Page 67 of Fake It 'til You Make It

He’s wearing his usual shorts and T-shirt, casual, but his hair looks different, maybe he has product in it, and he hasn’t shaved. His usual clean-cut look is gruff. A bit rough and ready. Totally not what I would call my type. I’m more clean, suited, shoes. Yet, I can’t take my eyes off him and I’m hoping between my shades and his own, he can’t tell that I’m having a moment of indulgence.

Nooooooooo. Thou shalt not crush on the famous, ball-playing, wall-banging mess of a man from apartment 8B.

Abigail, this is your conscious intervention. Your life is off course sufficiently enough without falling like a teenager at prom for the hottest guy in school.

Don’t. Even. Fantasize. About. It.

No. Just… no.

‘I feel for Dee being pregnant in this heat,’ I say, changing the subject.

‘She’s pregnant?’

Oops. ‘Very early days and my parents don’t know yet.’

‘Let’s add that to the list of Canada secrets then, shall we?’ He looks bemused. Like we didn’t have enough to think about.

‘Come on over, I can set you up with a headset if you’d like to listen?’

He declines, but still follows me, moving closer to the action. ‘I came to tell you that I— My brother sent your report to his accountancy firm this morning and asked them to bless it. He sent it to his lawyer, too, for visibility.’

My stomach sinks. They’ll find all my errors. Not meaning to, I worry my lip, only becoming aware when Mike is staring at my display of nervousness.

‘It’s going to be great. You’ve saved Ted a lot of time andmoney. More than that, you’ve done something his advisers never do, which is explain in plain English what he needs to be thinking about.’

I look away. ‘It was nothing. Like I said, I’ve done it for my dad’s businesses a few times. But your brother shouldn’t take it for red.’

Mike goes to speak but time is called on set and I’m instantly shouted into action on drinks.

‘I’ll be right back,’ I tell him, placing a hand on his chest, which is as firm as I remember it looking when he was dressed in nothing but a towel. And now my mind is in the gutter as I’m pouring drinks and I’m busy wondering where this sudden desirous minx has come from because she didn’t exist for most of the years I was with Andrew.

Age and hormones is what I decide it’s down to, right as Dee whispers into my ear, ‘8B is looking sharp today. Can’t keep away, can he?’

‘Oh, ha ha!’ My reply is almost reflexive. Protective even, sparing myself later rejection, a hangover from years of similar comments from Dee about the cute, untouchable guys in school, I suppose. ‘Remember there’s nothing but a ruse between us. He came to see the set, and you.’

She gulps her iced water as I take a sip from my own glass. ‘It’s such a shame I’m up the duff.’

My water never makes it to my stomach, as it sprays from my mouth with my amusement. ‘You’re shocking, Dee.’

‘And he is a delight. Recently dumped or not.’

Mike helps me clear away after the drinks session and hangs around on set, us sharing an occasional joke or comment about the onscreen drama, until I’m dismissed around five when there’s a sudden downpour of rain.

After reluctantly taking the subway back to Brooklyn on account of the rain, Mike and I decide to have our homework session learning about each other – or, in my case, Mike and baseball – walking Brooklyn Bridge Park, opting to walk the path around the piers, instead of the shorter route along the greenway. I definitely don’t feel like I need the exercise after running around all day on set, but walking north from the Pier 6 entrance, we’ll get the view of Brooklyn Bridge for most of the way.

Since the weather broke, the evening is beautiful. There’s a light, warm breeze and the humidity level is pleasant.

‘I love evenings like this,’ I tell him. ‘The air smells like summer, especially here, on the waterfront. The grime and smog of the city seems so far away.’

I hold my next blink as I breathe in. It isn’t like the air at home – untainted, mountain freshness – but I feel more content tonight than I have for months. Since Andrew and I split. Before then, I’m coming to realize. Before even my work trip to Texas.

I need a proper job and a long-term plan but tonight, I have company on my sun-down stroll, and I have a date for my parents’ party. Life is okay.

‘New York is growing on me,’ Mike says, slipping his hands into the pockets of his shorts and looking up to the cityscape across the water. A small boat zooms along the river, a groom driving his bride. ‘It’s still not San Francisco but there’s another side to life here that I haven’t seen much of before.’

‘I’d have thought you’d decided that before you splurged on a penthouse apartment.’

Then I rememberGQmagazine and Mike’s suit, all the women and red-carpet events, the sports-guy lifestyleandsalary. He can afford to be throwaway with cash. But it’s as if I know twoversions of the same man sometimes. On the one hand, self-assured and flippant with cash, on the other, considered, smart, kind.

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