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“I like spending time with you too,” she says. She looks up at me, biting back a grin. “Something feels right with you. Like I could never get enough of the way you think. And now we get to spend another semester together.”

I nuzzle into her flower-scented neck, and I can feel that her heartbeat is still thumping from our kiss. “Concurrent with the dating?”

“For sure.”

“But what about…the future. With me, here. Can we be public?”

I run my fingers up her neck. Her hairs stand on end.

“I think it depends. If we did go public—like, your public persona was seen dating me—I probably couldn’t write a recommendation for you if you ever wanted one in the future.”

I’m not ready to make a move like that.

“Let’s stay quiet for now,” I say. And I’ll cross that bridge as we get closer to the Oscars.

She smiles. “Great.”

“But we’re still on for that date?” I ask, desperation dripping from my voice. I kiss her to make up for it.

She kisses my neck, tickling me. “Yes.” Anxiety is still swirling inside me, but now it’s mixed with elation, and the whole thing feels like the buzz you get from a good cheap cocktail. Maeve laughs, adding another spritz of sweet syrup to the mix.

“Teaching college film theory and dating. What are the next seven months going to be like?”

The next seven months.

But as the moments pass, as she lingers, kissing my skin, the dread quietly builds. More about my meeting with Trish floats to the surface.

I potentially have to get Maeve—grounded, not-impressed-by-Hollywood Maeve—to agree to go to the Oscars. If Oakley in Flames gets into Tribeca, South by Southwest, Cannes, or Berlin, I’ll be at those festivals promoting it. When Maeve wants me to be teaching this class. How can I take this opportunity when I know what could come up?

Sundance, though. Thinking about it still stings. If my film can’t get into Sundance, there’s no way it’ll get into Cannes or Berlin. Hell, I’m not even really sure it could get into slightly smaller festivals like Tribeca or South by Southwest. It’s most likely a lost cause. But this class with Maeve, that’s real. That’s possible.

This class is making Maeve so happy. There’s no reason to bring up potential obstacles. Maeve and I are together, and the future is bright. This is my career, my life now. And I’m happy with it. I am.

Now I just have to keep it.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Maeve and I select the first Monday in November to go on our date. It gave us two weeks’ buffer from the meeting with Ashlee, fewer crowds than Veterans Day or Halloween weekend, and another buffer before Maeve has to fly back to Ohio for Thanksgiving. Enough of a gap for us to not feel desperate, but not so long that we’d end up compelled to rip each other’s clothes off in the USC parking lot. Still, I feel like it’s been too much time.

She asked me to pick the place, laughing a little when she said, “Make it weird.” So, naturally, I spent all of my therapy session that morning agonizing over a location with Rosalie before texting Maeve La Brea Tar Pits maybe two hours prior to the date itself. Which, in the School of Dating Etiquette, is at a Little Dickish when it comes to lead time to getting ready. Not Full-Blown Dick like if I’d given her less than an hour, but the faux pas still makes my stomach ache as I drive to Mid-Wilshire.

To pick up Maeve. Like a proper date.

Thinking about it is not helping the stomach pain.

But at least I get an endorphin release when Maeve steps into my car. With the weather in the low sixties, she’s got on a dusty-rose sweater, light jeans, and white slip-on sneakers. The sweater flows perfectly around the curve of her neck, and a delicate gold locket rests on her chest. I’m already itching to know what’s inside, if anything. And given the way she smiles at me with her rose-painted lips, I’m not totally sure I’m not dreaming.

“Sorry about leaving you in suspense,” I say as she clicks her seat belt in.

She chuckles. “You’re driving. You didn’t even have to tell me where we were going if you didn’t want to.” She stares at me; it feels like I’m a slide under a heated microscope. The corner of her mouth turns up. “I like your hoodie.”

I steal a glance down, and the hotness instantly rises to my ears. I’m wearing a white pullover with a fucking rainbow on it. What had seemed like a fun pop of color in a casual outfit now seems cheesy. “Pretend I’m wearing something else, please.”

Maeve laughs. “No, I love your gay hoodie for our first gay date. You’re cute.”

I’m sure I’m bright red by now, but the joy I feel hearing those simple two words, Jesus. I’m so far gone. We haven’t even gotten to the tar pits yet and I may be in—

No. Fuck. I have to calm down.