Chapter Text
Your friend had your chin between her fingers and the concentrated expression of someone defusing a bomb. “Stop moving,” she said.
“I’m not moving.”
“You are; you can’t sit still.”
“Well, maybe if you hurried up.”
From her place on the bed, your other friend looked up from her phone. “Come on, guys. Be nice.”
You rolled your eyes, but carefully, because there was a mascara wand dangerously close to your face and you were not willing to lose an eye before going to Paul Rudd’s birthday event. Every time you thought about it, you couldn’t believe that was a real sentence. Paul Rudd’s birthday event. You had said it out loud six times, and it still felt like something you had made up to sound interesting in a group chat.
Your friend finished with the mascara and leaned back, studying her work. “Okay. You look hot.”
“That sounded surprised.”
“I’m always surprised by my own talent.”
“You did one smoky eye, and now you’re Michelangelo.”
“I don’t want to brag, but he also worked under pressure.”
Your other friend rolled onto her stomach, phone still in hand. “Remind me again why you’re going with this guy?”
“He asked.”
“That is not a reason.”
“He’s nice enough.”
“What a review.”
“He is,” you said, because he was, well, sort of. He had been nice enough through two dates, had paid attention in the right places, laughed at most of your jokes, and only once explained a film to you after you had already said you had seen it. The sex after the second date was adequate. Was he the love of your life? God, no. But you were in your 20s in Los Angeles, what did it matter?
Your friend gave you a look in the mirror. “Nice enough is what you say about a dentist.”
“I like my dentist.”
“That’s worse.”
“He mentioned Paul Rudd’s birthday event,” you said, like that explained everything. “Who the hell says no to that?”
Your other friend pointed at you. “Exactly. This is not romance; this is career development.”
You looked down at the dress hanging from your shoulders. It was not new, but it looked new when you stood properly and pretended you were a woman who got invited to things. Red, simple, not too much. The kind of dress that said you had not tried too hard, even though you had spent forty-five minutes trying on your entire closet. “Career development feels like a generous term for standing awkwardly near famous people while holding a drink I don’t know how to pronounce,” you said.
“You want to write and direct films,” your friend said, setting the makeup brush down. “You work at a cafe, or on shitty movie sets, you babysit that weird producer’s dog twice a week, and last month you spent eight hours logging footage for a man who called himself a visual poet.”
“He paid me.”
“He paid you in exposure.”
“And eighty dollars.”
“Exactly. This is better than that.”
You sighed because she was right, and you hated it when she was right. You were not inside the industry yet. You were near it sometimes, orbiting the edges through odd jobs and favours and shifts you took because rent did not care about your dreams. You worked mornings at a cafe in Burbank, afternoons wherever someone needed a body and you could say yes, and nights writing scenes in a document that had too many notes and not enough structure. You wanted to write films, and then you wanted to direct them. You wanted to make something good enough that one day you would be in a room like the one you were going to tonight and not feel like you had snuck in through a side door. But for now, you were a plus-one for a man who was nice enough, and honestly, you would take it.
Your friend on the bed sat up suddenly. “Wait. Who else is going to be there?”
“I don’t know. He just said it was a thing for Paul Rudd. To be honest, I don’t even understand how he’s invited.”
“A thing,” she repeated. “For Paul Rudd. You realise that means every charming man over forty within a ten-mile radius could be there.”
“Please don’t say charming men over forty like you’re reading from a police report.”
“What if Jon Hamm is there?”
Your makeup friend made a noise. “Oh, my God.”
“He could be,” the other one said, already typing. “Don’t they all know each other?”
“That’s not how being over forty works.”
“In Hollywood, it might.”
Your friend behind you leaned closer to the mirror and fixed one tiny section of your hair. “Wasn’t Paul Rudd on Amy Poehler’s podcast recently?”
“Was he?”
“I think so, I saw a clip. Maybe Amy will be there.”
Your stomach flipped in a way that had nothing to do with your date. “Amy Poehler is not going to be at my random third date.”
“It’s not random,” your friend said. “It’s Paul Rudd’s birthday.”
Your other friend was now fully researching. “Okay, Paul Rudd friends, let’s see. Obviously, the comedy people, Jason Segel, Seth Rogen, and then some guy called Adam Scott.”
You turned so fast that your makeup friend had to pull the brush away from your face. “Some guy called Adam Scott?”
Your friend looked up from her phone. “What?”
“How do you not know Adam Scott?”
“I know the name.”
“That is not the same as knowing Adam Scott.”
Your makeup friend grinned at you in the mirror. “You said that like he’s an important historical figure.”
“He is an important historical figure.”
“Is he?”
“Yes.”
Your friend on the bed squinted at her phone. “Oh, wait. Is he the one from Parks and Rec?”
“And Severance.”
“Right...”
“And Party Down.”
“Okay, sorry, IMDb.”
“I’m just saying, some guy called Adam Scott is insane.”
Your makeup friend tilted her head, amused. “You’re getting very defensive for someone who probably won’t even talk to him.”
