"Aw, put a lid on it." To my surprise, MAX just smiled and continued walking, holding the door for me as we exited into the parking lot. "So where you wanna go?" he asked politely, opening the passenger side door for me. "Oh, what service!" I joked, stepping in. He smiled and got in the driver's side. "Well, I don't really care where we go." "Sure ya do," he prodded, and put the key in the ignition. "We'll go wherevah you want." 'Am I dreaming this?' I wondered as I pondered the options. "Is Roy Rogers okay?" "Definitely! That's actually my favorite." "Really? Mine too!" 'Phew, thank God he likes it. Or maybe he's just lying. Maybe it's not his favorite...' My nerves were silenced by his voice. "You want me to put some music on, or somethin'?" "Yeah, sure." "It'll all there in the glove compartment. Or we could listen to the radio - whatever you prefer." "Ooh...let's see whatcha got in here." I opened the glove compartment to have audio casettes spill into my lap. "Wow, you sure got a lot in here." He looked over. "Well, yeah, but it's not a very wide selection...I dunno if ya gonna like it -" I started rummaging through the tapes. Frank Sinatra. Frank Sinatra. Classic oldies. Frank Sinatra. Nat King Cole. Frank Sinatra. I sighed internally. 'His taste in music is wonderful, too. How'm I ever gonna get over this guy?' "Oh, man - this is great! MAX, I love Frank." I picked up one of the Frank tapes and put it in the deck. "Do ya really?" He looked at me, pleasantly surprised. "That's rad, Katie." I couldn't help but smile when he said my name. His sharp yet raspy voice was one of the things that had first attracted me to him. I started singing quietly along with the music, until MAX stole a glance at me. "Hey, you got a really great voice there, Katie - you should use it fa somethin'." He seemed pleasantly surprised again, and I started to blush. "Thanks, but I really don't. I just love to sing, especially with Frank." I grinned. "No, I'm serious, ya really do have a good one." He paused. "Yeah, I love singin' wit Frank, too," he confessed as we pulled into the Roy Rogers parking lot. I watched him out of the corner of my eye as we walked towards the door, and he seemed nervous, pensive. It was either adorable or disturbing. He held the door for me once again and we got in line. Once we'd ordered our food (he inSISted on paying for mine as well as his), we sat at a small table in the very center of the restaurant. "So, Katie," he started, looking down at his drink, "is this whatchyou always wanted to do? Be an actress?" I nodded, as I had just taken a forkfull of salad. "Yeah, pretty much - but that's not all," I added. "I always wanted to-" I smiled timidly. "Well, it's always been a dream of mine to be on Broadway someday." He looked up, and those eyes, that face saw right through me. There was no way I could get over him if I was going to see that everyday. "No kiddin'," he said, a grin forming on his lips. "That's my dream, too." I looked up, smiling, and met his gaze for a full two seconds. It was almost too good to be true-and then it ended. He coughed and looked down again. His right hand wrapped around the side of our unsteady table. "Y'know, I've been doin' a lot of thinkin'," he began, frowning as if his mind was still hard at work, "thinkin' about the character Vinnie." It was as if it had taken a lot of effort to say that, but there was still more. "An' I don't quite know how ta make what I think he's goin' through come across...I was wonderin' if I could kinda bounce some ideas off you." I gulped. Was this why he had brought me to lunch? Character development?! And here I had thought.....I sighed quietly and prepared to have my heart broken. Forcing a smile, I answered as cheerily as I could. "Of course. Whadda you think Vinnie's going through?" Frowning, and with his arms outstretched on the table supporting his upper body, he licked his lips. "Welp," he began, and licked them again, "before, when he was with Janine, all she did was insult him-dat's not a relationship." I nodded. "-and because he's bein' treated like a loser, he feels like one, too...y'know what'm sayin'?" "Yeah." I played with a napkin. "Okay, so I'm makin' sense heah." He grinned, relieved. "Mm-hm." I couldn't look at him. The next part seemed like it was difficult to say-it was like he was going over it all carefully in his mind before verbalizing it. "...But now that he has Cassie..." he paused and I struggled to lift my eyes. "Now that they're togethah"- he coughed -"he finally sees what a relationship is-what it should be like." I slowly lifted them to see him gazing at me full-on. 'Okay........what is going on......?'