“Cut!” Milo yells after they finish kissing for the thirtieth time. He grabs Love’s hands. “That felt good. Did that feel good?”

“That felt great!” she says. She bounces and I die.

It’s the little things that make you want to kill someone, the way Milo drinks Diet Dr Pepper and ties his Jewfro in a bun and lifts his shirt to show off his stomach and wipes his glasses down even though they’re not dirty. Yes, Milo got glasses, and seafoam green Topsiders, and a navy blue Polo-style shirt with a popped collar, and didn’t I already kill this guy when he was schilling Home Soda and fucking Guinevere Beck?

Milo calls action again and kisses Love. My muscles tighten. All I can do is eat and wait, eat and watch—and this is day four of twenty-eight days—and they’re improvising the dialogue—bite me—because he just wants to mount her.

I want to be anywhere but here and I ask Forty about nearby restaurants. He slaps my back. “This is a shoot, Old Sport. We don’t go anywhere until we get this baby in the can.”

I lower my voice. “Well, what about those other movies?”

He whispers, “Bad news is fast. Good news takes a while. Hurry up and wait. It’s your job, you’re the boyfriend.”

And that’s what people call me. Can Love’s boyfriend bring her a Diet Coke? Can Love’s boyfriend find Love’s charger?

It’s bad and it gets worse on day seven when the hairstylist asks if Love’s boyfriend can grab the pickles. Milo laughs. “‘Love’s boyfriend’ is kind of awkward,” he says. “Let’s just call him Loverboy!”

The director gets what the director wants so now my name is Loverboy. Forty says I have to lighten up. Love thinks it’s cute. Milo shows us a picture of the Restoration Hardware table, home of The Big Sex Scene on page twenty-seven. “The table represents real love,” he says. “What Oren and Harmony have, the way they forget it around new people, plastic people, but then they get on this table and man, there’s nothing like it.”

“I love it,” Love says.

He avoids my eyes and licks his lips as he leafs through his script. Milo is definitely trying to take her away and I will kill that table. Instead, I go to craft service—why can’t they just call it the food?—for the fourth time in two hours. I dunk a slice of cornbread into the chili and I hear someone: Is Loverboy at crafty again?

And that’s when I decide. I am going to get ripped here. Hot. Jacked.

I toss my cornbread in the trash and tell Love that I’m going for a run. She reacts. “A run? That’s new.”

“Yep,” I say. “I gotta start taking better care of myself.”

IT’S day seventeen and the title of the movie should have been That Time When Milo Tried to Win Back Love. Our sex life dwindles because of the long shooting days, and because we don’t have a lock on our bedroom door. Love spends more time with Milo running lines in his room, which does lock. Every time she goes in there, I go for a run, and every time Milo speaks to me, he says things like, “How are you surviving?” and “You know, if you’re bored, we’re good. You can go back to LA.”

He doesn’t say this shit in front of Love and I want to kill him but I can’t. He’s the director and Love’s third twin and people will notice if he just disappears. So I try not to dwell. Nobody will download this movie except friends and families. And anyway, they may be making a movie but I’m making a body. I downloaded an app that tracks every morsel that enters my body and every step I take. I do sit-ups and pull-ups and I sprint and I am becoming the hottest man alive while most of the people around me are getting bloated, soft.

I arrive in Video Village after my second workout on day twenty-three and Love notices my arm. “Hello, biceps,” she says. “Wow.”

Milo says one of these days he wants to hit the gym with me.

I tell him anytime. “You’ll get rid of that paunch in no time,” I assure him. “Or you can go on a run with me.”

Love walks away to makeup and Milo smiles. “Loverboy,” he says. “I wanted to thank you. I didn’t want to make a big deal in front of Love, but guy to guy, if I were in your shoes, with the new scene, the rewrite, I would have gotten it if you said no. So thanks.”

I don’t know about this new scene and he knows it and he winks. He ambles away to check on that Restoration Hardware table and I ask a production assistant for the addition. She avoids eye contact and gives it to me. I read.

INT. KITCHEN – MID-AFTERNOON, LAZY, LOVELY TIME

We are TIGHT on HARMONY eating strawberries. Watching Oren. Her nipples pop. She says she’s hungry. She licks her fingers. OREN says to eat a berry. Harmony says she doesn’t want a berry. 3, 2, 1. Boom. Harmony gets onto her knees. We go TIGHT on her mouth as she takes him.

Milo knew better than to be around while I read. And all I can think is:

INT. MY BRAIN – RIGHT NOW – FUCK YOU FUCKING MOVIE FUCKING MILO

There are two days until Love blows Milo. But that’s not true. Because Love is not blowing Milo. Because I am gonna do whatever it takes to get that motherfucking mouse out of my motherfucking house.

33

I lay the groundwork for my extermination. It is the most painful, derivative thing I’ve ever said, for so many reasons, because of my ex, because I’m not a follower, because I fucking hate concerts and Urban Outfitters and Porta-Potties. But it has to be said. If I want to kill the mouse, I have to lure him away from the house. We are on set. It’s the day before the blowjob. This is it. “So, Milo,” I begin. And here it comes. My anti-truth. “How cool would it be to get outta here and go to Indoor Coachella and see Beck tonight?”

“Yeah,” he says. “But we have a big day tomorrow.”

“But still.” I lean in. “If you could intercut some of that pop and the color and the sound with the oral element, I mean, I’m just saying, that would be dope.”

Milo nods. “Mm hmm,” he says. “Yeah.”

“I go jogging every night,” I remind him. “You’ve been saying you want to go with me . . .”

Milo tugs on his bun. “Not a word to Love,” he says.

So it’s on. A plan is made. I’m relaxed just knowing that he’s going to be dead soon. Granted, it sucks that I have to go to Indoor Coachella. But at least that festival of fanny packs and MDMA will be good for something. People die at festivals all the time. And Milo’s been wanting to go to this fucking festival since day one. I’m the innocent one who just tagged along to make sure he’d be okay.

And I’m not heartless. I spend the day trying to save the poor kid’s life. I try to kill the blowjob scene. At lunch, Love and I go upstairs to our bedroom and I try to make her see things my way. I hold her hands. I tell her that this is turning into a cult. “Milo even looks like Charles Manson, with those stupid beads he’s wearing now.”

“Joe,” she says. “You need to process your own emotions. I can’t do that for you.”

“I’m not processing my emotions,” I say. “I’m trying to stop you from doing something stupid.”

She cups my face in her hands. “My job is to make things work,” she says. “My job is not to tear them down.”

“We’re talking about a blowjob,” I remind her. “Not world peace.”

She smiles. “You’re jealous because we don’t do that. Harmony and Oren are different. I’m not Harmony, Joe. And it’s not my vision. It’s Milo’s vision.”

Everyone has been brainwashed by this fucker. Still, I try nonviolent measures of extermination. I continue my anti-blowjob mission after lunch, but everyone wants the blowjob. Forty says it’s bold. Forty says people are still talking about Brown Bunny because of the blowjob scene but Forty is wrong. Nobody is talking about Brown Bunny. Milo says we need it. He says it elevates the material and ensures that the movie won’t get lost.