“So congratulations,” Roz said, making a sand castle around her empty coffee cup, using it as the castle keep. They were sitting on Venice Beach on an early Monday morning, their shoes tied around their necks, a jumbo towel beneath their asses.

Colin stared out to sea, still coming down from the manic energy of the previous week. “Thanks. I really loved the part. I think it might…”

Roz looked over her sunglasses as she cut him off. “No. Congratulations on making your first enemy in Hollywood.”

“Oh. Right.” Colin laughed mirthlessly. “The entire Church of Audiology.”

“Automatology.”

“Whatever.”

Last week had been life-changing. He knew he’d done a hell of a job with the character. The kind that makes crew members nod at you. Like Alden Ehrenreich in Hail, Caesar! he’d given a career-making performance in an otherwise adequate movie.

And in Hollywood, that meant the phone would already be ringing off the hook in Clarice’s office. By the time Hung Jury hit theaters, and the rest of the world saw how good he was, Colin would probably have two or three other acting jobs under his belt, even with the Church of the Autozone or whatever out to get him.

The only thing he was starting to regret was spilling all the beans to Roz about Hamilton. He’d gone over to her place on Friday night to celebrate wrapping filming, and after three bottles of Chateau Larrivet, it had felt only right and natural to tell his best friend everything.

Roz wasn’t judgmental about the sex, or the money. What bothered her, still clearly bothered her, was that Colin was being so... emotional about Hamilton.

She watched him stare at the ocean, and knew he was drifting back to New York, and Hamilton.

“You’re not in love, you know.”

He didn’t look at her. “I know,” he said defensively.

“Hmm.” She drew a moat around her sand castle and stole his water bottle to fill it. “Maybe you’re in love, or think you are, because he’s your first.”

She sighed in disappointment as the sand swallowed the water, leaving only mud. “Honey, right now, you’re emotionally a teenager. Of course you’re infatuated with the first man who you hit it off with and had great sex with. But that’s infatuation, not love.”

“Yep yep yep,” he said, and they both laughed. It was their go-to when anyone, including each other, started pounding on them with advice they weren’t going to take. Agreeing with such haste at least shut the other person up.

Some part of him was telling him that Hamilton was just an ordinary person, someone he’d seen for just a moment at his house when Hamilton was sick, and tired, the million watt smile extinguished in a summer blackout.

But some other part of him said, No! He’s Hamilton Dillon. Even Hamilton Dillon gets tired, but he’s still Hamilton Dillon. He told me about his real life, his Virginia Horse People or whatever the fuck.

“Do you really believe what he told you, that he’s from money? Or was that just a thing to get you to stop asking questions you shouldn’t be asking?”

“I’m sure he is. I mean, you should see him. He’s so polished and elegant, so naturally, that he just…”

“Then why’s he an escort?”

“I don’t know, maybe they went broke, one of those Tennessee Williams families where Daddy drank all the money or something.”

“Hmm,” Roz scoffed. “Sounds like you’re building a character. For someone else.”

Colin didn’t answer. Was he? Was he making a backstory for Hamilton, to convince himself?

“You know what you need to do. If you’re not going to drive yourself crazy here.”

“Go on.”

She took off her sunglasses and looked at him hard. “You need to play a role, too. If you want to keep yourself from getting hurt. You have to play the role of ‘The Client.’ And that means not going off script, not prying into his life, not hanging out at the metaphorical stage door waiting for the ‘real’ person to come out.”

“But…” Colin stopped himself. He knew, Roz knew, what he wanted to say. But then it’s not real. He didn’t want Hamilton to be an actor, he wanted him to be a movie star – someone who always essentially played himself, not someone who disappeared inside a role. Tom Hanks was always Tom Hanks; he was never going to play a mass murderer.

He sighed. Of course it wasn’t real. The minute he turned off the money tap, Hamilton would be gone, just like any other paid actor at the end of a gig. It didn’t matter whether he was seeing the “real” Hamilton or not.

But Roz had started something in his mind. What if I wasn’t me, when I went back, the shy inexperience dormouse? What if I did play a character? What if I played… this guy, he laughed. This freshly minted successful film actor, brash and confident, so unlike me?

It sounded like fun. And of course, some small part of his brain spoke, so quietly Colin could pretend not to hear it.

And maybe the real Hamilton Dillon will fall for that guy.