"When I said that we could do something for lunch, I thought that you meant going to a restaurant for sushi or a sandwich or something," I tell Hudson. When we met to go to lunch earlier today, I noticed that he wasn't walking toward the parking lot but toward the roof.

"I'm just full of surprises," He tells me with a small smile as we're standing outside of the door that leads to the roof. "I checked the forecast and there's no rain so we should be all set."

"Score," I mutter as we're going up the stairs. "But you don't have any food and I really am hungry."

"I've got it covered."

"Of course you do."

"Of course I do," He mimics me with a laugh. The rooftop looks unchanged from the other day when I was up here. The chairs are still looking over the short roof with a small plastic table between them. "What do you want for lunch?"

I blink at him as he's sitting down on one of the lawn chairs. I try to hide my confusion but when he's offering me lunch when there's obviously no food up here, it's hard to not be confused. "Um, well I'm up for anything, I guess."

As I'm sitting down on the other lawn chair, he offers me an amused grin, sensing my confusion at his question. "I'm going to have Nicole bring us lunch."

"Your assistant?"

"One of my assistants," He corrects me. "Yeah."

"My mistake," I roll my eyes at him. "But really, how many assistants does one person need?"

"I'm a very busy guy," Hudson states, nodding at me.

"Too busy to get your own coffee?" I raise my eyebrows at him.

"They don't just get my coffee for me," He defends. "They pick up my lunch when I'm too busy talking to you, they talk to you when I'm too busy doing movie stuff, they run lines with me, set up meetings, stuff like that."

"I think that if you want to talk to me you need to not send your assistant to come talk to me for you because that's ridiculous," I inform him, remembering how ridiculous I felt when Nicole had come to talk to me on behalf of Hudson because he was doing costume stuff for the movie.

"That only happened one time and it was because I was worried about you," He justifies. "But okay, I promise that I probably won't do that again."

"That's a completely useless promise," I say with a loud laugh. "You can't use the word 'probably' in a promise, that just defeats the whole purpose of it. Like saying, 'I promise that I maybe won't murder you in your sleep' or 'I promise that I don't think that I'll punch you in the face but I'm still considering my options'."

"Definitive promises aren't very realistic though," Hudson tells me as he pulls out his phone and starts texting somebody. "If I say probably then I know that I can keep said promise. But you can never predict the future, Iris. Maybe you will murder that person in his or her sleep. Maybe you will want to punch that person at some later point in your life, you don't know."

"That's just a way out of a promise," I shake my head at him. "A loophole. Promises are supposed to be definitive."

"Alright, well I'll keep that in mind. And because you didn't answer my question, I'm just going to order pizza," He announces as he sends a text and puts his phone back into his pocket. "So it'll be here in a little while."

"Why couldn't we have just gone to a restaurant?" I ask him curiously.

"Because then Dalton, Zach, and Aspen would have wanted to come with us," He explains to me and there's a little tone in his voice that sounds like he thinks that his response was completely obvious.

"Why can't we hang out with other people around?" I raise my eyebrows at him and cross my arms over my chest. "We're just friends, right? And friends hang out with other people at the same time as hanging out with each other."

He grins at me. "I didn't realize that we're friends."

"What else would you call it?"

He shrugs and then looks over the short stretch of the city that we can see from this short roof. "Well, I knew that we were friends, I just didn't think that you knew it as well. But that's good, that we're on the same page here. And I know that we can hang out with other people together, I just didn't think that you'd want to."

"And why is that?"

"You don't seem to take well to us... celebrity folk," He explains to me with a twitching smile. "You always seem so tense."

"That's just my personality," I explain to him with a quick shrug. "I'm always tense."

"I'm noticing that too. I just mean extra-tense," He says, leaning back into his chair. He looks like he's getting even more comfortable than he has been. "Except when you feel comfortable enough to elbow Zach, which was pretty funny."

"That wasn't funny."

"It was funny," Hudson insists. "I don't think Zach has been treated so terribly by a female ever. It was new for him."

