at them to move the entire set to a soundstage so we can get moving already.

Today has to go perfectly.

It’s the day that Jenna and I are shooting our first scene together. Or, it’s supposed to be the day.  For the past sixty minutes we’ve been standing three feet from each other, not speaking, as the powers that be – in this case both Mother Nature and our director - decide our fate. Time spent not shooting costs money. I know this is as annoying to Polly as it is to me, if not more so, but I’m self-absorbed in my anxiety and can’t believe that anyone is as worked up about this delay as I am.

As producers call studios who call execs and watch the weather reports, Jenna whispers into her phone. Yeah, I’m watching her. I pretend to play Backgammon on mine, while sneaking sidelong glances and wondering if it’s her new boyfriend she’s whispering to. Wondering, if so, what he’s like. Does he know about us? About our past? He must. Everyone does. I wonder if he’s as jealous of me as I suddenly am of him.

Finally, she hangs up. And now we’re just standing here, ignoring each other and waiting.

I take a deep breath and turn to talk to her, but think better of it. If she were interested in conversation, she’d at least have looked at me. My breath whooshes out, enough to cause her to glance my way. When our eyes meet, I feel a jolt of electricity and I could swear I see some softness there before the disinterest slides in.

She’s quick to look back down at her phone, but I stare just a little longer. Long enough to fix her in my head to enjoy later—probably while jerking off in my trailer.

That should take the edge off.

The kelly green sundress she’s wearing is cut short, allowing those famous mile-long legs to take center stage. As I gaze at her, a gust of wind billows through, lifting her dress just enough for me to see a peek of the lacy panties beneath, just enough to tease me. She still likes to match her underwear to her outfit, I see. I look forward again just before she catches me looking, and I see her smoothing the fabric back down out of the corner of my eye.

It takes every skill I’ve ever learned to keep my pants from tenting like a primary school boy in front of the cheer squad. Do not think about Jenna in a cheer uniform, I scold myself, and it’s only the next crash of thunder that knocks the idea out of my mind just in time. When Jenna startles at it, I actually take a step in her direction, the action so natural that it takes a second before I remember that she doesn’t want me to hold her. That I’m not her comfort anymore.

It’s fucking torture.

Being in such close proximity to her has my head messed up, and the past bleeds into the present. Was it really all that long ago that we were so easy together? We would have huddled to watch this storm in each other’s arms, maybe snuck off to fool around behind the fake post office while everyone was busy deciding what to do next.

“Everyone listen up!” Polly yells as she jogs over. “We’re postponing this for weather, moving onto the next scene. You know what to do!”

There is an audible groan across the lawn where a couple dozen people have spent several long hours setting a picnic scene, and then shielding it from the rain. If I’m frustrated with the pace today, I can’t imagine how the crew feels.

I turn to Jenna, hoping for the chance to turn this into a conversation, but the set of her shoulders tells me she’s upset. My mouth opens again to break our silence, then, almost as if she anticipates it, her jaw tightens. It hits me that maybe she isn’t ready for the next scene. It wasn’t on the schedule, and she’s new to all this. She might not know that on set, you have to be ready for anything.

If her lines are what’s bothering her, that won’t matter. The PA will feed them to her if need be, and we have time to rehearse a bit while the next set is prepared.

I should tell her that.

Okay, it’s just an excuse to talk to her, but I’m desperate to break the silence. But just as I turn to her and open my mouth to speak, Polly finishes her instructions to her assistant director and turns to us.

“Jenna, Tanner, can I talk to you about something for a second?” she asks. She looks almost as tense as Jenna does. What the hell is going on?

Then it hits me.

If we’re skipping scenes twenty-four and twenty-seven because we can’t shoot outdoors, that means we’re jumping to scene eighteen—the next number on the call sheet.

Oh, shit. Scene eighteen.

Films always shoot out of order. There are a number of reasons—daylight, weather, locations, availability—that mean the production schedule is carefully designed to be as efficient as possible, divas notwithstanding. What it means for the actors is that the very first scene we perform can end up being the movie’s climax, or a huge emotional moment, or a silly comedy bit inside a dramatic film.

Or, in this case, it can mean that the first time I face Jenna on set, it will also be the first time we kiss on-screen.

“So,” Polly says as she pulls us both off to the side, “Are you guys ready for this? Jenna?”

