“Actors,” Beck says simply. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you reality television isn’t real?”
While we’re standing under the canopy, a sound tech checks my mic, and I get a glimpse of Henry sitting at a table in the middle of the restaurant. His dark brows pull together as he pops his knuckles and takes a deep breath. He’s the kind of good-looking that doesn’t even feel real.
“He looks nervous,” Beck says to Wes just far enough away that I’m pretty sure she thinks I can’t hear.
“He’s been wound up since this afternoon. Mommy issues. You know how it goes with these guys. Seeing family stirs shit up.”
When I walk in, Henry stands to greet me with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. He grips my elbow before I can pull away and whispers, “You look stunning.”
The cameras are close on us, and I can’t help but look up every time a crew member moves.
“Is this how you do all your dates?” I ask.
He chuckles. “Yeah, first my date meets my mom and then the camera crew acts as our chaperone for the night.”
My mouth splits into a grin. “Your mom was…”
He reaches under the table and takes my hand. “Intimidating.”
“You said it. Not me.” I smile, my brows raising. “She’s an icon.”
“To me, she’s just Mom. Your turn,” he says, quick to change the subject. “Tell me what your dad was like. And I want to hear about your mom too.”
My face falls at the mention of them. Instinctively, my hand sweeps over the locket around my neck, but I keep forgetting that I swapped it for a black choker. Just for one night.
“You don’t have to,” he adds quickly.
I shake my head. “No, no, it’s—people don’t usually just ask like that. They’re usually scared to bring it up…or that I might cry.” I laugh, but it sounds more nervous than I mean it to. “You just caught me off guard is all. My mom—well, my stepmom is great. She’s driven and career-focused…Actually, she reminds me a lot of Lucy—your mom, I mean. My mom was a little wild. Dad would always say he didn’t know where she got it from, because her parents were, like, die-hard country club people. She grew up going to all-girls schools. She and my dad met in high school when she was trying to steal a tape from the Blockbuster where he worked.”
Henry gasps through a laugh. “No! What movie? Did she get away with it?”
I smile, and I know that it is scientifically impossible, but I wish I could have been there. I’ve heard the story so many times, but I’ll never know what the store looked like or if Mom was wearing cherry lip balm or if Dad’s uniform shirt was tucked in. I want to know every small, little detail. The meaningless ones that died with them. I swallow back the tears I can feel building. “Pretty Woman, and sort of,” I say. “He bought her a copy and wrote his number on the back of the receipt.”
“Whoa. Your dad had some moves.”
“He did,” I say. “He really did. He, uh, died when I was a senior in high school.”
He bites down on his lip, like there’s more he might say if it weren’t for the cameras. “Again, I’m—Do you hate when people say they’re sorry? I’m sorry.”
I shake my head. “I feel bad for people mostly. No one ever knows what to say or how to talk to me. It’s like dropping a bomb on any conversation. The ultimate mood killer.” I laugh a little. “I wonder if my dad would just love to know that even though I’m twenty-two years old, he’s still crashing my dates from the grave.” I dated very rarely in high school, and Dad was never the type to be overbearing, but he did always ask for the license and registration of every car I got in whether it be friend or a date.
At that, he laughs and I can feel the tension deflating a little. “Well, if he’s anything like you, I’m sure he was great.”
My throat closes a little at the memory of him. “He was so kind. Always stopping to help people on the side of the road even though he didn’t know anything about cars. And he loved building stuff, but he was awful at it. He spent, like, ten years making me a tree house in the backyard, and even then, it was only a shoddy platform that couldn’t support both our weights at once. He always let me order pizza from his least favorite place because he knew I had a crush on the delivery driver, even though I couldn’t bear to say so out loud. But he was a great cook too, and he loved his job—managing a small chain of bargain basement stores. He loved the people he worked with, and he always told me that he was just thankful to have a job that could provide for us and—” I take a breath. “I…He was my favorite person.” It’s all I can manage to say without letting myself cry, which I have no intention of doing.
“He sounds like the kind of guy I’d like to know,” Henry says softly.
Beside me, a crew member moves, and I’m reminded that this is no normal date. I feel myself clamming up a little as I say, “You would have loved him. He would have been unsure about you and all your fancy suits, but he’d see past all that soon enough.”
“To be honest, the fancy suits aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.” He leans toward me. “Now, tell me more about this pizza delivery driver. Should I be worried?”
My lips spread into a toothy grin. “Very.”
The mood lightens some, and we talk for a while longer. Wes asks us for a few specific shots, including a Lady and the Tramp spaghetti moment over a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs while Irina has an absolute fit over the possibility of marinara sauce in a ten-foot radius of this dress on loan. And just like that I can feel our night slowly slipping away from us, like it was never ours to begin with.
“What’s next?” I ask.
“Well, I thought we could take a stroll and maybe catch a show,” Henry says.
As we stand to leave, Beck says, “We just want some B-roll of you two walking around the city, so we’ll follow at a distance, but your mics won’t pick anything up. We’ll come grab you after a few blocks and then drive over to the theater.”
I nearly tell her thank you for the brief privacy but think better of it.
Outside, the two of us crowd under an umbrella and step out into the drizzling rain.
“New York smells the most like New York after a fresh rain,” Henry says.
I can’t help but laugh. “You say that like it’s a good thing. What kind of New Yorker are you? Do you even take the subway?”
He scoffs. “I’ve been known to take a subway or two.”
“How cultured of you,” I tell him. “Do you think they really can’t hear us?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t really care either.” He holds his hand outside the protection of the umbrella. “Rain stopped.” He closes the umbrella and drops it in a souvenir store umbrella stand for someone else to find. “Besides, I’ve been waiting to do this.” In one swift motion, he takes my hand and holds it to his mouth, inhaling deeply before kissing my open palm.
My breath hitches at the touch of his warm lips against my skin and the unexpectedness of it. My brain feels foggy at first, but if he’s going to catch me off guard, I’m going to do the same to him. “Is this real for you?”