Chapter Six
THE MORNING AFTER I find the room with the lock, Maximo hands me a fresh rule along with my coffee.
"Rule twenty-four." He aims it at a point just past my ear because he still isn't looking at me straight on. "Don't open locked doors."
I just nod. This is his home, I crossed a line, and so I simply take my coffee in silence, then my pills, and when I see him staring at my little orange bottle—
"Immunosuppressants," I tell him. "I had a heart transplant a couple of years back. This one"—I tap my chest once—"came secondhand from a stranger, so I take these forever, I don't get to skip them, and yes, I'm aware it makes me sound extremely dramatic at parties."
He doesn't answer, but the way he's looking at me?
I don't know why, but there's just something in his eyes that makes me hold my breath. I feel like he's about to say something—
"When's your audition?"
And so he does, but I guess I don't really know him as well as I hoped because I was definitely expecting something else.
Bummer.
But anyway, at least he still cares enough to ask, right?
The thought cheers me up, and all is good in the world again.
"It's actually a callback," I clarify, "and it's in an hour. But it's just a small part—"
"And you're wearing that?"
I look down at myself. Jeans. A t-shirt that has outlived three apartments. "It's a grounded, real-people role. I'm dressing in character."
He doesn't seem to be listening though, with Maximo typing on his phone. "It's called craft—"
"My driver Bernie is waiting for you at the lobby. He'll take you where you need to go."
"But—"
"Go."
And so I go.
I'm a smart girl, remember?
And so I know how to pick my battles, and Bernie at the lobby turns out to be this nice man in his fifties.
He takes me to a well-known boutique, and the staff there is just like Bernie.
They're just really good at taking care of me, and so by the time I get to the callback, I don't just feel like a million dollars.
I look like it, too, considering just how much my new outfit costs.
My scene partner Josh is warm and quick and has a face that basically photographs itself, and when they finally call the last cut, he leans in and asks if he can buy me dinner. No pressure, he tells me. Just two actors and some carbs.
I open my mouth to answer—
"She's eaten."
We both turn, and my jaw drops.
Maximo?
He's at the edge of the soundstage, hands in his pockets, wearing the face of a man who owns the building and is considering buying the sky.
What is he doing here?
"Sorry, do I know you?" Josh asks.
"No." Maximo doesn't look at him as he answers, with his gaze focused on me.
"Then—" "She lives with me."
"Right." Josh slowly nods and backs off. "My bad, man."
I feel like I should apologize, but Maximo has already reached my side, and he's taking my hand, and then we're walking side by side, and it's simply too, too much for my poor borrowed heart.
It's pounding so, so hard against my chest I can barely hear anything over the racket it's making, and by the time we're in the back of his limo, I just have one question—
"Were you jealous?"
"Of course not."
He says it so, so stiffly that I just have to turn to the window. I'm a smart girl, after all, and smart girls like me?
They know when it's better to keep their mouth shut and just secretly and silently celebrate their little win.
Maximo is jealous!
And that means it's only a matter of time before he admits something else, and that's how he's already fallen in love with me.