I watch some of the tension drain out of her posture as she smiles at our director.

“Totally fine.” And weirdly, she now looks like she actually is fine. My mind returns to the one-sided conversation Jenna and I had yesterday. New Jenna isn’t flustered by a thing. New Jenna is solid as a rock. New Jenna is totally fine.

So what was with the stiffness of a moment ago?

I have a sinking feeling that the real problem is me.

And once again, I’m the one standing here wondering if I only imagined how much we meant to each other back then, or if Jenna is simply better at moving on, getting over me as easily as last season’s fashions.

“Tanner?” Polly asks, and I don’t think it’s the first time she’s said it. I shake my head to regain my focus, and put on a smile of my own, the wide, reassuring one that’s graced a hundred magazine covers. What kind of actor would I be if I couldn’t pretend everything was fine while my heart cracks a little more under the weight of regret?

“Yeah. Of course,” I say.

“Great. Let’s run through the scene a few times so we can get you comfortable with the blocking and make sure you two are feeling nice and comfy. I’ll get the DP so we can roll tape on it just in case.”

“Perfect,” I say, but as I do, Jenna also responds.

“That won’t be necessary,” she says. “I don’t need to rehearse. Just show me where my marks are. I’m ready to get this wrapped. It’s too chilly to stay in this dress much longer.”

Not a single goosebump mars that perfectly creamy skin. She just wants to get me over with.

I’m desperate to get some kind of real emotion from her. Something that says kissing me for the first time in a decade means something. Anything. I’m a dick for needing to see it, but I do, and so I guess that’s who I am.

“I don’t know that a rush job is going to be good for the shot, Jenna,” I pretend concern for the film. “It’s the first kiss, after all. If we don’t sell people on our relationship now, they aren’t going to follow for the rest of the movie.”

Polly’s looking back and forth between us, as though she’s willing to hear us both out.

“I think it would be wise to practice, even just one,” I continue. “In my experience, a run-through really helps calm the nerves.”

That was exactly the wrong thing to say, and I know it the second it’s out of my mouth, but I’m too proud to apologize.

“I appreciate your advice,” Jenna says back bitingly, “But I’m not nervous. And I’ll assume with all your experience that neither are you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get my makeup freshened before we call action. ” She stalks off, ass swishing invitingly as she does.

I watch her leave with a mixture of regret and arousal that Polly notices immediately.

“Seriously?” she says with chiding annoyance.

And I guess I’ve just alienated both the women I need to keep happy if we expect to pull this shoot off without any drama. I try the smile again, but Polly sees through me. In her mind, I’ve just proven myself to be exactly the kind of man she works hard to keep out of her movies.

Well. I was looking for her to show some real emotion. Guess I got it.

“Let’s just go,” I respond roughly, feeling worse than I have in recent memory, and knowing that I can’t take that into the shoot.

I spend the rest of my time before the clapper slams shut rolling my head from side to side and stretching, but nothing’s going to get this knot out of my stomach.

The motions of the scene are simple. Jenna’s character Grace walks into the restaurant lobby just as my character Bobby is walking out. She’s looking for me, and I’m leaving to find her. We stop as we see each other. We both smile. Then there are four lines of dialogue before I cut her off and grab her for the kiss. It’s quick and simple.

Or at least it ought to be.

But before Jenna even has her first line out, Polly leans forward and calls, “Cut.” She walks over to have a quiet word. “Jenna, you seem...annoyed. Take a deep breath. Let go of any personal or real life emotions. Okay?” She breathes in and out with her star a few times, then nods for the second take to be called as she walks back behind the camera. “Action!”

This time Jenna gets the line out, but I’m the one who looks tense.

The third time, Jenna doesn’t look at me.

The fourth, I’m talking too loudly.

Well, of course I am. We’re three feet apart, the only two people in this fake lobby, we’re talking to each other, and yet she still doesn’t seem to see me at all.

“Cut!” Polly calls again, clearly exasperated. “You know what? I tried to do it your way, but this is a waste of everyone’s time. We’re all going to take five, and you two are going to talk this out.”

Jenna crosses her arms and hangs her head as she blows out a long sigh through pursed lips. She seems embarrassed, and I get it. I feel chastised too.

Polly’s right.

