Funny You Should Ask(92)

Teddy isn’t in the truck, so I imagine her in the apartment, looking out the window.

My face and neck are so hot that I have to unzip my jacket. This whole thing keeps getting more and more embarrassing and stupid.

“Ollie texted you,” I say.

“I texted him,” Gabe says. “When you left.”

I nod.

“Déjà vu,” he says.

“It’s not the same,” I say.

“I know.”

I keep futzing with my scarf, scrunching it into a ball so it fits in the palms of my hands and then releasing it to expand in my lap.

“I didn’t want it to happen this way,” he says. “When I said we’d have time, I thought we would. I thought that I could do what I’d done with my father—that I could keep you, that I could keep this, out of the watchful eye of the press. That this could be something I didn’t have to share. At least not right away.”

I know it’s not his fault.

“I never thought I deserved Bond,” he says. “Even before I found out about Ollie.”

Outside the truck, snow has begun to fall—fat, fluffy flakes caught and buffeted around by the chilly air.

“Every article, every think piece about how ill-suited I was for the role, how wrong I was, I could have written myself,” he says. “Even in rehearsals, I was always two seconds away from quitting.”

I hear him shift, hear the squeak of the seat as he turns toward me.

“?‘I can say with all confidence that Gabe Parker is the Bond we need. He might even be the Bond we deserve.’?”

I start crying.

“I thought you hated the article.”

“Not all of it,” he says. “And I never hated it.”

My hands are open and my tears are gathering there, in the curve of my palms.

“You were good,” I say.

“You were right,” Gabe says.

“You had Dan Mitchell fired?” I ask.

His jaw tenses.

“I’d like to think I would have done it no matter what,” Gabe says. “That if I heard him saying things like that about any woman, I would have done the same thing—would have thrown all my weight behind getting him fired.” He lifts a shoulder. “But it was you he was talking about.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Why what?”

“Why me?”

He takes a moment.

“I think it was the short story,” Gabe says.

“The story?”

“I think that’s where it started,” he says. “When I read your story.”

“It’s not that good of a story,” I say.

“I guess I really like dragons, then,” he says. “Because by the time you walked up to my front door, talking to yourself, I think I was already halfway infatuated with you. It wasn’t just the story, I don’t think, though it was good. It was the way you wrote it. The way your brain worked. I liked that. A lot.”

The confession leaves me breathless.

“What you’re feeling,” he says. “The doubt? It never really goes away. Not really. I’ll never know if people go to see my movies because they like me, or because they think of my personal life as a never-ending car wreck that they’re hoping will show up on-screen.”

He looks at me.

“I should have asked,” he says. “What you wanted. From this trip. From me. From us.”

Us.

“The funny thing is,” he says, “I think we would have been a mess ten years ago. If you’d stayed. If I’d called. But now…”

The wind has picked up. The truck is warm, and it feels a little like we’re inside a snow globe.

“I can’t change how people see you. I can’t change the fact that you’re right about what they’ll say about us. About you. The world is unfair. They’ll forgive me and punish you. People will be cruel and they will be relentless and there will be times when there won’t be anything I can do about it. I can’t get all the Dan Mitchells in the world fired. I can’t promise that I’ll be worth it.”

It’s so quiet in the truck.

“Chani.” His voice is rough.

I look up at him.

“I want to be worth it,” he says.

I’m crying again.

“But you have to decide what you want.”

Simple as that.

Gabe continues. “You can take the truck and go to the airport. Ollie’s plane can get you back to L.A.”

There’s a jangling noise and he puts his keys on the dash.

“Or you can come home with me,” he says. “It’s your choice.”

He opens the door, letting in the cold and the snow, which settles onto the seat he’s vacated. The world feels muffled once he’s closed the door and I watch him walk away, his figure blurred by the snow.

My choice.

My heart is pounding, high up in my chest, almost like it’s trying to claw its way out of me. Ten years ago, I counted to one hundred. I waited until it was quiet.

It’s quiet now. So quiet.

I’m alone with my thoughts and my feelings and they are at war with each other. I want to run again. I want to take Gabe’s truck and go to the airport and fly back to L.A. on Ollie’s private jet and write the article and lie to everyone about what happened this weekend.