Page 82 of Retool

“Oh thank God.”

He gave me this bewildered look for about two-point-five seconds.“I’m straight.”

“Uh,” I said.

He nodded.

“Are you sure?”I asked.

“Am I sure?”

“In my defense,” I said, “that coat isat leastbisexual.”

The look on Julian’s face suggested that his faith in my powers of deduction was waning.

“Uh, so youdon’twant to sleep with me?”

“No.”

Okay, well, rude, because he didn’t have to say it quite so quickly.

“Oh,” I said.And then, for lack of anything better, “Great.”

Julian stared at me for another two-point-five seconds.Then he said flatly, “Great.”

“No, I meant— Great!Hurray!We’re going to make this show happen!”

With another of those I-may-have-made-a-mistake looks, Julian took out his phone and opened the calendar.“When can you come to L.A.?”

“Believe it or not, my schedule is fairly flexible.”

“Great.Tomorrow?”

“Uh—”

“Or the day after.I’m traveling again at the end of the week, and I want to get our contracts department working on this before we lose momentum.”

“That seems…fast.”

“Dash, I promise you, we’ve got to do this while the buzz is still building.It’s a twenty-four-hour news cycle; people are going to startforgettingby the end of the week.”

“Set up the meeting for the day after tomorrow,” Bobby said from the hall.“It’s not a problem.”

“Great,” Julian said.Before I knew what was happening, he grabbed me in another hug—lots of body-to-body contact for a man who had been so quick to say he had no interest in sleeping with me—and then Julian was heading out the door, waving his phone over his shoulder at me, apparently as a promise of further contact in the future.

“I can’t go the day after tomorrow,” I said.

“Why not?”Bobby said.

“Because—because I havethingsto do.”Genius: “I have to drive Keme to gymnastics.”

Can you believe Bobby didn’t seem to be amusedat all?

“I know it’s scary,” Bobby said.“But this is what you want, right?”

“This is whateverybodywants.But I’m not ready, and I don’t have an agent, and—”

“Call Phil,” Bobby said.“He’s your parents’ agent, right?He’s already looked over the offer.He can help you get through this part of it, and then you can decide down the road if you want to work with someone else.”