Myrna slides into my car, sunglasses deployed, and mutters, “You’re a lucky bastard. Treat it like a job and don’t fall for her. The last thing we need is an actual scandal.”
I manage a laugh, but my heart isn’t in it. I’m already outside the rules.
I start the car, but before I pull out, I pop the glovebox. The bracelet is still there, its plastic beads tangled around a pen. Ilet my thumb run over it, then tuck it in my jeans pocket, just in case.
The sun climbs, the city cooks, and the only thing I know for sure is that I’m not going to regret this. Not even a little.
CHAPTER 3
EMMA
I wasthirteen when my mom’s then-boyfriend—a wannabe singer who got kicked off American Idol—stumbled home drunk and told me something that stuck with me forever: "Fame is like glitter, kid. Looks pretty at first, but it gets everywhere, and you can never really wash it off.” You might think you can shower it off, but the next morning, there’s always some left in your hairline, your ears, the creases behind your knees. I’m paraphrasing, of course. He actually said something far less poetic and a lot more slurred. But as I stand at the edge of Beverly Gardens Park at 6:58 AM on a Wednesday with my phone buzzing in my armpit pocket, I can feel it: the glitter coating, the giddy sense that everything you do is being watched, and not entirely by people that want what’s best for you.
The park is only half-lit at this hour, and there’s a cold snap in the air that doesn’t exist in August except here, where the sprinklers have recast the grass in dew. The call time was seven, but Asher beat me by five minutes, jogging up the curb with that kinetic, golden retriever-gait that only real athletes and stoned surfers have. He’s already in character—or rather, maybe that’s just how he is—wearing a fitted white t-shirt and ancient grey Nike shorts, his hair ignored into a controlled, expensive mess.
“Emma!” His voice carries before his body arrives. “I brought water, if you forgot.”
I didn’t forget. I am, if nothing else, aggressively prepared. I have two mini water bottles in my fanny pack, an extra pair of socks (blister paranoia), and two travel packs of Advil in case we both hate ourselves by mile three. I almost tell him this, but he’s smiling at me in such an open, uncynical way that I want to be someone lighter, someone who doesn’t armor up for first dates like Katniss Everdeen at the Cornucopia.
He holds out one of the bottles with a little bow. “From the sacred springs of Fiji, because I believe in starting things dramatically,” he says.
I try to take it without my hand shaking, but I watch my fingers anyway—a dead giveaway of nerves.
“Thanks,” I say. “You know you don’t have to be the most charming man in Los Angeles, right?”
He shrugs like he’s heard this before. Maybe he has, perhaps a thousand times. “If I’m not charming, I don’t eat,” he says, deadpan, then: “That’s a joke. I mostly eat out of boredom and unresolved trauma.”
There’s something about two famous people running in public, in that space after sunrise but before the dog walkers have all clocked in, that feels like trespassing in your own body. I’d never call myself famous outright—not yet, not even borderline—but Asher is. I get the sense that this weirds him out less than it does me. I always thought Fame would feel like power. Mostly, it feels like waiting for a sniper to take the shot.
We start on the big loop through the rose garden, our paces accidentally matching. The path is made of spongy, red rubber. We run in silence for the first stretch, our feet pounding the road in unison, until he throws a conversational grenade at me.
“Twenty questions,” he says. “But running edition. One question per lap.”
I grin before I can stop myself. “What do I get if I win?”
He pantomimes deep thought. “Loser buys the winner brunch, plus unlimited ego validation for the rest of the day.”
Even the threat of paparazzi up-skirting me at breakfast in post-run spandex can’t make that sound terrible. “Deal,” I say. “You start.”
He waits until we crest the first mini-hill before hitting me with: “What did you want to be before you got cast in Flicker?”
I shouldn’t be thrown—this is basic, first-date stuff—but I kind of am. “I was going to be a nurse,” I say, and for a second I’m not even sure why I say it, or why I don’t lie and say a writer, or a zoologist, or a hand model. “My mom was sick a lot. It made sense.” I’m immediately embarrassed at the nakedness of this, but Asher doesn’t mock me or poke for more. He just nods.
“That’s cool,” he says. “My turn?”
“Ready,” I say, but my lungs are tightening, and I feel sweat gathering at the nape of my neck. I focus on the path.
“Did you ever get in trouble in high school?”
“Once,” he says. “But it was for streaking, so it was more my friends’ idea of a joke than honest delinquency. Small town. South Jersey.”
I picture baby-Asher running naked through some mall parking lot, chased by security guards high on Dunkin Donuts and self-importance. I bite my cheek to keep from laughing.
“My question,” I say, victorious now. “Did you ever have a secret pet? Like, one your parents didn’t know about?”
He grins. “A turtle, in my gym locker for three weeks. I fed it pizza crusts from the cafeteria. When they found it, I had to write a letter of apology to the school and the turtle sanctuary.”
I can’t help it. I snort. “You owe a turtle somewhere a favor, then.”
