I winced at the thought; I knew what I should do, but I wasn’t sure if I was ready to accept that. “Honestly, you guys, he’s not going to want to. Just think of the logistics! I’m down here, he’s up there—and that goes for both geography and society—he’s, like, five years older than me … If it really comes to that, then I won’t do anything rash. I’ll deal with it if it becomes an issue, but I don’t think there’s any point worrying about something that isn’t going to happen.” I put a note of finality in my voice to deter them from pursuing it further; I really just didn’t want to think about it right now.

The one thing I did want to think about was how to make things less uncomfortable than they were the night of the premiere. Bottom line was, I couldn’t not be me. I couldn’t try to be sophisticated and fancy when I wasn’t. If he was going to get to know me, I was going to have to start being me. I wanted him to drop the facade and be himself, too, but there wasn’t any way I could force that. I just hoped that by being myself, I’d encourage him to do the same.

Saturday came quickly, and then I was zipping north on the 405 toward Hollywood. The whole way I rehearsed how I would tell him that I didn’t want to pretend to be something I wasn’t, and it made me more and more nervous the closer I got. As I wound through the side streets toward his condo, I breathed a prayer for God to calm me down, and when his building came into sight, I waited for my stomach to do flips, but instead felt the tension melt away. Thank you!

I parked in an empty space and buzzed up to his apartment. The door unlocked, and I climbed the stairs to 205. The building was beautiful, and I had a feeling the apartments would be bigger than any I’d ever seen.

“Welcome to my humble abode,” he said cheerily as he opened the door to let me in. “Can I get you something to drink?”

I was right; these were amazing. His apartment was, anyway. “Thanks, but I’m fine. Great place you’ve got.”

He grinned, looking proud. “Thanks! You should have seen the old furniture; I just replaced it a couple weeks ago, and already the place looks 100 percent better.” He grabbed his jacket from the back of a leather recliner. “Ready to go?”

I licked my lips. “Actually, before we leave, can we talk a minute?”

“Yeah, sure.” He pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and motioned for me to sit down.