Alice stared at the sentence she’d just typed. The English language was starting to lose all meaning. The longer she stared at the words, the less sense they made. Groaning in frustration, she pushed her laptop away and laid her head down on the kitchen table.

When her phone buzzed right next to her ear, she startled upright so violently she almost knocked it across the room.

Griffin’s face—a cropped version of their selfie from the wrap party—lit up the screen, along with the words Griffin wants to FaceTime with you.

Alice’s heart leapt into her throat. Why was he calling instead of texting? And why on earth did he want to video chat when she was sitting here in a scummy old T-shirt with dirty hair and no bra? In a panic, she checked her chest for obvious food stains and refastened her messy bun into something slightly less messy before accepting the call.

“Hey!” She squinted at the screen as a live image of Griffin pixelated into focus. A large bloody gash on his forehead caused her eyes to widen in alarm. “Is everything okay?”

He smiled into the camera, and she felt a tingle like a surge of electricity travel down her spine. “Yeah. Great.” He touched his forehead and his smile got wider. “This is just makeup.”

“Oh, good.” Of course it was makeup. He was on a movie set for crying out loud. It wasn’t like he was out there in Atlanta getting into actual fistfights.

“I was just sitting in my trailer missing Taco’s stupid furry face, so I thought maybe you could put him on camera so I could see him.”

Seriously? How cute was that?

“Is that lame?” he asked shyly.

“No, of course not! Hang on, I’ll get him.”

Alice set the phone down and bent to scoop Taco off the floor at her feet. “You got a phone call, bud!” Settling the dog into her lap, she picked up the phone again and aimed it at him.

Griffin’s face lit up as soon as Taco came into frame. “Hey, buddy! It’s me!”

Taco looked at Alice and yawned.

“He’s kind of sleepy,” she said. “He just woke up.” She tapped the screen and Taco’s eyes followed her finger to the phone.

Griffin waved. “Hey, Taco! Did you miss me?”

The dog looked toward the living room and tilted his head.

“Do you think he can see me?” Griffin asked, frowning.

“I dunno. Can dogs see pictures on screens?”

“No idea.”

“He can definitely hear you. His tail’s wagging.”

“That’s something, I guess. Everything going okay there?”

Alice shifted in her seat, trying to aim the phone so Griffin could see Taco without her double chin or her unsecured breasts looming in the background. “Yeah. We’re great. I’ve been taking him for walks twice a day. Oh, and we drove over to that dog park in Laurel Canyon.”

“Nice. I’ll bet he loves having someone around the house all day.”

“Honestly, I think he’s tired of me. He mostly just sleeps. I have to wake him up to go out.”

“Well, he’s not used to all that exercise.”

Alice bit down on her lip. “Should I not walk him so much?”

“No, it’s good for him. Get his lazy ass out of the house. He’s gonna have a sleek, athlete’s physique by the time I get home. All the girl dogs at the dog park will be throwing themselves at him. Right, buddy?”

Taco jumped off Alice’s lap and trotted into the living room to curl up on his dog bed.

“Sorry,” she said, aiming the camera at her face again.

“Nah, it’s fine.” Griffin let out a mock dramatic sigh. “I know where I stand.”

Maybe it was just the makeup or the lighting in his trailer, but he seemed…tired. There was a hollowness around his eyes she wasn’t used to seeing, even on the longest shooting days on Las Vegas General.

“How’s it going there?” she asked.

“Good. Hard work, but good.”

Because he was an actor, Griffin instinctively looked directly into the camera without getting distracted by the smaller image of his own face in the corner of the screen like most people did. Alice tried to follow his lead, refusing to look at her own pale and ghastly face lurking in the corner of her screen. “What’s Richard Scardino like?”

Griffin gave a contemptuous snort. “He’s like if Drakkar Noir was a person.”

She laughed. “That bad?”

“His hair plugs have hair plugs. And he’s method. Need I say more?”

