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that,” I said. “It builds up and poisons you. Douchebags can’t be allowed to make you feel ashamed of who you are.”
    That pitying smirk of hers again. “Thank you, Mr. Public Service Announcement. But you really don’t get it at all.”
    “Get what?”
    Connie eased open the screen door, tested the porch with the toe of his sneaker, then pulled it back inside. He quietly counted off to ten, one of his stress management techniques.
    “Hate to rush order, Con,” I said, “but we’re already fifteen minutes late.”
    “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,” he said.
    “Sorry to disappoint, but we’re doing this. You owe me.”
    Paige gave me the stink-eye for that remark, but it was true.
    Why? Let’s face it, Connie was my hundred-pound ball-and-chain. Half my day revolved around accommodating his issues. Take for instance the reason I couldn’t have Dad drive us to the diner: Connie was deathly afraid of moving vehicles. He hadn’t been inside one in more than a year.
    “Don’t blame me if my bad acting ruins the shoot,” Connie said. When he finally came out, he was still lugging his overstuffed backpack. I didn’t have time to argue about how much that extra weight would slow us down.
    “You’ll be spectacular,” I assured him.
    “I need to real quick make sure the fire alarm is working. If I don’t check it now—”
    “We gotta go ,” I pleaded. “Savannah will split if something better comes along.”
    “Class act, she is,” Paige said.
    My groveling didn’t matter because Connie was gone from earshot already, deep inside his house.
    “Crap,” I said.
    “He clearly doesn’t want to do this,” Paige advised.
    “Yes he does.”
    “ Um , no he doesn’t.”
    “I know him better than you. Better than he knows himself, probably.”
    “Hmmm…” she said.
    “What’s hmmm ?”
    “Nothing. It’s just you said something a minute ago about not making people feel ashamed of who they are.”
    I let her win the debate because there was no time to lose. A mad dash downtown would’ve been nice, but I settled for a power-walk, the fastest Connie could go, and Paige would go. Ten minutes later we were sweaty and passing fast along the riverside shops toward the Silver Bullet, an aluminum-sided dining car rounded off for aerodynamics. Not that it needed speed. It hadn’t moved in decades.
    Parked at the curb outside the diner was a Phantom Gray Aston Martin Rapide. James Bond’s preferred ride, a price tag close to a quarter million dollars. Only a slick young television star would have the cash-’n-cojones to drive a car like that in a town like this. In fact, I knew from town gossip and Entertainment Tonight exactly whose it was.
    “That’s Bobby’s car,” I said.
    “Bobby who?” Paige asked.
    “Keene-Parker, from Cape Twilight Blues .” He was one of the show’s Big Six Heartthrobs and Hotties. Lately, he was scoring praise from the press because his character came out of the closet in a mid-season shocker. This, after having slept with all the female leads and many female guest stars, but shock value was apparently more important than character continuity on Cape Twilight .
    Paige shrugged, immune to celebrity. “Selling that car could feed an entire African country for generations,” she pointed out.
    My worry was more immediate. I rushed inside the diner, half-a-freaking-hour-late. The booths were mostly empty, but Savannah sat in the back, close to the neon bubbling jukebox. She had a windowed backdrop of the USS North Carolina docked on the far side of the river. Perfect framing.
    Except, just as I feared, someone else was in her booth. Some dude with expertly sculpted hair and that stomachache posture that so many cinematic bad boys liked to affect. Bobby Keene-Parker.
    In a booth. At my diner. With Savannah. My Savannah.
    I took a long breath. It was vital to be chill about big-name actors if I wanted to make movies, right? These guys weren’t untouchable