“Yes, someone has been working early and late,”Brooke says, with another yawn. “But I don’t mind if you want to stay.”
“I’ll drive you home,” Cara says brightly. Maybe she feels guilty that she wanted to stay since they’re sharing a car.
“I’ll drive you, Brooke,” I offer. “My car’s nearby.”
Cara’s big eyes widen more. “You don’t mind?”
“I don’t mind at all,” I say, my poker face tight.
Brooke turns away from me, but she’s smiling. “Thanks. That’s sweet of you.”
Venice is about four miles away. But in Los Angeles, that trip could take fifteen minutes or an hour.
Good thing I like the company.
“So, are you really tired?” I ask as I open the passenger side door to my car in the parking garage.
Brooke shoots me a coy look. “What do you think?”
With a lopsided grin, I walk around to the driver’s side. “You little enabler,” I tease as I start the car and back out.
“Well, have you ever seen two people hit it off so fast?”
“It was pretty instant. Just add clown phobia and popcorn.”
She laughs. “Cara hasn’t dated anyone in a longtime. She’s been so focused on school and classes. But those two had thatbam!chemistry.”
“I think I know what that’s like,” I say.
“Me too,” she says as I exit the garage and pull onto the street.
And right into traffic.
Of course there’s traffic at nine-fifteen on a Wednesday night.
“Sorry, Drew,” she says. “I should have taken a Lyft.”
I slice that notion off at the knees. “Do I look like I don’t want to spend time with you?”
She smiles, apologetic. “But this is bad,” she says, gesturing to the long slog of cars ahead of us.
“I did offer,” I say as I slow even more at a light. “And I know what this town is like. Besides, I figure we need to do our movie review forFake Play.”
That earns me a grin. Nothing apologetic in it at all. “Well, a fake romance between the quarterback and the girl next door is hard to resist,” she says with a wistful sigh. “Itonlyworks because he’s so enchanted with her but takes forever to realize it.”
I let that sink in for a moment. “Huh. I never saw it that way.”
“You don’t?”
“I think he knows from the start that she revs his engine, and that’s why he suggests her when his agent says he needs a fake date.”
Brooke holds up a finger to make a point. “Butheonly realizes he’s attracted to her. He’s sort of delightfully clueless that he’s falling for her.”
She has a point, but I still think the hero was into her for a long time. “I think it just took him an age to say it out loud. It’s funny how two people can see the same film and take away different things from it.”
“It is. I also notice different aspects of the story now that I’m older.”
“For sure. When I first saw it as a middle schooler, I just loved the football scenes. The romance part was way over my head,” I admit, then furrow my brow. “Maybe my younger self was protecting me. I did see it with my mom.”