It’s one thing for a director to use multiple takes to get the best possible performance, but we haven’t even made it through those damn four lines. It isn’t fair to her, it isn’t fair to the crew, and it isn’t fair to us. This is Jenna’s big break, and rumors are going to start that she can’t act, which couldn’t be further from the truth. I started this bullshit earlier, and I’m the one who needs to end it.

“Look. I was an asshole,” I say. She doesn’t look up at me, but her arms uncross.

“You were.”

“I wasn’t—” My voice lowers, in both volume and pitch. “I didn’t mean it like it came out. I just keep remembering my first day on set in a lead role and how uptight and nervous I was. Any second, I kept expecting someone to tell me I didn’t belong there. I threw up twice between takes. I guess I was just thinking maybe you felt the same.”

She doesn’t say anything for a long moment. It stretches between us like taffy.

“I guess I understand that,” she finally says. When she looks up, when her eyes meet mine, it’s then I see something real behind her mask of indifference. I see the hurt and confusion and anger of three thousand six hundred fifty days in those bottomless pools of blue.

She doesn’t let it stay for long.

With a blink, the mask slips back into place, but I’m strangely comforted. I may have ruined everything back then, but I didn’t imagine that I meant something to her. It’s not much, and it doesn’t change anything now, and yet it does all the same.

“Anyway, maybe it isn’t a bad thing to be visibly nervous right now,” she says. “First kisses are nerve-wracking.”

“Do you remember our first kiss?” It’s out of my mouth before I can stop myself. I’m insane. We haven’t had a conversation about normal stuff, and I’m already bringing up the past. I’m a total asshole.

I start to apologize again, to tell her never mind, but I hesitate when I glance over at her. She’s looking away from me again, but her lips quirk up, and I know she’s thinking about it. Thinking about our first kiss.

And now I’m thinking about it, too. It’s as vivid to me as the green of her dress.

That night at the party on Mulholland, after our eyes met, after I’d recognized that single-minded intensity on the face of the most beautiful creature I’d ever laid eyes on, I’d started toward her. I had to know her name. Had to be near her.

I walked around the pool, around bodies and drinks and people trying to get my attention. It was all on her, and my eyes never wavered once from their target. She watched me the entire way. Her friends chattered around her, and she ignored them. Finally, I reached her. She pulled her lusciously full lower lip into her mouth, and bit gently. I could smell her perfume, something that reminded me of Southern California sunshine encompassed in a flower. Orange blossom, that’s what it was. I opened my mouth, and--

“I dove backward into the pool,” Jenna giggles at the memory. “I just knew you were going to use some terrible pickup line, and I couldn’t bear it.”

“I was just going to tell you my name,” I protest indignantly, and not for the first time.

“I knew your name. Everyone did. And I wanted you to be as perfect as you looked in the picture I’d clipped from Hollywood Hotties and glued in my journal. And I knew you were going to ruin it by speaking. But there you were in the pool with me when I came up for air, opening your mouth again. So I—”

“Kissed me.” I pressed my lips together, recalling the soft, yielding pressure of hers on mine, tangy with chlorine and sugary lip gloss. “You were so sure of yourself. So confident. This perfect girl. I was blown away.”

“My heart was pounding out of my chest. I was kissing my movie-star crush. Everything else disappeared.”

We aren’t touching, but in this moment, we are completely together.

“Break’s over, come on, we’re burning—well, twilight!” Polly yells, and the spell is broken. Everyone scrambles back onto the set, noise flooding back in. We take our places again, and this time, I feel like myself, the self that has complete mastery over his career, if not his personal life.

“Camera speeding,” the DP says.

“Quiet on the set.” Polly commands. “Aanndd action.”

Jenna rushes into the frame as I’m rushing out. We stop, just past each other, and angle back to stare at each other for a beat. We hit our marks, and it’s just the right amount of time. The hum in the air says we all feel it, the actor’s sixth sense that the scene is working.

“You’re leaving,” Jenna says. There’s the right amount of excitement in her voice as she blurts her line as though it’s completely spontaneous. Her eyes scan my face as though looking for answers.

“To find you,” I reply, even though her character already knows.

“Well...here I am,” she says. She adds a little catch in her voice after the well that I wasn’t expecting. It makes her sound like she wasn’t sure she would come. It makes her sound vulnerable, which is a smart acting choice. Then she reaches out and runs her finger along my shirt collar. “Look at you.”

In that moment I don’t feel like Bobby. I feel like myself.

