He poured himself another cup of coffee when he got off the phone with Theo, and then checked his phone to see what had come in during his drive on Friday that he’d ignored.

He had many texts, but only one that mattered. Anna’s.

Well, fuck. He’d expected this, of course he had, but when she hadn’t said anything in the car yesterday, and when she’d sent that text about the dress the night before, he’d . . . hoped. Oh well.

It was my pleasure — all of it. No worries, see you Monday

What other disappointing messages did he have that he’d have to send cheerful, breezy responses to?

Thankfully, no one at work had seemed to realize that his version of “working from home” the day before had been checking email once every two hours or so at gas stations along Interstate 5.

He didn’t have another email from Dawn, which he realized was the thing he’d been dreading. He still hadn’t told Theo about her. Shit, he had to do that. He clicked back to the last email Dawn had sent and looked at the picture again.

It creeped Ben out, how much he looked like his dad. Mostly because he’d always worried that he’d be like him, too. That fear had been what had driven him into therapy, that his love for women meant he was destined to also abandon his wife and kids, just like his dad had done. Lately, his therapist kept telling him that he didn’t need to go so far in the other direction and never get close enough to someone to make marriage and kids an issue, but that’s not what he was doing. He just hadn’t found the right person, that’s all.

He suddenly felt bad that he hadn’t even replied to this email. He didn’t have to be that asshole.

To: Dawn Stephens

 From: Ben Stephens

 Re: Just checking in

Hey—I don’t have any pictures of him and me as a kid handy, but yeah, that’s my dad. This is weird, but I look a lot like him, if you had any doubt, here’s a picture of me now. Anyway, I guess that DNA test must have been accurate. Sorry we both lost the dad lottery, but despite him, you seem to be doing pretty great. Congratulations on grad school, that’s awesome.

Hope you’re having a good weekend,

 Ben

Ten

Wednesday afternoon, everyone was in a bad mood on set. It was like the set had been cursed—everything that could go wrong that day had, between Gene getting in a fender bender on the way and getting there late, to craft services messing up breakfast, to it being so windy all day that they had to do a million retakes because the whistles of the wind outside were so loud in the background.

Anna sat wrapped in a sweater as she waited for yet another lighting change. Why did she have to be in this stupid sundress when they all knew it would be cold outside today? This was usually just part of the job for her, but today she was freezing and deeply irritated about it.

She glanced over at Ben, the one person on set who didn’t seem affected by the gloomy day. He was over in the corner, chatting with the sound guy—and, from what she could overhear, trying to cheer him up. He glanced her way and caught her looking at him and winked at her. She blushed and looked away.

She’d meant to be chilly to him on set, to make it clear that the night—and morning—in Palm Springs had been a onetime thing, that even though she’d trusted him for some incredible reason with her biggest secret, she wasn’t going to fall back in bed with him, no matter how much she liked him.

But Ben was so relaxed, so easy, so cheerful, that when he’d grinned at her on Monday morning over the craft services coffee and asked how she was doing that day, she found it impossible to not grin back and say she was well rested.

After that moment, she’d given up on her plan to chill Ben out. They’d been mostly normal with each other all day Monday and Tuesday, though she still had trouble looking him in the eye—every time she did, she remembered that look on his face right before that last time they’d had sex in the hotel room. Which was also why she’d avoided him at the end of the day, out of fear she’d accidentally invite him back to her hotel. He hadn’t sought her out, either, which she insisted to herself was a relief.

And now it was this overcast, windy, dreary day, and Anna just wanted to get out of here and let herself stress in her hotel room about Vigilantes—even though things looked promising, she still didn’t actually know anything—and the Varon film, which she wanted more every time she read the script, which she did far too often. Simon was going to be in town the next day; they were supposed to have breakfast to strategize. She had to make a list of things to talk to him about.

Why was Ben standing over there cheering up the sound guy and not her? Ugh, the weather was getting to her. She turned away from Ben.

And then the power went out.

There were a bunch of high-pitched screams—why, Anna didn’t know; it was two in the afternoon, not the middle of the night. Someone ran outside to check the lights and discovered the whole block was out. Everyone freaked out, except for Ben, who picked up his phone. Anna walked over to him to see who he was calling.

“Power company,” he said as she approached. “Want to see if they have any idea how long it’ll be out.”

She stood close to him as he was on hold, not saying anything. They watched the chaos around them together—everyone stressing about phone batteries and lighting and laptops; someone flicked the light switches over and over, like that would do anything; someone else took pictures at the windows, as if a middle-of-the-day power outage was an Instagram-worthy event.

Finally, Ben came to attention in a way she could tell meant he was listening to something on the other end of the phone, then sighed and hung up.

“They say this will last until eight tonight, at least. I bet a tree’s down. I’d better tell Gene so we can call it a day here.”

Ben strode over to Gene and whispered to him. Gene yelled, “Fuck!” just once, which made everyone turn and look at him.

“Power’ll be out for the rest of the day,” Gene announced to the room. “Go home, everybody, and drink some excellent alcohol. See you tomorrow.”

Everyone groaned, then jumped up and bustled around to leave before Gene could change his mind or the power came back on. For some reason, though, Anna didn’t move.

Ben came back to her side a few minutes later.

“You heard the man,” she said. “It’s time to drink some excellent alcohol. Want to join me?”

“Sure,” he said.

* * *

—

Where do you want to go?” Ben asked when they got into his car. He tried to be cool, to ignore that Anna was in his car again, to act like it was just a normal “getting drinks after work with someone he worked with” kind of thing.