"How is it that you have time to hang out here for basically an entire semester?" Jack asked Marian.

They were sitting at a park, eating tacos purchased from a truck on the street. The cast was in meetings all afternoon. Marian wasn't needed, and there wouldn't be anything for Jack to watch, so they'd left together.

"I took a year off," Marian explained. "My sister is getting married in the spring, and I wasn't in a very good head space after the whole mess with Joaquin. And the studio said they'd give me a consulting fee to be on-set, and provide an apartment in LA, too, so it seemed like a good time to get the hell out of Dodge, you know? Be where it's warm, away from my old life, just relax for a while? Law school will be there next fall, and I really just needed a break from my life, if that doesn't sound too pathetic." She gave Jack a very direct, blue-eyed gaze.

Jack shook his head. "Not at all. It's nice that you had the chance. Even a life that's like a beautiful carousel can be overwhelming if you find out you're chained to the ride."

Marian nodded vigorously. "Exactly! Exactly, Jack. I mean, no one knows better than I do what a wonderful life I've had. I was born with this wonderful ability to swim, the drive to do it, and parents with the means to help me develop it, and then I had the luck to make it all the way to the Olympics, because no matter what anyone tells you about determination and all that, luck has a lot to do with it."

"But you nearly died," Jack reminded her. "That car accident was gnarly. You had to learn to walk all over again, learn to be a world class swimmer from scratch, Marian. Movies don't get made about people who live charmed lives and have no obstacles placed in their paths."

"I know, I know," Marian acknowledged. "But my point is that even with all that bad stuff, my life is still better than just about everyone else on the planet, you know?" She looked earnestly at Jack.

"There are people in Africa who have to walk two miles to have access to clean drinking water, like the water that we flush away in our toilets." She looked indignant. "Hell, there are people in America who don't have access to clean drinking water, who are dying of leptospirosis as we speak." She lifted her water bottle. "And here I am drinking water imported from Fiji.

"So I get that it's stupid for me to need a break from that life because, boo-hoo, my fiancé cheated on me and I need to get away," she concluded. "But I figured that at some point I needed a little vacation or my head would explode, or I'd run screaming into the darkness, so I took it." She shrugged and took a drink of her imported water.

"So I'm guessing you're going into some kind of consumer law, or international law or whatever?" Jack asked with an admiring smile.

She nodded, putting her water bottle down. "International environmental law," she said succinctly.

"What about you?" she asked, picking up her taco. "What kind of law are you interested in?"

Jack looked around. A man was throwing a ball for his dog, and some kids were playing on the equipment, making the universal sounds of happy children at play. And even though it was September, here in Los Angeles, it was shorts weather still, a warm breeze lifted his curly hair.

"I used to think I just wanted to be a public defender, just go where I was most needed," he began, breaking his leftover taco shell into little pieces as he spoke. "But after everything that happened this summer, I'm kind of leaning toward specializing in women's rights, especially in the workplace." He gestured toward the people in the park. "Like now, all I can think about is that, while we've been here, eating our tacos, drinking our water," he smiled, "some poor woman has been harassed or assaulted, threatened with losing her job if she doesn't submit, put out, put up with whatever some creepy guy wants to do to her, you know? And just that thought makes me sick."

He looked at Marian with tortured eyes. "It was the most awful thing I've ever experienced, and I feel like an idiot for saying that, because I didn't even experience it!" His busy hands kept up their work, pulverizing the taco shell. "It wasn't even a case of 'do this or you're fired' or anything like that, but the way it happened, the way everyone responded to it, including the animal that did it to her--" he huffed out a breath in frustration.

"The world shouldn't be that way for women," he finished. "You shouldn't be victimized because some men haven't evolved enough to disconnect themselves from whatever exists in our animal past that drives them to think sex is something they deserve to have from whomever they want."

He shook his curly head as if to clear it, and looked at Marian ruefully. "Sorry, didn't mean to get preachy."

