even tell you how much I wish that wasn’t out there.”
“Then why is it?” I ask. “Turn left here.”
Drew sighs, and the air from his mouth hits me right in the face. “Kind of a long story, but I was dating someone a while ago, and we had . . . I guess you could say different priorities. I liked my privacy, and she was always thinking about how she could spin stories from our personal lives into an interesting angle for People magazine.”
I don’t know for sure, but he must be talking about Gillian Roberts.
“She’d never met my grandpa, since he died before we got together, so I told her about him and showed her that picture. For her eyes, not everyone’s. But she thought it would show people . . . I don’t know, that I’m not some ridiculous asshole who doesn’t take anything seriously, I guess? She hated the shit I did on red carpets and in interviews. So she sent it out to magazines, and long story short, that was the final straw for us.”
“Oh,” I say. “Go through the park here, okay?”
As we walk though the park, underneath the trees with bare branches and the piles of gray snow, Drew says, “I just hate this part of the job. It’s so boring. Like, those articles with random facts about celebrities . . . do I actually need to know George Clooney’s favorite color? I don’t even think George Clooney cares about George Clooney’s favorite color.”
I try to shrug, but it’s kind of hard to do when someone’s carrying you.
“Anyway, I know it makes me look like an asshole sometimes or like I don’t take anything seriously, but that’s why I do all that stuff in interviews.”
“Like wearing a fake mustache,” I say softly.
“Wow,” he mutters. “You really did google me, didn’t you?”
“Sorry.”
“Or, like, whenever I see someone following me with a camera, I just fall down. I learned how to do pratfalls in high school, and I’m legitimately good at falling down without injuring myself—a weird skill, I know. I wish I remembered something more useful from school—but then they stop taking pictures and they rush over to see me and we usually end up having a conversation, instead of them taking a picture of me so internet commenters can talk about what kind of sunglasses I’m wearing.”
He sighs. “I know this probably doesn’t make a ton of sense to you, and I sound like some spoiled rich dude whining about how hard his life is—”
“No,” I say with such force that he glances at me, surprised. “I think you know how hard life is.” After all, like he told me in the Book Loft, it’s why he makes things—to make people forget about their miserable moments.
“Okay, this is my street,” I say. “Just a couple of blocks. You didn’t have to carry me to my house, you know. I could’ve managed it.”
“Yeah,” Drew says, shifting my weight a little bit, “but then I’d be kind of a dick, wouldn’t I?”
I meet his eyes again and see that he’s smiling at me, looking for all the world like . . .
Well, like someone who’s probably played a scene like this in a movie. A damsel in distress, a strong man who’s able to carry her, a moment where their faces are so close that they just . . . might . . . kiss. Because that’s his job, I remind myself. Being charming. Acting.
And then his grip feels less solid, and I realize I’m falling. I shriek, and his grip tightens again as his smile gets wider.
“Just kidding,” he says. “I’m not gonna drop you.”
“What the hell?” I ask, smacking his arm. My hand lingers there for a moment, and I’m basically clutching him as he carries me. I pull my hand back and cross my arms in front of my body. “That wasn’t funny,” I mutter.
“It was a little funny,” he says.
“You’re kind of an asshole, you know that?” I say.
Drew laughs. “I can tell you think that, but in my family, being an asshole is how you show you like someone. I’ve never hugged my brother, but I put him in a headlock every time I visit home, and I love him more than anybody. And every time my mom sees me, she doesn’t bother to tell me that I’m doing a good job, but she does make fun of how ridiculous I looked when I had to do a sex scene.”