“I won’t,” you said, standing and smoothing your dress even though it did not need smoothing. “That’s my point. He won’t be there, and I probably won’t even get to talk to anyone famous like that.”
“Anyone famous like that,” your friend repeated. “So specific.”
“I’m serious. I’ll probably spend the whole night making polite conversation with someone’s manager, if I’m lucky, and pretending I know which wine is expensive.”
“Red flag,” said the friend on the bed. “You never pretend about wine. You drink the one closest to you and commit.”
Your phone buzzed on the dresser, and you picked it up to see your Uber was outside.
Your friend behind you touched your shoulders, looking at you in the mirror. “You look amazing.”
“You have to say that. You painted my face.”
“I would lie less sincerely if you looked bad.”
The friend on the bed climbed up, grabbed your bag, and passed it to you with great ceremony. “Remember. You are not there because of some man.”
“I am literally there because of him.”
“No. You are there because you are a future writer-director networking genius who happens to have accepted transportation from a mediocre man.”
“He’s not mediocre.”
“Fine. Medium-good.”
You laughed despite yourself. At the door, you checked your lipstick one last time in the hallway mirror. You looked like yourself, mostly.
Your friend leaned against the doorframe. “Text us everything.”
“I will.”
“No, not your normal everything. Actual everything. Names, outfits, vibes, whether Paul Rudd smells nice.”
“I am not smelling Paul Rudd.”
“Not intentionally.”
You rolled your eyes, stepped into the hall, and headed for the stairs with your phone in one hand and your bag clutched too tightly in the other.
By the time you reached the Uber, your date had texted that he was already inside and asked you to let him know when you were there. You stared at the message for half a second, then got into the car.
Your Uber pulled up outside a low, warm-lit building tucked behind a wall of greenery and valet stands, the kind of entrance that looked understated until you realised understated was just another word for very, very expensive. There were no flashing cameras, no ropes, no one shouting names from behind barricades. Nothing that announced a celebrity birthday event in a way you could have prepared for. A woman in black checked your name at the door, smiled, and directed you through a narrow hallway toward the sound of voices and glassware and music low enough to make everyone feel interesting.
Your date was waiting just inside. “Hey,” he said, leaning in to kiss your cheek. “You made it.”
“Miraculously,” you said.
He looked you over quickly, approvingly. “You look great.”
“Thanks.”
It was not that he sounded insincere. He just sounded like he had already said it in his head before you arrived and was pleased to find the line still worked.
He touched your arm and turned toward the room. “Come on, you have to see this.”
The main space was warm and golden and dimly lit, with candles on small tables and flowers arranged far too specifically. People stood in clusters instead of sitting, holding wine glasses and laughing easily, the sort of laugh that said they had known each other for years or wanted everyone nearby to think they had. Servers moved through the room with trays of drinks and tiny food that looked too pretty to be useful. There were passed plates, little napkins, and silver trays. You recognised faces immediately. A man from that show, whom your friends loved, stood near the bar, talking with someone you had only ever seen photographed in sunglasses. A woman whose podcast you had listened to while folding laundry laughed beside a window. Someone who looked exactly like a producer you had once sent a cold email to walked past you without looking up from his phone. It was surreal in the strangest possible way.
Your date guided you through the edge of the room, hand hovering at your back but not quite settling there. At first, he was attentive enough. He got you a drink and introduced you to a man named Craig, who worked in finance. He included you in a conversation about a show you had never seen and looked pleased when you managed to make one good joke that landed. For about twenty minutes, you thought maybe you had been unfair to this guy, maybe your friends had been too harsh. Maybe he was still not the love of your life, but more than a networking connection. Then someone called his name. He turned, smiled wider than he had smiled at you all evening, and said, “I’ll be right back.”
You nodded. “Sure.”
Right back, apparently, meant seven minutes. You knew because you checked your phone twice, then told yourself not to check your phone again because nothing said confident future writer-director like standing alone at Paul Rudd’s birthday, timing your date’s disappearance. He returned eventually, bringing with him two men you did not know and a woman in a white jacket who had frighteningly effortless beauty. “This is…” Your date gestured toward you. For half a second, you could tell he forgot your name. You smiled, gave your name, shook hands, and tried not to let your face do anything dramatic. The woman in the white jacket was perfectly nice, and the men were perfectly polite. They asked how you knew him, and you gave a careful answer that made it sound less like a third-date plus-one and more socially acceptable. Your date laughed too loudly at something they said, and you continued to sip your wine. This was fine.
A little later, he drifted again, first toward the bar, then toward a group near the windows. Then, finally, toward a pretty actress leaning against the wall beneath a framed black-and-white photograph, her smile tilted up at him like she had known exactly what she was doing before he crossed the room. You watched as he said something and she laughed. He leaned in closer, and you tightened your hand around your wine glass. You were not heartbroken; however, humiliation did not require heartbreak.
You looked toward the exit; it would be easy to leave. No one knew who you were. You could text your friends from the sidewalk, tell them the guy had been a disappointment, the room had been insane, and no, you had not sniffed Paul Rudd. You could go home, take off your makeup, make something depressing in the microwave, and still get almost six hours of sleep before your cafe shift.
