After lunch break, I thought I’d be sent to fetch coffee or restock cables. Something safe. Distant. Invisible.

Nope.

“You’re on wardrobe watch,” the assistant director said, slapping a clipboard into my arms. “Shadow Tom Kang between takes. Make sure he’s dressed on time, help him swap jackets, and please don’t let him get lost again.”

“Lost?”

The guy rolled his eyes. “He keeps wandering off between shots. Last time he disappeared for ten minutes to chase a butterfly or something.”

I stared at him.

He wasn’t joking.

---

The dressing area was set up behind the arts building — fold-out mirrors, rolling racks, and clipboards everywhere.

Tom stood with his back to me, getting fussed over by a stylist. She was brushing lint off his shirt like she was polishing royalty.

I cleared my throat.

He turned.

“Oh,” he said, eyes lighting up. “Snack Girl’s back.”

“I’m not your assistant.”

“Then why do you have a clipboard?”

“Bad karma,” I muttered.

Tom grinned. “Lucky me.”

He stepped forward, brushing past the stylist, and adjusted the collar of his own shirt with exaggerated elegance.

“So, what’s your job title now?” he asked. “Wardrobe witch? Fashion police? Personal handler?”

“My job,” I said, flipping the clipboard open, “is to make sure you show up in the right jacket with the right emotional expression at the right time.”

He nodded solemnly. “Ah. So you’re my mood wrangler.”

“I’d rather wrangle a goat.”

“Good news,” he said, flashing teeth. “I’m harder to control.”

---

Fifteen minutes passed. He changed clothes. I double-checked tags. We moved between shade and sun like two strangers trapped in the same unlucky orbit.

“Question,” he said suddenly.

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I was gonna ask.”

“I don’t care.”

He laughed. “Fine. Here’s a better one: why do you keep pretending you don’t like me?”

“Because I don’t.”

He tilted his head, eyes playful. “Elena.”

“What?”

“Lying doesn’t suit you.”

I looked up from my clipboard, flat-faced. “And desperate actors don’t suit me.”

“Ouch.”

A pause.

He stepped closer.

“You really don’t remember my name from the bar?”

I blinked. “What?”

“You called me ‘some famous actor.’ I’m crushed.”

I tried to step around him, but he didn’t move.

“You’re messing with me,” I said.

He shrugged. “A little.”

“I don’t want anything to do with you.”

“You keep saying that,” he said, voice lower now. “But here we are.”

He leaned just slightly forward — not touching me, not close enough to be inappropriate — but close enough to feel it. That invisible heat.

“And you still haven’t walked away.”

“I’m working.”

“Sure you are.”

His smirk was nuclear-grade infuriating.

I stepped back. “If you’re late for your next scene, I’m not covering for you.”

He gave a mock salute and turned — finally — toward the set.

But as he walked away, he said over his shoulder, just loud enough for me to hear:

“I’ll get you to say my name eventually.”

---

But what he didn’t know…

Is that someone else was watching.

Across the lawn, near the student union steps, Liam Court stood still — eyes locked on us. Silent. Expression unreadable.

He had just arrived.

And he had seen everything.

---