Page 131 of Even Ground

“I’m so sorry, dude.” I extend my hand. “You know how women are at getting ready to go out.”

Pania slaps my arm.

“Okay. So it was me.” I laugh.

Alex shakes my hand and grins. “It’s fine. I just got here myself.”

“Have you ordered a drink?”

I pull out Pania’s chair for her, and then take a seat.

Alex shakes his head. “Not yet. I thought I’d better wait.”

“I’ll order a bottle of wine if you two are happy with that. I hear it’s good in these parts.”

Pania scans the menu. “This one looks nice.”

I wink at her. “You order what you want, sweetheart. I’m sure we’ll like it.”

She smiles and turns to get the waiter’s attention.

“Good day?” I ask Alex.”

“Long day. I was in make-up at three this morning, but we wanted to shoot the dawn, and we did so it was worth it.”

“Great.”

It only takes a moment for us to have a glass of red wine in front of us, and I hold mine up. “To Alex. Congratulations on joining our team.”

“To Alex,” Pania says.

We all take a sip before the waiter arrives to take our food order. After we’ve ordered, we sip our drinks and silence falls over the table for a while.

“So, Pania, do you live in New Zealand?” Alex asks.

She nods. “I study fashion design in Auckland. But I come from Whakatane.”

I take a sip of my wine and reach for her hand under the table. She grips it tight before letting it go.

“Wow. So you two are long distance?”

“For now,” I say. “I’m hoping once she’s finished her studies, she’ll move to LA with me.”

Pania’s eyebrows arch. I’ve never met anyone with such expressive eyebrows, but it means I usually can tell what she’s thinking. And right now it’ll be “What the fuck? He hasn’t said that to me.”

“Great. I hope it all works out for you.” He pauses. “I met someone a couple of weeks ago here, but it’s still early days.”

“Someone on set?”

He shakes his head. “No. There’s a bit of a story behind it, but I’m keeping that one to myself until I work out what direction things are going in.”

I glance at Pania. “I get that. We’re keeping our relationship low key right now.”

Pania rolls her eyes. “Kind of. As low key as it gets while walking around publicly together holding hands.”

I hold up my palms. “I can’t help myself.”

Alex laughs. “You two sound like an old married couple.”