A sharp exhale. “Not even close.”
They didn’t speak again. Just moved into place side by side, the mic hanging between them like a line neither dared to cross.
The playback flickered to life on the screen. Their characters were nose to nose, the air between them trembling with the kind of tension that begged to combust. Jacob remembered every second of that shoot—the closeness, the way Liam had looked at him, and the magnetic pull that had drawn them together.
“Take one,” the sound engineer called over the intercom.
Jacob watched Liam breathe in, noticing the familiar tic in his jaw that signaled nerves. Liam hesitated slightly, and the line landed half a beat too late.
“Take two,” the engineer said, preparing for another attempt.
Liam’s fingers tapped an anxious rhythm against his thigh. He tried again, but this time his voice barely carried, the intensity draining away.
“Take three.”
Liam faltered again, then glanced Jacob’s way, a flicker of apology in his eyes. His shoulders tensed and Jacob could see the effort it took not to let frustration win. He wanted to say something, to reach across the space and anchor him, but the moment slipped away.
Take four came, then five, but it still wasn’t right.
Jacob heard the problem immediately. Liam was in his own head, overthinking it. He was trying too hard to keep the performance clean, to hold himself together, when it was never meant to be clean. The scene was messy—an emotional breakdown in disguise.
“Don’t play it safe,” Jacob said gently. “He’s breaking. Let him break.”
For a moment, Liam just stared at the floor, the weight of the scene and Jacob’s words hanging between them. His voice was barely a whisper. “I don’t know how to do this without falling apart.”
Jacob turned, meeting his eyes and holding them. “Then fall apart,” he said, like it was the simplest thing in the world.
Take six edged closer to what they needed, but Liam still kept a piece of himself locked away. Jacob watched his profile—the tight clench of his hand, the hollow at his throat where his pulse jumped, and the way his mouth parted as if words had to claw their way out.
He took a step closer, narrowing the distance between them. “Look at me,” he said, tone soft but commanding. Liam’s pretty eyes lifted and their gazes locked—and there it was, the tether neither of them could sever. Everything else faded, and Jacob let all the words he couldn’t say bleed into the space between them.
“Take seven.”
Liam didn’t look away. He opened his mouth and delivered the line, his voice breaking over the words:“You’re the only thing that’s ever felt like home.”
It wasn’t a performance; it was truth, pulled straight from the wound.
Jacob’s hand moved without permission. He reached out and touched Liam’s wrist—barely a brush, but enough. Liam stilled, then leaned into it, as if even that small touch was oxygen.
Line after line, they kept going, their voices dropping lower, rougher, something unspoken crawling beneath every syllable. It stopped being about the characters or the film. It became the unraveling of two men who couldn’t separate themselves from one another no matter how hard they bled trying.
Jacob couldn’t hear the engineer anymore. Couldn’t remember the script in his hand. He could only see Liam’s wet eyelashes, his mouth slightly parted, and his chest straining for air. He moved again without thinking, his hand lifting to cup Liam’s jaw, thumb tracing gently along his skin as Liam let his eyes fall shut.
Jacob leaned in, close enough to hear Liam’s breath catch and to feel the tremor moving through his body. His mouth brushed Liam’s ear as he whispered, voice rough with everything he couldn’t bury: “I miss you.”
The sound Liam made cut him clean through—like pain forced into existence. Liam’s hands clenched at his sides, refusing to lift because he knew the cost. And then, so quiet Jacob almost didn’t hear it, came the words that would undo him for the rest of his life: “I miss you, too.”
Jacob clung to those words, hoping they might anchor him, but anchors only held for so long. Liam still turned and walked to the door, moving as if every step cost him, and left without a backward glance.
Jacob remained, script limp in his hand, his lungs locking around a breath he couldn’t release. The booth still held the heat of him, lingering in the air. When the engineer cleared his throat, waiting for direction, Jacob didn’t respond. There would be no working after this.
Three weeks, and he was still bleeding out. He kept replaying the way Liam had met his gaze, let himself be touched, and spoken the words Jacob had ached to hear. He held onto them, hope threading through the emptiness, refusing to let go.
Chapter 41
Emma
Six weeks later
