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not very nice.
    “Come on then,” I said, squeezing Sean’s fingers. “Let’s go in.”
    “Hi,” Sean said to the receptionist, who barely glanced at him over the top of her magazine as we walked up. “Can I see Pat Rivers, please?”
    “By appointment only,” she said gruffly. “And we don’t represent kids any more.”
    “OK,” Sean said, “but I’m not here for an agent. I’m his son – he’s my dad. I’m Sean Rivers.”
    The receptionist dropped her magazine. “Oh my…” She looked from Sean to me, and then back at Sean again. Holding eye contact with Sean as if she were afraid that he might vanish if she blinked, she picked up the phone and pressed a button.
    “I know you didn’t want to be interrupted, Pat, but your son Sean is in reception.”
    She put the phone down and smiled at us, her lips stretched wide across at least twice the amount of teeth that an average person has.
    “He says go right up,” she said. “Second floor, turn right.”
    “Son!” Sean let go of my hand the instant he saw his dad, probably mostly because Mr Rivers enveloped him in a huge hug. He held Sean pinned to him for quite a long time. When he let go, Sean was red in the face.
    “I knew you’d come back to me. I knew that soon you’d realise all that business, it was nothing really. So I got a little obsessed, I know that now. I worked you too hard. I tried to get you to your full potential before you were ready. But I knew that once you’d had some time to think you’d see that you need me.”
    Sean blinked. “Hi, Dad,” he said.
    “Well, let’s not stay here,” Pat Rivers exclaimed. “There’s a place down the street that does the best ice-cream milkshakes in California. Let’s go celebrate!”
    He looked at me as if he’d only just realised I was there.
    “Ruby Parker,” he said, his smile fading just a little bit. “Can I buy you a milkshake too?”
    “Yes please,” I said, even though I just wanted to jump back in the cab and go home.
    “Well, come on then, kids,” Pat Rivers said.
    We got in the cab that was waiting for us and drove around the corner to the diner. Sean’s dad didn’t stop talking the whole way. Sean still hadn’t got a word in edgeways by the time we arrived.
    “So how is this going to work?” Pat said as we all satdown. “How do you want to relaunch yourself? To be honest, son, there are so many things that you could do – the world is your oyster. I must get ten calls a week asking me if you would consider a project. All you have to do is say what you want and you will get it, no questions asked.”
    “Actually, Dad,” Sean took a sip of his chocolate milkshake, “I didn’t really come over because of work. I made out that I was coming over to screen-test for Spotlight! …”
    “I heard that!” Mr Rivers exclaimed. “But I knew it couldn’t be true because if you were ready to start working again you’d have come to me first. Still, you’re here now and that’s what counts.”
    “The thing is,” Sean went on, slowly stirring his straw through the thick shake, “I’m not ready to start working again. This year has been great. Getting to know Mom again, acting for fun and going to the Academy has been a blast. I get to hang out with friends, and I go to the movies without having to walk down a red carpet. People go past me in the street and they couldn’t care less about who I am. I’m not ready to give that up, not yet.”
    “You know,” Mr Rivers said. “This Spotlight! movie is going to be huge. That would be the perfect way for you to come back.”
    My jaw dropped. He was sitting across the table from Sean, staring at him and apparently listening to everything his son said, and yet he couldn’t have heard a single word.
    “Dad,” Sean paused, trying to find the words he wanted to say. “The reason that I came to Hollywood was to see you, not to get work, but because…because I miss you. I don’t want a part in a movie or anything