PoV: RORY

At nine on the dot, we all convene in front of the school with Jake, who is excellently disguised. On the car ride over we decided it would be best if I took care of the introductions.

"Hey," Jake says cheerily as we all approach. His eyes land on everyone in the group in turn. "Who have we got here?"

"Jake, meet Amanda, Leo, Annabelle, and Sari." I point to each of them as I say their name. While Leo and Amanda don't seem to be too affected, Annabelle and Sari look like they're about to explode from happiness. When I invited them I made them promise to be cool, but now I'm worried they might not make it through the day.

"Nice to meet you all. Thanks for showing me around. I just want today to be as normal as possible, believe me," Jake assures us. "Don't get too many normal days living in Hollywood."

"We want to hear all about it," Annabelle says, flashing him a charming smile.

"And I want you to tell me everything about Willow Falls," Jake replies.

Leo shrugs. "I mean, there's not much to tell." But the glimmer in his eyes says all the things he can't about our sleepy little town. And all the forces at work in it.

Amanda and I invited David Goldberg, a.k.a. Hamburglar, to join us today, so Leo wouldn't be Jake's only male companion, but he couldn't make it. I'm not close with Hamburglar, but we have math together so I do know that he struggles with slope formula (if that counts for anything). Leo and Amanda know him better. They invited him to their next birthday party at Apple Grove. Which I'm also going to be at, since I can now attend mixed-gender parties!

"I love it here," Jake says enthusiastically, shoving his hands in his front pockets. It's such a boyish thing to do that I can't help but smile. "It's so quiet. Something most people don't know about me: I enjoy quietness very much." He looks at me for confirmation. "Is quietness a word?"

"I think so," I say. Amanda nods too.

"So we were thinking," Annabelle jumps in, "that we'd start at the Willow Falls diner. You haven't had breakfast yet, right?"

"Just a power bar, in case there wasn't going to be any food."

"Well good, because the chocolate-chip pancakes here are amazing," Leo assures him, nodding.

"Awesome! Are we going to walk?" Jake asks, his gaze darting down the street looking for a car.

"Yep. The diner's less than a mile from the school. Come on," I say encouragingly to Jake, and the six of us walk down the street in a clump, trying not to talk over each other. Annabelle and Sari have a million questions for Jake about being an actor and what other movie stars does he know and does he live in a huge mansion eating golden-dipped strawberries like they do in the movies? Jake's happy to answer their questions (he loves acting more than anything, he and Taylor Lautner have been to a baseball game together, and no; he lives with his parents in a standard LA neighborhood).

"Do your parents come with you when you film away from home?" I ask.

"Yeah, they come. My mom actually dropped me off today. She's over the moon that I'm hanging out with other kids my age."

"Not too many other kids on set?" Amanda asks. Jake shrugs.

"I mean, yes, but I'm always so busy we barely get to talk. They're cool, but we've never done anything like this," he says, gesturing to our little cohort.

A thought occurs to me then: Jake's lonely. It's so obvious I almost missed it completely.

Everyone contributes a little more to the conversation, granting Jake their limited knowledge of the town, and every now and then he glances my way and smiles. I return it, hoping it's a good thing he's smiling in the first place.

After Jake nonchalantly slips Annie an autograph for her daughter, who's a fan, we gather around the one circular table in the corner of the diner that will fit us all. Jake and Leo are comparing strategies in some video game they both play that none of us know. On top of having a dog, stressing over exams in his on-set school, and hating cabbage, liking video games is yet another normal-person thing about Jake. The more things I add to the list, the more real he becomes. The more normal this all feels.

Somehow Jake and I ended up on opposite sides of the booth, but he still throws me those occasional glances like he wants to make sure I'm okay, or he's doing everything right, and all I can do is smile and nod encouragingly because I genuinely don't know what he wants from me. People usually aren't that hard to read, at least for me, but Jake appears to be an exception. I don't know what to make of that. I don't know a lot of things, and it's starting to bother me.

Not surprisingly, Jake loves the pancakes and Annie tells him the secret's in the chocolate chips. "They're semi-sweet," she says with a wink.

Once we finish at the diner, we head over to the community center and introduce Jake to a few of the senior regulars. None of them know who he is, which he's thrilled about. We all play a round of cards with Bucky Whitehead and his friends, and they show Jake how to stack the deck, which he gets a kick out of.

From there we walk all through downtown Willow Falls, past the music shop where Amanda and Leo stop in to say hi to the Larrys, who let Jake play one of the display guitars. But Jake doesn't know how to play the guitar so he ends up strumming a few painfully out-of-tune chords and causing us all to laugh. He laughs with us, though, so it's okay.

When we pass the historical society, Annabelle suggests we go in but Leo and Amanda vehemently refuse. It ends up being closed anyway. "Weird," I say. "I thought they only closed on Fridays."

"Normally they do…" Leo says, with a hint of uncertainty in his voice. He and Amanda lean their heads together and start murmuring amongst themselves. I try to ignore it and strike up a conversation with Jake instead while Annabelle and Sari duck into the nearest store to use the bathroom.

"So what do you think of my friends? Be honest."

Jake grins. "They're great. They're doing a pretty good job of treating me normally, actually. Better than I expected. Did you bribe them or something?" he asks, and I laugh.

"No, but I did tell them you wouldn't hang out with them again if they scared you off today," I hedge.

"Oh, I see," Jake says understandingly. "Thank you, by the way. For putting this together, and introducing me to your friends. It really means a lot."

"Don't mention it. Thank you for letting us see the real you. I think it makes everyone calmer to know that you're just like us," I say.

"Tell me about it. I wish everyone was like you guys," he says. "That's part of the reason I don't want to act in movies anymore."

My eyes widen, even though I heard him having this conversation with Madison a few days ago; I have to pretend like this is new information. "You want to stop acting?"

"In movies. I love acting, but all I am in Hollywood is a typecast. Someone who's exploited to a certain demographic who'll eat it up. They won't let me out of the box where they know I'm golden, where they know I'll always benefit them no matter what. It feels like a prison, Rory. And I want out."

I take a second to let his words sink in. "Wow. That's terrible. Sorry you have to go through that," I say sincerely. "Anything I can to do help?" After asking that, I immediately feel stupid. It's not like I can march over to Hollywood and plead to showbiz on Jake's behalf.

"There is something, actually," Jake starts, and I raise my eyebrows in surprise. "Just keep doing what you've done here today. I won't ever lie to you about who I am, since not too many people really know, and I don't want to mess this up. To be honest, I probably couldn't lie to you. You'd know."

"I would?"

"You would. And I like that."

We stand there in comfortable silence, looking at each other through new eyes, and if I was doubting Jake's normalcy before, I never will again.