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“And I don’t have a therapist.”

I blinked.

“You told me to talk to my therapist—I don’t have one.That is such a California thing.”

“Do you have a priest?”

“Fuck no.”

“Well…who do you confess to?Share your deepest and darkest secrets with?”

“I don’t have any.”He jutted his chin.

I arched an eyebrow.

“You.”He sipped his diet cola for the first time.“Honest to God, Jeremy.I’m just a regular guy trying to live my dream.”

I held my silence.

“Okay, like, a Nebraska farm boy who wanted out, okay?I thought Stanford was my ticket.Then the injury…” His face fell.“I thought my world ended.I couldn’t afford to keep up my studies.And I’d been that mythical player who actually went to classes and studied.”He held up his hands.“I wasn’t the only one.But I didn’t want the NFL.I wanted a career in mathematics.Like teaching or something.”

“You could always go back to college.Doesn’t have to be Stanford?—”

“And quit acting?”He scratched his stubbled jaw.His beard grew fast with the dark-brown matching his head.His eyes were the defining feature for him—a stunning light-blue that appeared otherworldly.Like he came from a different time or place.Or that he had a bit of magic running through him.Which was all fantastical thinking—but those thoughts were also what propelled him into stardom.

If he can just keep his nose clean.

“I’m sorry you feel you can’t quit acting.Can you take some online courses?Everything’s online these days.You have enough money to pay for tuition?—”

“Where would I find the time?”

“Maybe go out less to bars?Sitting at home studying calculus means less time to get up to mischief.”

He rolled his eyes.

And winced.

“Look, Shayna will be here any moment.”

He frowned.

“You think I wasn’t going to loop your agent in?Or ask us to meet here?She agreed to let me have a one-on-one conversation with you first.So you could say all the stupid shit and she won’t have to knock you upside the head.”

He winced.

Yes, we know how you can be.For a man so intensely brilliant and so phenomenally talented, sometimes he could be just downright out of touch.Clueless.Adorable, but wandering around in a daze.I wondered if there might be some kind of clinical diagnosis that might help him, but I didn’t know how to broach the subject.Or if that was even my place.I was his publicist—not his therapist or his parent.

Maybe he did need a therapist.Well, I’d tried.That had to count for something.

Even as I had the thought, the front door at the far end of the bar opened.

I waved my hand.

Shayna waved back.The woman rivaled Andreas in the stunningly good looks department.But where he had dark, shiny hair, hers was platinum-blond.They shared the same ice-blue eyes, though.While his carried humor—most of the time—hers carried an air of sharpness.She was all angles.She was also the most-ruthless agent I knew in LA.Which was saying something.I pitied anyone who pissed her off.I worked very hard to never be that person.

Likely knowing she’d never get table service, she stopped at the bar to get her drink.

Both Andreas and I moved closer to the wall on our respective benches.