Across the room, your date laughed again, head angled toward the actress like the rest of the party had fallen away. You stared at him for one more second before taking another look at the room around you. You looked at the candles and the wine, at the casually famous people standing three feet away from you, talking about scripts and pilots and films that might exist one day because someone in a room like this decided they should. At the producers and actors and writers and managers and friends-of-friends moving through the warm light like they belonged to the machinery you were still trying to find a door into. You were not going to waste the most interesting room you had ever been in because a man with mediocre texting habits had been distracted by cheekbones. You straightened your shoulders, took another sip of wine, and moved as far away from your date as you could. You made your way along the edge of the room, slow enough to look intentional, pausing near a table where two women were discussing a documentary you had actually seen. You listened without inserting yourself and started to notice other things. The way people pitched ideas, even when they were pretending not to. The way everyone laughed a little differently, depending on who had spoken. Names passed from mouth to mouth like currency. You had always been good at observing.
A server passed with a tray of drinks, and you reached for one mostly because it gave your hands a new job. Your fingers closed around the stem of the glass. You stepped back to let someone pass, turned too quickly, and collided with something solid. A splash of wine jumped dangerously near the rim of your glass. “Oh shit, sorry,” you blurted, one hand flying up before you had even properly looked at him.
Then you did look. “Oh fuck.” It came out before you could stop it.
Adam Scott looked down at you with this look in his eyes you couldn’t quite place, and for one second, neither of you moved. Then he laughed. You were surprised by how real and warm it sounded, as if he were laughing with you rather than at you.
You wanted the floor to open beneath you. “I’m so sorry,” you said quickly. “Oh, my God. Sorry, Mr Scott.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Mr Scott?”
You froze. He was wearing a jacket over a white shirt and jeans, no tie, sleeves pushed slightly at the wrists. Even in heels, he was still slightly taller than you. He looked exactly like himself and also nothing like someone you had watched through a screen. His hair was a little messier than it looked in interviews, and his eyes were brighter. He was holding a drink in one hand, untouched, and looking at you like he was trying very hard not to enjoy this.
“You are Adam Scott, right?” you said, because, maybe, hopefully, this wasn’t him and you could move on with your life.
“I am,” he said. “Usually, people just call me Adam.”
“Right.” You nodded too fast. “Yes, of course. Adam. Sorry.”
“Please don’t apologise to me for knowing my name. It’s one of the few things I’ve managed to keep consistent.”
You laughed, and his gaze dropped for half a second, not crudely, but just enough to move over the red dress, the hand still half-raised in apology, the glass you were miraculously still holding upright. Then his eyes came back to your face, and something in your stomach shifted.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” you said immediately. “Completely. I often walk directly into people at industry events. It’s part of my process.”
He smiled. “Good process.”
“Thank you, I’m still refining it.”
“I’d say it’s memorable.”
You stared at him for half a second too long. Was he flirting? No. No, obviously not. This was Adam Scott at Paul Rudd’s birthday, and you were a plus-one currently abandoned by a man who had nearly forgotten your name in front of a woman wearing white linen. Adam Scott was not flirting with you; he was being polite. Charming, maybe. You shifted your glass into your other hand. “I really am sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“I noticed.” He said it with no malice, and he smirked at you again.
For a moment, the room seemed to move around the two of you. The warm light, the candles, and the music are all irrelevant outside of this little bubble you found yourself in.
Adam tilted his head slightly, breaking you from your thoughts. “So, you know I am Adam Scott, but it doesn’t seem right that I don’t know your name.”
“Oh,” you said. “Right, Sorry.” You gave him your name, and his expression changed subtly when you said it, like he had taken it in properly instead of just letting it pass through the air.
He offered his hand, and you looked at it for half a beat before remembering where you were and who you were talking to. You took his offered hand; it was warm and smooth. The handshake was firm, but not performative. The sort of handshake that should have lasted one second and instead stretched just long enough for you to become aware of the room again, then his fingers, then the fact that he repeated your name back to you.
“Well, it’s very nice to meet you,” he said.
“You too.”
His thumb brushed over the side of your hand as he let go. It was barely anything, but you felt it, and judging by the smirk still on his face, you knew he knew you felt it.
You watched his hand drop back to his side. He flexed his fingers like he wanted something to grab onto. You waited for him to politely excuse himself so you could text your friends that you had just spoken to Adam Scott. Instead, he started speaking again.
“So,” he said, glancing past you into the room, “are you here with someone, or should I be calling security because you’ve snuck in?”
“How do you know I wasn’t invited on my own?” you asked back, your gaze drifting to where you last saw your date. Across the room, your date was exactly where you had last seen him, leaning against the wall beneath the framed black-and-white photograph. The pretty actress was still in front of him, one hand wrapped around the stem of her glass, her head tipped back as she laughed at something he had said.
“I just do.” Adam’s eyes followed yours to your date.
You looked back at Adam and rolled your eyes before you could make yourself seem more composed. “Well, apparently,” you said, “no one.”
