“How does that feel?” I ask instead. Even if I want to know the truth, this isn’t the time. “Maintaining your sobriety for that long?”

He leans back. “Honestly?”

“Of course,” I say.

“It’s the accomplishment I’m proudest of,” he says. “Bond is nothing in comparison.”

He looks up at me.

“What are you most proud of, Chani?”

What a question.

“This isn’t about me,” I say, annoyed that he’s trying to turn this interview back at me. Again.

He shrugs.

“Is it a struggle to maintain your sobriety now that you’re working again?” I ask.

“Sometimes,” he says. “But I have a great sponsor and therapist, and I lean on them when I feel the urge to drink. I’ve had to reframe my impulses—training myself to go for the phone instead of the bottle. Or to a meeting, but that’s a little harder when you’re not really able to be anonymous.”

It’s sort of a joke, but I don’t smile. Because even though I didn’t give Gabe an answer to his question, I’m still thinking about it.

And I realize, in a way, that article is the one I’m proudest of.

It’s not because it’s the one that went viral, and got me an agent and a book deal. It’s because it was special. Because I made it special.

Nothing since then has come close to feeling as satisfying or triumphant. And even so, that pride I feel at the work has been tempered by the reality of how it’s been received. How I’ve been received.

There’s no denying that my career is intrinsically linked to Gabe’s. To Gabe.

No matter what I do—no matter what I write—that will always be a footnote in my career, if not the footnote.

It makes it hard to know if my pride in that piece is well-earned, or if it just went viral because of its content.

Our drinks arrive and we both stare at my beer.

“It’s okay, really,” he says. “I don’t spend a lot of time at clubs or bars anymore, but I can handle someone having a drink at lunch.”

I take the world’s tiniest sip.

“How has sobriety changed your life?” I ask.

There had been rumors of Gabe’s drinking problem during the filming of Murder on Wheels—his second Bond film—six or seven years ago, but his management had denied and distracted until they couldn’t anymore.

“How hasn’t it?” he asks. “Sobriety—like addiction—informs almost everything I do. When I was deep into my addiction, all I thought about was getting drunk.”

“What did drinking give you?”

“Distance,” he says.

“Distance.”