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“Don’t cancel on my account. You’re only on the east coast a few times a year, and that’s a great opportunity to do some networking while you’re here.”
“But I was looking forward to spending time with you.”
“We’ll have plenty of time for that once we’re back in L.A.”
He watched me for a few moments before returning his phone to his pocket. “Well, alright. I guess I’ll go and hitch a ride with Porter then, so you can take the town car back to the hotel.”
“Are you sure? I can just get a cab.”
“No, take the car.” He got to his feet and asked, “What do you think you’ll do tonight?”
“A friend’s getting a bunch of people together to go out for drinks, and he invited me to join them. I guess I’ll tell him I can make it after all.” I took my phone from my pocket and sent a message to the car service, then looked around to see if I’d forgotten anything. When I spotted the plastic bag from the drug store, I hurried to the couch and crammed it in my messenger bag.
He said, “In that case, I guess I’ll see you whenever we both get back to the hotel.” I nodded, and he hesitated for a moment before leaving the dressing room.
It was tough to read Harper. He was a great actor, which meant he had the ability to only show people what he wanted them to see. After he was gone, I wondered if I’d disappointed him by turning down dinner with his peers. I’d assumed he was just being polite by trying to include me, but I actually had no idea what that was about.
I returned to the hotel with the intention of dropping off the bags and going right back out again, but I made one crucial mistake—I decided to spend a few minutes relaxing and reading. That was the end of that.
The rest of the afternoon was spent in bed with a book. When I got hungry, I ate the candy bar I’d bought at the drug store, then started on the stash of granola bars I kept in my messenger bag. I knew I could order anything I wanted from room service. Hell, I could order twenty lobsters if I felt like it, and Harper wouldn’t bat an eye when he saw the bill. But I didn’t want to throw his money away, even if he did that at a truly alarming rate. I’d grown up poor, and the room service prices made me cringe.
It was surprising when Harper messaged me in the early evening and asked how my night was going. I replied: Decided on a quiet night in, instead of a night on the town. Hope you’re having fun. Let me know if you need anything. He didn’t reply, which made me think one of his famous friends had distracted him.
Maybe forty minutes later, I was startled by the sound of someone letting themselves into the suite. My first thought was that it was probably housekeeping, but a few moments later Harper appeared and leaned against the doorframe as he grinned at me. He’d taken off his tie and unfastened the top two buttons on his white dress shirt. In that flawless blue suit with his hair slightly tousled, he looked like a runaway prince on his way to some grand adventure.
I asked, “What are you doing here?”
He shifted a bit to reveal a huge pizza box, which he’d been hiding around the edge of the doorframe. “I brought us dinner.”
“What about the fancy restaurant?”
“I decided to give it a skip, after spending the last few hours making small talk with twenty of the shallowest people you’ll ever meet,” he said. “You totally called it. The conversation did, in fact, range from private jets to vacation homes to problems with ‘the help,’ though you left out vicious gossip about virtually everyone in Hollywood who wasn’t actually in the room with us.”
“That last part’s a given.”
“You’re right. Anyway, when it came time to head over to the restaurant, I couldn’t take it anymore, so I made an excuse and hopped in a cab. Then I asked the taxi driver to take a slight detour on the way here. And yes, I know I had pizza last night, but it wasn’t this pizza, so it doesn’t count.”
He put the box on the bed, then took off his suit jacket and tossed it on a nearby chair. As he rolled back his shirtsleeves, I asked, “How’d you know I hadn’t eaten?”
“You said you were spending the night in, and I know you’re too cheap to order room service if it’s just for you. That means you’ve been rationing your granola bar stash all evening.”
“That’s all one hundred percent true. It’s weird that you know me so well.”
