Page 14 of My Unscripted Life

“Exactly,” he mutters under his breath.

“What was that?” My voice rises in volume, so the question bounces across the polished concrete floor.

And then it’s all gone. All the anger, the cool facade, the blank stare, and the snarl. He glances down at the toes of his shoes and shakes his head slightly.

“You want to know why I come in here?” He finally looks up, his blue eyes locking in on me. “For starters, there’re no windows in here, which means I don’t have to worry about someone peeking in, maybe pointing a camera. In here, no one suddenly stops talking when I walk into the room. In here, no one stares at me or gives me sad looks like I’m some abandoned puppy. In here, no one bothers me.”

That’s when I know for sure that the Milo I’ve seen this week is not the real Milo. Not even close. Yes, he’s heartbroken, maybe even feeling the lowest he’s ever felt. But even then he’s had to work to be the impenetrable jerk he’s been walking around as since I met him. There’s nothing about it that’s coming naturally to him. He’s acting his butt off and filming hasn’t even started yet.

But still, there’s something missing, something he’s not saying. There’s something I’m not quite getting.

“Okay, but don’t you have a trailer?” I ask.

His eyes drop back down to his toes, and his voice comes out just barely above a whisper. “Yeah, but in there, there’s just no one.”

For a moment, there’s not a single sound in the room other than the industrial air conditioning softly humming through the vents.

I take a deep breath and let it out long and slow. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I know you’re, well, I…” I pause, not sure if I should acknowledge his paparazzi problem or not. I decide to go with not. “I’m just having a bad day, that’s all.”

He glances over my shoulder at the canvas on the easel, then appraises the three I’ve got leaning against the wall. Finally, his eyes land on the stack of discarded canvases from Friday, the ones he complimented. He sighs, his eyebrows knit together, his lips pursed.

“Me too. Bad week, actually. Badmonth,” he says. He dips his hands back into his pockets, his shoulders rolling in until it looks like someone’s let the air out of him. “I need comfort food, and I think you do, too. Let’s go.”

I couldn’t be more surprised if he spoke to me in Sanskrit while dancing the tarantella. And unlike the other day, when he marched off toward lunch without a word, this time he stops at the door, holding it open for me. It takes me a second for my feet to catch up with my brain, which is screaming,Go! Go!But eventually I drop my paintbrush into the cup on the table, wipe my hands off on a stack of paper towels, grab my bag from the floor, and follow him.

ANGLE: ON A PILE OF DISCARDED CANVASES.

END SCENE

ANGLE: ON DEE’S PHONE. A text message from NAZ appears on the screen.

Pic of Benny. Make it happen.

And in case you need a reminder:

Disengage heat-seeking missiles

“So where are we going?” I ask as I click my seat belt and he shifts the car into drive.

“Just this place I heard of,” he replies. We emerge from the industrial area into downtown, and Milo hangs a left toward Poplar Street like he’s lived in this town his whole life.

We ride mostly in silence, since I’m apparently not needed for any directions. I try to keep my eyes forward, or out the passenger side window, but every few minutes I allow myself a sneaking glance in Milo’s direction. I notice that despite the driver’s seat being pushed all the way back to make way for his lanky frame, his knees still seem bent and cramped in the tiny sports car, and he’s drumming on the steering wheel to a tune in his head. A million questions are running through my head.

Soon, we’re pulling up beneath one of the live oak trees dripping with Spanish moss that line Poplar Street. The summer sun hasn’t quite set behind the neat rows of downtown buildings, but the trees provide a nice canopy that makes you forget, for just a moment, that you’re living in a giant sauna.

I fling the door open and start to climb out, but the low profile of the car plus my denim pencil skirt has me performing a Cirque du Soleil routine just to remain upright without showing off my underpants to the little old ladies power-walking by. I finally get myself to standing with one heave on the roof of the car and a slightly embarrassing grunt, but a rock that’s kicked up into my sandal causes my knee to buckle and I pitch forward. I fling my hands out to catch myself before I face-plant on the curb, but Milo, tall and solid, interrupts my trajectory.

My hands are flat on his chest, and the rest of my body follows, pressing into him nearly head to toe. I breathe in the scent of detergent and cologne and something smoky on him, and I have to work to suppress the happy sigh that’s just waiting on my lips.

I glance upward to see his sparkling blue eyes looking back down at me.

“You caught me,” I say.

“Yup,” he says, and suddenly my bones feel like they’re made of my mom’s homemade strawberry jam. Despite Naz’s warning and my own resolve to not turn into a puddle of fangirling goo, I can’t help it.

Swoon. Swoony swoony sa-WOON.

Steadying myself and pushing away from his chest is maybe one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, other than having to run the mile in gym. But I do it, because I can’t think up a proper reason why we should spend the entirety of our dinner standing in this parking spot pressed up against each other. And if I tried, I’d worry that he’d find me creepy and never want to hang out with me again.

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