"Alright, gang, today we're filming the scene everyone's been waiting for," Tim announced. "The kiss scene!"
The cast cheered and Myra's stomach twisted. She didn't want to kiss Gabriel. He was like her brother. It would be too weird.
Not to mention, she had never kissed anyone before. So this would be interesting.
Gabriel caught her eye from across the room and made a silly face. She giggled. At least he wasn't going to make it weird.
They walked over to the set. The scene was happening on the balcony on Lily's house (even though the actual set was just the balcony). Myra climbed up the stairs to enter the balcony from her "room". She was alone up there. It was kind of surreal to see the grass end only a few yards away.
"Okay, listen up guys," Tim said through his megaphone. "Here's what's gonna happen. Camera on Lily, sound cue of the cell phone ringing. Myra, take it out, look at it, see that it's Daniel calling, and smile. Pick up. Then we play the track of Daniel talking we recorded earlier. Myra, there's an inset in the phone so you can listen to the lines and react to them like you would in real time. It's all ready to be played, just press the big red play sign in the middle. The camera won't be able to tell what you're pressing. We'll edit the recording into the film later. Don, can you hand her her phone?"
A props assistant quickly climbed the stairs and handed her the phone. She thanked him. True to his word, Tim already had someone set up the recording.
"Okay, so have the conversation. At some point, turn around so you're facing the house. Then Daniel will come up behind you, yada yada, do the scene, kiss, and cut. Got it?"
Myra raised her eyebrows. Tim had a tendency to under-explain scenes and let the actor's raw intuition lead the way—it was what he was known for—but this was bad, even for him.
"Gotcha!" Gabriel said from down below.
"Okay!" Myra shouted, waving from the balcony. She struck a pose leaning against her house staring at the stars.
"Okay, lights...camera...action!"
Myra gazed dreamily at the "stars". It was almost scarily easy to pretend she was actually outside and not on a set. The sound cue for her cell phone rang. She jumped a bit and fished it out of her back pocket. She smiled at the screen. She pressed the play button, tossed her hair back, and held the phone up to her ear.
"Hey, beautiful," said Gabriel's recorded voice.
She blushed and looked down, walking forward a bit. "Hey, yourself."
"Aw, I don't get a compliment?"
"You haven't earned one," she said jokingly.
"Can't argue with that. Hey, you see the sky right now?"
Her grin widened. "Yeah. I've been outside for the past hour, just looking. It's beautiful." She looked up again at the bare studio ceiling which would later be CGI-ed into a beautiful night sky.
She turned towards the house. "Remind me why you're calling me again?"
"What? I can't call a beautiful girl when I want to?"
She put a hand to her mouth and took a moment before responding. "Daniel, seriously, why are you calling? You never call me, except that one time to threaten my team."
"Oh yeah...that happened. Uh, sorry about that. Well, I just thought it'd be nice to talk to you. No reason."
Myra smiled. "Well...okay then. What do you want to talk about?"
"How good is your home security system?"
Myra blinked in surprise, then laughed. "That wasn't exactly the question I expected."
"Because if it's one of those things where a camera picks up movement and calls the police when it sees something on your lawn, I'm going to be in trouble."
"Daniel, what are you—"
"Turn around."
Slowly, she turned to see Gabriel, phone in hand, standing just outside the rail of the balcony. He was grinning.
She clicked off her phone and slipped it into her pocket in awe. Then she rushed to the balcony. "How are you...?" She trailed off when she realized he was standing on the platform of a robot his team had made for the prank war. It lifted people up and down and could roll around. She looked up at him with an amused grin. "Did you drive that thing all the way here?"
He shrugged, still grinning. "So what if I did?" He hopped over the railing so he was standing right next to her. Very, very close.
She looked up at him somewhat shyly. "So...why did you come? Finally willing to admit defeat to the superior robotics club leader?" She smirked.
He shrugged. "Ah, well...still not quite sure that's true. Although, I admit, you surprised me. You definitely surprised me."
Myra was hot from the lights and her proximity to Gabriel. She was ready for the scene to be over.
Nevertheless, she moved a little closer. "Good surprise?"
"Definitely good." He looked down at her, eyes twinkling. "Lily, you good-surprise me every day. I will never stop being astounded by your passion, intelligence, tenacity, and most of all, your incredible spirit. You are astounding, Lily Patel. Astounding."
She smiled. "Yeah? You're not so bad yourself."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Then he bent down and pressed his lips to hers.
Honestly, it was weird.
Myra didn't know what she expected a kiss to feel like, but it definitely was not this. Two wet pieces of flesh pressed on her own. She closed her eyes, because it was just too weird looking at Gabriel from this close up. She suddenly felt him run his hand through her hair, which also felt weird.
Right. They were in love.
What did people in love do when they kissed? She slowly lifted her arms and draped them around his neck. It was an awkward angle, and kind of hurt, but she left them like that.
"Cut!" Tim yelled.
Myra quickly released her arms and stepped back. She wiped her lips on her sleeve, probably smudging her set makeup.
She looked at Gabriel. "Can we both agree that that was awkward?" she said jokingly.
He stared blankly at her for a second, running his hand through his hair. Then he nodded. "Oh, yeah, totally. Awkward." He laughed.
Tim yelled from his megaphone. "Okay, guys, that was actually perfect. Your chemistry is flawless. Are you two sure you're not in love?" The cast and crew laughed, and Myra giggled. Tim was a comedian at heart.
"You know what? I wanna call you two the One-Take Twosome because we're all done here!"
Everyone cheered, and Myra and Gabriel started making their way down the stairs off the set.
On their way to the dressing rooms, Gabriel grabbed Myra's arm. She turned and looked at him. "What's up?"
He looked incredibly nervous, and ran his hand through his hair again. "Listen, Myra, I have something to tell you. "
She frowned. "Yeah, of course, you can tell me anything."
He took a breath. "Look, ever since the beginning of this film, I...well, I sort of developed a crush on you."
Myra's heart stopped.
She hadn't expected this.
She hadn't expected this at all.
She opened her mouth to speak, but found she couldn't.
Slowly, she shook her head.
Gabriel's face fell and he turned away. "It's cool. I mean, I didn't really expect you to...return the feelings. I just thought you should know. But hey, at least we don't have to kiss again, am I right?" He laughed bitterly.
"I'm sorry," Myra whispered.
Then she turned and ran