“It wasn’t nothing, and I don’t want to forget about it. Tarah and I don’t have anything going on. She’s married.”
“Wait,” I say. “She is? But Hollywood Gossip didn’t—”
“Please,” he groans. “Stop getting your news from Hollywood Gossip. No one knows she’s married because she’s pretty secretive about her private life, and they haven’t thought to look into it. Maybe someone saw us talking or filming a scene, but we weren’t canoodling. Canoodling is— God, why did they have to use the word canoodling? It sounds so terrible.”
“Like you’re sharing a noodle, like in Lady and the Tramp,” I say quietly.
“What? I mean . . .” Drew gives me a narrow-eyed, skeptical look. “I’m not trying to get into the origin of the word canoodle. That’s not what I came here to do.”
“You came here to kill some dire wolves,” I say, trying and failing to pry my eyes off his brown eyes, which are somehow even more beautiful than they are on screen.
“No, Annie,” he says, my name still sounding special and magical when he says it. “I came here to see you. Did you really end things with Sexy Gaffer?”
“He has a name.”
“Fine. Carter. Did you really end things with Carter? Because I know I was kind of a dick about him. I’m sorry. He’s an okay guy.”
I shrug. “We weren’t right for each other anyway. You don’t have to be sorry about that.”
“Well, good,” Drew says, taking another step toward me. “Because I’m actually not sorry at all that you broke up.”
I take that extra step back and the trash can tilts over, Mountain Dew cans crashing onto the floor. I immediately crouch down and start picking them up, and Drew follows suit.
“This,” I mutter. “This is a mistake.”
“Tell me about it,” Drew says. “There’s no way this much Mountain Dew is good for those guys. Once I knew this dude in high school who drank so much Mountain Dew that his stomach lining literally corroded and—”
“No.” I shake my head, meeting his eyes. “I know you came here to see me and that’s nice but—I can’t.”
Drew drops a Mountain Dew can into the recycling bin and it lands with a satisfying thunk. “What are you talking about?”
“I mean . . .” I sigh. “Obviously I think you’re attractive. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” he repeats, giving me that smirk that makes me scowl.
“But you’re done here tomorrow night, and then you’re off to God knows where—”
“New York,” Drew supplies. “I’m taping a morning show appearance on Monday morning to promote my next movie, but I have my hotel here booked through the weekend. Let’s hang out. Let’s get dinner. Let’s—”
I hold up my hand and almost fall out of my crouching position, but Drew’s hand shoots out to steady me. It’s infuriating that he’s always around to catch me when I fall.
“But I don’t want to hang out for a couple of days with any guy. Do you get that?” I ask, searching his eyes. He looks back at me, waiting.
What I want to say is that Tom Hanks doesn’t just hang out. My parents didn’t just hang out. I want the real thing—the rom-com love, the forever love, the “let’s start a family” love. But that’s a little too much to say right now, even for me, so I settle for, “We have really different lives. You make movies, and I write about hemorrhoid relief.”
“So come out and visit me sometime,” Drew says, excited. “You’d like LA. There’s this thing called sunshine there; maybe you’ve heard of it? And people get hemorrhoids all over the world, you know. They’re the great equalizer.”
I smile a little. “No. It’s just—I’m glad we met, okay?”
Drew looks at me, his eyes poring over my face so slowly that it almost feels like he’s touching me, and I have to stop myself from either pulling away or throwing myself at him. He’s not even doing anything; he’s just looking at me. That’s the effect this guy has on me, and that’s why I know I made the right decision not to make out with him or go to dinner with him or whatever.
Even though I really, really want to make out with him.
Someone like him—famous, confident, perfect—can’t possibly understand what it’s like to be rejected and alone. The way I felt when I saw that article about him and Tarah? I don’t ever want to experience that again, and I know that if this weird, amorphous, flirtation-type thing with Drew progresses any further, I definitely would.
I’m not putting myself in a situation where I could lose someone else. When I meet my Tom Hanks, and it’s real, then I’ll know: there won’t be any risk and I won’t ever have to be afraid of a broken heart.
Drew looks like he wants to say something else, but finally he says, “If that’s what you want,” with no trace of frustration or malice in his voice.
I stand up, my knees cracking, and Drew follows.
“We’re friends, okay?” Drew asks. “If you ever want to send me your screenplay, please do. I’d love to read it. Seriously.”
I nod. “Thanks.”
“I’ll see you on set tomorrow,” Drew says. “Oh. And at the wrap party.”
“Oh yeah,” I say, remembering that Tommy promised to take us all out for drinks after we finish tomorrow.
“I’m glad we met, too,” Drew says, his hand reaching out as if he’s about to touch me, but then his fingers hover before falling back to his side. “And Tarah and me—we’re really not—”
I shake my head. “No. I believe you.”
“Well, I better get back to the game,” Drew says, gesturing over his shoulder. “Dungeon Master Rick runs a pretty tight campaign.”
“Tell me about it.” I smile. I wave as he walks toward the dining room door, but right as the door swings open, he says, “Nice outfit, by the way.”
The door swings shut. I look down at my Pizza Slut shirt and groan.
Chapter Fifteen
One of the reasons I love While You Were Sleeping so much (besides Sandra Bullock being impossibly charming and Bill Pullman being unexpectedly sexy in that reversible jacket Chloe made fun of) is the family. At the beginning of the movie, Sandra Bullock works on holidays because she has no one. She’s as alone as a person can be, which in a rom-com means that she has a cat. But then, through a series of misunderstandings, she ends up pretending to be comatose Peter Gallagher’s girlfriend and goes to a Christmas celebration at his family’s house. It’s big and loud and everyone’s yelling and arguing and she loves it. No longer is she surrounded by only her apartment building’s weird tenants; now she’s part of a family that envelops her and makes her one of their own and gives her a stocking, and that’s why it’s so hard for her to tell them the truth . . . that she’s not really Peter Gallagher’s girlfriend.
Of course, things work themselves out because his brother, Bill Pullman, proposes to her with the entire family in tow and it’s very sweet and I always cry, but the point is, I get it.