Adam’s eyes moved to your date again. You watched him quickly piece the scene together. “Bold strategy on his part,” he said.
You let out a small laugh, sharper than you intended. “Ditching me?”
Adam looked back at you. “Leaving you unattended.”
You took a sip of wine to give yourself a moment. “That almost sounded like a compliment,” you said.
“And what if it was one?”
“Careful, Adam. You’ll give me an ego.”
“I hope I do.” His voice was light, but his eyes were not doing anything light at all. They held yours for a beat too long, then dropped briefly to your mouth.
Your fingers, not holding your glass, fidgeted with the strap on your bag. You cleared your throat. “Well, I should probably go rescue him from all that difficult conversation.”
Adam glanced over again just as your date laughed too loudly at something the actress said, his eyebrows lifted. “He looks like he’s suffering.”
“Tragic, really.”
“We should give him a moment.”
“Is that so?”
“At least until he’s finished being very committed to whatever that is.”
You pressed your lips together to keep from laughing too loudly.
Adam’s attention returned to you. “You don’t seem that upset.”
“I’m not.”
“No?”
You shrugged, looking down into your glass for a second. “I mean, it’s embarrassing. But he’s not exactly the love of my life.”
“I would hope not.”
“He’s nice enough.”
Adam’s mouth twitched. “That’s damning.”
“It’s not damning.”
“It is. Nice enough is what people say about a restaurant with bad lighting.”
You laughed. “He was better before he forgot my name.”
“Ah.”
“Nearly forgot.”
“That’s an important distinction.”
“It is, legally.”
Adam looked toward him one more time, then back at you. “Well, for what it’s worth, I remember it.”
“You’ve known it for thirty seconds.”
“And I don’t think I'll forget it if I try.”
You tried not to smile, but did anyway. He smiled too, smaller and softer than he had all night. Behind him, the party continued. Someone passed close enough that Adam stepped slightly to the side, making more room for them without really moving away from you; it brought him nearer instead. You weren’t touching, but close enough that you could see the faint lines at the corners of his eyes when he smiled.
“You looked like you were doing fine without him,” he said.
“I was?”
“Mmm.”
“When?”
“Earlier.”
You blinked. “Earlier?”
“Before you assaulted me.”
“I did not assault you.”
“You came at me with wine.”
“I barely grazed you!”
“I’m choosing generosity and not pressing charges.”
“How noble.”
“I try.”
You smiled despite yourself, but the word earlier lodged in your head. “You saw me earlier?” you asked.
Adam took a slow sip of his drink, watching you over the rim. “Yes.”
“When?”
“Around the room.”
You tried to replay the last hour in your mind and immediately regretted it. Had you looked awkward? Desperate? Had he seen you standing alone after your date drifted off? Had he seen you pretending to read the artwork so you would not look like someone who had been abandoned near the bar? “That sounds vague.”
“It was a big room.”
“It’s not that big.”
“Fair.”
“So, what exactly did you see?”
He looked at you for a moment, and the teasing shifted into something more precise. “You were listening.”
You were not expecting that. “To what?”
“Everything, from the look of it.” His gaze moved briefly across the room, then back to you. “You stood near that group talking about the documentary for a while. Then, over by the windows, someone was pitching something very earnestly to a man who looked like he wanted to escape. You weren’t trying to get in the middle of it. You were just…” He paused. “Taking it in.”
You stared at him. This conversation just kept getting stranger and stranger. “I was not spying,” you said eventually.
“I didn’t say you were.”
“I was observing.”
“That sounds more professional.”
“It is. I’m very professional.”
“You did open with ‘oh fuck.’”
“I said professional, not polished.”
He laughed softly into his drink, and it warmed you more than the wine had.
“So, you’ve been watching me, Mr Scott?” you asked.
Adam looked at you for a second, then his mouth curved. “Something like that.”
A server appeared beside you, breaking the moment with a fresh tray of drinks, the glasses catching the candlelight as he passed. You again expected that to be the end of it. Adam would take one, maybe make some polite closing comment, and then drift back into the room where he actually belonged.
Instead, Adam glanced at the tray, set his nearly untouched drink down on a nearby table, and picked up a fresh one. “So,” he said, like this was completely normal, like Adam Scott regularly chose to remain in conversation with abandoned plus-ones in red dresses, “when you’re not professionally observing birthday dinners, what do you do?”
You let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “A lot of things.”
“That sounds evasive.”
“It is.”
“Interesting.”
“It’s not interesting.” You took a sip of wine because it gave you half a second to think. “It’s mostly odd jobs. Cafe in Burbank at seven tomorrow, actually, so I should probably not be standing here drinking expensive wine with a stranger.”
“I think we’ve established I’m Adam.”
“Still a stranger.”
“Technically, yes,” he said. “But one with excellent timing.”
You looked at him. “Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Have excellent timing?”
He looked down, smiling into his drink. “I ran into you, didn’t I?”
“You did not run into me. I ran into you.”
“Sure,” he said. “If that’s how you need to remember it.”
