Page 9 of The Liar in Room 5

“No and yes. In law school, I thought I was going to be a family law attorney, but I got shoved into an entertainment law clinic because there wasn’t space left in the family law one I’d applied to. It turned out I liked it a hell of a lot. Wha⁠—”

“More than family law?”

“Yeah. A lot more.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“With family law, there are a lot of people coming to you with problems and issues and things that probably aren’t going right. Adoption is the exception, though even that can be bittersweet. Entertainment law is more about playing to win a game. The studio wants one thing. My client wants another. Or someone’s getting the deal of a lifetime to have their book or screenplay optioned or whatever. It’s like playing chess, except when I win, somebody’s life gets better. Are you⁠—”

“And if you lose?”

“I don’t like to lose.”

Andy’s scoff was adorable. A quick glance let me see him with his hand out the window, lying flat and riding the wind’s current. His artfully styled hair had lost its battle with the wind and was now sticking up in tufts that were perfectly imperfect. Without the guardedness that he kept smoothed over, the crinkles of his eyes stood out more. Along his temples, the first whispers of gray were beginning to show.

The rest of the drive was spent with Andy asking questions about entertainment law that had nothing to do with my clients and everything to do with the mechanics of how it worked. I found myself talking the entire trip about how it all fit together. How complicated the contracts could be when you started talking about various studios, production companies, agents, and whatnot.

The forty-five-minute drive was over in a blink, and once we pulled into the parking lot, I was struck with the realization that Andy was still a complete mystery to me. Not once had the conversation turned to him because he’d been too busy plying me with questions. Every time I’d attempted to turn the conversation to him, he deflected and spun it around to me. It was a master class in diversionary tactics.

Phoenix had been exactly right about him. Andy was interesting, even though I hadn’t learned a damned thing about him.

He wasn’t lying.

He was protecting something.

I just didn’t know what.

3

Andrew

“Looks like my brother is going to be a while. Want to take a walk while we wait for them? Afternoon sunshine might be my favorite part of the day.”

With his mirrored glasses and tight polo, Henry was dressed for the occasion.

How was it that Henry looked so put together after our trip through the wind tunnel and I probably looked like a squirrel who’d survived a tornado? It felt supremely unfair. And awkward. It was so obvious that Henry loved driving with the top down, but I wasn’t a fan of the bugs and the sun glaring down on me. I’d call it a mistake, but I liked how excited Henry had gotten when he’d been talking about it. All he needed me to do was smile and nod.

“Sure,” I answered and swallowed my groan. It was so hot and humid and sticky. As much as I loved California—the breeze off the coast won hands down over dust from a soybean field for me—afternoons in the blazing sun were a little much. Scratch that, they were a lot much. “Who doesn’t love it?”

Henry shot me a wide smile, and we set off down the gravel path. At the last moment, he veered right onto the path that led to a wooded area. For someone who loved sunshine, Henry kept choosing options without much of it.

At best, the canopy of trees dappled the ground with sunlight, but even that was a stretch. Under their leafy covering, it was much cooler, which I was forever grateful for. We were supposed to be walking, but every few steps, something caught my eye and forced me to stop and investigate: a snail, a pretty rock, an unidentified flower, possibly a weed, which I snapped a picture of so I could figure it out later.

“You never told me what you do for a living.”

“Didn’t I?”

Shit, what was I supposed to say? I was a professional boyfriend who currently wasn’t a boyfriend, and I hadn’t done anything but that for years. And honestly, I’d just been kinda dumb. That one needed to stay in the vault.

“This and that,” I answered.

I tried to keep my tone dismissive because, holy God, I didn’t want to go into a detailed explanation of how dumb I’d been for twenty years.

“So was this and that like brain surgery?”

“Not quite.” I laughed.

“Was it dog walking?”