"I didn't do it on purpose, it was just a panic reaction," I tell him, blushing just a little bit at the recall of yesterday and how I elbowed Zachary in the gut when his phone started ringing. "And I said sorry."

"You're kind of hilarious," He accuses of me as he's laughing. "But anyway, are you excited about going to prom again?"

"What?" I cock my head to the side in confusion. "Again?"

"Yeah, we're going to do the prom scenes tomorrow," He reminds me, giving me a weird look as if he's confused about why I'm confused. "Didn't you read the schedule?"

"Right, yeah, I know that we're doing the prom stuff tomorrow but I'm not going to prom again. I didn't go to my real prom," I explain to him. "So I'm just going to prom. Period."

"Really? You look like the kind of person who goes to their high school prom. Maybe found your boyfriend in the broom closet with your lab partner or something," He tries to read me like a book, like one of his scripts.

"Sounds more like a movie script than real life," I comment with a roll of my eyes.

"Well, okay why didn't you go to prom then?" He looks at me expectantly.

I give him a shrug and then, looking out at the cityscape, I say, "I wanted to go. I even bought a dress and everything but the week before, there was a family crisis. I needed money so I had to start stripping on the weekends for the extra money and so I canceled my date and I did what I had to do."

"A family crisis?"

"Yes. My brother's schizophrenia medicine got too expensive, my mom almost had to take out a second mortgage so I started stripping and then I started stripping on the weekends so I couldn't go to prom," I explain to him, trying to make it seem like it wasn't such a big deal. I don't like telling him about Kurt but I stand by my statement that I'm not ashamed of my brother and I don't mind people knowing about him. What I do mind are the questions, comments, concerns that follow. "Is that in any of your movie scripts?"

"Nope...I, uh, I don't think that I've heard that one before," He shakes his head and he looks a little surprised by my story. Before he can rain his curiosity on me though, Nicole shows up with the pizza which was insanely fast, I think, but I don't speak up. Hudson thanks his assistant but I just look away from the tall girl, feeling embarrassed for some reason about having some other person go out and get food for me. I know that it's her job but it's just really weird for me.

"Do you want anything else?" Hudson asks me while Nicole is standing by his side, ready to follow his every whim.

I awkwardly shake my head without actually making eye contact with Nicole at all. "No thanks."

"Alright then you can just head back downstairs and after you make that appointment with Ralph Lauren, you can take your lunch," He instructs his assistant in a friendly tone. Well, at least he's polite to his assistants.

"Sure thing. Oh, and I cancelled your lunch with Rebecca like you asked and she wants to know if you can reschedule for tomorrow? You don't have anything scheduled, I just wanted to make sure that that's good for you?" The girl asks as she's reading something off of the clipboard.

I look over at Hudson with a shocked look, wondering if I just heard that right. He cancelled his lunch plans with somebody just to hang out with me on the roof? Wow, this guy must think I'm really something great. I wonder how long that'll last but I'm suspicious that it won't last long.

"Yeah, that's fine," He confirms before Nicole writes something down on the clipboard glued to her hip and then she's quickly scurrying away back off of the roof to go downstairs to get to work.

When she's gone, I return my attention to Hudson. "You cancelled plans with Rebecca for this?"

"Rebecca being my sister, you don't have to get jealous," Hudson responds teasingly.

"I wasn't jealous, I just think that it's ridiculous that you cancelled plans for this," I state as he's opening the pizza box and taking a slice to put on his paper plate. He hands me a plate and then I also start making claim to the pizza. "Sitting on the roof eating pizza isn't exactly a special occasion."

"No but you're very tense, as I've already stated, so once you say yes to something, I can't risk you changing your mind," He explains to me. "And Becky will understand, she doesn't really have a life anyway."

"Oh my god," I say with a small laugh as I'm stocking up on low mien and orange chicken. "You're absolutely ridiculous. What the hell is it about me that makes you lose your mind?"

"I wouldn't say that I'm losing my mind really," Hudson defends, shaking his head at me.

"Really?" I scoff at him, deciding to tease him a little bit. "You just cancelled plans to hang out with me, you practically beg to hang out with me. Just face it. You're just mind blowingly in love with me."

