Chapter 5: Distraction
The scent of coffee from the now-closed craft services table was stale and bitter. Joseph walked away from it, from the set, from the echo of her gasp in the quiet. His trailer was a short, silent walk across the shadow-dusted lot.
Act normal. Just act normal. The mantra was useless. His skin still felt the map of her nails. His head was a riot of static and replay. He fumbled with the key, the metal cold and stupid in his hands. The door finally gave, swinging inward to darkness.
He didn’t turn on the main light. A small lamp by the unmade bed cast a weak, orange pool. He shucked the robe, letting it puddle on the floor. The air was cool. He stared at the plain white t-shirt and sweatpants laid out on his bed, items chosen for anonymity.
He pulled them on, the cotton abrasive over his skin. Normal clothes for a normal guy. The performance was starting already, just for himself. He splashed water on his face at the tiny sink, the droplets hitting the stainless steel with a sound like a ticking clock.
He needed to see her. Not to talk, maybe. He grabbed a hoodie, not bothering with the zipper, and stepped back out into the evening.
Her cream-coloured trailer was ten feet away. A soft, buttery glow emanated from its windows. He took a step, then another, his footsteps crunching faintly on the gravel.
He could see the silhouette through the slightly tinted window. A shadow moving in the golden light. He stopped walking, his breath catching. She was facing away, pulling a thin tank top over her head.
The tinted glass blurred the details but couldn’t obscure the shape of her. The slope of her shoulders, the arch of her back, the casual, unwitting grace of the movement. He turned his face away, fast, heat flooding his neck. He stared hard at a crack in the asphalt.
He shouldn’t be looking. Even through a filter. He’d seen parts an hour ago, but that was sanctioned, lit, and paid for. This was theft. His body hummed with the violation. He forced his feet to move, closing the final distance to her door.
He raised his hand. Knocked. The sound was too loud in the quiet lot. The shadow inside froze.
A beat passed. Another. He heard a faint rustle, a zipper. “Yeah?” Her voice was muffled, cautious.
“It’s me,” he said, and his voice didn’t sound like his own.
The lock clicked. The door opened just enough to reveal her face, framed by the warm light behind her. She’d pulled on a loose, grey sweater. Her hair was tousled, her eyes searching his.
“Hey,” she said. The word was a question.
“Hey.” He shoved his hands into his hoodie pockets. “You… good?”
She gave a small, sharp laugh that held no humor. “Are you?”
Her shoulders softened slightly. She leaned against the doorframe, the barrier between them still tangible.
“You want to come in?” she asked finally. It wasn’t an invitation. It was a practicality. They couldn’t have this conversation in a doorway.
“If that’s okay.”
She stepped back, pulling the door wider. He climbed the steps, the trailer shifting slightly under his weight. The familiar scent of her space hit him—vanilla, old paper, a trace of her perfume.
She closed the door, sealing them in the warm, cluttered cocoon. She didn’t move to sit, just wrapped her arms around herself. He remained standing, feeling too large for the space.
“Did you want to practice lines?”
God, that’s a stupid question out of everything you could’ve said, he thought. The words hung in the air, blunt and clumsy.
She looked at him, a flicker of something—relief, maybe—passing through her bright blue eyes. “Yeah, yeah, we can,” she said. God, that came out too fast, she thought, immediately biting the inside of her cheek.
He walked over to her bed, sitting down on the edge of it, the mattress dipping under his weight. The springs creaked a familiar sound. She sat down next to him, close but not touching, and grabbed the folder with the movie script. The pages were dog-eared and covered in neon highlights.
“What did you want to go over first?” he asked, his voice low. He stared at a water stain on the ceiling.
She flipped through the pages, the sound overly loud. “Well, tomorrow we have got some scenes. I think Sam said 5, so that’s my scene alone. 18, 31, 14, and 24 are the others.”
She held out the script so they could both see. Script 14 was the first bar scene, where their characters meet for the first time after five years.
They read over their lines. His voice was flat, a technical recitation. Hers was rushed, a step ahead of the beat. They sounded like strangers. Joseph stopped midway through a sentence, shaking his head. He stood up abruptly.
“This isn’t working,” he muttered, more to himself than to her.
He got two chairs from her small dinette, the metal legs scraping harshly on the linoleum floor. He placed them next to each other, facing the blank wall of the trailer. He grabbed two empty water glasses from her counter, setting them on the bench.
“Okay,” he said, sitting in one chair. “From the top.”
She slid into the chair beside him, the metal cold through her sweatpants. She looked at the glasses, then at the wall, and took a slow, deliberate breath.
He closed his eyes, exhaling slowly, letting the hum of the trailer’s fridge and the ghost of her perfume dissolve.
He opened his eyes, his gaze shifting from vacant to focused. Joseph slipped away. He got into character, taking a breath, and walked over to her. “Sarah?” he said, his voice a notch lower, smoother.
