“Anyway,” she said to Penny, “as great as it was, it can’t happen again.” Oh shit. “I meant to tell him that we couldn’t do this again. On the drive back north yesterday. But I got distracted; I forgot. Damn it.”

“Look,” Penny said. “All I’m saying is that I haven’t heard that lusty sound in your voice in over a year, and none of what you just told me is enough of a reason to not just keep this going until you have to go back to L.A. Wait. Unless he was an asshole. Was he an asshole?”

Penny immediately sounded mad at just the prospect of Ben being an asshole. This was another reason why Anna loved her.

“He was very much not an asshole. The opposite of an asshole, really. But that doesn’t mean—”

“Blah blah blah,” Penny said. “I know I know, you have a plan, you always have a plan. And yes, fine, often your plans make a great deal of sense.”

“You mean always my plans make a great deal of sense, and that often they are successful. Remember my Oscar-nomination plan?”

Anna could almost see Penny purse her lips.

“You’re going to bring that up for the rest of our lives to win every argument, aren’t you? Okay, fine. I’m not getting off the phone because I can’t come up with a reason I’m right. I’m just getting off the phone because I should have left for the winery ten minutes ago, but we’ll talk later!”

Anna laughed as she hung up the phone. It had been great—even more great than she’d thought it would be—to tell Penny about her night with Ben and hear her squeal in joy. She’d forgotten how fun that was.

When had she made the decision to have sex with him? she wondered. Had she known by the time they’d walked into the hotel room? Mmm, probably; she’d seen both beds when they’d walked in and had been pretty certain one of them would be empty that night. Did she decide when Niamh had asked them if one room was okay? Maybe. When he’d saved her from the photo at In-N-Out? No, probably not by then, but that had definitely played a role.

Whenever it was, she was glad it had happened. But she still had to send this text.

Hey—I meant to say this on the drive home yesterday, but I got distracted by everything else. Thanks, so much, for everything—I can’t tell you how much I appreciated it. But what happened in Palm Springs can’t happen again, for so many reasons. I hope you got some sleep last night, and I’ll see you on set Monday.

 

There. That was done. That didn’t sound too cold, did it? She hoped not.

 

* * *

 

—

Ben woke up to the sound of his phone ringing. He ignored it until it stopped, but then it started again. Finally, he rolled over and picked it up. Theo. Of course.

“Hello?”

“Oh, he finally answers the phone!”

Ben got up. He needed coffee for this conversation.

He squinted at the clock on his coffeemaker: 9:30 a.m. He’d slept for more than twelve hours, and he felt like he could still sleep a little more.

“It’s not that late, you know,” he said to his brother. “You should be flattered I even answered the phone.”

He could hear Theo take a long gulp of his own coffee. Probably his third cup of the day. The asshole had a girlfriend; he probably didn’t even have to make his own coffee like Ben was doing right now.

Ben stopped himself. No. Theo would never let someone else make his coffee.

“You knew I would keep calling forever until you answered,” Theo said. “And with good reason, because you sent me some unhinged text I didn’t quite believe about going on a road trip with a celebrity and then you called Maddie for advice on buying clothes for said celebrity, and you sure as hell had better tell me everything that happened in between those two things. Where are you? I assume you’re alone, since you answered the phone and didn’t just turn it off.”

Ben sniffed the milk he’d pulled out of the fridge while Theo talked. Damn it. How had it gone bad in just two days?

“Home, and yes, unfortunately alone,” he told his brother. He opened his freezer and pulled out a carton of chocolate ice cream. “We got back last night. Wait, let me pour some coffee, I’m still out of it.”

He plopped a spoonful of ice cream in his mug and filled it up with coffee.

“Okay.” He took a sip. “Where were we?”

“You are such an asshole,” Theo said.

Ben laughed.

“I know, I know. Okay, the short version of the story is— Wait, first, you have to swear not to tell anyone any of this.”

Not that he thought his brother would anyway, but he had to make it clear, for Anna’s sake.

“Maddie already told me that part—yes, yes, we both promise.”

Ben sat down on his couch and took another gulp of coffee. He should put chocolate ice cream in it all the time.

“Okay. So. I drove Anna to Palm Springs because her dad was in the hospital there—he’s fine, but she was really worried about him, and there were no more flights for the day. That was Thursday evening. Yesterday we drove back, but since we left in a hurry on Thursday, she didn’t have a change of clothes. That’s why I needed Maddie. She came through, by the way.”

“Of course she did,” Theo said impatiently. “And?”

Ben grinned. He loved messing with his brother like this.

“Annnd, in between leaving and coming back, I managed to get myself trapped in a hotel room for a night with her, and holy shit, Theo. A gentleman never tells, but I’ve got to say, she’s fucking fantastic. No pun intended.”

“You owe me dinner!” Theo shouted in a muffled voice. When he came back to the phone, he sounded triumphant. “I told Maddie, but she didn’t believe me! She may know celebrities, but I know my brother.”

Ben felt weirdly touched that Theo had that much faith in him. But also . . .

“But really don’t tell anyone any of this, okay? I’m only telling you, that’s all. I didn’t even . . . She and I had flirted from the beginning, but she’s working with me, and you know how I feel about that, so I was sure it wouldn’t go anywhere. Plus, she’s . . . who she is.”

That sounded silly as soon as he’d said it, but Theo got it.

“Yeah. Do you think you’re going to see her again? I mean, other than on set.”

He had no fucking idea.

“I sure as hell hope so, but who knows. But no matter what, I got a great story out of this that I’ll never be able to tell anyone but you and my therapist.”