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But she didn’t ask those questions. He’d told her that today was a surprise, had woken her at four in the morning on their day off, and told her to dress warmly. He refused to say anything else about it. After twenty minutes of probing, she’d droppedit.
Maybe that was why she couldn’t bring herself to steer the conversation to their relationship—she didn’t want to ruin his carefully planned surprise.
“Let’s see.” She searched for a safe but meaningful query. “Oh, I know. Did you always want to be an actor?”
“Seriously?” He turned off the main road they’d been following onto a smaller winding road. “That’s what you want to know? You can find that out from a good Google search.”
“In every interview I’ve read you’ve said ‘yes.’”
“There you go,” he said, throwing his arm out dramatically.
“But I’ve always sensed you were hiding something.”
He peered at her. “How do you do that? How do you know me sowell?”
Because we’re meant to be together. She shrugged.
“No. I didn’t always want to be an actor.” He looked at her as if gauging her reaction. “My mom was an actress, so she got me acting in commercials when I was about thirteen. And I hated it. We didn’t live in the film industry part of the city and no one in my school was into anything artsy. Kids picked on me, called me a fag, beat me up on a regular basis. In fact, that’s how I met Fudge. He stepped up for me and has been protecting me ever since.”
Wow. She had noidea.
“Do you know how he got his nickname?”
She shook herhead.
“Because he used to scare kids so bad, they’d fudge their pants.”
She giggled.
“Anyway. Then I turned sixteen. My high school was putting on David and Lisa. I didn’t really want to do it, but my girlfriend—“
“Girlfriend?”
He ignored her. “—thought it would be super sexy if I was in it. So I tried out and I got the part of David.”
“Which is a great part. Definitely supersexy.”
“Yes, it is.” He slid his free hand over to grab hers. “But on top of that, my high school theater director was amazing. She taught us more than just memorizing lines and blocking. She taught us process, how to make choices in acting, how to create a character internally and externally. I fell inlove.”
“I’m assuming you fell in love with the acting, not the girlfriend.” Not that she was jealous of a high-school sweetheart. Not in the least.
“Totally the acting. I broke up with the girlfriend before the show even wentup.”
“Awesome.” She grinned.
“I started taking classes outside of school—speech, movement, acting for the camera. I got a personal coach. Then an agent. Then I started doing indies, which I loved. Then I gotStu.”
“And the rest is history.”
“I supposeso.”
He was silent for several seconds. The morning light brightened, the sun just coming over the edge of the horizon. She let go of his hand and rummaged through her purse until she found her sunglasses.
When Micah spoke again his voice was low and serious. “That break-up was because of the show, actually. Even back then acting interfered with my relationship.”
“With your teenage girlfriend? How so?” She didn’t like what he was hinting at and was grateful for the dark of her glasses so he wouldn’t see the glare in hereyes.
“We broke up because she was jealous of my acting. She said I spent too much time away from her. We fought and fought about it. It was awful.”
