“It’s not your fault. He just has this need to stay busy. I’m not sure he’d know what to do with himself if he actually had free time.” That was definitely true.
When we’d nearly finished the meal, I asked, “Do you know where I got my cat’s name?”
“Of course. It’s your favorite character from your favorite ride at Disneyland. Why do you ask?”
“It came up when I was downstairs. I wondered if I’d ever told you the story behind it, or if you were just operating under the assumption that I’d gone mildly crazy when naming her.”
“You actually told me that story the day we met.”
“Oh, right. I’d forgotten. That feels like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?”
“Definitely.”
I asked, “What else did I tell you when we first met?”
“That you wanted to be an actor, more than you wanted anything else in the whole world. And now look, all your dreams are coming true.”
I looked into his beautiful, brown eyes as he smiled at me. I wanted to tell him my dreams had changed—what I wanted most in the world was him, not some job. But he probably wasn’t ready to hear that, so I steered the conversation onto safer ground by asking, “Is being a veterinarian still your dream job?”
“Yes and no. I hated it when I was confined to a clinic, but the work I did with the stray dog rescue in Mexico City and as a volunteer with Catalina Island’s nature conservancy was incredibly rewarding. In a perfect world, I’d love to keep doing work like that. The only problem is, it doesn’t always pay the bills.”
“You know what you need? A rich sugar daddy. Then you wouldn’t have to think about money and could spend your time helping animals.”
He grinned at me and teased, “Are you volunteering?”
“I’m not old enough to be your sugar daddy. I could be your sugar baby, though.”
“But then I’d have to be the wealthy one, and we both know that’s never going to happen.”
“Wait,” I said. “Doesn’t ‘sugar baby’ mean a wealthy younger person who supports an older partner?”
“No. A sugar baby is the recipient in a sugar daddy arrangement.”
“Then what word am I thinking of?”
For some reason, a slight edge crept into his voice. “One that doesn’t exist.” He climbed off the bed and picked up the tray as he muttered, “You should probably get going. The reporter will be here soon.” I stared after him as he left the room and wondered what was bothering him.
* * *
Phoenix had been right about the reporter being a nice guy. It felt more like a conversation with a friend than an interview. We started out talking about my acting career and where I grew up, and then the rest of our time was spent discussing Alex and After, both the book and the film adaption. It was a relief that he didn’t try to dig up gossip or throw any curveballs my way.
After nearly two hours, the photographer took over. He was a handsome, flamboyant blond of about thirty, and he was more than a little flirtatious, but in a playful way. He also kept showering me with compliments. I wondered if his celebrity clients expected that constant boost to their ego.
He had me pose all over the living room before moving outside. The sky was overcast, but he insisted that was a perfect foil for what I was wearing. I’d gone with my favorite gray suit and an open-collared white shirt, and after shooting me like that for a while, he asked me to remove the jacket and roll back my sleeves. After snapping a series of photos with me sitting on a boulder overlooking the ocean, he asked if we could go down to the beach to shoot some more.
I asked, “Do we really need that many pictures? I thought this was going to be a pretty short article.”
“The camera loves you, and I’m getting some fantastic shots,” he said. “If the magazine likes these pictures as much as I think they will, that short article could get bumped up to a major photo spread. That would definitely be a good thing for both of us.” He had a point, so I played along and went down to the beach with him.
We got back to the house maybe half an hour later, and then we joined Phoenix and the reporter and chatted over coffee for a while. Finally, our guests said they needed to get back to the city, so we walked them to the door. There were thanks and handshakes all around, and Phoenix asked the photographer, “Could you email me a few of those photos for Will’s social media? We’ll be sure to credit you, obviously.” The man readily agreed.
Once they took off, Phoenix asked me, “So, how was it?”