Page 35

Valeria’s bare skin touches my bare skin, and she’s wrapping her fingers around my knuckles and her finger pads are smooth and her grip is loose yet clinging, like she thinks my hand is fragile but doesn’t want to leave me. I don’t even know how to describe it. An avalanche of good feelings, probably something scientifically akin to thousands of my dopamine receptors being rendered useless. It’s dark outside, but as Valeria leads me into the night, it’s as if she’s a radiating light source. Or like with her by my side, the dark is no longer scary.

It feels like anything is possible.

She lets go after less than five seconds, but my hand’s left tingling our whole walk to Burger King.

It’s a moody Burger King. The kind of Burger King that you’re certain has been open since the ’70s and where there was a high-profile murder in the ’80s that no one talks about. Peeling paint, lopsided decorations, a poster for an item that I saw advertised on a billboard along the 405 six months ago. But Hoodie Valeria strides in like this is her favorite place on Earth.

“I meant to say before, by the way, the contrast with the outside being a relief?” I say once I settle into the idea that I have Valeria one-on-one, no chance for interruptions. “I get that. It’s like…when you go outside while having a panic attack and can cool down.”

Valeria smiles. “Exactly!” She grimaces. “I hope Brendan got that.”

“I’m sure he did.”

Valeria eyes me a moment. The full up-and-down scan makes me feel both stripped down to my skin, vulnerable, and coiled up in my stomach, readying for a release I won’t get right now. “You look like you came off a movie set and I look like your garbage sidekick and I love it.”

The cashier is a teenager. It feels like he’s not supposed to be working this late for legal reasons, and he’s conspicuously on his phone. Valeria steps aside, letting me order first.

“Um…chicken fries. Spicy.”

“Meal?”

I glance back at Valeria, as if begging for her approval on more or less food even though I’m starving. Valeria nods.

“Yeah. Um, Sprite.”

I shuffle aside for Valeria.

“Whopper meal and…” She cranes her neck beyond the cashier, and her eyes light up like a spotlight. Like I’m talking this may be the greatest moment of her life light up. “Is that a Detective Pikachu crown?”

Yes, this is definitely a Burger King that is stuck in the past.

The cashier glances behind him. “I guess.”

“What do I have to pay you to get it?”

I can’t help but smile; Valeria’s, what, one of the best working actors today, and she’s going this apeshit over a Pokémon crown?

I love it.

“Um, I don’t think we charge for those things…It’s just, like…an extra someone found.”

Valeria slaps her credit card on the counter.

“She needs a crown too.”

The cashier grabs two crowns and takes the credit card, eyes glazing over the name before he goes into shock. Bug-eyed, oh fuck what have I done? shock.

“Oh my god, Ms.—”

Valeria shoots him a finger gun, grabs the crowns, and walks away. I follow, making awkward eye contact with the cashier, a little sympathetic. I’d also be the person who’d completely not realize that I’m talking to a celebrity.

Once we get our food, we retreat to a table in the back of the restaurant, where it’s quiet enough that the chatting between the two staff members is hardly louder than a whisper.

“Do you have to be worried about being photographed when you’re just out?” I ask.

Valeria makes a face. “Steven always wants me to be more done up on the chance, but people tend to ignore me when I look this sloppy-casual. Plus, remove all the makeup I have to wear for press and films and a lot of people can’t tell.”

“That’s…kinda nice.”