Page 15 of Hollywood, Ending

“You’re kind of a bad liar,” he said.

“I am doubly offended,” I shot back, kicking him from across the couch. “First off, I’m not lying, and second off, I’m a fucking phenomenal liar.”

He just shrugged. “Are you quite single?” he asked.

I’m sure my face revealed a measure of surprise even though I tried not to. “Quite. You?”

“I am always a little in love with someone, but yes, I’m quite single.”

“And who are you a little in love with these days?”

“You, I guess,” he said, with no concern. “But I’m a bit like Andy. I’m a bit fucked up when it comes to that stuff. Okay, we should go to the game.”

_____________

In the Uber on the way to the stadium, Jamie called. “Are you fucking Matthew Malone?”

“Am I what? Of course not.”

“Hmm,” she said. “Interesting. Well, Matthew Malone called the head of the studio and told him he’ll make some Christmas movie for him if you get cast as Agrippah in Gods of Andromeda.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“I am not.”

“He said he’d make a call for me; he didn’t say he’d make that call.”

“But you’re not fucking him.”

“No.”

“Pity. I was hoping you could tell me what it’s like. Anyway, you’re not working Thursday or Friday, so the studio wants to fly you out to audition.”

_____________

I have no particular love of baseball, but it was fun to watch Kai sketch the stadium and the field as he explained to me who each player was and why we should root for or against them. We left after the seventh inning because the game was a blowout, and then walked along the Allegheny River for a while. Kai had a funny way of walking—he was kind of like a heat-seeking missile. I’d be walking in a straight line and he would draw toward me and then take a half step away and then get close to me again, until our hips were almost-but-not-quite touching, and then he’d take another half step away. I liked walking with him, though.

Something about the game had made him talk less, and I was enjoying the quiet, or at least what passed for quiet when you were in spitting distance of a highway. “You know a lot about baseball,” I said finally.

“Yeah, well, I played growing up.”

“Were you good?”

“I guess so. I was very good defensively. I was an okay hitter.”

“Like, you could’ve played in college?”

“I had some offers. Not Division I or anything. But yeah, I could’ve played in college. It’s just…there were a lot of other people who wanted it worse than I did.”

“So you were an athlete and a theater kid?”

“I contain multitudes,” he said.

“You were popular.”

“I guess.”

“And handsome.”