She pulled him close. “Ten minutes. Exit here, and I will walk you out the side door through the office. The car will be waiting on Orange. I’m going to stay for the screening; the driver will take you to dinner. He’s yours for the night.”
“Roger. Over. Thanks,” whispered Paul.
* * *
“I insist on dessert,” Paul said, taking Nicola’s hand in his. She focused on not flinching, despite this being the twelfth time it had happened since they sat down.
“Okay, if you insist,” she said.
He waved the waiter over with his free hand and instructed him to bring them the restaurant’s “best dessert.” The waiter gave Nicola a strange look and vanished to the kitchen.
“I want to thank you for a surprisingly good evening,” Paul began. “I don’t usually get to end my premieres like this.”
“What do you normally do, then?”
Paul sat and considered the question for a while, like a kid who didn’t know the answer to a pop quiz.
“I dunno. I guess I was just being nice.”
They sat in silence. A photographer had ambushed them on the way into the restaurant, and Paul had seemed pleased about it but Nicola had been shaken. After they’d been taken to a private table in a back corner of the restaurant, Paul had begun his “insistence” on ordering for them both. It hadn’t been cute then, and it was less so now.
However, he’d also been relentlessly charming, regaling her with behind-the-scenes stories from the TV show she had loved, and stories from his movie career. It wasn’t until just after they finished their entrées that Nicola noticed that he hadn’t asked anything about her.
As they waited in silence for their dessert, Paul excused himself to the bathroom. For the fourth time tonight. As soon as he was out of sight, Nic tore her phone out of her purse. She had texts from Billy and Kara but nothing from Gaynor.
Is he cute? Kara asked. She replied with a Y and the whatever emoji.
You keeping your pants on? From Billy. She gave him the same response. As she hit send, a text arrived from Gaynor.
I hear the date is going well. Paul would like you to go home with him. Is this OK y/n?
Nicola took a deep breath. She suddenly realized that Paul had been going to the bathroom to text Gaynor. She couldn’t decide if that was better or worse than her original suspicion that he’d been doing coke, which she loathed. Since he hadn’t been noticeably animated after his bathroom trips, she’d figured it wasn’t coke. She thought for a second, and decided she owed it to her eighteen-year-old self to give him a chance. This was the first action that she’d even been offered since arriving in LA. She downed the rest of her pinot noir and texted back.
Y
Gaynor responded so quickly, she must have had her response typed already.
Good. The driver will wait and bring you home whenever you’re ready. Text me when you leave.
Nicola spotted Paul weaving his way back toward her through the other tables full of diners, each one staring and whispering as he passed. When he got to their table, he pressed his hands together and smiled at her.
“Nicola, I want to thank you for today,” he said earnestly.
He’s an actor, her brain warned. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “It’s been fun.”
“It has.” He beamed. “So, I don’t want to sound too forward, but could I invite you back to my place for a drink? The view is really beautiful. It’ll kill any thoughts you have about going back to Dayton. I need to make you fall in love with LA.”
“Oh,” Nicola said, pretending to be surprised, her eyes widening. Paul’s composure slipped slightly, and she knew he was wondering if Gaynor had clued her in or not. “Yes,” she said quietly, and his smile returned, with even higher wattage. “That would be very nice.”
* * *
Back at his small mid-century in the hills, Paul tipped the driver a $100 bill from his pants pocket and helped Nicola down the short but very steep driveway to his house, which hid behind a screen of bougainvillea. Once they were inside, he kicked off his shoes and told her that she was welcome to do the same. She gingerly removed the Louboutins from her feet, and when Paul adjourned to the kitchen to make their drinks, she quickly inspected the taped soles. So far so good.
Paul returned with two martini glasses and a shaker and nodded toward a door at the end of a short hallway.
“Could you unlock that, please?” he asked, looking down at his hands to show. “I don’t have any spare hands.”
Nicola stepped toward a white door with an opaque glass center and turned the lock. As she pushed the door open, she gasped aloud. Below them, all of Los Angeles spread out, a million points of orange, white, and red lights shrouded in tiny circles of mist. She could see cars driving on the boulevards, and the avenues extending off so far to the south that they vanished into a sparkly blur before they reached their end. She could see billboards and buildings, and was shocked to see the Griffith Park observatory perched up above her like a weird White House, presiding over a town of sparkling glitter.