Until I was cast in my first TV show. My professors were willing to work with me to finish out the semester, but there was no way to keep up with practice and being on set. It was time to commit. If I stopped playing, I’d lose my scholarship, but if I gave up the TV show, I’d lose my first real chance at becoming an actor. Who knew if I’d get another?

This felt like that decision all over again. Was I willing to do something drastic and risk looking like a fool in order to achieve my dreams? By all accounts, I was already successful, but I was sick and tired of playing the same guy over and over again. I wanted to smash that mold and show people I could do more. Acting had become as comfortable as sports had always been and that wasn’t why I’d thrown a full ride out the window.

I wanted to be scared again. But for weeks, it had been feeling like this time I might be in over my head. I’d been consumed with self doubt, wondering if I should just back out gracefully. Until I’d met Lady Elena. She was formidable, but something about her made me feel capable of being formidable too.

“Not a chance. I’m not giving it up now that I have the solution in front of me. She might act like I pissed in her Cheerios, but that means she’s not going to be fake with me. I can do a contract relationship, but not with someone cloying who’s going to spend the whole time overdoing it or thinking she can lure me into the real thing. This can be a straight-up business relationship with no complications.”

I’d known within thirty seconds that I wanted as much access to her as I could get for the next month. She was the real deal. On top of everything else, pretending to date would let me have more than an hour here and there with her.

“For the record, I think this is a terrible plan,” Rami said. “But I’ll happily sit back with popcorn and watch her eat you alive if you insist on going through with it. Hiring a consultant is perfectly reasonable. Hiring a fake girlfriend is nuts.”

“Noted. Can we go in and get milkshakes now?”

Fred’s was the best diner in LA that was open 24 hours and had milkshakes I would do bad things for. These days we usually only came if we happened to be up late enough that most people were too tired or drunk to notice me.

Rami and I had known each other for far longer than I’d been famous, and I’d learned to appreciate those genuine friendships. I couldn’t pinpoint the day when I became famous enough for it to matter, but ever since then I’d always had to second-guess people’s intentions.

I kept my head down as Rami asked the hostess for the booth in the back corner, then I sat facing away from the rest of the restaurant. I was in the mood to just be a normal guy and eat some unhealthy food without being watched the whole time, people pretending to look at their phone as they sneaked pictures of me.