their fingers as they headed toward the water. “Um . . . what do you want to know?”
Normally, he’d steer the topic toward hair care or workouts, or mention only the most superficial things he’d learned over the years. Before showing up at their first doughnut shack a couple of hours ago, though, he’d already disposed of that particular shield.
She was meeting him as he really was today, like it or not.
The possibility that she might not like it had his own heart skittering a bit. As did the possibility that he was tossing his reputation into the garbage alongside their cocroffinut detritus, because if she ever revealed him as a faker to the world before he was ready, before he could explain—
She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t. He trusted her that far, and he trusted his own ability to do sufficient damage control if she proved him naive.
His fanfic alter ego, though . . . no amount of PR and damage control could stop the knowledge of that from destroying his career.
Eventually, maybe he could tell her he was Book!AeneasWouldNever.
Not now. Not yet.
“Okay, fun stuff first.” She was swinging their hands in a huge, swift, jerky arc, and yes, he could definitely tell she’d had more than her usual share of caffeine. It was fucking adorable. “What’s the most memorable movie you’ve ever been part of?”
He snorted. “That’s a tougher question than you might think. I’ve been acting for over twenty years now. There are lots of possibilities to consider.”
For some reason, the bad roles were so much easier to remember than the movies whose premieres he’d attended with sincere pride. Probably more entertaining to hear about too.
Her stride was becoming an uncharacteristic sort of half jog, half skip, her hair swinging around her shoulders with each hyperactive, bouncing step. “Then tell me all of them.”
“Since that could take weeks, I’ll choose a representative sampling.” Damn, he needed to hustle faster to keep up with her. “My worst film overall was probably, um . . . Hounded, I guess.”
Her brow crinkled as she thought. “You were a perfumer in that one, right? Wrongly accused of a terrible crime?”
“Yes. A master perfumer, nicknamed the Hound for my extraordinary sense of smell.” After an exaggerated inhalation through his nose, he continued, “Which I then employed to hide from the authorities while locating my wife’s real killer.”
“As one does.” Her voice was as dry as the California hills in October. “And of course his wife’s murder served as his motivation. Of course.”
“Fridging at its most banal. Eventually, I discovered that my business rivals had formed a secret cabal, hired an assassin, and framed me in hopes of removing me from the perfume industry permanently.”
“Spoiler alert,” she chided him, lips quirked.
He huffed out a laugh. “My scenes mostly involved sniffing. Turns out, it’s hard to make sniffing attractive or interesting to an audience. Which is some explanation as to why the movie flopped.” God, the reviews. Those reviews. Not to mention the phone call from his parents after they’d seen one of the sparse local showings. “It did inspire an X-rated parody, though, from what my costars told me. One with a particularly clever name.”
As they walked, he waited, confident she could come up with it.
She bit her lip for a few moments, then brightened. “Pounded!”
“Brava, April.” Lifting their joined hands above their heads in triumph, he grinned at her. “That movie apparently involved a lot of sniffing as well. Among other activities. It also made more money than its inspiration. Probably featured better acting too.”
He’d wanted her to giggle, but she didn’t. Instead, for no reason he could fathom, her eyes had turned solemn, and he shifted his shoulders under the weight of her regard.
“You’re joking about it, but you must have learned a lot about perfumery for the role,” she finally said. “I may not know you well, but I can already tell you’re a professional. You care about your craft.”
Why that twisted his heart until it ached, he couldn’t have said.
“Uh, yeah, actually.” He squinted into the distance, where the water awaited them, blue and cool and comforting. “I visited a perfumery school in France. A world-class perfumer can identify over a thousand different scents, mostly by associating smells with specific memories. I worked on that a little. Learned about the history of perfume. Watched one woman grind ambergris with a mortar and pestle too, just for kicks.”
“What is ambergris?” she asked. “I’ve always wondered.”