Page 71 of Falling Like Stars

“Then what happened, after you started doing commercials?”

“I did a lot of plays for school. That’s when I fell in love with the craft itself. I felt drawn to it with a kind of obsession. As if I’d found the thing I was supposed to do.”

“You can say that again,” I say, thinking of the Alaska film and Covet and how surreal it was to watch Zach morph into someone else. Even with a face as famous and well-known as his.

“By then I had an agent and manager who were desperate to get me out here, but my parents insisted I graduate high school first. I did, then moved here and did all the bit parts on network shows. It’s a little-known fact that every aspiring actor who moves to LA must do at least one episode of Law and Order.”

I grin. “And then?”

“Two years of grinding, then I landed Godsent. That opened a lot of doors, and I started doing films in between seasons. I did What You Leave Behind, and it sort of skyrocketed from there.”

“Does Jeremy regret not following you?”

“Nope. They’re all so normal about it. Which I need.”

“Sounds like you have a great family.”

“I do,” Zach says, and I feel him shift, likely remembering how I had the opposite of a great family after my dad died. Almost no family at all. He gives me a squeeze. “What about you? How did you get into costumes?”

I feel a twinge in the pit of my stomach and shrug, feigning casualness.

“When we were growing up, we didn’t have a lot of money,” I say. “I was tired of my cousins’ hand-me-downs, so I would alter them. Marry two pieces together into something else. I drew the clothes I wanted, and then I started drawing clothes I imagined. Then I saw Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and I was obsessed with how the designer—Eiko Ishioka—broke all the conventions. I loved it and wanted to be a part of that world.”

“And now you’re doing it,” Zach says with another squeeze.

“Almost. But I’m making my way back.”

He kisses me and the spark between us threatens to reignite, until my stomach rumbles in the most unsexy of ways.

“I’m starved too,” Zach says. “It’s early yet. Want to hit the town? Or stay naked and order in?”

“The second one,” I say. “Putting clothes on you should be illegal.”

He holds my face in his hands. “Likewise.”

I smile into his kiss. “That’s my line.”

For the rest of the weekend, Zach and I stay in the bungalow. He takes a bunch of phone calls from his team: an army of managers, agents, and publicists by the sound of it. But most of our time is spent eating in, talking, laughing, and bringing each other to ecstasy. Zach offers to take me out, but I decline. Being entangled with him, warm and naked in bed, is a kind of heaven in itself. I don’t ever want to leave.

“I want you all to myself,” I tell him.

“I’m all yours,” he replies, and then we fall into each other all over again.

On Saturday afternoon, we’re interrupted by the arrival of a couriered package. A slim FedEx envelope. Inside is an NDA.

“My manager is paranoid,” Zach says. “It’s standard, I promise.”

I scan the paper. It’s like the one I signed at Bruckheimer’s party, specifying that I won’t speak to anyone about what Zach and I talk about, or what I know from being with him, or any of the personal details of what we’ve been doing, upon penalty of being sued into oblivion.

I feel him watching me as I scan it. “There’s no orgasm clause,” I say. “You’d think if you can bring a gal to a hundred orgasms in a twenty-four-hour stretch, you’d want me to talk about it.”

Zach laughs. “I’ll ask Syd about making an amendment. You’re okay with this? Not very romantic.”

“That’s show biz,” I say, kissing his chin. “Hand me a pen.”

It’s Sunday night, the last night before the real world drags us out of the bungalow.

Zach wants to take me out, but I convince him to order pizza and a movie instead.

---