Night On Set ❁ COLIFER

Chapter 76 ❁ The Colifer era

Jen's POV

I let out a huff of air and roll my eyes at him. "Calm down, I'm not proposing."

"No, you're kneeling down on a frozen lake." He gestures at me like I'm crazy and continues sliding closer over the ice with about as much elegance as a sea lion. Which is close to no elegance at all.

When he's finally close enough, I grab hold of the hem of his jacket. "Come on, don't be such a wuss."

He snorts but refuses to sit down. He's towering over me now, and by the look on his face I can tell he likes that more than he should.

"That should be our safe word," he says.

"What, 'wuss'?"

"I like it when you call me that."

I grunt and tug him down to my level. He's laughing now, despite the fact that we're sitting on a frozen, unsupervised lake with numb hands and numb lips. I'm pretty sure we will be able to add "legs" to that in a few minutes.

"Come and sit down with me for a minute," I say. "I have to talk to you."

The expression on his face softens at the tone of my voice. He scoots a little closer so his knees bump against mine. "Okay."

"Okay." I breathe out slowly and look around us. It's so incredibly silent here and we're so incredibly alone, which is such a welcome change from the set, where we spend sixteen hours a day with the same people. Having Josh and Ginny know about us has been refreshing, but for the first time today I feel like I can breathe.

I haven't looked at Colin since I sat down, but now I do. And I see the look of wonder in his eyes I've gotten used to. On set, he usually he blinks it away when I catch him looking at me like that, but now there's no reason to.

And there's also no reason why he shouldn't grab my hands.

So he does.

"I need to tell my best friend something," I say, observing his face for any changes or a twitch of his eyebrows. "Okay?"

No twitches. No traces of concern. Just a soft smile. "Okay."

"Okay." I take a deep breath. My heart beats three extra times before I'm able to get the words out, and when they do, my hands are all over the place. "What are we? What is this? Are we just two friends messing around, or is this a relationship? I want to know, because I'm in. I'm so in. And I just want to know if I should brace myself for the After."

Now there's some eyebrow action going on underneath the beanie. It's enough to make me worried again, until he tucks his scarf under his chin and tilts his head slightly to the right.

"Why are you asking me this?"

I blink at him. "I already told—"

"Because it didn't work out with Jesse?"

His name is like a smack in my face. "I don't want to talk about Jesse," I say. I clench my jaw, because there's just so much he doesn't know. So much I haven't told him yet, and I don't know if I ever will.

"Is it because you were friends as well as costars before you started dating?" Colin continues carefully. "Or is it because our schedules have been a mess ever since this thing started, and we haven't spent as much time together as we'd like to?"

His guesses are creepily accurate, though they're probably pretty obvious too. But there's still more stuff that I don't know how to put into words right now, so I just bite my lip.