“Same,” I said and felt that click of connection again. I typically found myself generally annoyed with so many things. “Although I chose to be in a customer-based industry, which means I have to be nice. You are at a point where you could be a diva if you wanted to.”

“I could, but it’s a waste of everyone’s time. Working on a set is a bit like being in the army—we’re a team and we all have a job to do, and if one of us shows up late and throws tantrums, it ruins it for everyone. I don’t ever intend to be the weak link. And I do have to be nice to people at events like this. Because you never know who might be in charge someday. Although I was tempted to blow off the documentary winners I met.”

“You don’t like documentaries?” I asked.

“They’re just the news turned into kind of a movie.”

Now it was my turn to laugh. “And here I was picturing you in a sweater-vest and fedora waxing on about the importance of documentaries to our cultural zeitgeist.”

“I’m pretty sure I’ve never used the word zeitgeist in a sentence before.”

We were both smiling when we joined Chase and Zoe. Noah greeted them both, congratulating Chase. The flashes from the photographers taking pictures of the two of them together seemed even brighter in this darkened room. Chase and Noah talked like the photographers weren’t even there. Like they were members of some glamorous zoo who lived their lives and ignored the tourists.

They finished chatting, and Noah turned toward me like he was about to ask me a question, when a photographer interrupted him.

“Could I get a picture of you two?”

For a second I thought he meant Chase, but then I realized his question had been directed at me. “You don’t want me in your picture. I’m just a seat—”

But Noah cut me off. “Of course.”

We moved closer together. I rested my hand against his back, near his waist, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulders.

Without meaning to, I leaned into him so that our sides were pressed together.

I had the strangest feeling. Like this was where I belonged.

The photographer took several shots and then thanked us. He moved over to Chase and Zoe next, making the same request, but they stayed seated for their shots.

I stepped back, wanting to clear my head. Being that close to him made me forget myself.

Noah cleared his throat, looking a little uncomfortable, too. “So I’ve kissed all the right rings and taken all the pictures required of me and made all the studio executives’ second wives happy. Would you like to, I don’t know, meet some star? Dance?”

“Dance?” I repeated. “Oh, I don’t dance. I don’t like to inflict that on other people.”