Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 145634 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 728(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 485(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145634 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 728(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 485(@300wpm)
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.”