Liam nods, looking down at the ground before gazing back at me, and I can tell he’s emotionally checked out. Closed off. His ears even return to their normal shade—that’s how detached he is. “I’m going to go. It was stupid of me to come here.” He turns on his heel, and this time, I do try to stop him.
“Liam, come on! I know I could have handled this better, but you’re blowing things way out of proportion.”
“Good luck with the play,” he calls over his shoulder, barely slowing as he disappears down the street. I think about going after him but decide against it. He needs to cool off, and whatever I’m saying clearly isn’t working.
Ollie pulls at the leash, wanting to follow after him, but I hold him steady. I squat down and scratch his coat, trying and failing to process what just happened. My throat feels painfully dry as we walk inside the building two minutes later.
Soon we’re back in Phillip’s apartment. My mind is still in a daze. Phillip’s saying something about being ahead of schedule, and Ollie is fussy, and I shake my head as I try to clear my thoughts.
“I’m sorry, Phillip, what did you say?”
He looks back at me with an obliging smile. “I said, what luck that the dinner is ready early. Now we can get you back to work sooner than we thought. And maybe after the show tonight, we could go out for drinks to celebrate?”
I’m about to answer with a polite no when a shrill beeping suddenly shrieks through the apartment from near the stove, no doubt the timer for the sauce. Ollie starts barking at an earsplitting pitch and instantly begins to run around the apartment.
“Ollie! Ollie, relax,” I call to him, following his path into the living room. Phillip sets the plates that he’s holding onto the counter with a clatter, adding to the mayhem as he struggles to stop the timer.
“I’m sorry, this thing is always a pain to shut off, which is typically why I never use it.”
I don’t respond as I continue to try to soothe Ollie, who has now barricaded himself in the magazine shelf beneath Phillip’s coffee table. I’m eventually able to get hold of his collar, and I gently pull him out, inadvertently spreading a mess of papers and books onto the floor in front of us. Phillip gets the timer off a few moments later, and Ollie scampers away, seeking solace on the couch and its pillows in the aftermath.
“I’m so sorry about this,” I say, wiping the hair out of my face and beginning to gather up the mess. Phillip finds me on the floor and then quickly hurries over from across the room to make a grab for the papers.
“No, it’s fine, I’ll get those!”
“Don’t worry, I’m almost done.” And I am. I have everything in near perfect order when one of the papers catches my eye. I slowly pull it out of the stack and am surprised to see that it’s a headshot.
Phillip’s headshot.
Confused, I flip it over and see his full résumé, complete with acting and modeling credentials as recent as last month.
“What is this?” I ask as Phillip stands up beside me. I push to my feet and face him head-on, holding up the paper.
“Bugger,” he says quietly.
“I don’t get it.” I look at the headshot again, still trying to make sense of it. “I thought you said you were a math teacher?”
“Yes, I did say that.” I glare at him, and he seems to physically shrink under my gaze. There’s no way he’s six foot two, as his clearly exaggerated résumé claims. “I guess that was the character I was assuming at the time,” he then goes on. “The friendly teacher in the building.”
“I don’t... What are you even talking about?”
“Please don’t be mad,” he then sputters nervously. “I really do think you’re a lovely person, so just bear that in mind when I say what I’m about to say.”
“What the hell is going on, Phillip? I don’t know if you’re getting ready to kill me or what.”
“What? No, of course, I’m not! It’s just, Juliette...she asked me to spend time with you so I could distract you a bit from her nephew.”
It feels like the world falls out from under me. The room is spinning at a stomach-churning pace, and I don’t know which way is up.
“Are you kidding me?” I ask, completely aghast.
“She said something about a project you two had going on that wasn’t working, and then told me about Liam, who I’m guessing I just met. She said she wanted me to divert your attention away from him, promised me a part in her next play if I could do it.” Phillip starts to move towards me then, but quickly reverses when it becomes obvious that I very well might cheetah-claw his face.
“Wait a second...so you’re saying that Juliette told you to spend time with me? All of our interactions...they were fake?”
“They weren’t entirely fake,” he offers weakly. “And I genuinely do like spending time with you. Under different circumstances, I bet we would be great friends. We still can be, if you want to.”
“Yeah, I’m going to say a strong no to that, considering I have no freaking idea who you are!”
