I was trying really hard not to give in to the temptation to think of him as belonging to some higher class than me. Granted, celebrities are the closest thing Americans have to a royal class, but that doesn’t make them any different from anyone else; they’re just better known than the average Joe. And like I’d told the girls the night before, he’s just a regular guy underneath all the Stardust and celebrity. If I could get myself to see past the fame, it would go fine. So if this were a date with anyone else, how would I be acting? The problem was, if I were on a date with any other person, that person would most likely be someone from church, and I wouldn’t feel so nervous about slipping up and mentioning church or God or my beliefs. My whole life had become wrapped up in those things, so it was hard to think of subjects to talk about that didn’t include those topics.

But if that was who I was, and that was what my life was all about, then no one could possibly expect me not to talk about those things, right? That would be like expecting Jack not to talk about making movies, or discussing the people he hung out with, who just happened to be very famous people. It was his life, and there was no reason why he shouldn’t have been mentioning those things. And if he could be candid about that, then I could be candid about my Christianity. So there!

“You all right over there?”

JACK

SHE JUMPED. I quickly apologized for scaring her, but she shook her head and smiled. “No, that’s okay. I didn’t mean to zone out again. I’m sorry.” She blushed and smiled. “I’m fine, thank you. Did I not look all right?”

I shrugged. She didn’t, actually; her face had registered about five different looks in the past two minutes, none of them reflecting any sort of enjoyment of what was going on around her. But I didn’t want to embarrass her, so I said noncommittally, “You just looked … I don’t know, conflicted or something.”

She grinned. “I guess that’s better than ‘tortured.’” We chuckled, but then she became serious. “Yes, conflicted would definitely describe it. But I’m not being a particularly entertaining guest, so I’m sorry for going off into my own little world there.” She sipped her soda and smiled apologetically as she glanced out the window. “So where exactly are we? I haven’t been this far north yet.”

“You haven’t?”

“Nope.”

“How long have you lived here?”

“Oh, let’s see … a year and a few months. Moved out the first week of December.”

“And you still haven’t been up here?”

She smiled and shook her head.