Page 53 of Off Script

“What’s wrong?” She jerked back at the loud exclamation.

She’d been nibbling on his ear, but she didn’t think that was enough to alarm him. Tristan cursed, clutching his right hand. He gestured at the stove. One of the burners had accidentally been switched on in the midst of their rendezvous.

“Oh shit!” Jada turned off the stove, then attended to Tristan. “How bad is it? I’ve got a first aid kit full of bandages somewhere.”

Flustered, Jada searched for the case, but Tristan shrugged his injury off.

“I don’t think it’s serious enough for that, but it’s okay. I hear this is a typical issue with kitchen make-out sessions. When the cooking gets hot, it can turn into a serious fire hazard,” he teased.

Jada couldn’t return his lighthearted demeanor. His burn’s opportune timing proved she was right about themnothooking up. It was good they’d been interrupted before one of them did get romantically scorched.

“Well . . . if you’re feeling better, I think you should go,” she said, steadily staring at the floor. “We’ve rehearsed enough for now, and—”

“Jada, if you’re freaking out on me—”

“I’m not freaking out. I—I need to think. I need to process what just happened.” Jada continued to evade his gaze by collecting her discarded clothes. Nevertheless, she heard Tristan let out an exasperated sigh.

“What ‘happened’ is that we’re attracted to each other. We want each other. Why does that terrify you?”

Because this is business, not pleasure. Because even thoughyou’re not Daniel, this feels like I’m making the same mistakesall over again.Instead of admitting this out loud, Jada turned her back to him, hiding her face so he couldn’t see how much it truly did terrify her.

“Good night, Tristan,” she replied, her tone final.

“Fine. You go ahead and think. Go and process. But at the end of all your overanalyzing, the only thing you’ll discover is the truth you’re avoiding right now,” Tristan said.

With that one last verbal slap in the face, he left. She didn’t turn back around until the front door closed and his heavy footfalls faded.

Once he was gone, Jada could finally breathe again, but her feelings were all over the place. It would have been nice to talk to Mikayla about all of this but she hadn’t come home, probably having fallen asleep at Alia’s. Heading back to the living room, Jada looked down at the notebook sullenly. Even with these stupid rules, they didn’t help herdefinewhat was between her and Tristan. A ridiculous sheet of paper could not validate her worries about him being a Daniel 2.0 or clarify if they should stay in this weird semifriendship limbo. Unfortunately, there was a point itdidhelp her come to grips with. Jada picked up her pen and added the number one rule they absolutely could not break.

NO SEX.

The following morning, Mikayla probed for the “dirty deets” over breakfast. In her sleep-deprived state, Jada cringed at the awful slang and insisted that she and Tristan had only rehearsed. She’d need a lot more coffee before she’d admit the weakness she had for her irresistible co-star. Because Tristan had been right. The truth was staring straight at her. They had a magnetic attraction that had been unleashed by chaos. The key word beingchaos. No matter how much they were drawn to each other, things with Tristan would always be messy and complicated. No amount of chemistry would be worth the inevitable heartbreak. Besides, she’d sworn she would start putting herself and her career first, and she meant it.

Her decision to stay professional grew harder to stick to when she arrived back at the park for their second day filming there. The moment she stepped into the square outside the Griffith Observatory and locked eyes with Tristan, she felt it: The overwhelming temptation. The sensual longing. The persistent, dreadful reality that she was falling for the wrong guy. Regardless, she worked up enough courage to greet him anyway.

“Hi.” She loathed the way her voice came out small and unsure. Tristan nodded in return and gave her a guarded smile, warily awaiting her reaction to last night. However, Jada refused to say the actual phraseSo about last night—and chose a more abrupt route.

“I know we’re in this situation together, and I’m totally willing to keep my end of the bargain, but I think we should slow things down.”

“Slow things down?” he repeated skeptically.

“Yeah, you know, maybe limit the touching and all of that stuff. I mean, we’ve already made it clear with the crew that we’re together. People on set get it. And we’ve gone out a few times already.”

“Twice,” he corrected her.

“Yes, but I think if we took some time apart, we might be able to act this whole thing out—because itisacting after all—with cooler heads. I think this might help too.”

Jada held out the dating rules page that she’d ripped out of the notebook. As Tristan read through it, his expression turned stormy. With his imminent dark mood, Jada prepared herself for him to fight back over what she’d written.

“Okay, Jada,” Tristan said. She was so astonished by his easy surrender, she simply stood there gaping.

“You mean it?”

“Sure. If you want to go the rest of this shoot with less PDA, fine. Less hanging out together? Okay. But if the buzz we’re getting dies down, our goals are going to get a lot harder. And this”—Tristan waved the paper at her—“will become as irrelevant as us once our adoring public gets bored.”

“We can make it work. We’ve already got that big audition with Logan.”

“And why do you think that is? You think it’s a coincidence we were both asked to audition? They want the hottest It Couple in town starring in their summer blockbuster.”

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