Page 76 of Bad Reputation

“Thanks. We’ll try to be out in an hour.”

“Take all the time you need.” And then she winked.

Maggie wanted to sayHey, nothing is happening here, but it was very clear that something was happening. Something beautiful and life changing and a little scary.

Just inside the door of the plant palace rose a glass dome. Beneath it stood a palm tree at the center of a fishpond. The fronds of the palmwere lit a minty green color, and the rest of the dome was awash in pink lights. It was veryMiami Heatfabulous.

“Wow.” Maggie craned over the white metal railing to peer into the pond. The scales of the koi flitting around the water caught the light, making them look like something out of a fairy tale.

“Why plants?” Cole asked.

“You mean why was a Victorian glasshouse at the top of my sightseeing list? Well, during the pandemic I got really into houseplants.”

Cole snickered.

“Yeah, I know. I’d always thought you had to be born with a green thumb, but with nothing else to do and all that stress, that was what I turned to. I’ve amassed quite a collection. My best friend back in Eugene is watching them for me while I’m here.”

“LA’s a good place for gardening. You know, if you move there.”

With that, Cole dragged the future back in front of them, exactly like it had been there in the car. It was like a neon elephant in the room.

One with the wordifflashing on its forehead.

And the problem was that Maggie’s thoughts were happy to slip down the slide Cole was pointing to: If she took the job on the indie. If she moved to LA. If she told Cole how she’d come to feel about him. If ... then ...

Because when the production ended, there wouldn’t be a reason not to. No reason not to kiss. No reason not to touch. No reason not to be together.

Except for how they had met.

For some things, the statute of limitations never ran out. This was one of them.

Her breath uneven and her palms clammy, Maggie pointed into the water and changed the subject. “Did you ever keep a goldfish?” There, that helped. Nothing was as boring as goldfish. There was nothing tempting about goldfish.

After a beat, Cole went along with it. “Nope, never. My mom’s always loved cats, and so that seemed like a recipe for disaster.”

“I just realized I don’t know much about your childhood.” Maggie felt as if they knew each other very well—she’d spent hours with the man while he was practically naked—but they’d been so focused on the job in front of them. They talked all the time, but maybe those conversations had just been small talk. Verbal rice cakes that didn’t convey much information or have many calories.

“Eh, there’s not much to know,” he said as they left the pond and walked through a curtain of vertical twinkle lights, all purple and white and starry. “I grew up in SoCal, and I had a pretty typical nineties childhood.”

“I’m picturing surfing, skateboarding, burritos, and famous people.”

“That’s not far off—except for the famous people.”

“Your parents aren’t actors?” While she’d read a lot about how Tasha was a nepo baby, she hadn’t seen the same coverage of Cole. Maybe she’d missed something.

“Dad manages a hardware store, and Mom’s a nurse. I sort of accidentally started doing commercials. My parents weren’t pushy about it at all. The truth is I wasn’t a good enough athlete to try for a scholarship, and college wasn’t that interesting to me. But in high school, I got bitten by the acting bug, and the next thing I knew, I was onCentral Square.”

“And the rest was history.”

Cole grimaced. “Yeah, well, you know howthatworked out.”

They stopped in front of a statue of a woman, probably some mythological goddess. She was kneeling on a pedestal, looking a bit distressed about the tropical foliage surrounding her. The lights in this room were various shades of blue. Like if Picasso had temporarily detoured into garden design.

“You played an iconic role and started a career you’re still rocking?” Maggie asked.

“That is the absolutely nicest possible way to sum up the last two decades of my life.”

“I’m an extremely nice person.”

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