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They both walked onto the set, Heather feeling more than a little agitated. Of course, if she was going to stay her course, she was going to have to keep her temper in check.

“Positions, please,” the director said.

They stood on their respective marks right next to each other, and Heather positioned herself to kick him. She was supposed to roundhouse him in the stomach, and he would pretend to be knocked back — a carefully choreographed stumble.

“Action!”

Heather pivoted on one foot and kicked him gently with the other. Cole did not fall back the way he was supposed to.

“What the hell was that?” she shouted at him.

“Oh, sorry,” he said with an absolutely infuriating look on his stupid face. “Was I meant to feel that?”

“Let’s go again,” the director said.

The second time wasn’t any better than the first. Heather wanted to scream. He really wasn’t going to allow them to get the shot at all unless she did it his way. She turned back to the director to see if he was going to admonish Cole at all, but he didn’t. “Stupid boys’ club,” she muttered.

“I just need a little more enthusiasm from you,” Cole was saying. “You know, so I know when to react precisely.”

“The metronome should tell you that,” she said. “The count. Did you even rehearse?”

“Of course I rehearsed,” Cole answered. There was a glint in his eye that Heather was not at all comfortable with. “I just had a different partner. Maybe she and I were more in tune, you know? Or maybe she was just capable of giving one hundred percent.”

That did it. Heather kicked him hard. Her temper really had gotten the better of her.

Cole fell back for real, stumbling in the wake of her rage with an infuriating smile on his face.

She didn’t let him regain his balance. Instead she kicked him again and flew at him in a blind rage.

She was punching him in the chest with closed fists.

“You want to be hit harder? How about this, huh? Is this hard enough for you?”

He grunted and pushed back. “You wanna think about rephrasing that maybe?”

She hit him even harder for the grievous crime of making her blush. At some point, someone dragged her off him, but she was still kicking the air as they pulled her away. She must have been practically frothing at the mouth over him. She must have looked like an uncontrollable animal.

They took her into a small room and sat her down. “Chill,” one of the men said. “Wait here. Do you need some water?”

Heather shook her head. She just wanted to be left alone. How had Cole managed to get to her so quickly?

It took her a second to realize she was sitting in someone’s office, and then it took her several more seconds to start asking herself why.

They could have just taken her to the courtyard or something if they just wanted her to cool off.

Was she getting sacked? She ground her teeth at the thought.

So, they weren’t even going to give her time to resign.

Her suspicions were confirmed when Cole was brought in to sit beside her. The person who brought him just said, “Wait here,” and left.

They were left together in awkward silence until Cole decided to break the ice. “So… do you think we’ll get an award for that performance?”

“Shut up, shut up!” Heather hissed back at him. “You’ve just gotten both of us fired. Can’t you see that? They’re letting us go.”

He shook his head. “They wouldn’t do that. We’re too good.”

“I can’t believe you,” she said under her breath. “I’ve never met anyone so arrogant in my entire life. Don’t you ever question yourself or think about how your actions affect other people? Like ever?”

“All the time, but in this case, I think it was your actions that got us this result, whatever it is.”

She sat up straight in her chair. “You egged me on!”

“Your temper is yours to keep, sweet—” He stopped and corrected himself again. “Heather.”

Before she could pull herself together enough to think of a comeback, someone else entered the room.

Heather recognized him as one of the senior members of the production team.

He stepped around his desk and sat down with a heavy sigh.

His suit looked nice, even though his hair had too much product in it, Heather thought.

“I think you both know why you’re here,” the man said. “How you both behaved today was uncalled for and unprofessional — especially you.” He looked at Heather, and she sank down in her chair.

Cole chuckled to himself, and Heather wanted to punch him all over again.

The producer guy continued. “Luckily for you, the director doesn’t want to go through the trouble of finding and training new stunt doubles just yet.

” He narrowed his eyes at them both. “That doesn’t mean he won’t if he feels he has to, though.

Just keep that in mind.” With that, he opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out two pamphlets, which he then handed to each of them.

“This is your assignment for the next few days.”

Heather glanced down at the pamphlet in her hand. It showed a happy couple on the front, both fit and young. Above their heads was written the words Boot to Bond in bright yellow font.

“What the hell is this?” Cole said, clearly having a similar reaction to Heather.

“Boot camp,” the guy said. “Well, sort of. I think it’s just a marketing thing. But it’s a physical training camp to encourage bonding between people. We’d like you two to give it a shot this weekend.”

Heather opened the pamphlet and found it was full of itinerary examples with workouts, obstacle courses, and old cabins that made her think of the worst summer camp she’d ever been to.

“It’s a marketing gimmick all right,” she said, “but their target audience appears to be married couples who are days away from divorce.”

“Try to look past all that,” the man behind the desk said, folding his hands in a way that made Heather’s inner high schooler want to get snarky. “It really is meant for bonding, any type of bonding.”

Heather turned the page of the pamphlet only to be met with more obviously married couples with absurdly white teeth and digitally perfected skin.

“This is a load of bull,” she said. “I’m not going to marriage camp with that .

” She pointed a thumb toward Cole, who was still sitting beside her, although his normally overactive mouth seemed to have vacated the area.

Of all times, now would be the perfect time for him to chime in.

“Cole? Don’t you agree it’s ridiculous to ask us to do something like this? ”

He hesitated, fidgeting with the pamphlet in his lap. “Actually, I think it might be a decent idea. We could use some bonding exercises.”

She gave him a look of pure horror and confusion. This was where he drew the line? This was the thing he was going to do by the book rather than rebelling in some arrogant show of always knowing a better way?

“You coward,” she muttered as they left the room.

“Not a coward,” he whispered back. “Just choosing my battles. When the director asks you to practice more, no matter what that entails, you practice.”

“So you’re willing to risk your own health and dignity in order to please this director?”

He shrugged. “That’s how you get ahead in this industry.”

His willingness to sacrifice himself so thoroughly in pursuit of success in this specific job was something Heather imagined most people would find commendable. But to her, it was just depressing, and she promised herself, no matter what, she wasn’t going to make the same mistake.