When the hour was over, the two of them filed silently through the empty waiting room. As soon as Shane pushed the button for the elevator, Lilah made a beeline for the emergency stairwell. Without thinking, he tagged along after her. When she looked back at him with an accusatory glare, he shrugged.
“Never hurts to get a little exercise.”
She didn’t say anything, just held the door open behind her so he could squeeze by. The stairs were narrow enough that he had to lag a few steps behind her. They didn’t say a word to each other all four flights down, their footfalls echoing off the cement walls.
When they reached the parking lot, he placed his hand on her arm—nonaggressively, he thought, but she still jumped. He dropped it as soon as he had her attention.
“What are you up to right now?”
She eyed him with suspicion. “I was going to go to set early,work on the scene. We have a ton of pages to get through. I don’t want to be out there all night.”
He looked down at his shoes, feeling ridiculous for even asking. “Do you want to grab something first? Coffee? Or lunch?”
A handful of emotions crossed her face—astonishment, annoyance, then a flicker of that same hurt he’d seen earlier. She glanced down at her feet, and when she looked back up again, it was pure distrust.
“You want to getlunch? What, I give you one compliment and suddenly you like me again?”
He shifted his weight. “No. I mean—I don’t know. That’s what this is for, right? I thought maybe we could…keep talking.”
She looked at him for a long time before slowly shaking her head. “I think I’m all talked out for the day,” she finally said, her voice coming out quieter and more tired than he’d expected. “And I think…not without Dr. Deena. For now. It’s just…there’s too much, still.”
He nodded mutely. She was right. They’d barely scratched the surface of their issues.
She turned and walked to her car. His own car was a few spaces over, but he just stood there, watching her.
“Stop staring at me, you fucking weirdo,” she called as she slid into the driver’s seat, but he could hear the trace of laughter in her voice, see the flash of a rueful smile before she shut the door.
9
By the time they began production on the fourth episode, Lilah’s attempts to ingratiate herself with the rest of the cast had, thus far, been met with mixed results.
It wasn’t like sheneededto be friends with everyone she worked with. Obviously, she’d been spoiled by her experience onH.A.G.S.,but she knew better than to expect that every time. And they weren’t outright hostile—to her face, anyway. They were just vaguely distrustful, moderately unfriendly.
She understood it: nothing united a group like a common enemy. With her return upsetting the dynamic of the ensemble—plus whatever Shane had been saying about her—she made sense as a target.
If she hadn’t been in the exact position she was in, she would’ve kept her head down and kept to herself. But she knew she had to be the bigger person—or at least try. It was a fine line to walk: attempting to make genuine overtures toward people who, on the surface, seemed to want nothing to do with her, while avoiding the type of cloying industry-standard fake niceness that made her skin crawl.
If they still disliked her once they got to know her better, that was fine. She’d accepted long ago that she wasn’t for everyone. But she wanted to be disliked on her own merits, at least.
Apart from her and Shane, there were four other actors rounding out the principal cast: Margaux Lang, Natalie Barton, Brian Kim, and Rafael Espinosa. Once Lilah had returned to her seat at the first table read, it had been obvious that the voices she’d overheard talking about her in the bathroom belonged to Margaux and Natalie.
But shockingly, Margaux—who played Harrison’s long-lost daughter, Rosie—had been the first to crack. At lunch during their second week of shooting, Margaux had sidled up to Lilah in line for catering.
“Are you really still friends with all theH.A.G.S.girls?” she’d asked shyly.
At twenty-two, Margaux was in the exact demographic to have grown up watching the trilogy religiously, and that deeply implanted nostalgia was clearly enough to override any misgivings she had about Lilah stealing her screen time. They’d wound up sitting together and chattering a mile a minute all through lunch.
Back at the table read, Lilah had marveled at what a good job they’d done casting her. She was strikingly beautiful, with the heart-shaped face and full lips of Bree (who played Harrison’s late wife in flashbacks) combined with Shane’s mischievous eyes,her light brown complexion the midpoint between their skin tones. She was good, too, especially for her age; it was like she lit up from within whenever the camera was on her.
As soon as they had the chance to talk one-on-one, Lilah was immediately charmed by her—how candid, funny, and wickedly observant she was. She had Lilah in stitches with her impression of Walt, mimicking his hangdog cadence with uncanny accuracy.
Brian Kim also hadn’t seemed to have much of a personal problem with Lilah, probably because he was the most recent addition to the cast—newly bumped up to series regular after appearing as a guest star toward the end of season eight. He played Ryder, a brooding, mysterious vampire, who was obviously being set up for a juicy romance subplot with Margaux (which was likely the other reason she’d warmed up to Lilah so quickly).
Even though he was way too young to normally be on her radar, Lilah’s stomach had still fluttered involuntarily the first time she’d seen him: long and lanky with a pouty mouth, cheekbones to die for, and a perfectly tousled head of glossy black hair. He seemed to have that effect on everyone on set, though, sending PAs and producers alike swooning in his wake. If she hadn’t been trying to stay on her best behavior around Shane, she would’ve teased him about aging out of the Hot Young Eye Candy role—but then again, so had she.
Intangiblewas Brian’s first major role out of school, so Lilah soon realized what she’d initially clocked as standoffishness was just nerves and shyness. After the two of them had a long heart-to-heart between takes about the whiplash of going from the bubble of a drama school environment to working on a set, he’d loosened up around her considerably, letting his sweet and goofy side come out.
She knew Rafael Espinosa a little better. He was the oldest of all of them, midforties or so, a veteran character actor with a craggy, interesting face and a salt-and-pepper beard. He’d started recurring on the show in the fourth season as Will, an operative at the government agency that had been antagonizing them for years—now turned double agent, assisting their team.
