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“I’m here for you.”

“You are not.”

Antonio looked back at him then, steady and unreadable in the dim light. “No?”

The answer to that should have been obvious. Instead, Hakeem felt something small and embarrassing catch in his chest.

He looked away first, out toward the street where palm shadows shifted against the pavement. “I hate understudying,” he said, quieter now. “It makes me feel like a placeholder with okay cheekbones.”

That got him the real thing this time: a soft, brief laugh that landed warm in Hakeem’s stomach. Antonio tipped his head back against the chair for a second, eyes closing, and Hakeem had the absurd thought that maybe he should say more self-pitying things if this was the response they earned him.

“You have better-than-okay cheekbones,” Antonio said.

Hakeem turned slowly. “Was that comfort?”

“It’s accuracy.”

“That’s worse somehow.”

Antonio opened his eyes again. “You’d rather I lied?”

“I’d rather you told me I’m secretly destined for greatness, and the world is simply slow to recognize it.”

Antonio considered him with enough seriousness to make Hakeem immediately suspicious.

Then he said, “That part might be true.”

Hakeem stared at him, sure he had misheard. Antonio’s tone had not changed. There wasn’t an obvious setup for a joke. He had simply said something that reached Hakeem too directly to defend against.

He covered too fast. “That was reckless of you.”

Antonio’s gaze stayed on him. “What was?”

“Encouraging me.”

“Did it work?”

Hakeem hated that it had, even a little.

He tipped his head back and looked up at the porch ceiling instead. Moths battered themselves senseless against the bulb. “There’s this casting call,” he said, without meaning to. “Local thing. Small indie feature. Probably no money. Everybody dies miserable.”

Antonio was quiet.

Hakeem went on because now that he had started, stopping would have felt worse. “It’s called After Amy.”

“Good title.”

“You don’t even know what it’s about.”

“It sounds like something has already gone wrong. That’s usually promising.”

Hakeem snorted. “I saw it this morning. Somebody had reposted it. They want men in their twenties, naturalistic, emotionally open, horror but not camp, festival-friendly.” He shrugged one shoulder. “So obviously I immediately decided to have a private crisis about it and move on with my day.”

“Obviously.”

“It looks good, though. Like, actually good. The kind where the poster isn’t doing all the work. Real-good. Little stills that look shot on 16mm. Everybody is sad in kitchens, and then somebody bleeds in a doorway. Very much my shit.”

Antonio turned more fully toward him now. “And?”