You laughed before you could stop yourself, and he looked pleased. You shifted your weight, suddenly too aware of the fact that you were standing in front of Adam Scott in a red dress, drinking wine that someone else had paid for, while your date continued to forget you existed somewhere near the far wall.
“So, cafe,” Adam said.
“Yeah, that pink one on the corner in Burbank, near the Whole Foods.” You silently screamed, not knowing why you were telling him that, like he’d know.
“Hmm, I know the place.”
“It’s very glamorous.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”
“You thought it.”
“I would never.”
You smiled down into your glass. “I make coffee, I pick up random production assistant work when I can get it, I babysit a producer’s dog sometimes, which is unfortunately one of my more stable industry connections.”
“What’s the dog’s name?”
“Scorsese.”
Adam paused.
You nodded. “Yeah.”
“That’s a lot to put on a dog.”
“He handles it poorly.”
“I would too.”
You laughed again, and Adam leaned one shoulder against the wall beside you, not quite settling in, but close.
“What kind of production work?” he asked.
“Mostly tiny things. Badly paid things, things where someone says it’ll be great exposure, and then the exposure is mainly to cold sandwiches and men named Brent.”
“Brent is a warning sign.”
“Always.”
“And the cafe?”
“Pays actual money.”
“Useful.”
“Devastatingly.”
He watched you for a second. “That’s the practical answer.”
You blinked. “What?”
“That was the practical answer. Cafe, odd jobs, production stuff, dog with an unreasonable name.”
“That’s my answer.”
“No,” he said, not unkindly. “That’s the answer you give when you don’t want someone to ask the next question.”
The wine glass paused halfway to your mouth. “You’re very confident for someone I met like ten minutes ago.”
“Has to be fifteen minutes at least, I think.”
You shook your head, but you were smiling. “What’s the next question, then?”
“What do you actually want to do?”
You looked away from him for a moment, out into the room. Across the space, people were still laughing, leaning, and speaking in that casual, shorthand way that made the industry feel like a private language. Everyone seemed to know the right way to answer that question. With a project, a company, and a name attached. You, however, had a notes app full of half-scenes, a laptop document with too many versions of the same beginning, and a deep fear that if you said the thing out loud in a room like this, it would sound small.
Adam waited, apparently content to let you work through your internal monologue.
“I want to write and direct films,” you said eventually.
His expression did not do what you expected. You expected a polite response when you told someone a crazy dream. Adam just looked at you properly. “Yeah?” he said.
Something in your chest loosened. “Yeah.”
“What kind?”
You let out a nervous laugh. “That’s a big question.”
“I have time.”
You looked at him, and for the first time all night, he stopped being entirely Adam Scott in your head. He was still famous and still polished in that quiet, unshowy way that made him seem like he belonged in every expensive room you had ever felt nervous entering. And he was older, not just a little older, old enough that some sensible part of you knew you should keep that fact in view. Old enough that, if you thought about it too directly, the difference between where he was in his life and where you were in yours felt almost ridiculous. But he was also standing in front of you, listening, like you were the most interesting thing in the room.
“I don’t know,” you admitted. “Something intimate, I think. Not small, exactly, but focused. People in rooms. People who don’t say what they mean until it’s almost too late. The kind of film where the plot is technically simple, but everything underneath it is a disaster.”
Adam pressed his tongue briefly to his cheek, like he was trying not to laugh. “So, light entertainment.”
“Exactly. Fun for the whole family.”
“What are your favourites?”
“Films?”
“No, sandwiches.”
You gave him a look.
He smiled. “Yes, films.”
You named a few, then immediately regretted the order because it suddenly felt like a test you had set for yourself and failed. Adam did not treat it like one; he kept going. He asked why those ones. What did you like about them? What stayed with you after? Whether you cared more about dialogue or silence, which was such a good question that it annoyed you slightly.
“Dialogue,” you said first. Then you thought about it. “Actually, no. Silence. But only when the dialogue has earned it.”
Adam nodded slowly, like that answer had pleased him. “That’s good.”
You felt yourself flush. “It’s not exactly a pitch deck.”
“Thank God.”
You laughed. “You don’t like pitch decks?”
“Not here, I don’t.”
A man passed behind him, clapped Adam briefly on the shoulder, and said, “Hey, man, good to see you.”
Adam turned just enough to smile and answer, warm and polite. “Good to see you too.”
It lasted three seconds, then his attention returned to you as if the interruption had been folded away. “So,” he said, “are you writing something now?”
You hesitated.
His eyes narrowed slightly, amused. “That’s a yes.”
“It’s a maybe.”
“A maybe is usually a yes.”
You laughed. “It’s early.”
“Okay.”
“And messy.”
“Most things worth finishing are.”
You looked down. “It’s not something I usually talk about at celebrity birthday parties with men I just met by nearly spilling wine on them.”
“I’m honoured.”
“You shouldn’t be; it might be terrible.”
“It might be,” he said.
You looked up, startled.
Adam shrugged. “Or it might not be, but terrible is allowed at the beginning.”
You had no idea how to continue that, so naturally you said the least elegant thing available. “I have to be up at six.”
