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“Do you want me to do this now?” I ask.

“Can you?”

I pull out my laptop and the camera cord. “Yeah. Just give me a second.”

I upload it via iMovie, the quickest means to extract the still. I capture the frame and AirDrop it to Valeria. I do it all within five minutes as she watches in admiration.

“Come to my side for a sec,” she says.

I do as I’m told.

Valeria scoots in close to me, so our bare thighs and shoulders are touching. I think Valeria’s done everything she can possibly do to me, but then some new part of our bodies brush against each other. This time it’s outer thigh to outer thigh. The skin’s not as sensitive, but the sensation still goes right to my inner thigh. It curls itself up like a cat and stays there.

“Which filter would you use?” she asks.

All my energy is focused on the way her leg feels, so I can barely concentrate on her voice. It sounds like it’s coming from underwater. Somehow I manage to say, “Juno makes the color pop.”

She puts on the Juno filter and starts typing a caption: Practice is going well. (Heave)n on Earth. @noteliroth

I can’t believe this is real.

“So I’m gonna queue it up once the announcement goes out. Don’t be alarmed if a couple hundred of my stans follow you.”

I want you to make movies and shorts and music videos or whatever.

I shouldn’t.

But it just comes out. “Hey, do you know how you’re going to shoot the scene where you pass out in the house in act two?”

“Do you have an idea?”

Heat rises to my face. “So you know how the house we rented has that prominent window and the scene is set during the day?” She nods. “I was thinking Dahlia looks right into the sun while she’s going down the stairs, so we do a P.O.V. shot of her where the background and the sunny interior are the focus, but we add color splotches in post. Like the dots you see when you look into the sun. Then when the attacker approaches, the point of view shifts—it’s low and he’s out of focus, showing her discombobulation and compromised vision as she passes out.”

For a moment, as the words flap their wings outside of my mouth, relief falls over me. I can’t believe I just did that. Without any prep. I’ve made more progress on the being assertive thing in a month than I have in a year. I can’t believe it.

But then I actually look at Valeria’s face.

She’s not smiling. Her expression is just…neutral. “Huh. I kinda like that. I’ll drop it by Brendan.”

chapter thirteen

That night, I find myself in a state of self-inflicted torture. My phone sits dormant next to me as I hunch over Final Cut Pro, stitching together a reel to send to Valeria. Even though all I can think about is her lukewarm reaction to my suggestion for Oakley in Flames, how she hasn’t texted me since we separated in the park, how she probably won’t even use this reel and she’ll think I’m pathetic for trying so hard. How of course this thing with Valeria isn’t going perfectly, because there was no way it was going to be any different from my experience with the dozens of guys who’ve fallen short or had different intentions from mine over the years.

But then my phone lights up from my bedroom desk. Not even a text; a call. I nearly fumble it out of my hands as I check the screen.

My heart, soaring, sinks down to earth. It’s just my mom. She’s been calling me several times a week since I left Alice. I’m going to have to answer her at some point, and I guess I’d rather do a few minutes now than potentially hours tomorrow.

“Hi,” I say, keeping Mom to my AirPods as I focus my eyes and fingers on Final Cut.

“Hi, sweetie,” Mom says. I hear the TV droning in the background; she and my dad are probably watching— “Are you watching Saturday Night Live?”

Bingo. She always calls to discuss media with me—also not something I’m going out of my way to do tonight. I click and drag a few seconds of footage to delete. “No. Rom and I only use streaming.”

“Well, your girl is on it.”

First of all, I don’t know what girl she means. This is Mom’s comphet way to say literally any girl I’ve ever mentioned more than three times to her. Sometimes she almost gets it and it’s celebrity crushes I didn’t acknowledge as gay. But most of the time it’s people like my high school English teacher who did my college rec letters; at one point it meant Senator Elizabeth Warren. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice that she remembers specific details about my life. But her still seeing me as so straight digs under my skin as I strain to focus.

“Which one?” I say, although I have no intention of playing twenty questions to find out who.