We’re swept away to a nearby restaurant, where the entire place has been reserved for us. For Oliver.
He holds court, charming us all, and I drink one too many of the bespoke cocktails that are circulating—drinks that each have an orchid or a real silk umbrella or a Swarovski crystal–encrusted swizzle stick.
The whole evening is delightful and luxurious and Gabe is the ultimate platonic date.
“How crazy is this?” he asks me at one point, as if this is new to him as well. As if it still dazzles him.
It’s hard not to be enamored with the future Bond.
I’m aware, the whole time, that I’m breathing rarified air. That I’m beyond lucky to be spending my evening listening to Oliver Matthias and Gabe Parker talk about their favorite movies and actors they idolize. That they are wearing designer suits and my dress is safety-pinned to my bra. We’re not even the same species, but tonight, they’re letting me pretend that we are.
Chapter
11
“He’s going to try and fuck you,” Jo said, putting the finishing touches on my face. “Though, I wouldn’t take it personally.”
That was Jo in a nutshell. If good or exciting things happened to me, I shouldn’t take it personally. It wasn’t me—it was circumstance. The job at Broad Sheets? They were just doing my old professor a favor. My relationship with Jeremy? Being with me was easier than trying to date in L.A. The Gabe Parker assignment? Everyone else was probably busy and it would be impossible for me to screw it up.
Jo and I weren’t really friends.
We were roommates who gossiped viciously and used each other for favors.
It wasn’t healthy, but I didn’t have anyone else besides Jeremy.
My friends from high school had either lost touch or moved away and my friends from undergrad had gone home or stayed in New York. I hadn’t been close to anyone in grad school besides Jeremy. I saw my family, but that wasn’t the type of relationship I needed the most. I was alone in L.A., unsure of how to be an adult in the city I’d grown up in.
Jo was jealous and demanding. She didn’t like Jeremy at all.
“He wears his jeans too tight,” she’d say. “That means he’s insecure about his dick size.”
She would try to get me to confirm or deny those statements and called me prudish when I declined to discuss the size of my boyfriend’s penis with her.
But she could do a smoky eye better than anyone I knew and I needed to look amazing tonight.
“You’ll have to tell me all the details,” she said. “I bet he’s a total freak in bed. Celebrities always are. I heard one story about that former child actor, Don What’s-his-name, who has his bodyguard pick up women at clubs and take them back to a hotel suite. When they get there, they have to sign an NDA, then they have to shave off all their body hair before they can even go into the bedroom, where he’s lying on the bed wearing headphones. They can’t say anything, they just have to hop on and fuck him while facing away. When he’s done, they leave. No talking at all.”
I would have dismissed that story as another one of Jo’s bullshit “secrets of Hollywood” except I’d heard exactly the same thing from someone who didn’t even know Jo.
“I don’t think there will be any story to tell,” I said. “I’m not his type.”
She rolled her eyes. “Guys like that aren’t having sex with you because they’re attracted to you,” she said. “They do it because they can. Because they know you want it. And that’s what gets them off. Their type is anyone who can stroke their ego. And they care way more about that getting stroked than their dick.”
I knew that if I said “Gabe’s not like that,” she would have laughed me out of the apartment. Because though I did believe it, I also knew it was ridiculous. Even after spending several hours together, I didn’t know Gabe. He was an assignment. And a performer. There was no way I could truly trust anything he said to me.
“Is he picking you up?” Jo asked.
“Someone is picking me up,” I said.
When I’d texted Gabe last night, I’d tried to be cool and casual about it.
If the offer stands, I’d love to see Oliver’s new movie, I’d written.
He’d texted me back almost immediately saying he’d make it happen. Then I was put in contact with someone named Debbie at his agent’s office, who had told me that a car would be coming to my house to get me at six.
“Hmm,” Jo said, her face contorted into an exaggerated frown.