‘Downtown Los Angeles.’
‘What?’ I ask with a laugh, spinning around to face him.
‘I’ve worked in LA,’ he replies.
‘Is that right? Doing what exactly?’
‘I’m a stunt coordinator.’
I gasp. ‘No. Way.’
He gives me an amused side-eye. ‘Yes. Way.’
‘Hold on, I need to hear this.’
I finish making his drink, mix another for me, and take them both to the sofa. I hand Nick his and drop onto the floor in front of the armchair, sitting cross-legged.
‘Okay, tell me everything.’
He laughs. ‘Not much to tell, I’m afraid.’
‘See, Nick, that’s where you’re wrong, because guess whatIdo.’
He looks at me closely, scanning the features of my face like they hold the secrets of the universe or something. I suck in a sharp breath – no one’s ever looked at me like that. It’s a little unnerving, but I’m also not mad at it.
‘Go on then, what do you do?’ he asks eventually, and I pretend not to notice how the tip of his tongue touched his bottom lip right before he spoke.
‘I’m a movie producer,’ I reply, navigating to familiar ground.
‘No.Way.’
‘I know you’re teasing, but it’s true.’
‘Wow,’ he says, with an appreciative nod. ‘I don’t typically meet people from the film industry out in the wild.’
‘Yeah, right? Me neither. Well… I mean, I live in LA and every other server’s an aspiring actor.’
‘Or screenwriter,’ he says.
‘God, yes. I can’t tell you how many times a rideshare driver has tried to palm a script off on me.’
‘Hazard of the job, I suppose,’ he says, raising his eyebrows.
‘Kinda. My problem is that I’m a Chatty Cathy, and as soon as I mention anything to do with movie making, they whip it out.’
He splutters, choking on his drink.
‘I meant their script! Not their…’ I start laughing – full-on ha-ha-ha laughing.
‘I think the word you’re looking for ispenis,’ he says, his voice scratchy. He coughs a few times and I laugh even harder.
‘Oh my god,’ I say, trying to catch my breath through the laughter. A few moments later, I sigh. ‘I really can’t believe we both make movies for a living. How weird is that?’
His lips curl into a gentle smile. ‘No weirder than anything else that’s happened today. We can add it to our list of coincidences,’ he says with a wink.
I nod, a flush creeping up my neck into my cheeks.Must be the martini, I tell myself, taking another sip.
We fall silent for a while and I wonder if, like me, Nick’s contemplating our situation. He seems to be handling it okay – I guess we’re doing all we can, which is to wait. Vittorio has a far better chance of finding Nick a place to stay than the two of us calling around in broken Italian. If I were on location and there’d been a snafu with the accommodation, I’d take the exact same approach.