She turned on the seat, looking at him. “Asher?” she questioned, getting up. A faint, surprised smile touched her lips, the kind meant for an old almost-love. “It’s good to see you,” he said.
They hugged, a tight embrace, his hands around her waist, hers around his shoulders pulling him down. Then they parted. The contact was brief, scripted, but the warmth of her through the sweater lingered on his palms. He could feel the exact pressure where her fingers had pressed into his back on set.
“God, you look amazing,” he said after pulling back.
She smiled, a playful glint entering her eyes. “Always the charmer, Asher. You look amazing yourself.” She said it with a roll of her eyes, but her voice was warm.
He sat down in a chair, gesturing to the empty glasses. “What’re we drinking?” he asked.
She grabbed her cup, peering into its emptiness. “Anything. I got stood up.” She let the disappointment sit in her voice, a perfect, light touch of self-deprecation.
“You got stood up?” he questioned, leaning forward.
“Yeah, I was supposed to be on a date. He was a no-show.” She shrugged, looking away. “I’m so sick of trying to date.”
“It’s not fun,” he agreed, his tone softening from character into something more genuine for a half-second before snapping back. He tapped his glass. “Well, his loss. Whiskey?”
“His monumental loss,” she said, nodding. “Make it a double.”
They mimed drinking, the silence filling with the imagined burn of cheap liquor and five years of unsaid things. Joseph leaned back, the chair groaning. “This place is a dive. You always did pick the worst bars.”
“They have character,” she fired back, a real laugh escaping her.
The next scene was them drunk on the dance floor. There was no music, just the hum of the trailer and their own breathing. They stood up from the chairs, the space between them shrinking. He reached for her hand, his fingers closing around hers.
They walked over to the tight space between her bench and the bed, a narrow aisle of worn linoleum. It was nothing like a dance floor, but it became one. The ceiling was too low for him to stand fully straight.
“Our song,” he murmured, though no sound played.
She moved closer, her body a whisper from his. Asher put his hands on her waist, spinning her around to face him. The movement was slow, controlled in the cramped space. His hands cupped her cheeks, his thumbs brushing the high bones.
He was looking into her eyes, really looking, past the blue and into the nervous flutter he saw there. She tilted her head, her eyes closing for a moment, leaning into his touch. Her breath hitched, a tiny, perfect sound that wasn’t in the script.
He slowly leaned his head down and kissed her. It wasn’t slow like scripted. It was an inevitable collision. His hands slid up her back, under the soft fabric of her jacket, pulling her closer until not a sliver of light could pass between them. Her hands came to the nape of his neck, fingers tangling in the hair there, holding on.
She kissed back, meeting the pressure with her own, letting out a soft moan into his lips. It was a raw, unfiltered sound that went straight through him. For a long moment, there was only the taste of her, the slight give of her lower lip, the desperate harmony of their breathing.
She pulled back, just an inch. Her eyes were wide, her lips parted and shining. “Best friends don’t kiss, Asher,” she said, her voice a shaky whisper. She was still Madelyn, but the line was a lifeline, a character to hide behind.
He didn’t let go. His forehead rested against hers. “We could be each other’s distractions,” he murmured, his voice low and rough. “No strings, no feelings. Just fun between best friends.”
“Fun between best friends…” she thought for a moment, her gaze dropping to his mouth, then back up. A slow, precarious smile touched her lips. “...I like the sound of that.”
His thumb brushed the corner of her lip.
She pulled away, pretending to grab her phone from the bench. “I have to go, Asher,” she said, her voice adopting a false, breezy lightness.
“That’s okay,” he said, the response automatic. “I’ll see you soon.”
They stood. They hugged, a warm, tight embrace that lasted a beat longer than the script.
Her lips moved close to his ear, her breath a hot whisper on his skin. “I accept your offer to be your distraction,” she murmured, the words clear and deliberate. “Whenever, wherever. So long as you do the same.”
He held back a groan, a sharp intake of breath tightening his ribs. His own voice was low. “I look forward to it, Sarah.”
They pulled back from the hug smiling. The expressions were tight, careful, the smiles of conspirators. Her eyes were too bright.
She walked over to the bed, picking up the discarded script. “Scene 14 finished,” she announced, not looking at him. “I think we got the beats. The… push-pull feels right.”
“Yeah,” he managed, his hand on the cool metal of the door handle. “It does.”
He cleared his throat, the sound rough. “Right.” His hand finally turned the handle, the latch clicking open. The night air rushed in, cool and smelling of damp asphalt.
He half-turned, looking back up at her framed in the warm, rectangular light of the doorway. Her face was in shadow, but he could see the outline of her, the way she hugged herself.
“Goodnight, Maddy,” he said, turning to look at her.
She looked up, a small smile. “Goodnight, Joe.”