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I let out a long, agitated breath and stop in place. “Why are you trying to make me think I’m worried?”
He chuckles, still continuing to walk and leaving me behind. “I’m not trying to make you think anything. I just wanted to give us the chance to talk about it if one of us has any reservations.”
I furrow my brow as I rush to catch up to him. “Do you have any reservations?”
“Only that I’d fail to make sure you were comfortable. I know this is something you were hesitant about from the start.” He shrugs.
I’m briefly quiet before I speak again, repeating his words. “You’ve performed love scenes before.”
“Yes, I have,” he replies. “But Elaine and William’s story requires a lot of emotion. That’s hard to portray if you’re nervous.”
I nod, thinking about the fragility of the characters. “She’s quite vulnerable with him.”
“Elaine is very vulnerable,” he clarifies. “But I don’t want you to feel that way.”
I sigh, realizing I’m going to have to bring up the obvious. “This is about what I told you at the party, isn’t it?”
There’s a pause before he speaks. “You were very honest with me the other night.”
“Too honest,” I reply quietly.
“Why do you think that?”
I close my eyes. “Because you don’t need to know all those details about my past. Or about what I want. It was too personal. I’m fairly mortified…”
He replies gently. “I’m not going to tell anyone.”
I purse my lips. He doesn’t understand.
“I promise, I won’t tell anyone,” he clarifies.
“I know…” I sigh. “But you know. That’s the part that bothers me.” He’s quiet, so I continue. “It’s just, ugh, it’s even weirder now than I ever expected it to be.”
There are quite a few seconds of silence, like he’s deep in his own mind. But he finally speaks. “Well, I would hate to think we’re going to go into tomorrow on unequal ground.”
“Unequal ground?”
“Me, knowing something so personal about you, but you, knowing nothing about me,” he explains. “We can’t help that there will be some sense of vulnerability between us, but I know it wasn’t easy for you to tell me what you did, and I don’t want you to feel more exposed than I do.”
Agreeing with him would be admitting that he’s right, but I can’t bring myself to continue lying. I take a reluctant breath. “So how do you see us leveling the field?”
He glances down at me for the first time since we began our walk. He visibly swallows. “Ask me something personal.”
I close my mouth and stare at him. I was halfway drunk when I revealed my truths that night. What is he going to tell me while completely sober?
“I…um…” I hesitate.
“Anything. Think of it as the ultimate game of truth or dare. I choose truth.” He watches me with determined, yet slightly wary eyes.
I study him for a moment. I don’t understand why he cares so much to make sure I’m comfortable, especially if tomorrow’s scene will be as technical and unromantic as he claims it will be. But there is a specific question I asked him before, and he tiptoed around the answer. Is it safe to try again? He has to know my mind will go there.
I press my lips together and return my gaze to the sidewalk. “Ok, why don’t you do relationships?” I regret the words almost as soon as they leave my lips again because he was so harshly against explaining himself before. It feels like a manipulative move to re-ask a question that troubles him so much.
He takes a deep breath and shoves his hands into his pockets. Whatever he is about to say won’t be easy for him, so I try to relax my own posture and give him the patience he requires.
“Ok. It was, uh, almost two years ago now...” He assesses the path we walk. “I was in a relationship.”
I blink ahead, listening intently. I’m not expecting to hear he was in a relationship so recently.