“No.” They’d had a couple method actors come through LV Gen and they were always insufferable. “How is it working with Jerry Duncan?”

Griffin’s smile took on a plasticky sheen. “It’s great. He’s brilliant.”

“Why do I think you’re lying right now?”

He blew out a long breath and leaned back, giving her a better view of the inside of his trailer. “I’m pretty sure he hates me and regrets giving me this part.”

“I’ll bet that’s not true.”

“No, I’m pretty sure it is.”

Alice’s stomach gave a little heave at the unhappiness that had leaked into his expression. “Come on. No one could hate you.”

His eyes flickered away from the camera. “This guy does. He finds fault with everything I do. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t figure out what he wants from me.”

“Isn’t it the director’s job to communicate what he wants from the actors? If he’s not doing that, it’s on him, isn’t it?” Alice was no expert, certainly, but she’d seen a lot of directors direct a lot of actors in her season on Las Vegas General, and she had some idea what separated the good ones from the bad ones.

Griffin’s mouth twisted wryly. “I’ll just tell Jerry fucking Duncan that he’s a crap director, then. That sounds like a good career move.”

“Hey, you’re Griffin fucking Beach,” she fired back. “He’s lucky to have you in his dumb movie—not that this movie is dumb,” she added quickly. “I’m sure it’s going to be great.”

“No, it’s pretty dumb. I’m starting to think—” He stopped and shook his head, grimacing.

“What?”

“I think I might have made a mistake taking this part. The script wasn’t exactly stellar to begin with, and the rewrites aren’t making it any better. We’re over budget and Jerry’s constantly fighting with the studio and everyone else on set. It’s not going well and everyone knows it.”

“I’m sorry,” Alice said, wishing she could do more. “That sucks.”

“I think…” Griffin paused, shaking his head. “I’m afraid this might be Jerry Duncan’s first big flop, and I’m the chump starring in it.”

He looked so worried and miserable it made Alice’s heart ache. She ran her finger along the edge of the phone, wishing she could reach out and hug him through the screen. “Isn’t this par for the course for him, though? From what I’ve read, he’s always a nightmare to work with, but then he manages to pull it together and turn out a huge hit anyway. People love his stupid movies.”

“Maybe. Maybe I’m being oversensitive.”

She recalled what he’d said before he left, about feeling vulnerable on a new set and worrying that he wasn’t good enough, and it made her angry on his behalf. Fuck Jerry Duncan for playing into his fears and making him feel worse. “Listen,” she said, “you’re a great actor, and you wouldn’t have this role if Jerry Duncan and a bunch of other people didn’t want you there. If he can’t get a good performance out of you, it’s because he’s not as good at his job as he thinks he is.”

A smile peeked through the clouds on Griffin’s face and she felt a little thrill of triumph. “That’s enough whining out of me.” His eyes found the camera again, giving the appearance they were looking directly into hers. “How’s your dissertation going?”

Alice swallowed down a flare of self-consciousness at the inky intensity of his stare coming through the screen. “Okay, I think. I’ve almost got all my multilevel models done, and now I just need to finish picking through some of the data by hand before I start writing up my findings.”

“I’m gonna be honest—I have no idea what any of that means.”

Alice smiled. “It means I’m making progress. Slowly but surely.”

“Awesome! When do you think you’ll be done?”

“With the first draft? Maybe another month. Then I’ll get comments back and have to revise everything they don’t like, repeating ad nauseam until it’s approved for defense. Which is the really scary part.”

“What does the defense involve?”

“Presenting my research to an audience of faculty and fellow graduate students, explaining how it supports my hypotheses, and answering any questions they throw at me. Basically they rake me over the coals to see how I perform under pressure.”

Griffin’s face lit up in a grin. “But then you’ll be a doctor.”

Alice felt her cheeks warm and hoped it wasn’t too obvious on his screen. “PhD. But yeah. Once I pass my defense, graduation’s just a formality.”

“I guess I should probably let you get back to work on it then, huh?”

