“So... you know I think you’re hot, Glory,” Franco said after a moment, putting his fork down. “And I think you’re smart in an original way, and original in a smart way. And I’m a little in awe of people who have talents that I don’t have, especially ones that can make me forget where I am on the planet for a moment. Because when you have enough money to get nearly anything you want, that kind of experience is hard to come by.”
A silence beat by.
This didn’t feel like conversation. It felt like negotiation. Or persuasion.
“I’m leaving this quiet space so you can now lavishmewith compliments, if you so desire,” he said, lightly.
“You ever been in love?” she said suddenly.
“Whoa.” She couldn’t tell whether she’d shocked him or impressed him with that question.
She half expected his head to start swiveling for the exits.
“C’mon. Don’t be a chicken. Consider it an essay question. You keep sayingwords—names, and places and so forth—but it doesn’t tell me much about what you actuallythink.”
Franco laid his hands on the tablecloth. She suspected she was making him uncomfortable but that he didn’t precisely hate it. “They don’t like us to think in Hollywood,” he joked.
“I asked you that because sometimes if you startle people they’ll say the truth before they get around to...”
“Obfuscating?”
“Why, yes. Excellent word for an actor, Hollywood.”
“Good old-fashioned psychology. That tactic. Obfuscating.”
“Is it?”
So, he either didn’t know how to answer the question she’d asked. Or he didn’t want to.
Eli never would have dodged that question. Even if it scared him. He was a thinker. He liked a challenge. And he didn’t play games.
Mostly she knew that ifsheasked the question, he would try to answer it.
Thing was... she’d never have the courage to outright ask him. Because his answer to that question was the only one that mattered.
She wondered if Bethany had given him his birthday present yet.
It was so strange to sit here, suffering because he was on a date, while at the same time hoping he was doing okay with the small talk and wasn’t uncomfortable because she knew how he sometimes suffered over stuff like that.
“I knowyouhave,” Franco said after a moment. He sounded hesitant. Faintly resentful, but a little curious, too.
“I’ve what?” she said, almost forgetting the thread for the moment.
“Been in love.”
She was startled. “How do you know?”
“I actuallylistenedto your songs.”
“Ah.”
Now,thatwas a smart and insightful thing to say. It disarmed her and shut her up.
“Don’t need to be in love to enjoy having sex,” Franco pointed out, quite accurately, after a moment of her being quiet.
“True enough.”
“I’mreallygood at it.” But he was teasing.