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lively, and Joel and I both interacted with the people around us, forgetting about and/or ignoring the exchange we'd had at the beginning of dinner.
    During the dessert, Joel asked me if I'd be willing to ride with him by the house he just bought. He said the movers weren’t scheduled until next week, but he'd gotten the keys today, and was anxious to go take a look at the place. He promised to give me a ride back to the restaurant once we finished seeing the house, so I rode with him.
    He was driving a classic car, which didn't surprise me at all. It was in pristine condition with a low-rumbling engine that made me excited to take a ride. Of course, the show-quality car was our main topic of conversation during the first part of the trip to his new place. He told me it was a '69 Chevy Camaro Super Sport. Knowing he could do anything he put his mind to, I asked him if he'd been the one to restore the car. He said he liked the idea of working on a car, but didn't have enough time, so he bought this one in its current condition. I knew it wasn't his only vehicle because the one he was driving when I bummed a ride home from Vegas was an SUV.
    "How many cars do you have?" I asked. I could tell we were nearing his house, because we were on a dead end street and he was driving slowly. The neighborhood was gorgeous. 
    "Three. You rode in the Audi on our way home from Vegas, and I have a truck too."
    "Some collection," I said, "hope you have a three car garage."
    Joel laughed.
    "The guy who built the place was a car collector. I have room to park at least ten cars."
    "What kind of house did you buy, Joel?" I knew he was rich, but how much room did a single guy need? As the question came from my mouth, we pulled up to a huge iron gate. The sides of the fence were covered in a gorgeous flowering vine. Joel typed a code into the keypad and the gate slowly began to swing open. "You have to pass security to go up your driveway? What are you a movie star?"
    Lately I'd been enjoying a small measure of fame as the new star of Paradise Island, but I never even considered the possibility of needing a gated house. In fact, I was still living in the small apartment I lived in before I ever got the job. 
    "God knows I don't need all this stuff, but, yeah, I did buy it from a movie star."
    "Are you serious? Who?"
    "Bruce Willis."
    "Get. Out!" I said, pushing at his shoulder.
    "You're not supposed to be impressed by that, remember? You're a big star now too."
    "I am not . Not like Bruce Willis." I wasn't even close to Bruce Willis status. I got a good job doing something I loved, but it was just a day job compared to huge movie stars like him.
    Actually, being sort of famous came with its own perks. I didn't have issues with the paparazzi chasing me all over the place. In fact, Joel and his wonder goggles were probably more likely to be hounded by the camera toters than I was.
    Joel's house looked huge. He said it was because there wasn't a single piece of furniture in it, but I laughed and told him it'd still be the same size once the furniture got there. Our footsteps echoed on the tile floor as we walked through the main living room and into the kitchen. Even without furnishings, the place was amazing. It was a perfect mixture of Spanish and modern. It was a state of the art, commercial grade kitchen just like something you'd see in a restaurant, only cozier.
    We toured through the whole place, seeing one empty room after another. He told me a designer was taking care of all of the rooms except for the living room and his bedroom. He said he'd be doing those two rooms by himself with a little help from Rachel, who doesn't know the first thing about interior design.
    "I just don't want to feel like my house came straight out of a magazine. I wanted it to reflect me a little bit, you know? I may end up hating it and hiring a professional to do it in the long run, but I wanted to give it a shot."
    "No, I totally know what you're saying. I have a