Page 31 of The Grumpy Actor

My cheeks heat up with embarrassment as I drop onto the rock beside him. “I know I’m not an actor. I just thought I could rehearse with you. I’m sorry for being presumptuous.”

“No, I’m sorry for being rude.” He sighs, lying down on the rock with his face to the sky. “I had no idea shooting romances could be this hard. Especially heartfelt scenes like that.”

His brows are furrowed tightly, showing he’s deep in thought. His lips are pursed in slight confusion.

“I think you’re just looking at it that way because you’re kind of biased against the genre.”

He frowns. “How can you still say that when I’m admitting that it is, in fact, challenging, and not as easy as I thought?”

“It’s still a kind of bias,” I argue. “Even though you now acknowledge it as true acting, you still don’t like it. That could be why you’re finding it so hard.”

Liam’s gaze settles on me. I gulp, finding it hard to look away from him. He props himself up on one of his elbows.

My heart flutters as I find myself so close to his face. Does he still not have any idea how much he affects me?

“You know, as much as I want to argue with you, I think you have a point.”

“Of course I do.” I smile. “Why don’t I rehearse your lines with you? You can do it with an open mind this time around.”

Liam groans as he pushes himself up. He stands up and faces me head-on. My mouth runs dry as I stagger to my feet.

The heat emanating from him makes me lightheaded. It’s impossible to not feel the pull of my true feelings for him.

He clears his throat. “Do you know the page?”

“Yes.”

I quickly scramble to the scene they’re working on.

“Great. Just read Celeste’s lines, and I’ll try my best to enact mine.”

I bob my head as my eyes scan the page. I take a deep breath before I speak.

“This isn’t how I planned for things to go, Jared.”

“When have things ever worked in our favor?”

His voice is pretty flat, and it’s clear he’s not feeling the lines.

“They never did, but you made me believe it didn’t matter as long as we had each other. What changed?”

Goodness, I ended up putting too much emotion in those words. It’s almost like I was talking directly to him.

I raise my eyes to meet his, and the guilt that flashes across Liam’s face surprises me.

“I had no other choice,” he says softly, his voice thick with emotion. “From the first moment we met, I should have stayed away from you, but it was impossible. How can I stay away when I spend every waking moment thinking about you?”

My heart tightens as I hear those words. He holds my gaze as strong emotions pull me into his eyes. Those emotions draw me in before I can even process his words.

It’s just lines, Sophie, get over it!

“I know I hurt you, and it probably never would have happened if I’d just stayed away, but I couldn’t. And by the time I realized what was happening, I was already too deep in my feelings for you. So deep that it broke me to let you go. Knowing how I hurt you…I don’t think I can ever forgive myself.”

My throat runs dry as every functioning cell in my brain goes on indefinite strike. I blink and glance down at the script in my hands to see where he’s at.

I frown.

None of the things he just said are in the script. The only line he said that was actually in the script was the first one. Everything after that was improvised.

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