Page 42 of Nothing Like the Movies

See you at home.

That haunted me. I obsessed over it, the logistics of their situation, and my jaw hurt from the clench as I watched him walk away.

They lived together.

In the same apartment.

They were there together, every fucking night—

LA-LA-LA-LA-LANO.

“Okay,” Liz said, squinting up at me as the warm sun wrapped around us. I’d missed her size, the perfect angular distance between her eyes and mine when I looked down at her. She said, “Well, I guess we’re doing this now. Let’s go to the mound.”

“The mound?” I’d pictured us going to a conference room or something.

“I want to center the ‘UCLA Baseball’ on the backstop behind you,” she said, and I could tell her mind was all work now as her eyes narrowed on a spot in the distance. “And the lighting’s great. Are you good with sitting on the ground for the interview?”

“Sure,” I said, getting tripped up by the closeness of her face under mine. Of long lashes and shiny lips in point-blank range. As if reading my thoughts, her gaze came back to me.

A moment—maybe two—hovered between us.

God, she’s so pretty.

At the start of practice, I saw her filming the infield drills and thought no one had ever looked so good in leggings and a Bruins hoodie. Like, the way the blue ribbon in her hair perfectly matched theUCLAon the football hoodie was ridiculous. Seriously. What the hell was she even doing, looking that gorgeous at a practice?

And what happened to the dresses and flowers?

I wasn’t complaining,God no, but Liz definitely had a different vibe now.

I didn’t think I’d even seen her in a pastel yet.

She swallowed—is she nervous?—and tucked her hair behind her ears before saying, “So let’s go.”

She turned and started marching away from me, toward the field, and I was happy as hell to follow, clicking behind her in my cleats. Liz obviously knew her way around Jackie and didn’t slow until she was on the field, standing behind the pitcher’s mound.

“I’d like to have you sitting on the mound, facing the outfield, just relaxed,” she said, staring toward home plate with her eyes narrowed. “Like…”

I dropped to the ground, leaning back on my palms with my ankles crossed in front of me, happy to follow her directions.

Her eyebrows squished together as she looked down at me and—holy shit yes—her mouth quirked. It quirked for the slightestof seconds, like she wanted to laugh as I rested at her feet with my legs stretched out in front of me.

“That.” She tilted her head and looked toward the stands. “That might be perfect.”

“Why, thank you,” I said, giving her a cheesy grin.

She shook her head and rolled her eyes, but still looked slightly amused.

It feels like I’ve won something.

“So I’m asking everyone the same questions,” she said as she lowered to her knees and unzipped her bag. She pulled out a notebook first, opening it to a page where her perfect cursive was looped all over the place, and then she got out an extendable tripod and started messing with the height. “Very basic stuff like where you’re from, what position you play, et cetera. I’m recording the entire thing and making cuts later, so just let me know if there’s something you want deleted. And if you wouldn’t mind, please answer as if we don’t know each other.”

“So I should call youMizBuxbaum and ask for your number?”

“Hilarious,” she said, her eyes on the tripod. “I just mean that I’d like you to answer as if I don’t know your story.”

“Youdon’tknow my story,” I said, then wondered why I even said that. “Not all of it, at least.”

She didn’t look up from her equipment, but her hands stilled for a second when I said that. They immediately went back to work, and all she said was, “True.”

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