Page 7 of Troublemaker: The Big Picture Edition

“It was downtown and really good and supposedly not that expensive for LA, but I thought it was expensive.”

“Sounds like Sugarfish.”

“Yeah, that was it! People take sushi pretty seriously here, don’t they?”

“It’s LA. We take sushi and ourselves very seriously. You new in town or just visiting?”

She nods. “Just moved here. My friend brought me out to celebrate. We were going to go somewhere else, but then he got a text from a guy he has a crush on, and he promised we’d only be here for half an hour.” She rolls her eyes. “That was an hour ago. I lost him. And he’s not answering his phone.”

“That’s annoying. You want me to help you find him?”

“How would you do that, exactly?”

“I’d follow you around while you look for him and make sure no other guys ask you to shower with them.”

She studies my face for a few seconds, furrowing her brow. “You’re a rather earnest fellow, aren’t you? What do you do, anyway?”

Shit. I don’t want to bring up being a director yet in case she’s an actress. I shrug. “Little of this. Little of that.”

“Oh my God—same.”

“Yeah?” She doesn’t seem offended by my being vague.

“Yeah, it’s so weird. I never meet people in the exact same line of work as me.”

“Guess that makes us competitors.” I give her a very earnest wink. “Bet you’re good at it, though.”

“It’s important to me to be good at everything I do.” She gives me an exaggerated wink, and I don’t know if she’s insinuating blow jobs, but I’m a guy so of course I think she’s insinuating blow jobs.

She grins, looking away from me, gripping the railing, andI like her hands. She’s swaying again, on purpose this time, to the rhythm of the music. And starts absentmindedly singing out loud, until she realizes she’s singing along to a really dirty song called “Go To Town” by Doja Cat. But instead of covering hermouth and giggling as I expect her to, she continues to sing the words, “If you're down, boy, really down, Baby let me watch you go to town,” and then glances over at me before quickly looking back out at the dance floor, andfuck me, who is this person?

“You like this song, huh?”

“Oh yes. It’s one of my top three favorite songs about cunnilingus.”

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone make that word sound so cute.

She smiles, shaking her head, then finally meets my gaze again. “You have to stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

She laughs and says, “Like you’re… Like you…” Her expression turns serious, and I catch her staring at my mouth, her nostrils flaring slightly. I’m aware of how her body has tensed up.

And part of my brainisthinking about what I’d like to do to release that tension for her, but I’m pretty sure I don’t have horndog face right now because I’m having all kinds of thoughts and she’s only naked in half of them.

“Like Iwhat?”

She blinks, shakes her head, and wraps one leg tight around the other, as she looks down at the crowd below us. Guess she’s not going to finish that sentence. Ten o’clock is pretty early in nightclub world, so things haven’t gotten insane here yet. But Emmy seems genuinely surprised by what she sees around her. She’s still shaking her head. “Do all those people really want to be here?” She snaps her head to look at me. “I mean…doyou? Sorry? I don’t mean to assume that youaren’ta shallow party person.” She covers her mouth. “Shit. That’s judge-y. I can’t assume that everyone here is a shallow party person. I’m not usually this judge-y.” I start to answer her, but she says, “That’sa lie. I just lied. I’m totally this judge-y, all the time. I just don’t usually say this stuff out loud… You were saying?”

“I was saying that I just came here to say hi to a few friends. I don’t think anyone has ever lain on their deathbed and said, ‘I just wish I’d spent more time in da club.’”

“This really isn’t your scene, then?”

I want to tell her that taking my kid to Disneyland is my scene when I’m not working or going to screenings, but it’s way too soon to bring that up and far too loud.

She keeps studying my face, waiting for an answer, but this isn’t the time or the place to get serious answers from people. A quick glance around before saying, “Um…I better go dance and pretend to have some fun for a minute or my friend will murder me. Wherever he is.”

“He sounds like a great friend.”