“Puppies like everyone.”
He shook his head. “Not this one—she’s afraid of her shadow, the birds in the backyard, and paper bags.”
“Me too,” I said.
Gabe laughed. I liked making him laugh.
The puppy’s tongue was out; that pink ribbon—bright against her black fur—seemed almost too long to fit back in her mouth.
“Should I be worried?” I asked. “About what you ordered?”
“I don’t know.” Gabe leaned back, linking his hands behind his head. “Are you someone who likes to take risks?”
I stared at that startlingly intimate line of muscle running from his biceps to under his arm, disappearing into his shirt.
“No,” I said.
He laughed.
“Then maybe you should be worried.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me. “But just a little.”
Was he…flirting?
Of course, he was flirting. The same way he had flirted with Madison. It wasn’t personal. He probably didn’t know how to talk to a woman without flirting in some way. Madison and I were just people in his orbit and therefore we were going to be charmed by his very existence.
That was the nature of celebrities. Of fame.
There were times that I imagined what it might be like to be famous. That I might like to be famous. When I craved the attention and the interest that the spotlight afforded. When I longed for the validation that fame implied.
Gabe was probably good at being charming the way I was good at observing. They were skills that both of us had a natural inclination for but had no doubt honed over the years as they were required for us to do our jobs.
It was a good reminder that the only reason I was here right now, sitting across from Gabe Parker, trying not to stare at his gorgeous armpit, was because it was my job. A job I desperately needed to do well.
I took out my tape recorder.
“Do you mind if I ask you some questions?” I asked, placing it on the table.
He froze for a second, for a blink, his whole body going so still that it felt like a glitch in the matrix. Then, as if he was rebooting, he smiled at me. A shallow, empty kind of smile.
I wasn’t expecting that.
“Of course,” he said. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
It almost sounded like he had forgotten.
But just as quickly as that apparent glitch had appeared, it was gone.
“Okay.” Gabe cracked his knuckles. “Hit me.”
I looked down at my notebook.
I’d spent all of yesterday preparing. I’d read existing profile pieces, I’d watched old interviews.
But I realized, sitting here, in front of Gabe, looking down at my notes, that what I’d really done was research him.
My questions—painstakingly written out—were ones that I could answer.
I stared down at my notebook, dread sitting heavy in my stomach.
Gabe cleared his throat.
“Or we could just talk,” he said.
I couldn’t tell if he was being nice or condescending. Either way, it indicated that he didn’t think I could do my job.
It was going to be okay, I told myself. When I’d interviewed Jennifer Evans, I’d started the interview asking about her hometown and she’d ended up talking nonstop for almost twenty minutes.
“Cooper, Montana,” I said.
Gabe raised an eyebrow. “That’s where I’m from, yes.”
“Good place to grow up.”
“Yep,” he said.
“You went to college there.”
“Yep,” he said.
“Did theatre. At JRSC.”
“Yep,” he said.
There was a slight curve to his lips, just the hint of a smile, as if he was enjoying this. Enjoying my completely incompetent attempt to interview him. Because so far, I hadn’t asked him a single damn question.
This tactic might have worked on Jennifer Evans, but it certainly wasn’t working now.
My ship was sinking and I needed to do something to right it. And quick.
The puppy shifted beneath the table, letting out the kind of sigh that was usually reserved for those contemplating the meaning of life. It was exactly the kind of sigh I had sitting at the back of my throat.
“What’s her name?” I asked.
Gabe looked down and a full smile bloomed.
“Haven’t decided yet,” he said. “I’m going to wait for it to come to me.”
“She looks like a teddy bear,” I said.
“She does.” He glanced up at me. “Were you the kind of kid who had a teddy bear?”
I blushed for no reason.
“Maybe,” I said.
He leaned back. “I knew it,” he said. “What was your teddy bear’s name?”
“Teddy,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow.
“I wasn’t a creative child,” I said.
“I don’t believe that.”
There was that sparkly, hot, live-wire feeling again.
“Were you the kind of kid who had a teddy bear?” I asked.
It was the first decent question I’d asked, and technically it was one I’d stolen from him. Unfortunately, before Gabe could answer, Madison returned with our drinks.
He waited as I took a sip of my beer.
“So?” he asked. “Did I get it right?”
I wasn’t a big fan of beer, but I did love a good sour. And he had gotten me a really, really good sour.
“I think this is my new favorite beer,” I told him honestly.
He beamed and my heart thumped out of rhythm.
“Cheers,” he said, lifting his glass and clinking it against mine.
Then I watched as he drained almost a third of it in one gulp.
“Thirsty?” I asked.
It sounded a lot more accusatory than I meant it.
“Answering questions is thirsty work,” he said.
Touché.
Gabe Parker might have been a hick, but he was a hick with a finely honed sense of irony.
“Why did you audition for Angels in America?” I asked.
This time Gabe was the one who blinked.
A-ha, I thought triumphantly. A question. A good question.
“Because it was a class requirement,” he said. “I’d taken theatre because I thought it would be an easy A. I didn’t realize that part of the deal was auditioning for the winter performance.”
I deflated.
It was almost exactly the same thing he’d said in the Vanity Fair interview he’d done after Tommy Jacks.
“You must have been surprised to get the lead.”
“Yep,” he said.