Happy Again (This is What Happy Looks Like #1.5)(13)

“What?”

“That was the answer. In my Shakespeare class. The thing I couldn’t say.” The thing I want to be, she almost added, but didn’t. “It’s from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

“Shakespeare, huh?” he said, sitting back and slinging one arm over the top of the booth. “Not the first person who comes to mind when you think tough.”

“The pen,” Ellie told him, picking up one of the triangular halves of her grilled cheese, “is mightier than the sword.”

“Okay, Hamlet,” he said with a grin. “Let’s see it, then.”

“See what?”

“Your game face.”

Ellie was about to say no. She was about to scoff at the very idea. But then she realized that was her reaction to pretty much everything lately, and she thought better of it. Instead, she set down her grilled cheese and licked her fingers, and then she leaned across the table so that her face was very close to Graham’s.

“Ready?” she asked, and he nodded, though she could tell he was trying not to smile. She ignored him, forcing her mouth into a straight line, and then into a frown, scrunching up her forehead, thinking of what Lauren had said earlier—be more aggressive—and what Graham had just told her—bigger, braver, bolder—all the while glaring at him with as menacing a look as she could possibly muster.

But to her surprise, he began to laugh, the kind of laugh that’s helpless and impossible to stop, that starts in your belly and works its way right up to your eyes.

“Come on,” she said, breaking character as she slumped back in the seat. “It couldn’t have been that bad.”

Graham’s eyes were watering, and he reached for one of the extra napkins, dabbing at them theatrically. “I can honestly say that was the least intimidating thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

This only made her glower at him for real this time, and he waved the napkin, as if in surrender, still laughing.

“Now that,” he admitted, “is a step in the right direction.”

Thirteen

By the time they finished eating, it was fully dark and a little bit chilly, the kind of night that’s caught somewhere between summer and fall, old and new.

Outside the restaurant, Ellie bounced up and down on her toes a few times, glancing reluctantly in the direction of the theater. She didn’t feel ready to let go of Graham just yet, to return him to the throngs of screaming fans and hyperefficient handlers who were tasked with moving him around from city to city, film to film, as if he were a piece on a game board.

Ellie looked over at him, and her stomach fluttered.

They’d only just found each other again. And for the first time in a long time, there was still so much to say.

Graham pulled his phone from his pocket, and Ellie could see that there were several new texts and messages, no doubt many of them from Harry.

“We still have a little time,” he said, shoving it back into his jacket without reading them. “Should we take the long way back?”

She nodded, not quite trusting herself to say more. Graham stuck the Yankees cap back on his head, pulling down the brim, and then, to her delight, they began to walk in the exact opposite direction of the Ziegfeld.

Fifth Avenue looked magical at this time of night, a sea of bobbing lights from cars and taxis, the shop windows like aquariums in the dark. Neither of them spoke as they crossed Fifty-Eighth Street, and the pale facade of the green-roofed Plaza Hotel came into view. Beyond that was the great blue-black sweep of Central Park, and without any discussion, they turned toward it.

“I like this place,” Ellie said as they waited for the light to change, standing so close that the fabric of Graham’s jacket brushed against her bare arm, making her shiver. “I wasn’t sure I would.”

“You’ve never been?”

She shook her head.

“I’ve been here a lot lately.”

“You’ve been everywhere a lot lately.”

“It’s kind of weird,” he said as they began to cross over to the park. “I never went anywhere as a kid. And now I’m all over the place. Sydney, London, Paris, Tokyo…I can’t even remember all the cities.”

Ellie glanced over at him. “But?”

“But I get homesick,” he said with a shrug. “Which I realize is crazy, since all that’s waiting for me there is a pig. But still.”

They were just inside the park now, tracing a path along the edge of a murky pond, where a ring of streetlamps made blurry reflections in the water. They stopped beside an empty bench, and Ellie sat down on one end, waiting for Graham to do the same. But he just stood there, staring down at her with a thoughtful expression, his hands deep in his pockets and the tail of his suit jacket fluttering in the breeze.

“I can’t tell if you’re happy,” she said, trying to meet his gaze beneath the brim of the baseball cap, and he ducked his head, hesitating a beat too long before answering.

“Honestly,” he said, “I can’t really tell, either.”

He sat down beside her, leaving too much space between them. A woman walked by with an enormous dog, straining hard on its leash, and when they were gone and the path was empty again, Graham shook his head.

“I don’t really mean that,” he said, sounding frustrated. “I know I’m lucky. And I know people would kill for this kind of life, these types of opportunities…”