Adam’s smile deepened. “So you mentioned.”
“Some of us have to make coffee for people in the morning.”
“And yet,” he said, voice lower now, “you’re still standing here with me.”
Then, before either of you could say anything more reckless, someone across the room called his name. A small group had gathered near one of the warmer-lit corners of the room, where Paul Rudd stood with one arm around someone’s shoulders, laughing at something you could not hear. He caught Adam’s eye, then yours for half a second, smiling easily.
“Adam, come on,” Paul called as he walked over a little closer. “We’re getting a photo before everyone gets too interesting.” Then, to you, with a little apologetic lift of his hand, “I’m stealing him for one minute.”
You somehow managed to say, “Happy birthday.”
“Thank you,” Paul said, warm and casual. His eyes moved over your face for half a second, polite and searching in that way people did when they were trying to work out whether they were supposed to know you.
“Don’t worry,” you said quickly. “You don’t know me. I’m a plus-one.”
Paul laughed, easy and bright. “Well, thanks for coming. Excellent use of a plus-one situation, by the way.”
Adam’s expression shifted for half a second. Just a flicker of reluctance, small and private, before the polite version of him returned. He looked back at you. “I should…”
“Yeah,” you said quickly, before he had to finish it. “Of course.”
He did not move right away. “I’ll be back,” he said.
You smiled at him. “Sure.”
His eyes held yours for one more beat, then he turned and crossed the room.
You watched him go before you could stop yourself. He moved easily through the crowd, accepting a hand on his shoulder, leaning into the group near Paul, smiling when someone said something to him. The room took him back immediately, folding him into itself as if he had always belonged there. Which, of course, he had. You looked down at your glass and then over at him again. He was laughing now, one hand tucked into his pocket, standing beside Paul Rudd and Jon Hamm. “Nope,” you whispered to yourself. You were not waiting in a corner to see if Adam Scott came back. You were not going to hover with warm wine and sore feet while your date remembered you only when he needed someone to split the ride home. You had a shift in the morning, a life outside this room, and enough self-respect not to stand around hoping to be chosen twice in one night. So you set your glass on the nearest table, and you did not look for your date. You slipped through the edge of the room, past conversations about release windows and someone’s new pilot and a man explaining animatedly why theatrical was ‘coming back’, as if he had personally been keeping it in a drawer.
At the door, the woman in black smiled at you. “Leaving already?”
“Early morning,” you said.
Outside, the night air hit your face, cooler than the room, sharp enough to make you feel awake again. The valet stand glowed beneath soft lights. Cars pulled up and disappeared. Somewhere behind the greenery, music and laughter continued without you. You stood near the curb and opened the group chat. For a second, you just stared at the keyboard.
Then you typed:
I need everyone to be normal when I tell you this, but I think I just spent half the night talking to Adam Scott.
You sent it before you could overthink it. Then immediately:
Also my date abandoned me for someone with cheekbones
The replies began before your Uber had even arrived.
ADAM SCOTT?
WHAT DO YOU MEAN HALF THE NIGHT
Did Paul Rudd smell nice
You laughed under your breath, tired and disbelieving and still feeling, absurdly, the ghost of Adam’s thumb brushing your hand. Your Uber pulled up to the curb. Before you got in, you glanced back once toward the warm-lit building. Just once.
By seven the next morning, you were wearing an apron, your feet hurt, and the entire previous night felt like something your brain had made up after too much wine and not enough tiny food.
Unfortunately, your coworkers were not letting you forget it. “Wait,” your coworker said for the third time, leaning against the counter while you tried to refill the takeaway cup lids. “Adam Scott Adam Scott?”
“No,” you said. “The other one.”
“There’s another one?”
“The golfer.”
She stared at you. You avoided eye contact and stacked the lids too aggressively.
The cafe was already busy, all morning light and steam and milk and people in sunglasses ordering like their emails depended on it. Burbank at seven a.m. had a very particular energy: tired creatives, assistant types, dog walkers, and men who said ‘just a black coffee’ as if it were a moral statement. You had slept maybe four hours. Your makeup from the night before had somehow survived just enough to betray you. Your phone had been vibrating half the night with messages from the group chat, ranging from reasonable questions to several demands that you ‘go back immediately’ as if celebrity birthday parties had lost property counters for missed romantic opportunities.
You had told your coworkers one thing, one small thing. This had been a mistake.
“So he was flirting with you,” your other coworker said from the espresso machine.
“He was not flirting with me.”
“You said he touched your hand.”
“He shook my hand.”
“With thumb?”
You looked up. “That is not a category.”
“It is now.”
You turned back to the register. “He was nice.”
“Nice enough?”
You pointed at her. “Do not.”
She grinned. “Funny?”
“Yes.”
“Hot?”
“I’m not answering that.”
“That’s an answer.”
“It was Adam Scott,” your first coworker said, like this explained both everything and nothing.
You busied yourself wiping down a patch of counter that was already clean. “He was very normal.”
“Famous men are never normal.”
“He asked about my script.”
Both of them went quiet.
You looked between them. “What?”
