She sank down on the couch to drink her coffee and scrolled through her text messages. She grinned when she got to Ben’s:

I’m sore today in more locations than I can count, thanks to you

 

She grinned and texted him back.

Thanks to me??? Who started it?

 

The answer to that was debatable, she realized. Not that she’d let Ben know that.

As she kept scrolling her phone rang.

“You call yourself a best friend?” Penny said when she picked up the phone. “I cannot believe that you told the press about your new boyfriend before you told me.”

That meant that (1) the pictures must be out, and (2) she’d forgotten to let Penny in on all of this, what with . . . everything that happened after she and Ben got back from the bar.

“Right, sorry. About that.”

“See? See! I knew there would be an ‘about that.’ There’s always an ‘about that’ with you!”

Anna took a gulp of coffee to sustain herself through Penny’s rants.

“I know, I know. But this time . . . So the Ben thing isn’t . . . quite . . . what the tabloids are probably saying. See, what Simon and I decided . . .”

Penny groaned. She wasn’t a huge fan of Simon, even though she acknowledged he was good for Anna’s career.

“This had better be good.”

Anna got up to get more coffee.

“It’s not just good. It’s great. See, I have a plan.”

“You? A plan? No, seriously?” Penny said. “Well, I never.”

Anna couldn’t help but laugh.

“No, but really, listen.”

When Anna finished explaining the whys and wherefores of the plan, there was a long silence.

“Why this role? Why are you doing all of this—a fake boyfriend, dancing around for the tabloids—who you hate—all of that—for this movie? You get movies and TV shows thrown at you all the time, you could shout from your house that you wanted a new starring role and scripts would come flying down your chimney. Why do you care so much about this one?”

Anna stopped to think about how to explain that.

“I don’t want just any role anymore. I want . . . I want to show the world what I can do. And I guess I want to show myself that, too. I want roles that can make me better. And damn it, I want to get back to the Oscars, and I want to win this time. And this movie, this role, with this director . . . I think it can do everything I want.”

Penny was silent for a while again.

“Then, if that’s what you want, let’s make sure you get it,” she finally said. “Also, I forgive you for not calling me, but that is if and only if I get to meet this Ben.”

Anna laughed.

“P, we aren’t really dating, I just told you.”

“Oh, I know,” Penny said. “But I saw the way he looked at you in those pictures, and the way you looked back at him, and I need to see if this guy is as hot in person as he was in the photos.”

Anna thought about what Ben had been saying to her in the bar when those pictures were taken and felt her cheeks get warm.

“Hotter,” she said.

She and Penny giggled like teenagers.

 

* * *

 

—

Ben walked into his therapist’s office on Wednesday evening and dropped down into a chair.

“Dr. Lindsey, hello!”

He’d been so busy at work today that he hadn’t figured out what he was going to talk about in therapy. He hadn’t told Dr. Lindsey anything about Anna, and he didn’t intend to. Once he started, he’d have to explain the whole damn thing, and she would absolutely say something to him in her very dry way about it, something that sounded like a normal bland comment, and then he’d wake up in the middle of the night and realize what she actually meant.

And he hadn’t told her about Dawn, either. He kept meaning to, every session. But it felt like it would be a long and difficult conversation, with lots of “What do you think you should do?” and “How did you feel about that?” and “Did this bring up any feelings about your father?” and he didn’t want to think about any of that, much less talk about it.

No, he’d talk about work—how Roger had congratulated him for his work on the phone ad campaign, that he finally might get to work on a campaign for his favorite sneaker brand; maybe he could throw her a bone and mention that Theo and Maddie might get engaged soon, so she could do her whole “How does that make you feel?” thing about that, et cetera.

“Ben.” She nodded at him, a faint smile on her face. He always tried to make her laugh, but it was almost impossible. He’d only accomplished it three times in the three and a half years he’d been seeing her, but those three times were like gold.

“How are you doing this week?” she asked him.

He nodded quickly.

“Oh, good, good. It’s been a good week—really busy, but good.” He’d said “good” three . . . no, four times. He should just keep talking so she didn’t notice. “Work, especially—last week we wrapped up the shoot of that big ad campaign I led, and everyone was really pleased at how it turned out. The proof will be when the commercials and ads all come out, of course, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed for that.”

She nodded in her slow way. He could never tell if it was a positive nod or a negative one.

“Tell me about it.”

So he did. At length.

“. . . and you should have seen him—this six-foot-three, 250-pound guy jump up on a table and scream because he saw a mouse; we were all dying laughing!” He hoped he’d get a laugh from that story, but it was just that faint smile again.

“Ben, quick question for you—you’ve spent twenty minutes telling me about the shoot and everyone involved. Is there a reason you haven’t told me that you’re in a relationship with Anna Gardiner? Who, as you told me awhile ago, was the talent for this campaign, though you haven’t mentioned that today?”

Oh. Oh shit. How did Dr. Lindsey know about that?

“The pictures are everywhere, you know,” she said in answer to his unspoken question. “I do have the internet.”

Of course she did. But he’d never thought of Dr. Lindsey doing things like actually using it.

“Right. Um, it’s just because . . . I guess I was working up to it.”

She nodded. This nod seemed imbued with disappointment.