🇬🇧 Once Upon a Time #Herophine 🇬🇧 (English version)

Chapter 5 - The park

"Hey!!!" He closes the book suddenly, making me scared.
Instinctively I sit up straight again in my place next to him on the bench, with my eyes wide in amazement.
"No peeking!!! These are private things!!!" He's clearly mocking me, imitating my reaction earlier.
After an initial moment of confusion, we both burst out laughing and I hit his head with the script.

"Stupid!!!" I yell, clapping him on the shoulder.
How cute is he?!?
Okay, Jo. Enough. Really focus.

His smile diverts my attention again and I find myself looking at him amused, without even realizing it.
His eyes shine in mine with a fantastic light.
I feel like I can talk to him without actually saying anything.
A bike passes quickly in front of us making a deafening noise of brakes and we both wake up from the trance we had fallen into.
We giggle and continue reading in silence, next to each other on this bench in the middle of the park.
There's hardly anyone around and it's a really relaxing place.
It's a breath of fresh air in the summer heat of this city that seems like an oven during the day.

"It seems absurd to me anyway!" He shakes his head "I don't think I'll read one more line! I'm just confusing myself!" He closes the book with a sharp thud.
I look at him without understanding what he is referring to.
"I like the story, don't get me wrong. The fact is that it is different from the film we have to shoot. Not totally but partly yes! It confuses my ideas!"

I smile "What exactly is bothering you?"
He thinks for a moment before answering and snorts, fixing his hair absentmindedly.
"Hardin is a big mess! At least in the script I was able to understand what drives him to have certain behaviors, but in the book everything is too confusing. He doesn't even seem like the same person in reality!"
I nod and it surprises me that we think practically the same way.
Hardin in our film version is much more real than in the book. He's still messed up but it's easier to understand what's going on in his head.
"Anna explained a lot of things to me, so I can relate to him quite well. Here instead..." He snorts again, pointing to the book.
"It's a big mess!" He repeats before bursting into laughter with me.
I don't know what makes us laugh, exactly.
I just know that sometimes we find ourselves like this, eye to eye, laughing together at stratospheric nonsense. Just like now.

"Do you like reading books?" I ask curiously. I have the impression that his discontent also comes from the fact that he is not a lover of reading.

He bursts out laughing again and nods, putting the book on his lap.

"I understand you, I much prefer watching a good movie rather than spending hours on books." I admit, remaining pleasantly surprised to have another thing in common with him.

Something lights up in his gaze, he doesn't say anything but observes me carefully.
We stay like this for a while. It's not the first time this has happened. It seems that he also wants to study me in some way, try to understand who he has at his side.
"We have one thing in common!" He bites his lip and continues to look at me, voicing my thoughts.
Reflexively, I realize I'm biting my lip too and I can't stop getting lost in his eyes.
I've known him for what, two days? Yet I have this feeling of knowing him forever.
I don't know, it's weird!
I clear my throat and we both look away, almost embarrassed.
Who knows what he was thinking about now?

"How far along are you?" He comes a little closer and peers at the script in my hand. "We can try something if you want. I started memorizing lines last week!"
I am more and more surprised by this guy.
I imagined he was a snobbish snob, but instead it's nice to spend time with him and now he's showing me that he takes his job seriously.

I nod and show him the script.
"Their first time?" He reads the title. “That's an interesting part of the script!” He smiles, biting his lips again.