For Her (The Girl I Loved Duet 1)

Amber looks up and meets my eyes like she can read my mind. And the tiny, shy smile that she gives me is worth more than a thousand cups of coffee. I’m more awake than I’ve ever been, because that smile means the wall is cracking more. I know it.

Fingers snap into my face. “Hello?” Michael says. “I’m the one who gets to zone out in this relationship.”

“You have a monopoly on that?” I ask, making a face at him.

“I have a good reason for it,” he says with a glare. “I’m busy trying to make you a star. You seem to just be ogling the director, which is monumentally stupid. You’ve never been one of the people with a wandering cock that I have to worry about. Please don’t start that now because it makes everything so much harder.”

I give him a look. “I thought we already had a conversation about how you are in no way entitled to information about my sex life? Or that you shouldn’t insult my professionalism.”

“That look was way less than professional.” Michael crosses his arms. “I’m seriously looking out for you. I need her to like you, not feel dumped. Not with what I’ve got planned.”

“Michael,” I say, voice even, “you are on dangerous ground. Spit out what you’re thinking and stop insinuating that fucking women is my only area of interest.”

“Just one woman,” he mutters, while he scrolls on his phone. But he keeps talking before I can bite off his head, though I’m not ruling it out for later. “I want to do a strategy meeting with the three of us,” he says. “You, me, and Ms. Dwyer. With the way this show seems poised to take off, and especially if season two is green-lit before the premiere, she’s going to go places. We have a chance to create some synergy here. Since you guys seem to be working well together, it would be good if we could make a kind of…project partnership if you will. Like Leo and Scorsese.”

That would be…amazing. It’s actually a really good idea, one of the best that I think Michael has had. “So you want to get her to agree to take me onto her next project, no matter what it is?”

“Yeah, that’s the idea,” he says. “If Undercover is well received, you two together would be unstoppable. But we’d have a specific window to do that. Do you think she’d be open to that?”

I think about it. I know the director part of Amber would jump at the chance. If we teamed up, we’d have double leverage for our choice of projects. That’s most directors’ dream. So the professional side of her would be into it. On the personal side, I’m not sure. Not yet. But I hope that she’d be open. “I think she’d consider it,” I say. “So far, I think we’ve worked well together.”

I don’t mention anything else, because like I’ve already made clear, my off set relationship with Amber is none of Michael’s goddamn business.

“Perfect,” he says. “I’ll get her management on the line and try to set something up for this coming week. We can go somewhere fancy, if she likes that sort of thing.”

She was never really a fancy restaurant kind of girl when we were younger, but I have to own up to the fact that I don’t really know her anymore. “I’m not sure, but I’ll pay whatever. Make sure her management knows that it’s on me. We can’t take her out to court her for a partnership and then ask her to pay the bill.”

“Of course,” he says. Honestly, Michael probably would have done that without me telling him to. He may be an ass sometimes, but he’s an ass who knows the ins and outs of this business better than me. “How about Swann’s Lake?”

I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard stories about it. It’s on the beach with ocean views, an upscale restaurant that I’m pretty sure is formal, and everyone in the celebrity circles that I’ve encountered raves about the food. “Fine with me, if her management agrees..”

He nods. “This is good. Really good. We set you up like this, I think you’re going to be going places. The two of you can do more than just TV. Film is calling your name.”

I glance over to where Amber is chatting with the director of photography about how she wants to set up the shot, and I hope that she’ll agree. Once upon a time I had a vision of Amber and me living together, making a life together. Maybe this is a different way toward that, making a creative life together, and if I’m lucky, our personal lives will follow.

That golden vision popped back into my head the moment I laid eyes on her again, and I don’t ever want to let it go.