---

She’s always running her fingers through her dirty blonde hair. The simple motion sends the sweet smell of lavender and something else my way. It’s faint, but I know it’s her. It’s something sweet and soothing. If I think about her, or even if I see her across the lunchroom or in the school parking lot, I swear I can smell that scent.

I like sitting behind her in geography. I can watch the cute little things she does and it looks like I’m actually paying attention.

This is the only class I haven’t gotten kicked out of so far. The stupid shit doesn’t bother me as much when I can watch her. Even if she never looks at me twice.

The bell rings and the sound rips my eyes away from her and toward the classroom door as a few more students file through. Adam Waynes is the last in and his chair screeches across the floor as he crashes into his seat. He’s loud as fuck and gets all the attention. At the thought, I look to her, to Harlow May. I’m expecting her to be watching the spectacle that would usually piss me off, but instead, those gorgeous blue eyes are on me. She’s quick to look away, again her fingers flying to her hair and twirling her locks nervously as bright pink creeps into her cheeks.

She can be shy all she wants, but I caught her. I caught her looking. Even better, I made her blush. I did that.

It almost gives me enough courage to pull on her backpack straps as she walks in front of me to leave. I could give her bag a tug and force her to look back at me, but I don’t. I stay behind like I have for the last few weeks and let her walk away.

But the next time she glances at me in geography, she doesn’t avert her gaze when I look back.

And a few days later, she’s the one tugging on my backpack.

I keep telling her I’m not good for her, but she doesn’t listen though.

That’s the very thing that will ruin us and we knew it from the start.

“Nathan!” Julie’s shrill voice makes my brow furrow as I raise my eyes to her. Her fingers are laced together as she folds her hands in her lap and lets out a huff of laughter. It’s sweet, but nervous. “He does this sometimes,” she tells Margo Hawkins, a reporter for some paper. I hate these things, but this one, I apparently couldn’t get out of.

I force the hint of a smile on my face and readjust in my seat. I’m riddled with guilt, just like I’ve been every single day since I left her. But she was better off without me. I’m a different man now though.

“What’s on your mind, Mr. Hart?” Margo asks.

Hally. Our past. Every moment I regret that led up to today.

“Nothing,” I say and shake my head. Julie’s smile slips and I see it from the corner of my eye. “I’m just so honored to be starring alongside Julie. She truly is a force to be reckoned with.”

The smile comes back and this time it’s genuine. I don’t have a damn thing against Jules. She’s a hard worker and obsessed with making the right moves for her brand, but right now I really could not give two shits.

All that’s on my mind are the detailed papers Mark slipped under my door this morning. Everything about my Hally, who she’s represented by and how she came to be here.

There’s no way she knew I’d be here, but the coincidence is something I just can’t drop. My Hally was sweet and innocent, but time changes everyone. I know this better than most.

“I have to ask,” Margo says, leaning forward with a shy smile as she looks between the two of us. We’re in the green room where these interviews are done and several men with recorders, cameras, and notepads are standing just behind Margo’s chair taking in every word. I should force the charm and play the part. I know better than to let them see the real me. “Have you two had your first kiss on set yet?” Margo asks the ever-so-important question. It takes everything in me for me not to roll my eyes.

“Well, not yet, but I can tell you my husband is not looking forward to that one,” Julie answers with a laugh and gives her patented smile. “There are a few days that he’s choosing not to be on set,” she adds with a flirtatiousness that makes Margo smile, but her humor is restrained as she looks to me for my response.

“Not yet,” I answer as easily as I can.

Jules is nice and I’ve had plenty of heated moments with costars, some of which have gone too far and landed the "affairs” in headlines. More than a few times I knew that’s all they were after when they sneaked into my dressing room.

The thought of Hally seeing other women come on to me makes me shift in my seat, the leather making the only noise in the small room as a man on my left jots something down in the notebook he’s holding. Even if it’s just for a scene and only for work.

“This role is different from your usual, Nathan. How are you preparing for it?” Margo asks me and I look past her to see several eyes on me, waiting for a response.

Clearing my throat, I struggle to even remember my role. When I started acting, I was the sidekick character with a smart mouth who got into fistfights. Not so far from the person I really was. The one who was always looking for trouble. Then the parts changed and I started playing deeper roles, ones where I was trying to do the right thing. More than once the characters I’ve played died fighting for what they believed in, right or wrong. The irony doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Well, for one, I hardly cuss in this,” I offer and smile, feeling the charm set in. Margo and Julie laugh and then I add, “Robby, my character in Night Fire, is definitely a different part in that he’s from wealth and a formal upbringing, yet chose a life of crime, even if it is white collar.”

The lines, scripts, and endless pages of my character’s details come back to me. I nod my head and say, “It’s definitely different and I’m enjoying it. I like the challenge.”

The conversation moves seamlessly as I watch Julie and Margo go tit for tat in banter. I can barely stay focused. Mark’s given me Hally’s schedule and her first scene is tomorrow. She won’t be able to hide from me then.

“And what are you most looking forward to, Mr. Hart?” Margo asks. “I know this must be tremendously different from cinema productions.”

I’m mid-sentence when I see Hally. She’s been on set for two days and hiding from me. Of course she’d show herself now when I’m doing my best to play my part and be the supportive costar.

Hally has a way of doing that to me. Throwing me off-kilter and bringing out a side of me that’s raw with rough edges. I can’t hide who I am from her; even worse, I don’t want to.

My mouth’s still open as I force my eyes back to Margo. No one seemed to notice that Hally stole my attention, even if it was just for a split second. No one but Julie.

I clear my throat and stare straight into Margo’s eyes as if she were Hally as I say, “What I’m most looking forward to is getting to play a new character. To pretend to be someone else.”

The second the last word leaves my lips, my gaze flickers to where Hally was standing, but she’s no longer there. For a second, I almost think I imagined her.

“To forget who you are?” Margo asks me and I have to return my attention to her.

“That’s what acting is, Miss Hawkins,” I tell her, willing the image of Hally to come back, but she’s long gone.