She would have preferred to stay on the phone with Griffin, but she didn’t want to take up too much of his time, so she made a noncommittal noise.

“Okay, well, enjoy the rest of your day,” Griffin said, taking her waffling for agreement. He seemed to hesitate. “Do you think—would you mind if I called again in a few days so I could say hi to Taco?”

Alice tried to hold back her smile. “You can call as much as you want.”

Griffin FaceTimed again two days later.

“You sure you don’t mind doing this?” he asked as Alice called Taco over to the kitchen table to put him on camera. She’d answered the call on her laptop this time so she wouldn’t have to juggle the phone and dog.

“Of course not. It’s what I’m here for, right?” She hefted the dog into her lap and aimed the laptop camera at him. “Say hi to your daddy!”

Taco stared at her blankly.

“Ahh, don’t worry about it,” Griffin said. “At least I get to see his scruffy little face, even if he doesn’t give two shits about me.”

“He cares. He just doesn’t understand screens. Or phone calls. Or long absences. But just wait—he’ll be so psyched when you finally come home, you’ll feel bad for ever doubting his loyalty.”

Griffin smiled, leaning back on the couch in his rented condo. From what Alice could see, it was very stylishly furnished, with lots of dark wood and rich, jewel-toned fabrics. “So what’d you do today?” he asked.

“Well…” She set Taco back on the floor and carried her laptop into the living room. “I did about an hour of actual writing, and then I spent the next four hours trying to format one of my data tables.” Sinking down on the couch, she balanced the computer in her lap and adjusted the tilt of the screen.

“Sounds hard.”

“It’s not that bad. I just wasn’t focusing well today. To be honest, I spent at least half of that time reading Twitter instead of actually working.”

He broke into a grin of boyish delight. “Busted.”

“Hey, it’s important to stay informed of current events.”

“Is that what you do on Twitter?”

“Sure. That and memes.”

Griffin leaned out of frame and reappeared with a smoothie shaker in his hand. “I don’t understand memes.”

“No one gets all of them. There are too many to keep up with these days.”

“Do you know what a ‘zaddy’ is? Because now, in addition to being addressed as ‘daddy’ by strange women on Twitter, I’m also being called a ‘zaddy,’ whatever the hell that means. Is it gross? It’s gross, isn’t it?”

Alice laughed at his revolted expression. “No, actually, it’s a compliment.”

“But what’s it mean?”

“It’s hard to describe. Basically it means you’re hot.”

“Okay, what about ‘thicc’ with two c’s? I get called that a lot too.”

“Thicc is good,” Alice assured him.

“It doesn’t mean I’m fat?”

“No. It’s more like…you know, muscular.”

“Okay, I guess that’s not bad.”

“No, it’s not bad at all.”

“Kelly, my publicist, wants me to use social media more.” Griffin took a drink from his smoothie shaker and scowled, but whether at the taste of the beige concoction or the topic of conversation, Alice couldn’t tell.

“It is kind of weird that you never use your Twitter account, come to think about it.” She’d followed him a few weeks ago, and he hadn’t updated even once since. His last tweet was nearly six months ago.

“I hate social media. I don’t want to have to write a report every time I have a cup of coffee or take a shit.”

Alice laughed. “I feel like you could come up with something more interesting to tweet about than that. People love getting a peek into celebrities’ lives.”

Griffin’s lip curled in distaste. “But that’s exactly what I don’t want to do—invite a bunch of internet randos into my private life.”

“You can control what you share though. You just have to post the occasional inconsequential tidbit to make people feel like they’re getting a glimpse of your life without giving them anything too personal or real.”

“I always feel pressure to be smart and witty, but I’m not a writer.” He reached up to run a hand over his head. “I don’t think I can pull it off.”

“You’re really funny though, and charming. I’m sure you’d be fine on Twitter.”