Your coworker at the machine softened. “That’s actually so sweet.”
“It was probably just party conversation.”
“Did he look over your shoulder while you talked?”
“No.”
“Did he do the polite nod thing?”
“No.”
“Did he ask follow-up questions?”
You hesitated, and both of them made a sound.
“No,” you said immediately. “Do not make the sound.”
“You said he asked follow-up questions.”
“He did.”
“And looked at your mouth?”
“Once.”
“Twice,” your other coworker corrected, because apparently she had memorised your own story better than you had. “You said twice.”
“I was tired when I told you that.”
“You were wide awake and pacing near the oat milk.”
You groaned and leaned both hands on the counter. “He was probably just being charming. Famous people are probably professionally charming.”
“Did your date come back?”
You snorted. “No.”
“Trash.”
“Medium-good trash.”
“Still trash.”
The morning rush saved you from further interrogation. For two hours, there was only work. Orders called out, milk stretched, receipts printed. Someone wanted their cappuccino with no chocolate powder or froth, which made no sense, but did successfully make you lose the will to live for nine seconds. You moved on autopilot, grateful for the rhythm of it: cup, lid, name, smile, next. By mid-morning, the rush thinned. The cafe settled into its quieter shape. A few people stayed with laptops. One regular sat by the window with a paperback he never seemed to finish. Your coworkers finally stopped staring at you like you were a developing news story.
You were restocking cups near the register when the door opened. The bell gave its usual cheerful little sound. You did not look up. “Hi,” you said, reaching for another sleeve of lids. “What can I get started for you?”
A pause. Then a familiar voice, dry and warm and completely impossible. “You’re a bit of a heartbreaker, leaving without goodbye.”
Everything in you stopped. Slowly, you looked up. Adam Scott was standing on the other side of the counter. For one long second, you forgot where you were. Forgot the cups in your hand. Forgot the apron. Forgot the fact that your coworker was very audibly inhaling behind you. He looked different in daylight. Still like himself, annoyingly like himself. But softer around the edges than he had been the night before. Sunglasses pushed up into his hair, wearing a hoodie and jeans, hands in his pockets, mouth curved like he already knew exactly what he had done to your ability to function.
You stared at him, and he waited, looking entirely too pleased.
“Hi,” you said finally.
His smile deepened. “Hi.”
“You’re here.”
“I am.”
“In the cafe.”
“That’s usually how ordering coffee works.”
You blinked once. Twice. Your brain came back online in small, unhelpful pieces. “How did you find this place?”
“You told me it was the pink one near Whole Foods.” He glanced around the room, then back to you. “I’m very good at context clues.”
“That’s mildly concerning.”
“Only mildly?”
“I’m still processing.”
“Take your time.”
Behind you, something clattered. You did not turn around because if you looked at your coworkers right now, you would never recover.
Adam stepped a little closer to the counter. “So, do you actually make good coffee, or was that just something you said to impress a stranger?”
“You’re still a stranger.”
“We covered this.”
“And I don’t think I was trying to impress you.”
“No?”
“No.”
His eyes flicked over your face, amused. “That’s upsetting. I was trying to impress you.”
You reached for the register because work was the only structure available to you. “What can I get you?”
He looked up at the menu board as if he were giving it real consideration. Then his gaze came back to you. “Double shot almond latte.”
You nodded, trying to look normal. “Double shot almond latte.”
“Please.”
“Name?”
Adam’s eyebrows lifted, and you stared back at him.
Then his mouth curved. “Adam.”
You typed it into the register, very carefully, because your hands had betrayed you enough for one twenty-four-hour period.
He reached for his wallet.
You shook your head. “This one’s on me.”
His hand paused. “Is it?”
“As a thank you.”
“For what?”
You looked up at him. “Keeping me company last night.”
For a second, something shifted in his expression. The flirtation stayed, but softened around the edges. Then he smirked. “Is that what I was doing?”
“Weren’t you?”
“I thought I was being charming.”
“You were definitely attempting something.”
“That hurts,” he said. “I felt very successful.”
Despite yourself, you laughed, and behind you, your coworker made a strangled sound that she very poorly disguised as a cough. You turned away before your face could do anything worse, reaching for the milk. Your coworker coughed again, and you shot her a look, turning back around before you could accidentally scream.
Adam, unfortunately, looked delighted. “Everything okay back there?” he asked.
“Fine,” you said. You started steaming the milk, mostly so the noise could cover whatever was happening inside your chest. It did not help as much as you hoped. You were painfully aware of him on the other side of the counter, standing there like he had every right to be in the middle of your morning. You poured the latte carefully. A little heart formed in the foam by accident, which felt both humiliating and actionable. You stared at it, then dragged a spoon through it, and slid the cup across the counter.
Adam looked down at the ruined shape in the foam, then back at you. “Did you just destroy latte art before giving it to me?”
“No.”
“You did.”
“It wasn’t any good.”
He gave you a look. “Sure.”
You wiped the counter even though there was nothing on it. “There you go. Double-shot almond latte.”
