Mostly thanks to Liz. For a moment, I wonder where she is and what she’s doing. “I hope the critics thinks so,” I tell Rachel, chasing off my obsessive thoughts with a laugh. “But let’s forget about work. What’s a nice girl like you doing with my brother?”
“None of your business.” Landon’s voice is gruff, but also amused, and relieved, I think. He likes that I like her.
Making a face, I watch as Rachel bursts into laughter. Landon’s eyes soften. “How’re you coping with your ingénue?”
Liz. Again.
“Don’t ask.”
“I thought she was wonderful,” Rachel says.
“Spellbinding, actually,” I admit, though words are too bland to describe the combination of allure, torture and talent Liz represents to me. “But as I said, let’s forget about the play. Landon promised to take me out for a drink. I hope you’re coming?”
At the bar, I focus on entertaining Rachel with every hilarious anecdote I can remember from when Landon and I were kids. Landon pretends that he wants me to stop, but I can see how he drinks in Rachel’s laughter, how he looks at her as if he would hand her the world if that would amuse her.
I’ve never seen him like that with anyone.
After a few more drinks, Landon escorts her to his car. He’s staying behind, no doubt to make sure I’m all right, that after the success of the preview, I’m not about to crash like Icarus after flying too close to the sun.
He returns after a few minutes and settles opposite me, looking me over with his sharp gaze. “You look much better than you did last week.”
“I’m much better, thank you.”
“So, it was the play?”
No. It was a girl. A beautiful, innocent, talented, maddening, infuriating, sexy girl I can’t get out of my mind.
“Stop fretting,” I reply with an exasperated groan. “Let’s talk about Rachel. I like her.”
Landon’s smile is wryly amused. “Good, I like her too.”
Like I couldn’t see that from half a mile away. I remember our phone call from before the preview. I wouldn’t say it’s as defined as that, he’d said when I asked him if they were dating now.
“But…she’s not your girlfriend, and it’s not as defined as that?”
“Pretty much. We’re good together. That’s really all it is.”
“It’s hard to believe you’re okay with that,” I prod. “You seem really into her.”
There’s a faraway look in his eyes, and I just know he’s thinking about her. “Liz was great tonight,” he says after a moment, changing the subject.
I look down at my glass. “She’s a talented actress.”
I can feel his eyes on me, studying me, trying to decide if that’s all there is to it.
“If today is any indication,” he says, segueing away from the topic of Liz. “On opening night, we’ll be talking about awards.”
With Liz’s performance tonight, it’s almost a certainty. “Yeah…We’ll see how it goes.”
We spend about an hour together before he drops me off at my place. Alone, in my empty apartment, my mind goes back to Liz.
Already, across the internet news-o-sphere, people are talking about the play, and about her, the new face who’s going to blow audiences away.
The way she’s already blown me away, professionally, and personally.
Disney Junior indeed.
One day, when she’s a legend, she’ll tell people what her first director said just before auditioning her, and they’ll laugh and wonder how he could have been such a tool.