“All you need is —”

“Thick skin,” Stefan nods, finishing Jasmine’s sentence.

Even though they’re just playing as twins on screen, no one would doubt them if they said they’re twins in real life. Sure, they don’t really look alike, but the chemistry between them is off the charts. Not sexual chemistry, mind you, but something that I would definitely compare to a brother-sister relationship. They finish each other’s lines all the time, and they always seem to hang around together. Always cracking jokes and teasing each other, these two have a relationship as close as the one I have with Laurel.

“Besides, I wouldn’t worry too much. You’ve been doing great ever since you got here,” Jasmine continues, taking a bite out of the turkey sandwich in her hands.

“That’s right. We all got scolded by the directors every single day of shooting during our first weeks,” Stefan agrees, reaching for Jasmine’s tray and stealing a handful of French fries. “You’ve been at this for a few days now, and this is the first time you haven’t managed to pull off a scene. So, really...You’re basically bummed out because that scene was a combo-breaker.”

“Yup,” Jasmine nods. “You’re just having a rough day. Don’t read too much into it.”

“Thank you, guys, really,” I start, pushing around the peas on my plate with my fork. “Working in a production like this one...It’s intense,” I tell them, feeling good that I have someone with whom I can shoot the shit and get things off my chest. Sure, I have Laurel...But it’s different when you’re talking to someone who understands exactly what you’re going through.

I guess I could just as easily talk about all these things with Kane, but that’d be a risk. I doubt I’d get three sentences out of my mouth before I finally fell on my knees in front of him. Ever since that time in my dressing room I can barely think of something else. I even dreamt of him last night, can you imagine it?

“Don’t worry ‘bout it. We gotta have each other’s back. Besides, everyone on set loves you,” Jasmine tells me with a smile, and I can’t help but smile back at her.

“Alberta doesn’t seem to love me that much, though…” I sigh, lowering my gaze again and pushing the peas around. I thought that putting something down my stomach would help me recover from screwing up the scene, but I haven’t even been able to work up an appetite.

“Alberta’s a bitch,” Stefan tells me right away, not even bothering to beat around the bush. That earns him a quick elbow from Jasmine in his ribs, and he just shrugs. “What? You know it’s true.”

“Yeah,” Jasmine whispers. “But you don’t need to be shouting it in the mess hall, do you? But, yeah, Stefan’s right,” she admits, looking at me with a resigned smile. “It isn’t easy working with her, especially because she has a penchant for backstabbing people.”

“Just pretend that you’re in a Game of Thrones kind of set, Sasha, and it’ll work out,” Stefan tells me with a shrug, and I just look at him trying to understand his joke. “You know, backstabbing people and all that?”

“Oh,” I laugh, “for a moment I thought I was at risk of losing my head.”

“Well, unless Ryan gives Alberta supreme command over all our fates, I doubt that’ll happen. So, cheer up, you have a long life ahead of you.”

“At least there’s that,” I continue to laugh, but my voice quickly falters as I see the last person to walk inside the mess hall. With his hands in his pockets, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up to his elbows, Kane walks in as if he owns the place.

Okay, be cool, Sasha, I encourage myself, my heart suddenly starting to race. I feel my hand start to tremble, and I place it palm-down on the table so that no one can see how nervous I am.

“Mind if join?” Kane asks the three of us, grabbing the back of one chair.

“Sure, daddy,” Stefan and Jasmine tell him at the same time, and then they just burst up laughing. Kane’s character always seems to find himself in weird situations, and the script always plays that up by using the ‘father’ angle. Whenever the twins have the chance to tease him about it, that’s exactly what they do.

“Really funny, guys,” Kane says, sitting down right next to me. I look straight down, too nervous to meet his gaze, and go back to playing with the food on my plate.

“Your next scene is a spicy one, huh?” Jasmine asks us distractedly, and I have to take a deep breath to stop my head from blowing up. I’ve been trying all day not to think of the sex scene I’ll have to shoot with Kane, but there’s no escaping it.

“It’s just another scene,” Kane tells her, his tone of voice so casual that I almost believe what he’s saying. Yeah, it’s just another scene, right—one where the two of us will be half-naked in bed, making out like horny teenagers.

“Yup, just another scene,” I agree, trying to follow Kane’s lead and act as casually as possible.

“We’re used to it by now,” he continues, looking at me with a disarming smile. “Acting together, I mean.”

“Yeah,” I agree, my tone of voice almost too desperate. “We can act without allowing sex to get in the way.” My hand goes back to shaking as I say that, and I flatten it over the surface of the table, taking a deep breath as I do it. The tension between Kane and I is so thick that you could cut it in slices with a knife.

“Sex scenes are fun,” Stefan tells me distractedly, but then he exchanges a glance with Jasmine. I’m almost sure that they’ve noticed the tension between Kane and I but, thankfully, they don’t say a word about it.

“Sex is fun,” Jasmine adds, correcting Stefan with a devious smile. As she says it, she looks straight at me...Almost as if she knows exactly what happened between Kane and I. Oh, God.

“Okay, um, I gotta go and prepare,” I tell the three of them, pushing my chair back and jumping up to my feet. “I still have to study today’s script,” I continue, my mind working at a thousand miles per hour. Patting the front of my dress nervously, I then turn around and start walking out the mess hall.

Jesus, I barely survived lunch just now...How the hell am I going to survive the rest of the season?