“Go already.” She smacked his leg with her script.
“What? I was just checking the time.” But he slipped his script into his shoulder bag and tossed back the last of his water. “What do you think about this character, Hamilton Lightfoot?”
“I love him. He’s honorable and courageous. Cares about his family. Certainly cares about Esther.” Chloe collected their empty water bottles and Diet Coke cans. “Do you have a date or something?”
“Ginger is waiting for me.” Chris grinned just as a message pinged on his watch. “We’re going to dinner with her folks, but I told her going over the script with you was priority.”
“Her folks? Wow, sounds serious.”
Chris texted his answer, scribing on the phone’s small face. “Well, relatively. I don’t know... but her parents were coming into town and I figured, what’s the harm? And I agree, Hamilton is a great character. Can’t believe a new screenwriter pulled it off.”
“What do you like about him?”
“Him who? Jesse? Why? You got the hots for him?”
“No, Hamilton. And no one says ‘got the hots’ anymore. Keep up, Painter.”
“My bad.” The superstar laughed. After their breakup, Chloe never imagined a day she’d sit with him in her living room, goingover a script, talking casually about his relationship with another woman. But she was, and it felt good. Healing. “Hamilton makes me think.”
“About?”
“Love, I guess. Is there the perfect person for each one of us?”
“A soul mate?”
“I know you believed in that once upon a time.” Chris bore his blue gaze into Chloe’s. “Do you still?”
“Can’t help myself.”
“After everything that happened?”
“I can’t help it. It’s like a part of my DNA. I was born to believe there is one right person for me.”
“Is it going to be weird, us working together?”
“Not at all.” She tossed the bottles and cans in the recycle bin. “We’ve been friends far longer than we were lovers.”
He came around to where Chloe stood and spoke as Hamilton. “I only ask for the kindness of your mercy, and to remember me in your prayers. You are the reason I am willing to fight, to lay down my life.” A slight blush touched his cheeks as he became Hamilton Lightfoot in the light of her kitchen. “I’m not sure I’ve ever known this kind of passion. You might be right, Chloe, it only happens in the movies.”
“I pray I’m wrong.”
He slipped his arm around her, and she walked him to the door.
“Say hi to Ginger for me.”
“Will do.” Chris paused in the doorway. “You are going to own this role, Chloe. I can feel it. You play Esther with heart.” He flashed his famous smile and kissed her cheek. “Later.”
Chloe returned to the script, staring at dialogue, considering Esther. The woman was strong, capable, assured of love. In the midst of a hard, upcountry life with war in her backyard, she chose love. Fiercely. At least that’s the way Jesse saw it.
She wondered if he’d tapped into something divine.
The sound of a door clapping drew her attention. Voices bounced up from the back side of her apartment.
“Is that all you’ve got?”
“I told you I travel light.”
Chloe went to the window. Was Mr. Crumbly home? If so, she had a few questions for him about her pastor’s message on healing this morning.
