“JAY!” I WAVED my script in his face. “Dude, why is everything blank after my name? Am I just standing there or what?” I yawned and gave my head a shake. After last night’s dinner, I was emotionally and physically spent, not only was I trying to corral all my clients via keeping in touch with email, but I still had conference calls with tour managers for Zane, not to mention butt loads of amounts of all the other shit that I had to take care of for AD2 and their new merchandising ventures.

Add yet there I was.

On set.

In Hell.

And apparently with a blank script.

Ang and I had shared two words since carpooling to set that morning. I said hello, she said, it’s early.

Okay so that was three.

Wordlessly, I’d made coffee.

She’d poured us our cups, adding sugar to mine.

We were a pair.

Both of us on lockdown since we’d sung together, since I’d jumped in after her in the freaking ocean.

Since I’d agreed to not only be on set but be in the movie for reasons I still couldn’t even understand or even begin to explain to anyone.

“Right, mate.” Jay examined the script, nodded a few times then looked up at me, “What’s the problem?”

“First, don’t call me mate.” I shoved the script against his chest. “Second, if you want me in it, shouldn’t you tell me what I should be doing other than… Will: sit on beach?”

He regarded me with a funny look before grabbing my shoulder and going, “There’s really nothing to say except your only plan is to go sit on that beach right there, and try not to speak when Ang runs her lines.”

“She has lines during that scene? Since when?”

“Since we added them this morning, keep up.” He patted my shoulder and jogged off, grabbing his headphones once again while one of the PAs handed him his coffee. Sometimes I hated his British ass.

At least half the time.

Begrudgingly, I stomped over to my spot on the sand. Honestly, at least I was wearing clothing, poor Angelica was handed a black string bikini and sunglasses while I at least got neon board shorts and a black tank top.

The neon pissed me off, but everything else was fine, including the Ray-Bans that I told Jay I got to keep for emotional duress.

He didn’t argue.

I shoved the aviators on my face and sat.

“Quiet on set.”

“Balls, I hate my life,” I grumbled.

“Quiet on set!” came a second yell.

I threw up my hands and mouthed sorry.

The scene was slated, and I entered into the Seventh Circle of Hell also known as Bikini Armageddon or death by strings.

Ang jogged by me, her heavy breasts spilling out of her swimsuit top nearly blinding me with so much lust that I almost improvised the scene and dove ass first into the ocean.

She stopped just shy from me as the rest of the scene around us played out.

The other characters, including Pris and Lincoln, were playing on the beach, part of the scene including a barbecue and a few other things that I hadn’t paid attention to, partially because I didn’t really give a shit and partially because they kept re-writing things.

Angelica sat.

And hugged her knees.

I stared at her.

Like a creeper.

I had no other direction.

And then she turned her face to me and whispered. “Do you think I’m a bitch?”

I jerked my attention away from her, it was an honest reaction, one I couldn’t hide.

“Never mind.” She flashed a sad smile. “Maybe I am, maybe that’s why they hate me, no matter what I do… sometimes… I think life would have been better like a bird.” Tears filled her eyes. “Where you can fly away, escape.” Her sigh was rough, it hit me right in the middle of my chest as my heart slowed to a stop. “Escape all of this.”

It was eerily identical to a conversation we’d had before breaking up.

“Why?” I croaked. Jay could go to Hell for all I cared. “Why do you need… an escape?” I didn’t say that, because in the past, the conversation had centered around drugs, and I wasn’t sure that’s what this was about, in the movie, shit I needed to read the new changes if I was going to survive any of this.

“Because sometimes it’s better to feel nothing at all, than to feel all of it. I don’t think…” She chewed on her thumbnail then shoved her hands into the sand. “I don’t think I’m wired right.”

“Is anyone?” I joked.

Her smile was breathless. I scooted closer.

Apparently, whatever I was doing was fine since nobody had yelled cut. I wasn’t sure how many more lines she had, so I kept sitting there, sitting near her. It was nice, it was nice not being on the verge of yelling at her or taking out my anger on her.

Because I suddenly realized, maybe acting was the only way we were ever going to be able to have a civil conversation.

Damn you, Jaymeson.

“You’re normal. You don’t look at me like they do,” she finally said. “I think if everyone looked at me through your eyes — I wouldn’t need that escape. I think I would be tempted to…” She gulped. “Stay.” And then she straightened, holding her hands up to the sky as she fell onto her back and sighed. “For you I would stay.”

I leaned back next to her and reached for her hand.

She let me take it.

“For how long though…”

She was quiet.

And then her whisper carried across the wind, kissing me in the face. “Forever.”

We both turned to look at each other at the same time.

I smiled sadly. “I wish that was true.”

“I wish this was real.” She fired back tears in her eyes.

“Are you saying this is a dream now?” I knew what she meant, but I batted that logic away with desperation.

“Maybe.” Her pale lips glistened from her tongue sneaking out and touching them, and suddenly the only thing that mattered was this moment.

This completely unreal fabricated moment.

This moment in time where we didn’t matter.

Where our pasts collided with our present.

Where our present didn’t decide our future, at least not yet.

It was a moment frozen in time.

So I took it with both hands. I cupped the side of her face and brought my mouth down on hers with a soft kiss and whispered, “Sweet dreams.”

“Cut!” Jay yelled.

At some point very soon, I was going to murder him, but not now, now I was… possibly for the first time in two years content.

Until the crew moved around us and started setting up the next scene, shattering the precious moment I’d just shared — one of the few I wouldn’t be able to forget in a long time.

“Perfect!” Jay said jogging up to us, “I knew you had it in you.” He pointed to the trailer. “Ang go back to wardrobe and change.”

When she was gone, he turned back to me and had one of the smuggest grins I’d ever seen in my entire existence pasted cross his face. “So?”

“What the hell was that?” I asked in the calmest voice I could muster.

“It sounded like a conversation.”

“You can’t put that shit in the movie.”

“I can. I will. It’s going to destroy viewers when I kill her off…”

“Say what?” I roared.

“Kidding.” He held up his hands. “Plus, it’s not real right? Just a dream?” His smile disappeared. “Maybe, you should focus on the fact that the only time you can be civil to the one girl you’ve ever loved — is when I force it on you.”

“That’s bullshit.” I kicked the sand.

“Sure, yeah, whatever you say, mate.” He jogged off.

And I was left alone.

With people surrounding me.

But utterly alone.

I used to thrive off the feeling of being in front of people; now I hated it, and yet, I was doing this.

Why was I doing this?

For answers?

Because I was selfish?

I didn’t have time to think it through, because lucky me, I had another scene to do with Angelica.

I was going to die before this was over with.