"Oh right! I remember that, now that you mention it. How'd that go?" Kayla sat back as the waiter brought them hot chocolates piled with whipped cream, marshmallows, and sprinkles.
"They're made with real melted chocolate, not powder," the kid said proudly as he set the drinks down.
Kayla said, "Oh my god," and for a few seconds they both just gazed at the frothy concoctions in front of them. "I don't mean to be all movie actress worried about her diet about this, but I'm pretty sure that's my entire caloric intake for the day."
"I'll drink half of it for you?" Jordan offered nobly, and Kayla's shoulders shook with quiet laughter.
"You might have to, honestly. Or maybe Barney can have some?"
"Sadly for Barney, chocolate is bad for dogs. I'll just have to throw myself on my sword. Or on your hot chocolate, which seems a lot better than a sword, really."
"Let's see how I manage, first." Kayla lifted her mug in both hands, eyeing the whipped cream cautiously, and tried twice to figure out how she could take a sip without getting a facefull of sprinkles. Almost to Jordan's disappointment, she put the mug down again, picked up a spoon, and ate sprinkles, marshmallows, and cream delicately before glancing up with a sheepish expression. "If I mess up my face before my next scene, Ruth in Makeup will murder me."
"Oh, yeah. I wouldn't have thought of that. Okay, I'll be messy for both of us." Jordan picked up his own mug, found himself eying it exactly the way Kayla had done hers, and then shrugged, sticking his face into the cream and marshmallows to slurp away a frothy bite. Kayla laughed as he lowered his mug enough to see if he had whipped cream on his nose, then wiped it away because it was inevitable that he did. It took them both several more tries to actually get to the hot chocolate beneath all the toppings, and Jordan's eyes widened above the remaining whipped cream. "Oh my God. That's really good."
"Yessss!" The whisper hissed its way across the ice cream parlor, and when they both glanced toward the soda jerk, he turtled into his shoulders with an embarrassed expression, whispering, "Sorry. Didn't mean to intrude. I just don't get to make hot chocolates very often and I'm glad they're good."
"They'reamazing," Kayla promised, then curled hers more closely toward herself, possessively, as she eyed Jordan. "Mine."
"Hey, you're the one who said you didn't think you'd be able to finish it. If you've changed your mind, I'm not going to leap across the table and steal it from you!"
"Well, all right, fair." Kayla uncoiled a little and smiled at him. "Anyway, so there you were, a baseball scholarship to college, and that went…?"
Jordan took a deep breath, working through an upswell of feelings that weren't yet entirely resolved. "Pretty well. I played through college and got picked up by a minor league team, which is almost as good as it gets."
"As a B-grade movie star, I know exactly what you mean."
Jordan startled. "You're way better than a B-grade star!"
"I mean, thanks, but I'm not an A-lister, right? I make tv movies, not cinematic blockbusters. Or did you go on to be an A-lister yourself? Did you make the majors?"
"I got too old," Jordan admitted. "By the time you hit thirty, you're an old man by most professional sports standards. And then last year…" He had to take another deep breath, and knew his smile faltered. "Blew out my knee. They did an amazing job reconstructing it, but it slowed me down just that little bit more, and…" He moved his mug to one hand so he could splay the other, indicating it was over. "So, not to be dramatic about it or anything, I'm still kind of putting my life back together. It's one of those things where…"
He shook his head and frowned into his hot chocolate. "You know your sports career only has a limited window, and I guess I should have spent years thinking about what comes next, but that always felt like denying myself themoment, you know?" He glanced up, embarrassed, to find Kayla's gaze unexpectedly sympathetic. "I didn't want to be spending all my time figuring out where to go from there. I wanted to be doing what I was doing. Which probably sounds…stupid."
Her elegant, heavy eyebrows rose a little. "Yes, definitely, speaking as someone who absolutely does not have a career with an expiration date, it sounds totally dumb to want to really enjoy it while you're able to do it."
"Oh, but—" Jordan broke off, a crooked smile pulling at his mouth. "I was going to say, you're not going to get hurt doing movies, but…"
"Probably not badly," she agreed, though her own mouth quirked like she thought that was funny somehow. "I have a stunt double for the dangerous stuff, which includes levels of danger like 'sledding down a big hill.' But I'm thirty-six, and while forty isn't quite the hard end of an actress's shelf life thatit used to be, it's really hard to not be aware that directors and producers are starting to think you're too old. So I think I get it?"
"Anybody who doesn't keep casting you into your eighties is an idiot," Jordan said with feeling. "You'll never stop being beautiful."
Kayla dimpled. "Thank you. There aren't a lot of romcoms with eighty year old stars, though. It's part of why I started my own production company, and part of why even though I love my side of the camera, sometimes I do think about trying my hand at directing. But anyway, can I—this is super rude, you can tell me to mind my business, but—I mean, uh…"
Jordan tilted his head, intrigued and amused. "Now you have to say it."
"I have no idea what minor league ball players earn," Kayla said, clearly trying to be delicate. "Have you been able to save up?"
"Ah." Jordan ducked his head, grinning at the hot chocolate before he met Kayla's eyes again. "That was very nicely put. I'm not swimming in riches, let's put it that way. I've got some savings, but I'm not going to live on it for the rest of my life, or anything."
"So it's time to figure out what to do for your second act." Kayla picked up her drink and regarded him over it, her fiery blue gaze intent. "All right, hit me with it. What's the craziest thing you'd like to do?"
"Spend—" Jordan swallowed down the rest of the words that came out of nowhere:spend the rest of my life with you.That was actually insane, and worse, it was a kind of weird-stalker thing to say to a film star. "Spend some time learning to paint," he said instead, startling himself with that almost as much with that as with his first impulse.
A delighted soft smile spread across Kayla's face. "Yeah? You took art classes in high school, didn't you?"
Jordan made a face. "Yeah, but that was a long time ago. And it's not like you can really make a living at painting these days, unless it's houses."
