I could do this. “All of it,” I said. “If you have time.”
He nodded, picking up the script I’d left on the table. “When does filming start?”
I plunked the beers down, grabbed my slice. “Three weeks, though we start rehearsals next Tuesday.”
“And it’ll be shot over at the studio?”
“Most of it,” I said around a bite. “We’ll also have a few weeks in New Mexico.”
We took a few minutes to talk locations and length, comparing notes about where we’d both been. By the time we’d both finished our pizzas, we were onto our second beers. He took a long sip of his. “I did a shoot once at White Sands. My model freaked out because she got sand on her skin.”
I lift a brow. “Seriously?”
His lips curved. “She didn’t like it when I pointed out that it wasn’t actually sand, but gypsum.”
“Smartass,” I muttered.
“Not disagreeing with you,” he said.
“But also, I appreciate your conviction to being scientifically correct.”
Damon laughed. “I’m glad you appreciate my dedication to learning.”
I snorted.
He chuckled.
We stared at each other for a long moment and I felt the past pressing on me again, sitting heavy on my lungs, tapdancing on the back of my tongue. I had to clear the air. I couldn’t—
“Don’t,” he whispered.
I stopped, stared up at him agape.
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I just—don’t feel like you owe me anything. Last night was . . . fucking fantastic, if I’m being honest, but being your friend is also fantastic and if that’s all we can be, then I’m fine, Ed. I don’t need more than you’re able to give.”
Soft. Sweet. Kind.
Damon.
I traced shapes in the condensation on the outside of the beer bottle. “I can’t be more than friends with you,” I whispered. “Last night was fantastic, but . . . I think you saw enough to realize that I can’t be in a relationship.” A beat as I met his eyes. “I won’t let myself go there.”
Damon studied me for several moments. “Won’t let yourself go there?” he asked. “Or let yourself go there again?”
My fingers froze mid-circle, and I forced my eyes to stay on his. “Again.”
Silence, then the beer bottle hit the table and his fisted hands moved to his hips. “I want to ask who I should kill,” he began.
I rested my hand on his knee. “Then you’d have to dig him up and kill him again.”
His gaze was furious, but at my words, his hands flattened out and he dropped his chin to his chest, which expanded and fell on a long exhale.
“I’m okay, Damon,” I murmured.
Chocolate eyes sparking fire, but he didn’t say what he had every right to. Which was that, clearly, I wasn’t okay because of the way I’d acted earlier that day. Instead, he just stared at me, fury in his expression, body stiff and unmoving.
Except for his chest.
That kept lifting and falling in rapid succession, his staccato breaths the only noise in the room.
Then his hand dropped onto mine, loosely gripping my fingers where they still rested on his knee. “I’m sorry you went through whatever it was that was bad enough to mark you so thoroughly. I’m sorry that I pushed this morning. I’m—”
I squeezed his leg lightly. “Me, too,” I said. “But I promised myself a long time ago I would stop apologizing for what he did.”
“I—”
“And if it’s cool with you, I’d like to put the past where it belongs and focus on the good things I have going on in my life,” I said. “The first of which is having a friend like you who cares.” I waited until he glanced up at me and smiled. “The second being”—I slipped my hand free and tapped the script on the table—“having the ability to actually complain about rewrites because I’m working in my dream job and doing films rather than cat food commercials.”
Damon’s jaw clenched despite my levity though he nodded, albeit tightly. “I’m glad you have that, too.”
“I’m also lucky to have someone read those rewritten lines with me.” I picked up the script, handed it to him. “Hint, hint.”
His lips curved just the slightest bit, and he reached over and took it from me. “Okay, sweetheart.” His smile expanded. “Or should I say okay, demander?”
“I prefer the first,” I teased. “But I stand by the second.”
He grinned. I giggled.
And then we both set down our beers and got to work running the lines.
Damon was patient, feeding them to me when I faltered with the new material, but not just giving them all to me freely. He made me work; testing my memory and helping them stick in my brain.
That wasn’t even mentioning the vast amount of accents he could do. He colored more emotions into the script than I’d been able to do in my mind, and that was saying something. I really liked the story and had brought it to life in my brain, complete with mental images and voices.
“How are you so good at this?” I accused about halfway through. “I’m starting to think you moved to L.A. so you could pursue acting yourself.”
He laughed. “Not at all,” he said, turning the page and pausing. “My sister was the theater geek, that’s it. End of story.” His eyes darted away from mine. And was that a blush? “Okay, now Madeline says—”
I pinned him with a stare. “Why am I not thinking that’s the end of the story, based on your avoidance?”
“She says, ‘And I don’t know why—’”
“Damon.”
“‘You’re looking at me that way.’ And Todd replies—”
“Damon.”
He froze, shoulders rising, eyes still on the script, but . . . yes, that definitely was a hint of blush on his cheeks?
Oh my God.
I yanked the script out of his hands.
“Spill it, buster.”
He snagged it back. “‘You can’t expect me to—’”
“Damon Alexander Garcia, don’t you dare try and hold out on me.”
“I’m not holding—”
I narrowed my eyes. “Yes, you are.”
“I’m—”
“Remember that time I told you you’d drank too much tequila and were going to have a massive hangover the next day?”
A grunt.
“Or when you’d eaten that chocolate cake too fast?”
If there was such a thing as flipping a script page aggressively, then Damon did it. “As I was saying—”
“Or when you were taking on too much and needed a vacation?”
“Pot meet kettle,” he muttered.
“Hence, the reason we took that long weekend to Miami, remember?”
He reached for his beer, guzzled down a mouthful, eyes carefully avoiding mine. “Yeah, so what?”
“So, I know you, Damon. I know when you’ve eaten too much, or drank too much, or worked too much.”
“That may be true but—”
“I also know when you’re lying about something,” I went on. “You know I do. It’s the same reason I knew you were near burnout and going to be sick to your stomach. It’s why I know that hint of blush on your cheeks means that you’re holding out on me.”