The rumors had started to slip through the cracks of your thoughts more frequently. People in Hollywood never seemed to forget anything, and sometimes, the truth was buried beneath a layer of gossip. People at the bar, the crew on sets, even a few of your friends mentioned it, though they always acted like they were just joking. Whispers on the fringes, a comment here and there at the coffee shop, half-joking conversations with people in the industry you barely knew, someone talking about it at the party, and then another.

Everything about Cliff felt easy - his charm, the way he made you laugh, the calmness in his eyes that never seemed to waver. He had this aura about him that made it hard to doubt anything he said. You spent your evenings at dive bars, sometimes out in the desert during late-night drives, other times on his porch, watching the sunset. It had been a few months since you two had started seeing each other, and every morning, every afternoon and night spent with him felt like a strange mix of tranquility and tension.

It was a quiet evening, the kind that felt almost too still for a city like Los Angeles. Cliff was in the kitchen, whistling a tune as he cooked. The sound of sizzling oil and the faint smell of something delicious filled the air. Brandy was curled up at his feet, the dog's lazy eyes flickering up at you before returning to her nap on the worn-out rug, a familiar sight after a long day. "Hey, can you feed Brandy?"

As you came into the kitchen and turned to open the cupboard, you could feel Cliff's gaze on you, a weight to it, like he was watching every movement you made. It wasn't a look of affection. No, it was something else. There was something in the way he was watching you that felt different today.

He took his half-smoked pre-meal cigarette from his mouth and ground it into the full ashtray on the kitchen counter, watching it die. "Dinner's ready."