Liam looks more than pleased as he grips his own spoon and takes his first taste.
“I’m not going to lie,” I go on to say between scoops, “you are infinitely more attractive to me now that I know you can make these. You were already close to a ten on your own, but now you’re a solid twelve. I should have known it was only a matter of time until I dated someone in the ice cream industry.”
“I’m honored to be your first. Now, how about we sit down and turn on some music so we can enjoy these properly?”
“First you dazzle me with your frozen dessert prowess, and now you want to add music into the mix? Keep this up and I really will start to think that you’re trying to seduce me.”
“‘Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.’”
“Excuse me!” I laughingly exclaim, my eyes lighting up as I lower my milkshake onto the counter. “You did not just quoteA Midsummer Night’s Dreamto me right now.”
“I may have watched the movie after hearing your monologue at the Globe.”
“I’m impressed,” I tell him. “That’s some serious fieldwork to put in just to get me to hook up with you.”
Liam looks confused and then disappointed as his smile falters. “Or I might have done it because I like you and I want to understand you better?”
His words land a direct hit on an unguarded part of me, stealing my breath and leaving me disoriented. Our typical sparring feels far away, leaving me in a position where I have no other option other than to be vulnerable. It makes me nervous, and I end up scratching behind my neck.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I guess with my dating history, I sometimes forget that there are still good guys left out there.”
“Should I take that to mean that I’m a good guy?”
“A very good guy.” I’m being completely honest, and I know Liam can tell.
“Does that mean I can choose the music?” he asks.
His light tone instantly relaxes me, and an appreciative grin appears on my face.
“I suppose, but if you choose the world’s best clarinet solos, you should know that I’m only interested in hearing you play them live.”
“Fair enough. And lucky for you, I happen to have something even better in mind.”
15
Two minutes later, Liam and I are sitting on opposite ends of the couch, once again facing each other, but this time, our ankles are overlapping in the middle. I give him a pensive look as music continues to fill the air around us.
“I never would have pegged you for a Barry Manilow fan,” I tell him.
“Barry Manilow is one of the greatest artists who ever lived. If the best and worst moments of my life could be crafted into the most glorious melodies and then accompanied by the voice of a male temptress, we would be listening to this album, right here.Even Nowis transcendent.”
“I don’t mean this offensively, but you honestly get weirder by the second.”
“Does that lead you to liking me less?”
“I think it actually increases your likability. It makes me feel like we’re on a more level playing field. You’d probably get along great with all my theater friends, and they’re a handful even at their calmest.”
He smiles and scooches back further into the couch. “Know what I’ve been meaning to ask you? What made you switch from performing in theater to playwriting? You seem to have concentrated on acting for a fair bit from what you’ve told me, so when did that end up changing?”
I take a hefty scoop of milkshake and drink it down. “It was towards the middle of my undergrad. I really liked being on the stage, but my favorite part of each production was always studying scripts and trying to get inside the characters. Sometimes I’d read a play and think of what I would have done differently if I wrote it. Starting in my teens and onwards, I always devoured scripts. And when you read so much of something, it starts to become ingrained.”
“I’d say it’s similar to coding, but that may be overreaching.”
“No, you’d be completely right,” I agree. “And it probably applies to any language, really. I think the key thing is that you have to be actively trying to learn. Like, right now, you could go to another country and be surrounded by a different language while not picking up a single word. But if you went there and wanted to learn, if you practiced and paid attention to the people around you—their dialects and tones—you could learn it. It’s the same with playwriting. There’s a difference between reading like a reader who enjoys plays, and then reading like someone who wants to discover the nuances of writing them. You have to have an ear for it, and you have to want it.”
“So, you switched over to playwriting mid-college?”
“No, I finished out my undergrad as a drama major and then went for playwriting in graduate school.”
