Chapter 2 #2
The way he said it made it seem as if I were the one who wasn’t making sense, as if my viewpoint was the strange one.
I made a show of pulling my phone out of my pocket and making sure he could see the screen as I turned it off entirely.
“It’s definitely not. I can’t offer you pickleball or squash this afternoon, but how do you feel about parks?”
“Thanks for keeping me company.”
“I don’t mind. It’s not a hardship to leave Halo House, although I do love it there,” Andy deflected. “Have you been a supporter for a long time?”
The hint of nervousness in Andy’s voice was juxtaposed against his painfully stylish outfit.
The pretty sweater on his shoulders was a preppy touch, and his styled-within-an-inch-of-its-life hair hadn’t moved at all, even though the wind along the coastline whipped around us.
From the passenger seat, he projected the epitome of calm, so long as you didn’t notice the nonstop tic just under his eye.
The scenery raced past the open sides of my convertible.
The waves crashed against the fallen rocks of the cliff.
The endless blue never failed to make me smile.
I grew up here and loved it. More than that, I loved this stupid car.
If Andy had objections to my favorite ride when I didn’t need to be client-ready, he hadn’t said anything.
It was absurdly California-coded and made me feel like an asshole lawyer, but I hoped there was never a reason to give up my candy-apple red classic Mustang.
“Yeah, a couple of years. Phoenix is highly persuasive when convincing someone to support his cause,” I answered with a low chuckle.
That might be the understatement of the year. He was the smoothest dog with a bone I’d encountered in or out of the negotiating room. I spent my days working deals, but trying to best Phoenix had been a lost cause from the beginning. Giving fast and early was always the best resolution with him.
“How are you getting on there?”
Andy’s breathing caught before he evened it out and brought it back to normal. When I glanced down, he’d placed his hands palm down on his thighs and was rubbing them. His nervous tells were obvious, which, from my perspective, was very much appreciated.
“It’s been nice the last couple of weeks getting to know everyone there,” Andy said brightly.
“What bro—”
“What do you do?”
Andy asked the question like the answer would change his life. It sounded genuine, but I wasn’t sure it actually was. It was hard to articulate why because there was nothing wrong, per se, but something about the way he asked felt tinged with deflection, not deception.
“I’m an entertainment attorney,” I answered, then waited for the barrage of questions about my client list. It never actually worked because I valued confidentiality, but in my experience, that was usually people’s reaction.
“Interesting. Is that what you wanted to study in law school?” If Andy was faking interest, he was a better actor than ninety-five percent of my clients. “Is that something you can specialize in in law school?”
“No and yes. In law school, I thought I was going to be a family law attorney, but I got shoved into an entertainment law clinic because there wasn’t space left in the family law one I’d applied to. It turned out I liked it a hell of a lot. Wha—”
“More than family law?”
“Yeah. A lot more.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“With family law, there are a lot of people coming to you with problems and issues and things that probably aren’t going right.
Adoption is the exception, though even that can be bittersweet.
Entertainment law is more about playing to win a game.
The studio wants one thing. My client wants another.
Or someone’s getting the deal of a lifetime to have their book or screenplay optioned or whatever.
It’s like playing chess, except when I win, somebody’s life gets better. Are you—”
“And if you lose?”
“I don’t like to lose.”
Andy’s scoff was adorable. A quick glance let me see him with his hand out the window, lying flat and riding the wind’s current.
His artfully styled hair had lost its battle with the wind and was now sticking up in tufts that were perfectly imperfect.
Without the guardedness that he kept smoothed over, the crinkles of his eyes stood out more.
Along his temples, the first whispers of gray were beginning to show.
The rest of the drive was spent with Andy asking questions about entertainment law that had nothing to do with my clients and everything to do with the mechanics of how it worked.
I found myself talking the entire trip about how it all fit together.
How complicated the contracts could be when you started talking about various studios, production companies, agents, and whatnot.
The forty-five-minute drive was over in a blink, and once we pulled into the parking lot, I was struck with the realization that Andy was still a complete mystery to me.
Not once had the conversation turned to him because he’d been too busy plying me with questions.
Every time I’d attempted to turn the conversation to him, he deflected and spun it around to me.
It was a master class in diversionary tactics.
Phoenix had been exactly right about him. Andy was interesting, even though I hadn’t learned a damned thing about him.
He wasn’t lying.
He was protecting something.
I just didn’t know what.