She half-smiles. “I know you’re all about Tom Hanks in ’90s romantic comedies and all, but I want to make sure you’re giving real, nonfictional guys a chance.”
I bristle. “I am.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Are you? Really? Did you ask Barry about the houseboat thing?”
I throw out my hands in exasperation. “What? Like it’s so wrong that I would enjoy meeting a man who lives on a houseboat?”
“Annie!” Chloe practically shrieks. “We live in the middle of Ohio! We are landlocked as shit. Where is that houseboat gonna dock?”
“Maybe the Olentangy River,” I mumble. “I don’t know.”
“Hon.” Chloe reaches out to grab my shoulders. “Listen. All this ‘soul mates, fate, till death do us part’ stuff means nothing to me. You know that. But it’s always meant something to you, and I don’t want you to shut yourself off because you’re waiting for something perfect.”
I sigh. “I’m not waiting for something perfect.”
She purses her lips but nods. “Okay. Well, I can tell Nick’s waiting for me to get in there and get things started.”
I look over her shoulder and, through the window, I see Nick pointing to his wristwatch.
“But have a good day at work, okay?”
“Chloe,” I say. “Barry doesn’t eat sugar. Or hot liquids.”
“What?”
I shrug. “I don’t think it was meant to be.”
She leans over to give me one more hug, then opens the door to Nick’s. Before I walk away, I take a second to watch them through the window. Chloe pulls on her apron, yelling about something, and Nick yells something back, and it’s so painfully obvious that they’re living in their own rom-com. Of course, I can’t tell Chloe this; much like a skittish animal, she’ll run away if I make any sudden movements or try to convince her that the real love she doesn’t believe in is right under her nose.
* * *
• • •
On my way back from the morning’s first coffee run, I slow down on my walk back to the closed-off block that constitutes our set. Sure, all the lighting and equipment and people milling around in their puffy black coats may take away a little of the glamour, but not much. This is still a movie, aka my dream. Even though Tommy’s coffee is rapidly cooling in this freezing air, I stop for a moment to take it all in. There’s Tarah, a real-life famous actress, talking to someone and gesturing to something in a binder. There are the crewmembers, spilling out of the previously empty storefront that the movie took over. Before my eyes find him, I hear Tommy’s voice booming, and then I see him, his arms waving and eyebrows raised, talking to Drew and a man who has a ponytail and—
Wait, what is Uncle Don doing on set?
I run-walk toward them, muttering curse words under my breath as the coffee sloshes out through the hole in the lid.
“Uncle Don! Hey! Why are you here?” I attempt to say casually, but it comes out as more of a breathless yelp. Three heads swivel toward me.
“Hey, Annie!” Uncle Don looks so happy to see me that I feel guilty for questioning his presence, but as usual, he doesn’t seem offended. “Tommy invited me to check out the set! And meet the cast!”
Drew gives me a wide-eyed grin and wiggles his eyebrows a couple of times, like he’s Groucho Marx or something. Even this bizarre gesture somehow looks good on him.
“How nice for you,” I say, turning away from Drew and focusing on Uncle Don.
“Let me tell you something about your Uncle Donny,” Tommy says, grabbing Don’s arm and launching into a story I can barely pay attention to because of my growing discomfort that Drew Danforth is standing so close to my only living family member. Like, it isn’t enough that he makes fun of me every day on set, in the coffee shop, and occasionally in a fast-food dining environment. Now he also has to learn personal details about my uncle’s past that he can presumably use to mock me at a later date? No, thank you. It’s all just too much.
“And anyway,” Tommy says finishing his story, “in the end the chinchilla was a little startled but no worse for the wear.”
“I wish I could say the same for myself,” Don says with a laugh, and I’ll admit, I’m at least a little curious about this story. But there’s no time for that now.
I laugh as if I’ve been paying attention. “Okay, well, Uncle Don, you probably have