"We're back on that? Does that ever get old for you?" He asks me, laughing a little bit himself.

I laugh in return and shrug. "Nope, it really doesn't. I mean, why else would you want to be best friends forever and ever?"

"We already went through that too, I'm pretty sure."

"Agreed," I confirm. "And I get that you think that I'm cool and you want to hang out to get to know me and figure out what makes me oh-so cool. However, I don't get what makes me special enough to want to skip lunch with your sister. But I'm not fishing for compliments like I just now realized that it sounds like. So let's change the subject."

"What would you like to talk about?"

"What else do we have to talk about?" I counter.

"Well, I kind of want to know more about this brother of yours," He says before stuffing his face with food.

"Not that."

"Touchy subject?"

I shrug. "Somewhat."

"Okay, we can talk about something else. I know that you don't actually like acting so what do you actually like to do in your free time?" He asks me.

"I don't have any free time. I'm a student too so when I'm not here or sleeping, I'm eating or studying. When I used to have free time though, I try to play the guitar but I'm pretty bad at it."

"Have you taken lessons?"

"Kind of," I say vaguely. My brother used to teach me, before his schizophrenia started getting really bad, because he can play really well and I wanted to be exactly like him so I wanted to play really well too. I could never grasp it well enough though and then he went to the inpatient facility before he could help me get the hang of it. I'm still trying though, convinced that if I can play really well when Kurt returns that he'll be proud. It's ridiculous, I know, but oh well. "Can you play?"

"No, but I do know a lot of people who can play the guitar," He confirms with a nod. "Singers and people in bands and stuff. There's actually going to be a band at the party next week with an amazing guitar player."

"Oh, right, I almost forgot about that thing," I sigh, cringing at the idea of having to go to that stupid party at the end of this movie shooting. I didn't mind working at this party earlier but now that I've become friends-ish with Hudson, I think that it'll be weird to be pole dancing at a party that Hudson will be attending. And I know that when he gets there, he'll be looking for me.

"I'm actually pretty surprised that you agreed to it," He tells me. "You don't seem so easy to persuade."

"I need the money is all," I explain with a small shrug. "And I like dancing. I'd prefer to have clothes on but that's not going to get me much money unless I'm on Broadway and that's not happening."

"Why not?"

"So many reasons," I say with a laugh at the ridiculousness of that thought. "The biggest one being that I want to go to med school, I don't want to become a dancer. I just like dancing. And it's really not a big deal."

"The party?"

"Yeah, I don't really mind that kind of thing. It pleases my inner attention whore and it is a great confidence booster. Besides, it's just dancing on the stage and maybe some waitressing. It'd get weird if I was doing lap dances or something like that," I explain to him.

"Right, because that went so well the first time," He scoffs with a loud laugh at the memory of our second day on set when I had to give him a lap dance. That was an ugly day for both of us.

"No, that was different," I insist with a shake of my head and a mouth full of food. "That wasn't a real lap dance, that was a movie lap dance and it was ridiculously uncomfortable. My lap dances aren't just me sitting on your lap shaking my hips. My lap dances are legendary."

"Really?" He raises his eyebrows at me. "That sounds really attractive coming from a girl with pizza sauce covering the bottom half of her face."

I can't hold back a loud laugh when I realize how ridiculous I must look right now with the red sauce and my hair up in a messy pony tail and I had to wear a dress when we were shooting so I changed into sweat pants and a tank top for my lunch break. I look like a bum. "Yeah, I don't look like much right now but I clean up really well."

"Right, I do remember that."

"Is that why you want to be friends so badly?" I ask him curiously. "Because you're angry or at least just astonished in some way that I got to you during that shoot?"

"No," He assures me with a small laugh. "But it did take me by surprise. I mean, it's not that you aren't beautiful, because you are, I just wasn't expecting it."

I cough on my bite of pizza because he called me beautiful and I just wasn't expecting that at all. I'm thankful yet not surprised that I don't blush but I'm still humiliated that I have to cough up a lung and then swallow down my bite of food.