He shook his head, unconvinced. “It’s one thing to make a joke off the cuff in a conversation, but writing it down and sending it out to hundreds of thousands of followers is scary as shit. Plus, there’s this echo chamber effect where you get thousands of people liking every little turd of a comment you send out into the universe, and then you start to believe everything that comes out of your mouth is some precious drop of wisdom. You get addicted to the dopamine rush of approval and lose touch with reality.”

“I don’t think you’re in danger of losing touch with reality.” He was one of the most down-to-earth people she’d ever met, despite his fame.

“Everyone in this business is in danger of losing touch with reality.”

“See, this right here is why you’ll be fine,” Alice told him. “Because you’re actually worried about it. Honestly, I don’t know how you do it.”

“Do what?”

“Stay humble.”

He snorted. “Crippling self-doubt?”

“Come on.”

“I don’t know.” He leaned back and rested his hands behind his head. “I guess I just think about my mom and what kind of person she’d want me to be. Before I do anything, I always try to ask myself if it would make her proud of me, and if the answer is no, I do something different that would.”

A wave of intense affection washed over Alice and she smiled at the screen. “Well, there you go. The ghost of your dead mom will keep you humble on Twitter. And if that doesn’t work, the internet trolls definitely will.”

He groaned. “That’s another reason I don’t like Twitter. I’ve made the mistake of doing a couple vanity searches, and it always fucks me up to hear people talking shit about me. I don’t need all that poison delivered directly into my notifications. No, thank you. That’s how you end up paranoid and isolated, thinking the whole world is against you. It’s just one more thing to stress myself out about. I don’t need the additional anxiety.”

“I get that. But if your publicist thinks it’s important…”

“Then I should probably make the effort,” he finished, covering a yawn. “I know you’re right.”

Alice calculated the time difference between Los Angeles and the East Coast. “It’s late there. Don’t you need to get some sleep?”

“Probably,” he conceded.

“I’ll let you go, then.”

Griffin’s eyes seemed to look through the camera straight into hers as his lips curved in a soft smile. “Goodnight, Alice.”

“Goodnight,” she said, smiling back as she disconnected the call.

Griffin started calling Alice every few days, and he didn’t bother pretending anymore that he was calling for the dog. They’d video chat if he was at home or in his trailer, but sometimes he’d call when he was bored in the car being driven to and from set, or out at the grocery store. He liked to be on the phone when he was out in public, he said, because people were less likely to bother him that way.

Alice didn’t mind being his telephone beard. Her schedule was flexible, so she was usually able to stop whatever she was doing to talk to him.

He’d tell her funny stories about the crew, who he liked, or complain about his costars, who he didn’t particularly. Alice would report what the LV Gen extras were up to after she came back from one of their Saturday happy hours, and sometimes she and Griffin would reminisce about the good old days on the show. He kept in touch with some of the cast, and she kept in touch with some of the crew via social media, so they’d compare notes, keeping tabs on the old gang.

Griffin had been making more of an effort on Twitter, so she made sure to compliment him on his latest tweets. He’d been reposting some of the photos she’d sent him of Taco, with a countdown until he was reunited with his dog again.

“You think it’s okay?” he asked nervously after the second one.

“It’s great,” Alice assured him. “People love dog pictures. Just make sure there’s not like a piece of mail with your address on it in the background or anything.”

“Don’t worry, I vetted the shit out of those photos before I posted them.”

Every time he posted a new dog photo bemoaning their separation, the internet went into ecstasies. He’d gained a hundred thousand Twitter followers in just the last two weeks.

Alice looked forward to Griffin’s calls, checking her phone repeatedly throughout the day and scrambling for it whenever it lit up with his photo. She never called him though. She was afraid he’d think there was some emergency with the dog or the house, so she left it to him to initiate their conversations. Besides, his availability was too unpredictable when he was on set. The odds of getting his voicemail were high, and then he’d just have to call her back anyway.

When the series finale of Las Vegas General aired, six weeks into Griffin’s Atlanta shoot, they watched it together over the phone.

