“Please,” he said.
I knew what he was asking. This time, I didn’t hesitate.
“I won’t,” I said.
He nodded, but I could tell he wasn’t completely sure if he could trust me.
“My story is about Gabe,” I said. “We went to see your movie and it was great. He’s a fan of your work—you support him. You’re friends. Good friends. There’s no competition between the two of you—in fact, you insisted that he’s the right person for the job.”
Ollie let out a breath.
“Thank you,” he said.
We danced, practically cheek to cheek, him holding my hand between us like an old-fashioned movie couple. Nothing about it should have felt normal, but somehow it did.
Of course, I was slow dancing in a gay club with Oliver Matthias. Of course.
“My manager thinks it will ruin my career,” he said. “I’m afraid he’s right.”
I couldn’t promise him otherwise.
“Or maybe it will just make you even more famous and fabulously unattainable,” I said.
He laughed.
“I don’t want to be brave for coming out. I don’t want to be a hero or an icon or anything. I just want to be an actor. Maybe a director someday. A famous one. A famous, handsome, rich one. I don’t want to be the famous, handsome, rich, gay one.”
“I get it,” I said. “I’m used to being the token Jewish friend.”
“You’re from L.A.,” he said.
I nodded. “Still.”
He let out a low whistle, barely audible over the music.
“A kid in middle school asked me where my horns were,” I said.
He laughed, a dark humor kind of laugh.
“Everyone would want to know when I first ‘knew,’?” he said.
“They want to know what I think about Santa Claus.”
“They’d want to know who the catcher is.”
I cringed.
“I’d make a joke about circumcision,” I said. “But I’d rather cut this conversation short.”
Ollie laughed. And laughed. And laughed.
It wasn’t that great of a joke, but we were both well on our way to being very drunk and maybe becoming friends and things that were usually horrible could seem funny and fun when you felt like that.
I wasn’t sure what I’d done to deserve this—Ollie’s apparent trust and friendship—but I’d take it.
“I like you,” he said.
It was hard to separate Ollie the person from Oliver the movie star and I couldn’t deny the rush of endorphins I got knowing that Oliver the movie star—the person I’d been watching since I was a preteen—liked me.
“And I think he likes you too,” he said.
He spun me around so I got a quick look at Gabe, still sitting on the couch. He was watching us.
“He’s jealous,” Ollie said, and put his hand on my hip.
“He is not,” I said. “He’s Gabe Parker.”
“You think he doesn’t have feelings?” Ollie asked. “He’s an actor. He has all of them.”
“Did you just quote The First Wives Club at me?”
“Did you just know that I quoted The First Wives Club at you?”
We grinned at each other.
“I knew it,” he said. “I have impeccable taste in people.”
“I’ll accept that,” I said.
He swung me under his arm just as the music began to cross fade into a new song. A song I knew very well. It jolted through me the same moment that I realized exactly how drunk I was.
“I love this song!” I shouted over the music.
“Me too!”
It was one of those classic, pure pop songs, a song that made you sing along while leaping into the air, hands waving wildly. There was no way to avoid it. The music became part of you. It became you. When a song like that came on, you were nothing more than a vessel for its splendor.
I was drunk enough and daring enough that as I shook my hips, I swiveled in the direction of the VIP area. Of Gabe. He was still sitting there, his long fingers stroking the velvet back of the couch, as if to tell me that there was still a place for me there. That if I came back and sat down next to him, that hand could be on my arm. Along my neck. Against my jaw.
Instead, I gave my shoulders a little shimmy and stretched my hands out toward him. Beckoning him.
“He never dances,” Ollie said, wrapping his arms around me, the two of us forming a two-headed, four-armed creature, both of us reaching out to Gabe. “He won’t come.”
“His loss,” I said, and turned around in Ollie’s arms. “We’re having a great time.”
I focused my attention on dancing, but Ollie was distracted.
“Bloody. Hell,” he said.
I turned and there he was. Gabe. On the dance floor. In front of me.
“Hey,” he said.
At least, that’s what I thought he said. It was so loud that I couldn’t be sure, but he’d said something, his lips curved in a smile after mouthing something that probably wasn’t any more complicated than “hey.”
But it felt like he’d said a lot more. Just in standing there. In being on the dance floor with me and Ollie.
Ollie who was practically losing his shit over Gabe being there.
“You did it,” he said, hands on my shoulders, giving me a shake. “You saucy Jewish siren—you got him on his feet.”
Gabe rolled his eyes at Ollie and then gave me a look. One that said that he’d maybe prefer being on his knees. In front of me.
No. I was being ridiculous. Even though I was drunk, and he was drunk, I was still somewhat tethered to reality. Gabe was a flirt. It wasn’t personal. It was an instinct. A reflex.
Still, my own knees went weak, and the combination of the intense sexual tension suddenly crackling between us and the shots, which had made me brave enough to summon him, had me jerking forward in a way that was neither sexy nor seductive.
It did make Gabe reach for me.
A smarter girl would have planned it exactly that way. She probably would have made it more charming and seamless, a slight swoon right into Gabe’s arms.
As it was, I jerked and flopped like a dying fish, into his arms and then right back out.