Page 53 of Happy Trails & Honey Pots

My phone vibrated in my hand, and I was so overly eager to answer it that when I tried to press the green icon, it slid from my hand and started to tumble to the ground. I was able to recover the fumble and save the call.

I already had my AirPods in anticipating the call. As soon as I answered, I said, “Hello.”

“Miles?”

Just hearing her voice again instantly put me at ease. This woman had an effect on me that no one ever had. “Yeah, hi.”

“Oh, I thought…I just figured it would be an assistant or something.”

“No, it’s me.” I sat down on the bench, trying to center myself. “How have you been?”

“Um, good. Yeah, how have you been?”

“Good.”

“How has filming been going?”

“Long days.”

“Oh, really?”

I felt like an asshole complaining about long days when she worked double shifts and saved lives, and I played make believe. “I mean, it’s nothing compared to what you do.”

“Oh, no! I couldneverdo what you do. All those people watching me. No. I would die.”

For so long, I’d been surrounded by people who wanted to be in the spotlight. Part of what drew me to Zoe was her aversion to it. She didn’t want attention. She was the first person in a long time I’d met who I knew didn’t want me or like me because of who I was. If anything, I had a feeling that who I was worked against me.

“How are AJ and Walter?” I asked. I’d actually missed them, too. AJ was a really good kid. I saw a lot of myself in him. He was smart, creative, and had a tough time concentrating in school. He was also a lot more sensitive than I think he let on.

Walter reminded me a lot of Jerry Lennox, the man who had played my grandfather on Happy Trails, whose birthday I’d gotten tattooed on my chest in Roman numerals. They were both old-school, no-nonsense men who didn’t have a mean bone in their bodies. They were protectors, stubborn, and proud. I missed Jerry since he passed away, and I’d found myself missing Walter these past couple weeks.

“Walter’s good. He started going to bingo at the VFW, so that’s been getting him out of the house.”

“Oh, that sounds fun.”

“And um AJ, actually, um speaking of AJ, he’s good, and he was wondering, well, when were you going to be back in town?”

We wrapped here in twelve days and started filming in Firefly in fourteen. I had meetings, podcasts, and a commercial shoot in Los Angeles and New York booked for the two days in between. “I was going to fly in the morning of the twelfth from New York.”

“Oh.” There was a beat of silence. “Okay.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Nothing. Never mind.”

“You wouldn’t have asked if it was nothing.”

She took a breath and then exhaled. “AJ just wanted to invite you to his birthday party, but I’ll tell him that you’re not going to be in town?—”

“When is it?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Just tell me. When is it?”

“No, really. It doesn’t matter. You said there was something you wanted to talk to me about?”

Zoe’s tone changed from friendly to professional. It was clear she didn’t want me to push the subject, and I had a gut feeling that if I did, she would get off the phone, which was the last thing I wanted.

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