In my defence, I was having a bad day before I found a spider in my coffee.

That might not excuse my slightly embarrassing shriek or the way I hurled the cup at the floor, but I would argue it at least presents extenuating circumstances. What person, when they are operating on three hours of sleep and are facing being submerged in a pool of water for hours, is going to react reasonably to a freaking spider floating face-up in their precious caffeine?

Not this girl.

Technically, it probably also doesn’t excuse the way I look around the set to find Adam Jackson, my costar. But in my defence, it’s just the sort of prank he would play. Something designed to make me make a fool of myself. A little funny, a little cruel.

“Five minutes,” Leona, the director, calls. Those five minutes were for me to chug the coffee I’d painstakingly bought from the van outside, not for me to sprint and get some more.

Sweaty. Not a good look for a love scene. I’m already psyched out about it enough as it is. And so I do the only logical thing possible: I march across the set to where Adam is leaning against the wall, coffee in one hand and phone in the other, and snatch the ethically cardboard cup from his grasp.

“What are you—”

I’m two mouthfuls in before I realise my mistake. One: this coffee is scalding hot. What skin there was in my mouth has melted. Two: it is appallingly bitter.

“What the hell?” I splutter, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. Joel, from makeup, groans at the ceiling.

Adam raises one dark, perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Not to your taste?”

“Who drinks their coffee black and that strong?”

“Me,” he says, still not showing a single bit of discomfort or irritation at the fact I’ve snatched his coffee and drunk from it. Which, frankly, is the most annoying thing of all.

“That’s what you get for putting a bug in my drink,” I say, taking another defiant sip. Disgusting.

“A bug?” He sounds bored.

“A spider. In my coffee.”

“Oh, so that’s why you screamed?” He looks at me appraisingly. “Technically, a spider is an arachnid.”

“Technically, it had no right being in my drink.”

“It paid the price for it,” he points out, “being dead.”

“Well you’re the one who should feel bad about that.”

“Emmy.” He looks pained, and I grit my teeth at the annoying nickname he has insisted on calling me the entire time we’ve been working together. “Do you really think I would catch a spider with the purpose of putting it in your coffee?”

“Yes,” I say immediately.

He sighs. “I have better things to be doing with my time.”

Better things that putting me on-edge before our first kiss scene? Unlikely. Over the past eight months, he’s done everything in his power to make me feel unwelcome on set, from stealing my hotel key card to covering the mirror in my trailer with post-it notes of insults.