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Nolan was shown into Lisa Virgil’s house.
The interior had a sharp, postmodern edge that would still have looked expensive thirty years later. The carpet sank softly under his shoes. The room itself was less orderly than the architecture. Clothes had been tossed over one sofa, and a few glossy magazines lay open on the floor.
"I don’t like hiring too much help," Lisa said as she walked ahead of him. "People get curious. Make yourself comfortable. I need to wash my face."
She disappeared down the hall.
Nolan sat on the sofa and nearly sank into it. High-end furniture, no question.
The scattered clothes beside him were harder to ignore: a skirt, a tiny bikini, a sheer black bodysuit made from some synthetic fabric. He lifted the edge of one piece with two fingers, then let it fall back into the pile.
Peter Rice’s mother clearly had a more adventurous private life than her public image suggested.
His shoe nudged something under the sofa. He looked down and saw a man’s tie, along with several dusty men’s socks. The style belonged to a man old enough to have opinions about bond yields.
"What are you looking at, rookie?"
Lisa’s voice drifted back into the room.
Nolan straightened.
She returned with the charcoal mask washed away. Her face was clean now, the authority in her eyes even clearer without it. She sat across from him, crossed one leg over the other, and let the point of a heeled house slipper hang from her foot. Her toenails were painted a hard, glossy red.
She made no move to collect the clothes.
Nor did she look embarrassed.
"Snooping through other people’s things is a bad habit," she said, smiling. "Weren’t you here to interview me?"
"Let’s start."
Nolan took the interview outline from his pocket.
He began with basic questions about Lisa Virgil. She was a Hollywood agent, a senior partner at ICM, and represented the careers and deals of several recognizable stars. Her work involved scripts, packaging, talent, negotiations, and the quiet machinery behind public fame.
"So you’re a reporter too?" Lisa asked. "Number 88, I remember you. You made quite an impression."
She toyed with the end of one black curl. She had the ease of a woman who knew exactly how much attention she could command without raising her voice.
"I remember you too," Nolan said. "At the player exit. You were wearing an evening dress."
"Thank you."
She rested her chin on one hand.
"If you’d like, I could put it on again."
"No need," Nolan said with a helpless laugh.
The interview had begun to slip out of its original shape.
His first plan had been simple: use the family-support interview to get close to Rice’s mother, arrange for Rice to see them together at the right moment, let Rice’s temper do the rest. If the idiot violated school rules and made a scene, he would be forced out, and Nolan would keep the starting job. A little sympathy from Coach Thomas, a little business in the stands, and the money would start moving.
Now another option had appeared.
A very expensive door into Hollywood.
If he handled Lisa correctly, she could be worth far more than any campus side hustle. But it would not be stable, and football still had to remain his foundation. He needed a way forward and a way out.
The question was how to play the moment in front of him.
Nolan had turned eighteen before the fall term began. That did not make the life around him simpler, but it did make the choices in front of him his own.
Lisa shifted the conversation toward the ordinary shape of his days. Classes. Football. How long he had been playing. What kind of person he had been before the sudden fame.
Once she had enough ordinary answers to feel comfortable, her smile sharpened.
"Have you ever been in love?"
Nolan shook his head, making his voice a little uncertain. "No."
The answer came with lowered eyes, a faint flush, and hands folded between his knees. Every detail said polite, restrained, and unused to rooms like this.
Living off someone else’s affection was also a skill. You had to understand what the other person wanted to believe.
A woman like Lisa did not lack money, access, or experience. Hollywood had offered her every polished, rotten thing on the menu. If she had any interest in Nolan, it was because he offered a contrast to the industry’s usual rot: disciplined, hungry, bruised by family collapse, and still capable of looking sincere when he chose to.
The best hunters often stepped into the clearing looking like prey.
Sure enough, Lisa’s interest deepened.
"Not even one?"
"A few crushes, maybe," Nolan said, sounding embarrassed. "But only in my head. My family was strict."
The answer was vague enough to be harmless and disarming enough to be useful.
Lisa did not doubt him.
She had lived through too many temporary arrangements, too many professional smiles, too much charm bought by the hour. Hollywood was bright on the outside and sour underneath. She knew that. She did not pretend otherwise.
Some part of her still missed the idea of something clean.
Even if she could not return to that kind of life, she could still imagine something close to it.
"Have you ever..." She tilted her head, curious. "No. Never mind."
Nolan looked away, letting discomfort answer for him.
Lisa laughed softly.
"Do you like me?"
"I don’t know."
"You don’t know, or you’re too shy to say?"
"I’m afraid you’ll get angry if I say it."
He lowered his head as if the admission cost him something.
"I won’t." Lisa’s voice softened. "Men should be honest."
Nolan gave the smallest possible sound of agreement.
"Good," she said. "Because I like you too."
Her smile warmed.
"I’m starving. I woke up half an hour before you arrived. I’ll have the restaurant send over dinner, and we’ll eat together. How does that sound?"
She picked up the cordless phone on the side table and dialed.
The restaurant sent over Italian food almost immediately. A driver delivered the order, and a waiter came with it to set the table, serve the dishes, and remove every trace afterward. It was the kind of service only Beverly Hills households used without thinking: expensive food, expensive delivery, and a service charge that would have made most families wince.
In the dining room, Nolan and Lisa sat across from each other at a table dressed with a white cloth, candles, fragrance, and rose petals. Nothing had been left casual.
Lisa lifted a glass of wine.
"Cheers. Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a toast."
Nolan raised his water glass.
"Don’t forget," he said, "I’m Irish. We can toast without breaking the law."
Lisa laughed.
Then Nolan began asking about Peter Rice.
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