Chapter 6 — He Remembered Everything

Jamie earned the role.

He didn't get it because he was my boyfriend. He got it because the casting director asked him to read a scene twice and looked more interested after the second attempt than the first.

I watched from the end of the conference table while he played a man trying not to admit he was frightened of being left.

The first reading was angry. The second was quiet enough that I forgot the camera recording it.

"Look at me," he read. "You don't have to promise me anything. Just stop looking for the exit while I'm standing here."

He was looking straight at me.

After the call ended, neither of us moved immediately.

"That's good," I said.

"The acting?"

"Yes."

He came over and rested his hands on the arms of my chair.

"Then pay up."

"An evening. Not my entire calendar."

"I'll begin modestly."

He took me to the old café near the college where Tessa and I had rented our first office.

The crooked blue awning was still there. So were the mismatched tables and the glass case with the chocolate cake we used to split when money was tight.

Rosa, the owner, looked up when we came in.

"Finally," she said.

Jamie pulled my chair out quickly.

"Finally what?" I asked.

Rosa glanced at him and smiled.

"Finally you remembered us."

He ordered roast chicken, lemon potatoes, and the cake without consulting the menu.

"Who told you what I like?"

"You don't conceal your opinions about potatoes."

"I haven't been here with you."

"Not recently."

I lowered my glass.

He picked up his fork, then put it down again.

"You really don't remember me?"

I examined his face. Something about the unhappy line of his mouth was familiar in a way his smile wasn't.

"Tessa's apartment in London," he said. "Five years ago."

The memory arrived slowly: a quiet young man, long hair falling across his face, carrying our bags upstairs. He had fixed a transition on my presentation while Tessa argued about the opening slide.

"Jules?"

His fingers tightened around the edge of the table.

"Yes."

"You were her cousin. The one who never said anything."

"I said things. You were usually talking to Tessa."

I remembered him standing in the kitchen doorway, watching us rehearse. Eighteen, awkward, polite.

Not the man whose hands I kept thinking about during meetings.

"You look different."

"I worked on that."

It was the only answer that made me stop smiling.

He looked toward the window.

"You were going back to Los Angeles. I wanted to ask whether you'd remember me, but I couldn't say it without sounding like somebody's little cousin."

"Jamie."

"So I learned to dress better. Cut my hair. Took jobs where you might see me. Terrible plan, frankly. Two years of acting, and you noticed me when I was pouring water."

I looked at him across the small table.

The thought of him waiting inside those unnoticed years made my throat tighten.

"Why didn't you tell me that morning?"

"You would've felt responsible. I didn't want pity."

"You wanted a house?"

His mouth curved faintly.

"I wanted you to kiss me because you liked looking at me."

I reached across the table and took his hand.

He looked down at it before he looked at me.

"I do like looking at you."

"I've noticed."

"Don't ruin this."

He turned his palm beneath mine and held on.

After dinner, Rosa followed us outside with my scarf. I noticed the bookstore was still standing, though the block had been scheduled for demolition years earlier.

"Someone bought the properties," she told me. "A young man who wouldn't let them turn it into another parking garage."

I looked at Jamie.

He tied my scarf around my neck, concentrating far too carefully.

"You?"

"My family helped."

"Why?"

"You said this was the first place you felt the company might actually work."

I stared at him.

He remembered a sentence I didn't remember saying.

"How much did it cost?"

"Less than losing it would've cost me."

The answer was impractical, indulgent, and completely unlike the image of himself he kept offering me.

I put a hand against his cheek.

"You could have called."

"I know."

"I would have answered."

He leaned into my hand before he could hide the movement.

"Then answer me now," he said quietly.

"What are you asking?"

"Whether I'm still your mistake."

I kissed him beneath the awning, in the place where my life had once been held together by cheap meals and stubbornness.

His hand came around my waist. This time there was no urgency to prove anything. He kissed me until the street noises softened around us, then rested his forehead against mine.

"No," I whispered. "You're not."

He didn't answer immediately. His hand remained against my back, the other resting lightly at my waist.

"I didn't think I'd hear that here," he said.

"Where did you think you'd hear it?"

"Somewhere I'd planned properly. Flowers. Dinner. Better lighting."

I looked up at the crooked awning.

"You're right. This is terrible lighting."

He laughed and looked down at me again, but his eyes had become unexpectedly bright.

I touched his cheek.

"You don't have to arrange every good thing before it happens."

"I'm learning."

Rosa switched off one of the lights inside. We moved away from the entrance, still holding hands.

For once, I didn't hurry him toward the car. I let the street be quiet, let him walk beside me, and began to understand how long he had wanted something I could give without spending anything at all.

At home, I switched both my phones off.

Jamie saw and stopped in the doorway.

"You're serious about my evening."

"You earned it."

He came toward me slowly, as though speed might make me change my mind.

I touched his shirt. He put his hand over mine, keeping it there.

"I can be very patient," he said.

"You've mentioned that."

"Tonight I'm having difficulty."

I smiled and drew him closer.

The phones stayed off until morning.

For the first time in months, I woke without reaching for one. He was already awake, watching me with a smile he didn't try to hide.

When I turned mine on, Owen had left a message about Mercer Media's new proposal: a high-paying television special involving both couples, with two different contracts circulating under the same offer.

Jamie read the message beside me. His expression changed before I finished.

"Don't sign the private agreement," he said.

"You haven't seen it."

"Grant asked the wrong people to draft it."

He picked up his own phone.

"And one of them was foolish enough to call mine."