“God, look at my hair,” he moaned in embarrassment. “I don’t know why they insisted on doing it like that.” He’d called from his trailer, and she could hear the murmur of his television in the background, echoing hers.

“I liked it,” Alice said, tossing a handful of popcorn in her mouth.

Dr. Ethan Convey’s slightly nerdy middle part had given him a boyish, approachable appearance that Alice—and millions of other women—had found endearing. Griffin’s current, shorter style was more fashionable and masculine, but she missed the floppier tousled look.

“Jesus, that dialogue!” he complained after his character delivered one of his all-time cheesiest lines in a show that had always been packed with lots of cheese. Finales were meant to be bigger and better, so they’d layered it on as thick as a block of Velveeta for this episode.

“You did your best with the tools you were given,” Alice said.

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“Honestly, you were always too good for this show. I’m glad you’ve moved on to bigger and better things.”

He snorted. “I’m not sure that’s true. If you could hear some of the dialogue in this movie…”

“Okay, but millions more people will see you deliver cheesy lines in a Jerry Duncan movie than ever saw you on our modestly rated network medical drama.”

“Fingers crossed,” he replied with a sarcastic lilt.

“Anyway, this show’s not that bad,” Alice insisted. On the screen, two women in wedding dresses were having a screaming fistfight in the middle of the ER. “I used to watch it before I started working on it, you know. The melodrama could be a little over the top, but it had some nice moments. I always liked the characters.”

“Which character was your favorite?”

“Duh. Obviously you.”

Griffin laughed. “Are you just saying that because you’re living in my house right now?”

“No,” Alice answered honestly. “Ethan really was my favorite.” She’d always liked him best because, unlike the other hotshot alpha male doctors, Ethan was sweet—a trait it had taken her too long to realize Griffin shared with his character.

They watched in silence as Alfie’s character shared a series of poignant goodbyes with the other main characters on his last day working in the hospital. They’d written the episode around his retirement, but stolen a page from M*A*S*H by killing him unexpectedly offscreen at the end. Alice had a box of tissues ready at hand for when they got to that part.

“I guess this show wasn’t so bad,” Griffin conceded. “At least it brought us together, right?”

“That’s true,” Alice said, feeling her throat grow tight.

It had been years since she’d had a best friend, but in a weird way that’s what it felt like she and Griffin were becoming. Except these weren’t just friendly feelings she was having. Her crush on him had grown into something deeper and much more complicated. She wasn’t sure she was ready to use the word love, but it was hovering in her peripheral vision. Taunting her.

His feelings were more difficult to read. At this point it was impossible to deny that he liked her, but just how much or in what way remained a mystery. Alice had absolutely no idea if Griffin was romantically attracted to her at all, and refused to let herself think too hard about it. There was no point, when he was so far away. Better to just enjoy what they had now and worry about the future when it came.

With only a month of filming left, Griffin figured he could get away with having a few drinks. He deserved it, for dealing with Jerry Duncan’s bullying and bad temper on a near-daily basis. As soon as he was done with this fucking film, he would never again set foot on one of Jerry’s sets.

Only a few more weeks of this hell, and then he’d be headed home to Alice.

Griffin wasn’t sure what was going to happen then, but he was feeling more optimistic about it. It seemed like she definitely liked him as a friend, which was a big win. The question was, would she want to be something more? And how could he find out without ruining what they had now?

Fuck it. That was a problem for another day. Tonight he was out having fun with his fellow cast members, at least two of whom he almost sort of liked. Kimberleigh had turned out to be perfectly pleasant to work with, if a little frosty, and halfway through the shoot Richard Scardino had finally dropped character enough to be practically tolerable.

The club tonight had been Scardino’s idea. It was all polished marble and glittering chandeliers. Supposedly several local rap stars and the cast of The Walking Dead frequented the place, which explained the paparazzi loitering across the street. Ordinarily, Griffin avoided trendy clubs like this. He preferred a quiet night out with friends—or with one particular friend if he was looking to get laid—somewhere they could actually hear each other talk, with a lower probability of having his outing chronicled on a gossip site.

