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Now it was September, which was still basically summer thanks to global warming, and LA was suspiciously close to the equator—not to mention located in a desert. Maggie was sweating before they’d made it ten steps. By the half-mile mark, she might as well have been melting.
“I feel like the Wicked Witch after Dorothy gets her with the bucket,” Maggie groused as they started up the trail again.
“Except you’re just beautiful without any wickedness.”
Maggie didn’t even have the energy to roll her eyes. As she stumbled up an incline, she stuttered out, “I’ve always, always appreciated that even as she’s, you know, wasting away, the witch has healthy self-esteem.” She stopped, breathing hard.
Cole ran his fingers up her spine, which was a definite violation of the no-touching rule, before he set about digging in his backpack. “You’d expect that from a supervillain.”
Maggie held one of her hands out, and he placed a canteen of water in it. She suddenly appreciated that he’d frozen these last night. He really was perfect.
She chugged, grateful. When she felt vaguely human, and not like a desiccated mushroom, she said, “And see, I would think—”
“Oh my gosh, you’re Cole James!” a woman with a long blonde ponytail squealed.
Cole rearranged his features into what Maggie recognized as his Cody Rhodes face. “That’s me.”
“Team Cody forever!”
“Yeah.” He reached out a fist, and the fan bumped it.
“And you and Tasha Russell are back together—wait, is she here?”
“No, no, I’m with a friend.”
Maggie gave a little wave, but the woman didn’t even see her. She only had eyes for Cole. Maggie tried to remind herself that was a good thing. That the last thing she and Cole needed was for news of their relationship to leak out before she was ready for that. So what if her heart protested at the wordfriend? This was the way she wanted it to be.
“Well, I can’t wait forWaverley! I have no idea why people were saying you were miscast.”
Cole winced. “Thanks.”
But so starstruck was the fan that she didn’t notice. She, like so many others, saw the brand, not the actual man. “This is so cool. God, I love LA.”
“Yeah.” Cole was still smiling, but it was hollow. “We should, probably, um—” He gestured to the trail.
“Oh, of course. See you!” She waved and kept hiking.
Maggie was annoyed. But wanting the fan to be out of listening distance before she spoke, Maggie turned her attention out across the view. The trail was sandy, bordered by scrubby green brush. Where the mountain tumbled down into the valley, the city grew up, all red roofs and a wash of gray and white and blue buildings in a neat grid. The towers downtown might as well have been a play set; they didn’t lookreal. Like so many things about Maggie’s life in the last year and a half, for all that this seemed to be an illusion, it wasn’t. It was every bit as real as the man next to her.
When the fan had made it far enough away, Maggie gestured at her retreating back. “How often does that happen?”
“Sometimes. More now than a few years ago.”
“And youwantit to happen more?” she asked, because that hadn’t exactly seemed like a pleasant exchange for Cole.
“Not for its own sake. I promise, getting clocked in public is not my favorite. But I want ... what it represents.”
So they were back towhyhe was invested in his career comeback again. Maggie had been grateful the other day that he hadn’t turned her question back on her. It had kept her up at night, actually, pondering what motivated her.
She’d never been an ambitious person, at least not as far as her parents were concerned. Ambition had always seemed like a dirty word to her. The reward of high school theatre was in the doing. Fame and riches weren’t in the cards, and most of her students would never do another play in their lives. Maybe they were building some self-confidence and public speaking skills, but mostly, she’d wanted them to understand the arts better. To understandthemselvesbetter.
When that had been taken away from her, she’d been focused on basic questions: affording her mortgage, her health insurance. But those were no longer immediate concerns, at least not this morning. So what the heck did she want, and why did she want it?
She shot a look at Cole’s profile, so handsome against the blue sky. Maggie wantedhimbecause she loved him. But as delightful as their relationship was, it didn’t pay her bills. It was the best thing in her life, but for so many reasons, it couldn’t be the only thing in her life.
When Zoya had first offered Maggie a job, it had solved the champagne problem of how she was going to feed herself. But now, it was more. Maggie wasn’t going to get rich or famous as an intimacy coordinator, but she had made a difference to Tasha, to Cole, to Rhiannon.To the actors in her current project, and perhaps to the ones in her future projects.
The meaning of art was in making it. The meaning of life was in living it.
