"Thank you. It's okay."
"Can you get the money somewhere else?"
"I'm already cooking up ideas. I'll be able to eventually, just not this summer. I have a good job, and I'm a bulldog when I want something. I'll be able to make it happen."
"What's your job?"
"Investing. I trade and help others trade. My grandfather—that same grandfather—was in themarket, too. He made hundreds of millions. He gives us grandkids cash every year on our birthday, and I've been investing. The number corresponds with our birthday each year—when I was nine, I got nine thousand, ten, I got ten thousand, and so on and so forth. Anyway, I invested as much as I could of those gifts, and I've built that into a job. I do trading as my job now. I'm pretty good at it, but I take losses, too. I don't make the kind of money my grandfather did. Not yet, anyway. I make enough to support myself and grind away at my real job, which was making this movie."
Chapter 5
Josie
"I had made a few short films, and I knew I wanted to make a longer project one day, but this story… it just fell into my lap, and there was nothing I could do besides write and produce it."
I turned toward him in my seat, the driver's seat of the rental. I handed him the keys absentmindedly. "Did you say it was your great, great,greatgrandma who did the whole thing where she switched lives? Three times great?"
"Yes."
"That's not that far," I said. "That wasn't that long ago."
"I know, and it's an amazing story. I didn't even have to try that hard, and I wrote a great screenplay. We have six episodes. I just have to go back to the drawing board on timing and logistics."
We sat in the parking lot of his hotel talking for another hour. It was well past midnight when I looked at the clock. Alex's demeanor was different, more somber, than it was that morning when I met him. He didn't look at me much, and his tone was quieter. But he held a good conversation. I liked hima lot. He had an engaging personality despite the melancholy mood.
"I'd better let you get going," he said, finally.
"I know, Audrey will wonder where I'm at."
"Yeah, okay." He sat up in his seat, and I could tell he wasn't thrilled about saying goodbye. That gave me feelings in the pit of my stomach.Was this what it was like to have butterflies?I normally wasn't the type to be whimsically attracted to guys. I had very few crushes, and they had taken forever to develop.
"I thought you were going to walk me upstairs," he said.
"Do you… need me to?" I asked hesitantly, uncertainly.Was I flirting?That had to be what I was doing. We both knew he didn't need me to get out of the car and walk upstairs to his room. I waited for his answer, and my heart pounded in my chest like he was my biggest crush.
"Yes, I need you to," he said simply.
He turned and opened his car door, and I did the same, grabbing my bag and going to meet him on the sidewalk. We walked inside the resort lodge hotel. I had seen it from the outside but never been in. I stopped in the lobby and looked around as if that was as far as I could go.
"Come upstairs with me for a second," he said. He took hold of my hand just long enough to pull me along for a second before dropping it again. He was large and stoic next to me, and it gave me a gut-clenching sensation that was enough to get me to follow him. I even liked the way his body moved when he walked.What was going on with me?
"I know you can't stay, but I thought you were going to walk me all the way up to make sure I made it to my room."
We got into the elevator, and he pressed the button to take us to the third floor.
It was late.
It had been a long day of working two different jobs.
I had started my day over eighteen hours ago.
I was delirious from exhaustion, and the feelings of attraction toward Alex caused my judgment to feel impaired.
I blamed that for what happened next.
We got out of the elevator on the third floor, and he reached back for my hand as we fell into stride in the hallway. My goodness. He was touching me, holding my hand. I was so stunned and shocked that I held his hand back. I didn't protest or pull away, I held onto him. This wasn't a situation I would normally ever find myself in. Maybe I shouldn't have trusted him, but I did. I held his hand, following him down the hallway toward his room. My skin felt alive where he touched me.
"I know you're turning right around and leaving," he said, trying to put me at ease.