But this was where Scardino had wanted to come, so this was where Griffin was spending his Saturday night. It wasn’t so bad, really. The DJ was good and the drinks were strong. Mostly, Griffin was just glad to be out of his condo, which had begun to feel like a prison after two months on this miserable shoot.

He’d lost track of how many scotch and sodas he’d had when Richard peeled off to charm a group of leggy blondes who appeared to be barely of age. Wanting no part of it and feeling suddenly tired, Griffin headed over to the VIP booth where Kimberleigh sat alone, staring at her phone.

She didn’t look up when he joined her, and he was struck by an overwhelming wave of loneliness. “I wish Alice was here,” he mumbled forlornly into his drink.

“Who’s Alice?” Kimberleigh asked without shifting her attention from her phone.

“No one.” He shook his head. “No, I didn’t mean that—she’s someone, obviously. Just no one you’ve heard of.”

Her mouth curved in a knowing smirk. “Not an actress, you mean?”

“Yes. Exactly. She’s not an actress.”

Kimberleigh set her phone down and reached for her drink. “Is she your girlfriend?”

Griffin shook his head, wincing as the room swooped around him. “She’s my friend, but that’s as far as we’ve gotten.”

“You want her to be your girlfriend though.”

“Yes—maybe. I don’t know. I like her, but I don’t know if we’re right for each other.”

Kimberleigh tapped a manicured nail against her glass. “It’s hard for people like us to date normals. They don’t understand what it’s like. The constant pressure of the spotlight.”

Griffin nodded and swallowed another mouthful of scotch. “It’s hard enough dating people who do work in the business.”

Her mouth gave a bitter twist. “I’ll drink to that.” As she downed the last of her vodka rocks, Griffin was reminded that her most recent relationship had ended publicly and very messily when her actor boyfriend was photographed stepping out on her with a rising young pop starlet.

He set his drink down and stared morosely at the marble surface of the table. “How can I drag Alice into all this shit we have to deal with? It’s not fair to her. Assuming she even wants it—me—which I’m not even sure of.”

Kimberleigh offered a surprisingly sympathetic smile. “I don’t know anything about her, but I’m willing to bet she wants you. That’s part of the problem with being us. Everyone wants us—or thinks they do. Until they actually get to know us and the shine wears off.”

“I think I’m drunk,” Griffin said, surprised.

“Really?” Kimberleigh lifted a mocking eyebrow. “You mean you didn’t do the ‘Single Ladies’ dance to Migos stone-cold sober?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “How are you not drunk? You’ve been sucking down vodka like it was La Croix all night.”

She rattled the ice in her glass, smirking. “Practice.”

Griffin picked up his scotch again. “This is my first drink in…” He pressed the cool glass against his forehead while he did the math. “Almost three months.”

“Griffin, sweetie. That’s your fifth drink tonight.”

“I don’t mean this specific drink. I mean—you know what I mean. Tonight’s the first time I’ve let myself drink.”

“So you’re not always this much of a lightweight, is what you’re saying?”

“Definitely not.”

Kimberleigh picked up her phone again and swiped her thumb across the screen. “Maybe we should get you home. This place is a little high-profile. If you’re going to get maudlin, better to do it somewhere without two hundred cell phone cameras and a dozen paparazzi within pissing distance.”

A wave of exhaustion rolled over Griffin and he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Mmmm. You may have a point there.”

Kimberleigh scooted her way out of the booth and hooked a hand under Griffin’s elbow. “Come on, big boy. Let’s put you into an Uber.”

“I thought you hated me,” he said as she steered him toward the door.

“It’s nothing personal. I hate everyone.”

The humidity slapped Griffin in the face like a wet towel as they stepped out onto the sidewalk. “Jesus, why is it so hot in this fucking state?”

