I drive us west on Franklin, past Griffith Park, then south until we hit Hollywood Boulevard, where I make another right to keep going west. I have no destination in mind, either, and the car is silent except for the sound of the wind coming through our open windows. The cold night air keeps us tense. We pass streetlight after streetlight, hitting traffic when we’re in Hollywood proper. The car creeps forward, and we’re in front of the TCL Chinese Theatre, formerly Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. It’s packed with tourists and people in costumes and I’m happy for the visual distraction.
A light flashes on him for a second and I notice the bruises. Myhand automatically reaches out to his cheek. “Are you okay?” He flinches away and I drop my hand, embarrassed.
“I’m fine,” he says. “It’s my ego that’s battered.” That dryness.
I decide to make a right on the next street, to get us out of this crush. I keep steering us north, until we’re driving up into the Hollywood Hills. Even though I have no plan in mind, my body knows where to go. A lifetime of living in L.A. and going on alternate routes to avoid traffic are programmed into me. So, we end up on the twisty, precarious hillside path of Mulholland Drive.
“I thought I was over Ellis,” I finally say.
“Why did you need to get over him in the first place? That’s what I don’t understand,” he says, something finally opening up in him. “Why break up with him and start dating me? It’s not adding up no matter how hard I think about it.”
He’s right and I’m not sure how to answer him without revealing everything. “Ellis and I don’t make sense. You and I make sense.”
“Brilliant. I’m thesensiblechoice? Like a pair of orthopedics.” His voice is quiet when he says this, not showing any real anger and I am grateful for it. We’re driving on scary dark roads; I don’t need this to be the moment Daniel decides to yell.
“No, not sensible, not like a pair of orthopedic shoes,” I say, letting myself feel it all. Explain my brain. “You’re, like, a beautiful pair of Italian loafers. Made for my feet, exactly.”
He’s quiet. “This metaphor might become silly.”
Again, that dry sense of humor. So layered and intelligent and Daniel. “Ellis and I were nowhere near serious. Breaking up with him wasn’t fun but it wasn’t heartbreak. I want you to know that. But I don’t know. Somehow the feelings between us have grown.”
We approach a familiar gate so I park the car. Daniel looks around. “Where are we?”
“Lake Hollywood,” I say as I unbuckle my seat belt. “Want to take a walk?”
The gate is locked but I know how to get in. Having been a teenager in L.A., I know how to find every crack and opening in public spaces at night. We slide through a gap created by a too-long chain and end up on a trail.
A little up the trail, the lake appears. It’s more of a reservoir, but it glimmers in the moonlight and looks beautiful anyway. We walk side by side in silence for a while, crickets literally chirping, when Daniel says, “I guess I didn’t think you and Ellis were serious, either. So, I squirreled away the guilt I felt about stealing my employee’s—mate’s—girl. But it was clear he was never really okay with it. And that’s on me.”
“It’s on both of us,” I say, my voice little in the large space.
“But you broke up with him, you didn’t do anything wrong when you dated me. I, however, broke the ‘bro code.’ ”
“Come on,” I say with a little laugh. “That’s not real.”
“It is, though,” he says. “It’s just unspoken. Not only that, he made it so clear that he wasn’t over you. I just ignored it.”
I nod, not really knowing what to say. He glances over at me. “I liked you too much to acknowledge it. I was being incredibly selfish.”
“It’s not selfish,” I say. “My line of work…it’s finding people love. Because to want love is one of the most human things about us. You wanted that and there’s nothing wrong with it. But there’s another thing. Aside from Ellis and anything else.”
His shoulders instantly hunch up and I swear he winces. “I think I know what it is.”
“Yeah.” We stop walking and look at the lake together. “The whole…having children thing.”
A sigh goes through him. “It’s not that I’mcertainthat I don’t want children. It’s that I’m still uncertain.”
I nod. “And that’s totally fair. And I was in the same boat as you until recently. And, well, unfortunately I can’t wonder about having kids for another decade.”
“Yes, and you deserve someone who knows what they want.” He runs a hand down his face. “Ah. I’m always so sure of what I want.”
“I know,” I say. “And I thought I was also so sure of it all, too. But…maybe I want a little more room for the unexpected. And what are kids if not totally unknowable chaos?” I reach for him and this time he doesn’t move away from my touch. We fold each other in a hug, fierce and tight.
“I’m sorry. For…” My throat closes up, tears sliding down my face, and I duck my head and wipe them off so that he can’t see. What kind of jerk cries whentheybreak up with someone? “I’m sorry for everything, I guess. What we had was special and real to me, I want you to know that.” My voice is a whisper, filled with grief for everything that could have been. For everything that we had planned for. Everything my family had dreamed of.
He strokes the back of my hair, a hand so familiar to me. “It was for me, too. It really was.”
We stand like that for a long time, the moon bright in the sky, the night dark all around us.
