White Space Season 1

laughing.
    Jon continued, “When all the cookies were gone, we found you, standing all alone, with crumbs covering your face. It was terribly messy, awful really.” Jon shook his head. “We had to scrub you down. You were still asleep, but you kept flapping around like a fish. We think that’s what finally woke you.”
    Emma was in hysterics, Cassidy smiling beside her. Jon wasn’t sure if she was laughing at the words themselves, or the animation behind them, but was thrilled when she burst through the laughter with the compliment he’d been fishing for.
    “You’re funny,” Emma cackled. “You should do funny stuff instead of all the grown-up movies.”
    “Just because they’re grown-up movies doesn’t mean they’re not funny,” he leaned into Emma with a giant smile. “How do you know I’m not HI-larious?”
    “Because my mom used to cry when she watched them. She only cries at sad movies, except for the time she cried at Snoopy Come Home .”
    Jon pulled his head back, almost in recoil, a rock in his throat before he managed to find his line. “How did you know they were my movies?”
    “Because your face is always all over the movie covers on Netflix. I could hear my mom crying at night. In the morning, I could always see why when I turned on the TV. Your picture was usually the first picture under ‘recently played.’”
    Jon cleared his throat, then mopped his brow and exchanged awkward glances with Cassidy.
    Jon had loved, but it had been a long time since anyone had seen the real side of it. Nine years or so. Emma smiling from the far side of his gaze made Jon realize that there was nothing in the world he wouldn’t do for her.
    Except maybe be her dad. Because he couldn’t do that.
    Jon wasn’t a father. He was a Hollywood asshole — a nice guy sure, but a selfish one. He did what he wanted, when he wanted, and had since the forever ago when he first learned he could. While fans had often applauded his “humanitarian” efforts and his donations to various organizations, those were things he could sign a check and do some good with. They weren’t long-term commitments requiring he actually sacrifice the thing most precious to him — his time. Headline some freedom rallies or concerts, yeah. But raise a child? Every single day?
    That had never been something within the realm of a life he imagined for himself. Not since Emma’s mother had left him, anyway.
    But as he stared at the girl’s sweet smile, and into eyes that reminded him so much of Sarah, he wondered if perhaps he could be a good father, after all.
    While he was self-centered, he wasn’t without thought for others. He did lots of kind things. He often went out of his way to help new actors on the set, to help them feel comfortable. And it wasn’t just the hot up-and-coming actresses he extended the kindness to.
    And he’d never been one to shirk responsibility.
    Emma is my responsibility.
    Jon pictured Emma wearing a pretty pink dress, escorting him down the red carpet at a movie premiere.
    He caught Cassidy looking at him, and the smile slipped from her face, as if she were reading his mind, seeing his plans to take Emma as they took shape. Jon looked down, and then back at Emma as she and Cassidy started talking about milkshakes and how Emma couldn’t wait to have one.
    While Cassidy wasn’t Emma’s mother, she was still the closest thing the girl had to a mother. She’d gotten by fine without a father forever. Why inject himself into her life now? Was it to help her? Or fill some hole in his own life?
    Who the hell was he to come in and take that away now?
    No, he couldn’t do that. Not to her, nor to Cassidy. Looking at Emma, Jon knew it was wrong.
    It was easy enough for Jon to imagine the two of them together, just a week before; Cassidy sneaking candy to Emma, with a finger on her lips and a twinkle in her eye.
    “Hello!”
    “What?” Jon blinked his eyes to a staring Emma.
    “I said, have you ever made a kid’s movie?”
    “No,” Jon shook his head. “I haven’t.”
    “How come?”
    He shrugged, “I guess I never got a script that interested me.”
    “What’s a script?”
    “The lines in a movie. They’re written by writers. And as an actor, I get a lot of bad scripts for really bad movies. So I try and do only good ones, or don’t do any at all.”
    “And nobody’s given you a good script for a kid’s movie?”
    “Not yet. Maybe Hollywood thinks I’ll scare kids.”
    “Yeah,”