Kimberleigh checked her phone and scanned the street for his Uber. “Only a few more weeks, then we can both fly away back to the desert where we belong.”

Griffin watched her watching for his car. “Why do you hate everyone?”

She shrugged. “Force of habit.”

Impulsively, he bent down and kissed her cheek. “I think you’re secretly nice,” he whispered into her ear. “I think it’s all for show, to keep people at a distance.”

The smile she gave him when he pulled away was amused but also slightly sad. “If only.”

“It’s a good act, but I’m not buying it.”

She reached up to brush her hand through his hair. “You’re sweet. I hope you get your Alice.”

“I hope you get yours too.”

A white Escalade pulled up to the curb and Kimberleigh corralled him toward it. “Here’s your chariot, handsome.” She blew him a kiss once he was inside, and went back into the club.

It was blissfully quiet and air-conditioned in the car. Griffin slouched down in his seat and listened to the soft jazz his driver was playing as they crawled through the streets of midtown Atlanta.

“The music okay?” the driver asked, glancing in the rearview mirror at a stoplight. She was young and black, with a dog-eared organic chemistry textbook wedged between her seat and the console.

“Yeah,” Griffin told her. “It’s great.”

“Was that Kimberleigh Cress back there at the club with you?”

“It was.”

“She your girlfriend or something?”

“Nope. Just someone I work with.”

“What’s she like?”

Griffin thought about it. “She’s nice,” he said, knowing Kimberleigh would hate it. “Really nice.”

The driver’s eyes found his in the mirror again when the car rolled to a stop at another light. He could see the moment recognition dawned. “You’re that guy from that show.”

“That’s me,” Griffin said, turning his face to the window.

“Cool. My mom watches that show.”

“Then tell your mom I said thanks.”

The light changed, and they drove the remaining six blocks to his building in silence.

“Have a good night,” he told the driver as he got out of the car. “Good luck in school.” He took out his phone as the car pulled away from the curb.

Made it home, he texted Kimberleigh. Give her a good tip.

He let himself into his apartment and made a beeline to the fridge for a Gatorade. Tomorrow morning he’d probably be full of regret, but right now he was still feeling pretty good.

He wandered into the bedroom and set the unopened Gatorade down on his nightstand. Kimberleigh’s perfume was all over his clothes. He stripped his shirt off and tossed it across the room, but the smell still lingered in his nostrils.

Slipping his phone out of his pocket again, Griffin sank down on the edge of the bed and stared at the screen. What time was it in LA? It was one forty-five here, so that meant it was…something earlier on the West Coast. He was too drunk to do the math, but he figured Alice might still be awake.

A voice in the back of his head tried to warn him that now was not a good time to talk to the woman he was secretly in love with. He ignored it and hit call.

After three rings, he got Alice’s voicemail. Damn.

He should just hang up. He didn’t have anything important to say that couldn’t wait until tomorrow.

He didn’t hang up.

“Alice,” he said after the tone. “Hey, Alice. It’s me—Griffin. Uh…I was calling to talk to you, but I guess you’re busy or asleep or something.”

He paused, bending over to slip his shoes off as he considered what to say.

“I went out drinking tonight. And guess what? I got drunk. After only four drinks! I’m a lightweight now.”

He lost his train of thought and frowned, trying to remember what he’d been meaning to say.

“Oh! Right. Anyway, the reason I’m calling is because I have to tell you something very important, in case you didn’t know by now. So here it is: I like you. So much. I don’t know if you knew that, but I thought maybe you should. I like the way you smell, and the way you smile at me when I walk in the door. The sound of your laugh—and the fact that I can make you laugh. I really hate being so far away from you. I miss you more than dairy, and you know how much I miss dairy.”

He stopped and scratched the back of his head.

“Okay, sooo…that’s it, really. That’s what I wanted to say. I miss you. I’m gonna go to sleep now.”

Feeling proud of himself, he dropped the phone and passed out facedown on his bed.