Marian put a consoling hand on his arm where it sat, warm in the sunlight, shaking her head. "It sounds like you have a lot of pent up emotions about it," she commiserated. "How long have you been holding that in?"

Jack shrugged, embarrassed. "I was supposed to see Kelsey's therapist, but I felt stupid, you know? To need to talk to someone when she was the one who got assaulted? And I certainly wasn't going to talk to Kelsey about it. I mean, how horrible would that be, to complain about how I feel to the person it happened to? What happened to her is so much worse."

"What about your friends at school?"

Jack considered. "They're good guys, but they wouldn't really get it, I think. I don't know. Maybe. I don't think I really need to."

Marian looked at him, eyebrows raised. "That's obviously not true, is it?" She patted his arm.

"You think I should talk to Kelsey?" Jack asked.

Marian was quiet. "I don't know. Maybe you're right. She does have a lot on her plate right now, doesn't she?"

She patted his arm again. "Tell you what. I'm going to be around for a while, just talk to me, I'm a pretty good listener, you know?"

Jack grinned as he gathered the remains of their lunch to throw it away. "Yeah, I noticed. Thanks."

She smiled up at him. "Any time."

As they left the park to walk back to the studio, Marian asked, "Do you think your coach would be okay with me working out with your team some mornings? I haven't really had access to a pool since I came here, and even if I did, you know how you just work harder when there's someone yelling at you, right?"

Jack nodded and grinned again. "Definitely. And our coach is good at that for sure. I'll ask."

"Thanks, Jack."

They arrived back to find that the meeting was nowhere near ending, so they left again. Jack texted Zach, and they met him, Jeff, and Toby in Chinatown. The boys were thrilled to meet an actual Olympian in the flesh, and a gorgeous female one at that.

They showed her around Chinatown, then drove up to Griffith Observatory, getting a lot of attention everywhere they went.

"It's actually kind of funny," Jeff said in his quiet voice in the car on their way to the observatory. "Some people think you're Kelsey because they see Jack and recognize him, and some people know you're Marian Lowell because they recognize you from TV and the Olympics, the way they'd recognize Michael Phelps or whatever, you know?"

"And I'm sure it helps that I'm surrounded by four huge, gorgeous swimmer dudes," Marian said with a laugh.

"Yeah, we're hot," Toby agreed, rolling his eyes.

The five of them kicked around outside for a bit, taking in the views of Los Angeles, the Hollywood sign, and the Pacific Ocean. Marian took a lot of selfies and posted them to her social media, laughing and looking beautiful.

Then they bought tickets to a planetarium show and enjoyed the hell out of it, sitting in the reclining chairs and feeling like they were traveling through space.

Jack sat there in the darkness and felt momentarily sad and bad that Kelsey wasn't with them. She would've had a blast, and he would've enjoyed holding her hand in the dark.

When they got out to the parking lot after, he had a text from her.

"Meeting's over, heading home. Where are you?"

"Called the guys and took Marian sightseeing. At Griffith now."

"Sounds like fun, sorry I missed it. 😔"

"I wish you'd been with us. Be home in a bit. 🐬"

He knew she'd enjoy the dolphin more than a kissy-face emoji.

They all piled into Jeff's car and headed back to Chinatown, where Jack had left his car. Jack and Marian waved good bye to the boys and Jack drove Marian back to her car, which was parked at the studio.

"Thanks, Jack, for a marvelous day," Marian said, smiling. She opened her car door and got in.

"The pleasure was all mine," he insisted.

They waved at each other as she pulled out, and Jack reflected that it was true. Even six short months ago, he wouldn't have believed that talking to girls would be so easy, especially one so beautiful and worldly as Marian Lowell. Spending the day with a female Olympian would have been a physical impossibility for Jack, he would've been a tongue-tied mess. It was just one more way that knowing Kelsey had changed his life, had changed him.

He drove home, looking forward to seeing his girl, and he pulled into the driveway, next to Kelsey's little red Fiat. It was dusk, and the lights of the house glowed invitingly. Jack smiled. It was nice to have a real home to come home to.