Jack’s eyes narrowed a moment, then his shoulders sagged. “Oh God, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, right. Well, it’s late.” I shrugged like I was over the conversation. I felt bad in a way. I wanted him to be able to talk to me, but for some reason I always found myself wanting to shut it down and get him out of my space. It just felt too crowded all the time, like I couldn’t keep a sense of myself with him there.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he backtracked. “I didn’t mean anything by that. I’m not myself.” He sighed and ran his hand through his hair again. “You’re right. I don’t know you, and you don’t know me. Everyone always thinks they do. But for some reason, I want to be able to talk to you. I want to know you. You seem ... grounded I guess. And you look at me like ...”

Great. I was normal and grounding. I truly would have preferred to be magnetic or enigmatic, but I wasn’t sure what either would accomplish for me. “Like?”

“Like you don’t see me as a famous person, but just as a person.”

Surprised, I said quietly, “You are just a person.”

I stared at him and his gaze snagged my own. He seemed to be looking right into me, like he was sifting over who I was inside. I was pinned for a moment, unable to drop my eyes from his, and after a few beats his gaze wandered over my face. The air seemed to swell up around me. I bit my lip, whether in nerves or a sharp reminder of reality, I couldn’t say.

The small movement hooked his gaze and his green eyes zeroed in on my mouth.

It was too much for me. I cleared my throat, breaking the spell I was under, and taking a sip of my drink, turned away.

What kind of game was Jack playing with me? Obviously, he knew the effect he had on girls. On me. If he thought coming here tonight would help fill some of that void he was feeling, I was going to have to be seriously careful. The plain truth was, part of me wanted to be that for Jack. There was no question of how he had gotten to where he had today. Yes, he was talented. I had seen his work. I knew the nuances and depth he brought into his roles. But I was also, now, a first hand witness to his gravitational pull. He was like a bright and beautiful rogue planet. He pulled the entire galaxy into a gravitational wobble until he got close enough to suck you in and tilt your axis head over heels.

“If you say you can talk to me, talk to me.” I congratulated myself on the right amount of polite interest and concern. The fact that I was keenly over-interested in everything to do with him, didn’t escape my attention. I truly wanted to know what this guy who had everything going for him was doing in my kitchen at ... I looked at the microwave clock ... midnight. “I mean, you keep saying you’re not yourself, so speak. I’m listening.”

T E N

Jack finally dropped his eyes away from me and drained the rest of his beer.

I watched his throat work down the last sip. “Sorry,” I said, suddenly wanting to take back my unburdening his soul challenge. It was way too intimate between us already. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just don’t get it. You’re right. I mean, I get what you’re feeling, I just ... surely you must have friends you can talk to, people who are in the same boat as you?”

He shrugged. “Well, perhaps if I had felt like anyone would understand, I wouldn’t have had to go to the other side of the country to figure my shit out. Look, forget about it.” He sighed and smiled. “So, what’s the latest news from Butler Cove?”

“Hmmm. Let me see.” I laughed, relieved, and ran through some of the conversations I’d overheard this evening at work. “An alligator got stuck in a storm drain, and Sheriff Graves and the fire chief had to work together to get him loose. It drew a big crowd, not because of the alligator, but because the sheriff hasn’t spoken to the chief in seven years since the chief had an affair with the sheriff’s wife. That makes for some interesting town council meetings when decisions have to be made, I can tell you.”

Jack laughed. “So are they still together? The sheriff and his wife?”

“Oh, yes!” I said in mock outrage, hand to my heart. “She still attends church with her head held high every Sunday and refuses to admit she did it. But you can’t get away with much in a town this size.”

“You go to church?”

“Actually, no. I just hear she does. Anyway, what else? Oh, the hurricane ended up being a tropical storm, but let’s hope it stays that way so they don’t issue us an evac order. It looks like it may head past us up to Charleston, anyway.”

“I guess if they evacuate, I’ll head back to California,” he said.

The thought of him potentially leaving by the end of the week made me ridiculously depressed.

“But in the meantime, I’ve clued my assistant in about where I am so she is sending me more clothes and scripts and stuff.”

“I thought you didn’t want anyone to know where you are?”

“I didn’t, I don’t, but that’s not really realistic, and I can trust her. I traveled with what I was wearing and what I could fit in the bike bags. And I have a mountain of scripts waiting for me.”

I could already see that Jack was not dealing with his self-imposed isolation well. He was either going to give this ‘getting away’ idea up and go back, or he was going to try and find some way to distract himself. Either way spelled devastation for me if we continued to spend time together.

I fleetingly wondered about his relationship with Audrey Lane. Was he truly heartbroken, or was it all just an ill-thought out excuse to explain his obviously out of the norm behavior? If he was going to stay and try to distract himself, I wouldn’t be doing either of us any favors by letting on that I was crushing on him, especially if I was not only just a distraction, but also playing seconds to his girlfriend. I liked to think I thought a little more of myself, but I hated that, for a moment, I wondered what it would be like.

The thought of the rejection when it came, as it inevitably would, whether by him politely ignoring my desperate crush or by him leaving, was a cold shower on my thoughts.

The truth was, I was lonely, too. I was still a young teenager at heart who had had to grow up way too fast. There’d been no time for whispering and giggling over boys and having my mom do my hair for the prom or to ask about dating. That had all been lost to me too early. I had loved Nana so much, but in the end it was me taking care of her and not the other way around. I hadn’t had my giddy, angsty, hormone-filled teenage-hood that I always seemed to read so much about, despite Jazz’s efforts to get me out of my shell. Perhaps if I had, I would be better equipped to deal with all the tangled emotions I felt in this situation with Jack.

I couldn’t even look at it objectively, because he wasn’t just a boy. He was a dazzling, heart-stopping aura of a man who in just five days had me feeling like I was perched on the edge of a precipice and seriously contemplating throwing myself over the edge. The idea was terrifying in its finality and in its inevitability.

He broke the silence.

“So, go check out the walls, let me know what you think.”

Ah yes. The walls.

Leaving my beer behind, I stepped into the hall.

I looked around me. It was amazing. The plain pine floors and bare walls were suddenly swollen with the promise of what the house could become. I could see it so clearly. Dark wood floors with wide white moldings and high ceilings against pale dusty blue walls.