"Is there a problem?" Hudson smirks at me, obviously knowing that he got to me just then. I can't say that I'm so bothered by it, I just didn't really see it coming. I mean, I just said that I kind of look like a slob and so if he was going to call me beautiful, now would not be the most accurate time to do that. And now I'm rambling in my mind and overthinking it.

"Spicy pepperoni," I try my best to save myself and I think that it was rather convincing to be honest. I fill the silence by taking a drink of water from one of the water bottles that Nicole brought up with the food. "I'm good."

He offers me a wide grin and I don't think that he believes me but I'm not going to give in to the truth. "Do you not think that you're pretty?"

"I never said that," I say quickly. "I actually think that I'm pretty fabulous. That bite was just spicy."

Hudson glances down at my plate and notices that had been eating the cheese side of the pizza—but he just grins at me without questioning me at all, which I appreciate.

"Okay, sure then. Anyway, I am looking forward to this party," He changes the subject. "Are you at all excited to be going? I mean, you'll be doing your thing but there will be a lot of well-known people there. I don't know if you ever get starstruck but if you do, it'll be a good time to do that."

"I haven't been starstruck in a long time," I say with a small laugh. "My first movie was with Jackson Thorne so after that, I think I got all of that out of my system."

"You're a Jackson Thorne fan then?" Hudson asks me. "He'll probably be at the party."

"I used to be. I'm not really a fan of anybody anymore honestly. Meeting them, seeing how all of this works, realizing that celebrities are just glorified people, I don't know. I've lost interest," I explain with a small shrug.

"Would it be incredibly conceited of me if I asked you if you were ever a fan of mine?" He wonders, offering me a wide, cheesy grin.

I laugh at that. "Yes it would be very conceited."

"Okay well I already asked it so you might as well just answer it, right?"

I give him a long look while I think about answering him, deciding if I should tell the truth or lie. "Sure, a little bit. Not the type of crazed fan that is most common but I watched some of your movies. I didn't have posters on my walls or anything though."

"Such a disappointment."

"I'm sure that it is," I confirm with a roll of my eyes. "If anything, I'd say that I was the biggest fan of Dalton to be honest. Before I started doing movies."

"Really?" He looks very surprised by that. "Why is that?"

I shrug. "I don't know, I just thought that he was really adorable and he seemed sweet."

"So you had a crush on him?" Hudson asks me with a very amused smile on his face. He seems to be loving this way too much. He looks like I just told him that everything I touch turns to gold or something.

"No," I say quickly as my face scrunches in a look of distaste. "I just enjoyed... looking at his face I guess. I was fifteen though so it doesn't really matter."

"Oh, I think that it matters a whole lot," He grins at me. "Because that amuses me so much, you have no idea. You seem so distant from all of this, I really can't imagine you being a fan of anybody famous."

I shake my head at him in disagreement. "You're very easily entertained if you think that's funny. I'm not immune to movie stars though."

"Aren't you just full of surprises," He mutters, looking straight at me as I'm shoving a piece of pizza into my mouth. Very classy.

"Of course I am," I confirm with a nod. "I'm just one big mystery. But I should get going, I have a phone call to make before we have to get back to work."

"Another mystery?" He wonders as I'm finishing what I have on my plate and I grab my plate and my water so that I can take it with me to throw it away.

"Sure, if that's how you want to think about it. Anyway, thanks for lunch. This was fun."

"We should do it again sometime," He comments with a small laugh as I'm standing up to end this conversation. It's been fun and I almost want to just stay here and talk to Hudson for a longer time but I really do have to go call Michael Hopkins's to see how Kurt's doing. I'm getting worried about him—even more worried than I usually am.

"Sure," I say again, not believing that. Sure, this conversation was fun and the other short conversation we had before that was pretty cool too but we're getting into the last days of shooting (i.e. the last few days of conversations that I'll have with Hudson) so that's a little bit disappointing. "See you later, Hudson."

He says goodbye as I'm stepping through the door that leads me back into the building and, as it feels right now, back into reality.