There was a chorus of sad protests, but I’d brought Noah into this mess, and it was my job to get him back out of it.

One boy seemed particularly upset about Noah leaving—he started screaming and throwing a tantrum. His mother, trying to cajole him into behaving, said, “Maybe if you’re a good boy Malec will come to your birthday party, too.”

Noah’s face darkened, and once we were outside I asked him, “What’s wrong?”

“That mom lying to her kid. I’m not going to be at his birthday.”

“She was just trying to calm him down.”

He shrugged angrily. “I hate lying. My parents always lied to me my entire life to get me to do things.”

My stomach went queasy and my heart beat dangerously hard as I tried to figure out what exactly he meant. “Like about Santa?”

“No. Like one more take. One more hour of rehearsal. You’re almost done shooting for the day. Talk to one more reporter on the red carpet.”

I didn’t know what to say. What could I say? Anything that came out of my mouth would be adding to my ridiculously high amount of hypocrisy.

When we got in the van, he had shaken off his anger and seemed like himself again. “Up to the end, that was fun. I wish I’d experienced it when I was six years old. Or that it had been my actual birthday. Which is ten months from now.”

I caught my breath. Did he . . . did he think we’d still be hanging out ten months from now?

My guilt was threatening to suffocate me, and I did not know what to do with that new piece of information.

I was going to tell him. I was.

“That cake wasn’t enough to fill me up,” he said. “I’m starving. We should go grab something to eat.”

There was a pain at the back of my throat that I didn’t want to identify. I was going to push these feelings out. Like I’d told Shelby, I’d been compartmentalizing things my entire life, and I was going to spend whatever time I had with Noah enjoying him and his company.

I said, “You don’t want to eat here and have paper-thin-crust greasy pizza topped with a cheese by-product?”

“I was thinking something more substantial. Do you know of anywhere good to eat?”

Did I . . . “Are you ready for this conversation?”

He laughed. “I was being polite and trying to find out if you are on any kind of dietary plan. Like gluten-free, vegan, keto, paleo—”

“I’m on the eat-eo diet. That’s where if I want to eat something, I do.”

Another laugh. “I have the perfect place in mind. The food is incredible. Head west on this road.”

I started up the van. “When you’re giving me directions, you can’t use words like west.”

“Go left.”