I take a step back, reminded of my earlier anger. “You don’t have to explain anything. I get it, okay?”
He shakes his head. Another small step forward. “I don’t think you do.”
I step back again. “It was nothing. You’re a grown man; you’re allowed to flirt with or do whatever with whoever you want. And I’m a grown woman. I can handle it. Forget about it . . . it didn’t even mean anything.”
Drew shakes his head again and takes yet another step toward me. Now there’s nowhere else for me to go; I can’t back up any more unless I want to knock over the recycling can, which is full of empty Mountain Dew cans because that’s what the guys drink on D&D nights.
“It wasn’t nothing, and I don’t want to forget about it. Tarah and I don’t have anything going on. She’s married.”
“Wait,” I say. “She is? But Hollywood Gossip didn’t—”
“Please,” he groans. “Stop getting your news from Hollywood Gossip. No one knows she’s married because she’s pretty secretive about her private life, and they haven’t thought to look into it. Maybe someone saw us talking or filming a scene, but we weren’t canoodling. Canoodling is— God, why did they have to use the word canoodling? It sounds so terrible.”
“Like you’re sharing a noodle, like in Lady and the Tramp,” I say quietly.
“What? I mean . . .” Drew gives me a narrow-eyed, skeptical look. “I’m not trying to get into the origin of the word canoodle. That’s not what I came here to do.”
“You came here to kill some dire wolves,” I say, trying and failing to pry my eyes off his brown eyes, which are somehow even more beautiful than they are on screen.
“No, Annie,” he says, my name still sounding special and magical when he says it. “I came here to see you. Did you really end things with Sexy Gaffer?”
“He has a name.”
“Fine. Carter. Did you really end things with Carter? Because I know I was kind of a dick about him. I’m sorry. He’s an okay guy.”
I shrug. “We weren’t right for each other anyway. You don’t have to be sorry about that.”
“Well, good,” Drew says, taking another step toward me. “Because I’m actually not sorry at all that you broke up.”
I take that extra step back and the trash can tilts over, Mountain Dew cans crashing onto the floor. I immediately crouch down and start picking them up, and Drew follows suit.
“This,” I mutter. “This is a mistake.”
“Tell me about it,” Drew says. “There’s no way this much Mountain Dew is good for those guys. Once I knew this dude in high school who drank so much Mountain Dew that his stomach lining literally corroded and—”
“No.” I shake my head, meeting his eyes. “I know you came here to see me and that’s nice but—I can’t.”
Drew drops a Mountain Dew can into the recycling bin and it lands with a satisfying thunk. “What are you talking about?”
“I mean . . .” I sigh. “Obviously I think you’re attractive. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” he repeats, giving me that smirk that makes me scowl.
“But you’re done here tomorrow night, and then you’re off to God knows where—”
“New York,” Drew supplies. “I’m taping a morning show appearance on Monday morning to promote my next movie, but I have my hotel here booked through the weekend. Let’s hang out. Let’s get dinner. Let’s—”
I hold up my hand and almost fall out of my crouching position, but Drew’s hand shoots out to steady me. It’s infuriating that he’s always around to catch me when I fall.
“But I don’t want to hang out for a couple of days with any guy. Do you get that?” I ask, searching his eyes. He looks back at me, waiting.
What I want to say is that Tom Hanks doesn’t just hang out. My parents didn’t just hang out. I want the real thing—the rom-com love, the forever love, the “let’s start a family” love. But that’s a little too much to say right now, even for me, so I settle for, “We have really different lives. You make movies, and I write about hemorrhoid relief.”
“So come out and visit me sometime,” Drew says, excited. “You’d like LA. There’s this thing called sunshine there; maybe you’ve heard of it? And people get hemorrhoids all over the world, you know. They’re the great equalizer.”
I smile a little. “No. It’s just—I’m glad we met, okay?”