The bartender laughed. “I like that. Can I add that to the cocktail menu, man?”
When the bartender was gone, Kyle said, “I hear having a drink named after you is the first step to getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.”
It felt significant, having my drink on the menu, having the island where I had grown up associated with me, associated with LA in any way. In that moment, my two worlds converged. Sitting with Kyle that night was the first time I’d even felt like that was possible.
Two hours later, I asked Kyle to walk me home. I should have been bone-tired from the day of auditions, the evening of waitressing, and the night of drinking. But I felt alive, on fire, like anything could happen. Kyle’s confidence was rubbing off on me already.
“I never asked you what you do,” I said, as we were walking.
Kyle took my hand. “Oh,” he said, “a little of this, a little of that.”
I felt my warning bells go off. I stopped walking. “Please tell me you aren’t a drug dealer or the head of a prostitution ring.”
Kyle dropped my hand and laughed so hard I was afraid he had quit breathing. “No, no. I own that coffee shop you were in this morning.”
I looked at him, wide-eyed. “You knew I was in the coffee shop this morning? I thought you weren’t sure where you’d seen me.”
He took my hand again. “When Emerson Murphy walks into your coffee shop, you don’t forget.”
He was cute.
“So why coffee, Kyle?”
“Just a hunch. I think coffee is going to be really big.”
“If your coffee skills are anything like your cocktail skills, then I think you have a bright future.”
When we got to my building, he insisted on walking me to my door. I slid the key into the lock and bit my lip. I had turned over a new leaf, and I had promised myself no more sleeping with virtual strangers. If I invited him in, was that what he would expect?
As I opened the door, Kyle said, “It was really nice to meet you, Emerson Murphy, Starlite starlet.”
He didn’t so much as lean in to kiss me. As he turned to leave, a strangled “Wait” escaped my throat.
He turned and smiled at me again, those rows of teeth so perfect. His hands were in his shorts pockets, making him seem like a little boy. I bet he wore shorts even when it was cold outside. He was one of those guys.
I smiled coyly. “Do you want to come in?”
He exhaled like his life was hinging on that question. “Thank goodness,” he said. “I really need to use the bathroom.”
We both laughed, and I pointed toward the bathroom door.
When Kyle reemerged, I was sitting on the couch and had poured us each a glass of the cheap white wine I had in my fridge. I was really lucky I didn’t have a roommate. I would never admit it to anyone, not even my mom, but the reason I didn’t have a roommate was that Caroline paid half my rent. She was a good sister. I’d promised to pay her back one day, and she had said, “I think of it as a nondeductible charitable expense. I’m a patron of the arts.”
“I’ll warn you, this is not quite as good as the Starlite Starlet.”
Kyle sat down close to me, angling his body so he could see me, and took the glass of wine. “I like the quote on your mirror,” he said.
I took a sip of wine and smiled. “I like it, too. I thought about getting a tattoo of it, but I couldn’t decide where.” I shrugged. “Having a decal made and sticking it to my mirror seemed like less of a commitment.”
“Less painful, too,” Kyle said. He turned my wrist over and pretended to write on my forearm with the tip of his finger,Though she be but little, she is fierce.
Every letter caused a trail of goose bumps to break out. When he was finished, he raised the inside of my wrist to his mouth and kissed it gently. “That would have been the perfect spot for it,” he whispered.
I felt my cheeks flush. There was something about this guy. I was always chasing men who could help my career, give me a leg up. It wasn’t like I was sleeping with directors in exchange for parts or anything, but the people from the world I was beginning to break into were so potently attractive to me. When I was with them, I felt more glamorous, more “in.” I loved feeling that way.
So much so that it caught me off guard how quickly I had taken to Kyle. He was different from the men I normally dated. Gorgeous, yes. But also soft-spoken. He wasn’t overtly powerful, yet he had some sort of power over me. I felt like simply being beside him opened up something inside me, something I had never really felt before.
I had to remind myself that I had only just met the man, for heaven’s sake.