“Thank you.” He took it, placing a lid on it, but he did not leave. Instead, he held the cup in both hands and looked suddenly, strangely, less certain. Not unsure exactly, or shy. Adam Scott did not strike you as a man who had made it this far in life by being shy. But something softened around his confidence. He glanced down at the cup, then back at you, and for the first time since he had walked in, he seemed like he was choosing his next words carefully. “There was actually something I wanted to ask you,” he said.
Your stomach dropped. Maybe he was going to say you should send him your script when it was ready. Maybe he knew someone who knew someone. Maybe he was being kind because he had met an ambitious young woman at a party and wanted to offer a vague networking lifeline. “Oh,” you said. “Okay.”
Adam looked at you for one more second. Then he said, “I was wondering if you would like to have dinner with me?”
You froze, completely. Not in a subtle way. You stopped with one hand still resting on the counter and your mouth slightly open, which was probably not the alluring, mysterious response other women managed when asked out by famous actors in cafes.
Adam waited.
Your brain generated several possible responses and rejected them all. Finally, you said, “Why?”
Behind you, something clattered again.
Adam laughed. “Why?”
“Yes.”
“You’re asking why I want to take you to dinner?”
“I’m trying to establish what is happening.”
“It’s a good question.” His eyes stayed on yours. “Because you’re stunning and smart, and I’d like to know more about you.”
Your mouth went dry, and you swallowed. “Like a date?”
Adam’s expression shifted into something warmer, more openly amused. “Yes,” he said. “It’s usually called a date when I take you to dinner and kiss you afterwards.”
Your entire body forgot how to stand; thankfully, your mouth recovered first. “You have high expectations if you think I want to kiss you.”
Adam shrugged, completely unbothered. “Guess we’ll see.”
You stared at him.
He took a sip of his coffee and lowered the cup. “It’s good.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“I’m not. I’m giving you time to panic.”
“I’m not panicking.”
“You asked why.”
“That was not panic. That was an investigation.”
“Uh-huh.”
You crossed your arms. “You ask women out like this often?”
“At cafes?”
“In general.”
“No,” he said, and the simplicity of it caught you more than if he had made a joke.
Your heart did something deeply inconvenient. “Oh.”
He held your gaze for a second, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Can I have your number?”
“You’re very sure I’m saying yes.”
“No,” he said. “I’m hopeful. There’s a difference.”
You took the phone from him because, apparently, your hand had made the decision before the rest of you could object. His home screen was simple. Boring, almost. You were not sure what you expected. Some glamorous celebrity thing, maybe. Instead, it was just a phone. “You’re watching me type my number like you think I’m going to run,” you said.
“You left once already.”
“I had work.”
“I know.” His mouth curved. “I’m trying not to take it personally.”
“You came to my workplace.”
“You told me where it was.”
“I’m not sure that was an invitation.”
He smiled. “It’s worked out well for me so far.”
You handed the phone back. Your fingers brushed his when he took it, the smallest contact, but it echoed the handshake from the night before so sharply that you felt it straight through your arm.
Adam looked at the screen, then back at you. “I’ll text you the details,” he said, starting to type something on his phone while you continued speaking.
“You haven’t asked when I’m free.”
“When are you free?”
You tried not to smile. “Um, I think tomorrow night is my only free night this week.”
“Good. I was going to suggest tomorrow night.”
“You’re very confident.”
“I’m very pleased with the outcome.”
You laughed, and he looked at you like he liked the sound enough to briefly forget he was supposed to leave.
Then your phone buzzed behind the counter. You glanced down.
Unknown Number: It’s Adam, just in case you forgot.
You looked up at him as he slipped his own phone back into his pocket, expression entirely innocent. “You texted me from three feet away.”
“I wanted to make sure the number worked.”
“Very practical.”
“I contain multitudes.”
You shook your head, but you were smiling too much now, and there was nothing to be done about it.
Adam lifted the coffee slightly. “Thank you for this.”
“You’re welcome.”
He took another sip, considering it, then nodded. “Worth the trip.”
You narrowed your eyes. “For the coffee?”
Adam looked at you over the lid of the cup. “Something like that.”
Then he stepped back from the counter. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Maybe.”
“Definitely.”
“Confident,” you said again.
“Hopeful,” he corrected.
And then he left, pushing through the cafe door with his coffee in hand, sunglasses sliding back down over his eyes as he stepped into the bright Burbank morning. The door swung shut behind him.
For half a second, there was silence. Then both of your coworkers exploded. “Oh, my God.”
You stood behind the counter, staring at the door like he might walk back in just to make the situation worse.
Your phone buzzed again.
Adam Scott: Also, for the record, I didn’t come for the coffee.
A second message appeared almost immediately after.
Adam Scott: Enjoy the rest of your shift 😉
You pressed your lips together, trying and failing not to smile.
Your coworker leaned over your shoulder. “Tell me he did not just text you.”
You turned your phone face down against the counter. “He might have.”
“Adam Scott Adam Scott?”
You picked up a cloth and started wiping the counter again, even though it was already clean. “No,” you said, breathless and grinning despite yourself. “The golfer.”