And I feel like Jenna is seeing me as herself, not as Grace.

Even if that isn’t true, and I’m projecting, I can tell it’s exactly the right way to play this scene. The words may have been scripted in an over-air-conditioned room somewhere in Burbank, but the feelings behind them, the actions, are purely our own.

“Why would anyone look at me with you in the room?” I reply, and then without a thought as to where to place my hands on her face, or how quickly to make the move, I pull her in. My eyes search hers for a moment of doubt and don’t find it. Once I’m certain, I tilt her chin up to me and as my lips land on hers, I come home.

I forget about the movie, though in my mind, we’re whirling as though we’re in one. Her mouth parts for me, but only the barest amount, and my tongue finds the softest match in hers, tasting of sparkling water and that honeyed flavor I always associate with Jenna.

No one is watching. Everyone is watching. It doesn’t matter anymore.

Jenna and I have kissed all the ways, in all the places, and we’ve been damn good at it every single time. This one is no different. I stroke my thumb over her cheek, and her mouth opens even more, our tongues tangling as her breasts press against my body. Her familiar orange-blossom scent invades my nostrils. I’ve waited so long for this, but it’s even better than I’d anticipated, and I press just a little more into her, to satisfy the growing hardness in my jeans...

“Go ahead and cut,” Polly says.

...And with that I remember where I am. If I were the blushing sort, I’d be red right now.

“So much better. I honestly think we’ve got it, but let’s do some more to catch some other angles.”

I’m silent, and staring at my co-star, waiting for a sign, but Jenna has reverted back to her professional actress mode. She’s pulled out her phone, and is texting after a quick nod to Polly.

Was she really just acting the entire time? She’s good. Better than I knew she’d be. I’m ready to award her an Oscar.

Me, on the other hand...I don’t know what I am right now. But whatever it is, I have to rewind, recall my feelings, and experience this all over again so the cameras can get another shot.  

We run the scene from the top. Jenna nails every moment, possibly even better this time. I touch her face just as perfectly and meet her lips just as naturally this second time and it transports me all over.

I wonder if the whole set can feel the connection we have, the chemistry that sparks and smokes and explodes like a mad scientist’s kit every time we touch.

“Cut!” Polly yells again. “Wrapped. Nice work, everyone. See you bright and early, and hopefully in the sunlight.” She hops down from her canvas chair to converse with the cinematographer.

Meanwhile, I turn to Jenna, ready to talk this out. But all the sweetness is gone from her face again.

“Thanks for the pep talk. See ya tomorrow,” she says, already texting furiously as she starts to walk away. My entire life is starting to feel like a montage of scenes where I look after her as she walks away.

I’m so stupid.

Even if she can recall the feelings from the past for inspiration in a kissing scene, she’ll also remember the other feelings. By reminding her of the good, I automatically remind her of the bad.

And besides—she’s an actress. Better than I am. She’s always been. I’m an idiot for believing the scene meant things would be different between us.

I change clothes at Wardrobe and start toward my trailer to collect tomorrow’s call sheet and lines to take home. After briefly considering grabbing some beer on my way, I decide that won’t do a thing but fuzz the edges of my already tenuous control.

I have to talk to Jenna.

It’s the only way I’ll get the answers I need to sleep tonight.

I walk up to her trailer door, but it’s shut. I stand outside trying to decide if knocking is rude or fine or if she’s even there at all. But before I can make a decision, I hear her voice through the window. She’s talking to someone, maybe on the phone? I can’t make out any silhouettes through the curtains, and I definitely don’t want to get any closer in case she can see out.

“I’m going to get through this, Walter,” I hear her say. “But doing this movie might just be the worst mistake I’ve ever made.”

Then she pauses, I assume to hear whatever Walter is saying back. The worst mistake she’s ever made? That hits me hard in the gut. Am I really making her that miserable?

I’m so overwhelmed, I barely register the next thing she says.

“I know,” Jenna coos, “I love you too. Bye.”

Before, he was a hypothetical. Now I have a name for the bastard. A stupid name, too. Walter. She loves a guy named Walter.

I clench and unclench my fists. I automatically hate him.

Except, that’s not true. It’s me that I hate. I hate myself for trying to make peace with Jenna. I hate myself for caring about who she’s dating.

But most of all, I hate myself for ever letting her go in the first place.