“Hey, sweet one,” Oliver said, to which Jacques actually raised his chin, exposing his neck for more pets. “Good boy. Such a good boy.”

He pet him for a moment longer and then stood, brushing Jacques’s loose fur from his jeans.

“I don’t think you realize this, but you just tamed a lion.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Talk about finding your inner beast. That cat might be a good model.”

“I miss my cats,” he said.

“You have cats?”

“My parents do,” he said. “Here.”

He pulled his phone from his back pocket, and I brushed off the all-too-recent memory of my tape measure lassoed around his hips.

“That’s Edna, with the sort of messed-up tail—she loves a lap—and that’s Benny, who’s essentially this ghost who just shows up in places—wait, there’s a better picture that really captures his essence.…”

He flicked over to his favorites and through a series of photos featuring a long-haired cat in increasingly unlikely locations: perched on the top edge of a swung-open door, head peeking through the slats of blinds. The photos were poorly lit and unmanicured—I could see the edge of a socked foot in one—and it occurred to me that these were not bits of information one could gather from the internet or from interviews. This was a piece of him that he was sharing with me, specifically. I was seeing a slice of Oliver Teller’s real life.

And then he flicked too far. Benny was replaced—just for a split second, before Oliver flicked the screen off—with a photo of two smiling faces. Well, one smiling face. Oliver’s. The other face, which belonged to his costar Ronnie, was smooshed up against his cheek in a gleeful kiss, like she couldn’t get close enough.

Oliver cleared his throat, shoved his phone back into his pocket.

“Anyway,” he said.

He was suddenly awkward. Embarrassed. I mean, I guess it was a little awkward, to have accidentally flashed this private moment with his girlfriend in front of my face. But more than feeling awkward, I actually felt grateful: Maybe Oliver had a candy-store laugh and some normie cat photos, but he was still Oliver Teller, star of Power Jam and boyfriend to the very hot Ronnie Ruthless, and I was still Celia Gilbert, future founder and CEO of Planners-R-Us. What did I think—that he was going to show me a picture of his cats, and suddenly we were going to be friends? I needed to remember that we led different lives, and mine was much, much smaller than his.

“What’s next?” he said.

I slung the measuring tape over my neck again, imitating Benna and Phoebe. Professionalism restored.

“Nothing else,” I said. “We’re all done. Thank you for coming by. Best of luck with the show.”

“Okay—really?”

“Really. We’re all done here.”

“All right,” he said. “Thanks.”

“No problem at all.”