Before I met Tony, I had written off the idea of falling in love in Los Angeles. Dating in this city felt like an exhausting game I didn’t want to play anymore — one full of superficial encounters and people more interested in networking than connecting. It always felt like everyone was chasing someone just slightly more impressive than the last. Or rather, someone with more followers.
I was trying to finish law school and keep my head above water. Romance? That felt like a luxury for someone with more free time, more energy or less on their plate.
Tony was the last person I ever expected to fall for.
We met while working at Amoeba Music, the iconic Hollywood record store that feels like a dusty cathedral for audiophiles and aging punks — or at least the old location did. At the new store on Hollywood Boulevard, I was there for a job, not a love story. Tony had just returned to the store, freshly sober, needing what he called a “get well” job. He’d worked at Amoeba Music on and off for 15 years while touring with his band — his life seemingly a chaotic swirl of sound checks, dive bars and reinvention.
He was a lot older than I was and outgoing, wild, beloved by everyone. I’m reserved, shy, focused. It felt like we were from different planets.
But slowly something shifted.
Between shelving records and clocking in for shifts, we started to talk. Then joke. Then laugh. I realized that beneath his boisterous surface was the kindest, most caring man I had ever met. We connected over our mutual love of movies and how we both felt more alive in the soft hush of a dark theater than anywhere else in the world.
We’d spend our nights off catching double features at the New Beverly, taking in moody indies at the Vista or planning our weekends around midnight screenings at the Alamo Drafthouse. Our first “non-date” date was a midnight showing of “Kill Bill” at the New Bev. Sitting beside him in that tiny, red-velvet theater, watching Uma Thurman’s character slice her way through betrayal and heartbreak with a katana, I felt something unexpected stir in me. It was violent and stylized onscreen, but underneath it all was a woman reclaiming her power — and maybe that’s what I felt too. It felt like the beginning of something.
Tony and I didn’t always like the same films. He loved big, bold movies like “Aliens,” and I leaned more toward grounded dramas, the kind of emotionally messy stories Paul Thomas Anderson tells. But we both loved the experience of going to the movies and talking about them afterward, breaking them down scene by scene over late-night coffee or fries at Swingers.
The moment I realized my feelings were more than friendly came a little later. Tony was supposed to see Iggy Pop at the Hollywood Palladium one night. But earlier that day, he casually asked me, “If my plans fall through, would you want to hang out?”
I said sure, not thinking much of it. According to him, when he told me that he couldn’t get a last-minute ticket, I said, “Good.”
It was a quiet, telling word. Good. Because I wanted to see him. Because I liked him.
We ended up at Lily’s Bar at the Adler a Hollywood Hills Hotel — just up the street from Amoeba. It’s the spot where so many little moments between us had accumulated. The bar was dark, intimate, tucked into Hollywood in a way that almost feels like a secret. We talked for hours. At some point, I told him I had feelings for him. We kissed.
I couldn’t believe that kiss happened. He was everything I wasn’t — bold, unpredictable, magnetic in a way that made people orbit around him. Falling for someone like him felt like stepping off a ledge without knowing what was below. I was scared of what it might mean. What if we were too different? What if I lost myself in his potential chaos or he got bored with my quiet corners? Despite every warning bell in my head, I couldn’t deny what was pulling me toward him. And when we finally kissed, it wasn’t just a kiss. It was a surrender to the idea that love doesn’t always show up looking as you imagined.
I wish I could say I walked away that night feeling certain and secure, but I didn’t. I was terrified. I was still in law school, still trying to find my place in a city that often felt like it was chewing me up. I felt like a kid. How could I be ready for something serious with someone so much older and so seemingly different?
But here’s the thing: He didn’t have it all figured out either.
We were two people from different worlds who happened to crash into each other in the same corner of Hollywood. We had no road map. Just this strange, beautiful thing growing between us and a mutual willingness to see where it might lead.
Two years later, we’re still figuring it out. Together.
We live in Hollywood, not far from where it all began. We’ll walk past Amoeba sometimes and remember that version of ourselves: me, burned out and bracing for more disappointment; him, trying to heal and rebuild. We’ll pass the Adler, and I smile at the thought of that first kiss and the girl who almost talked herself out of taking a chance on something real. Or we’ll drive past the New Bev, check out what’s playing and wonder if it’s worth staying up until 2 a.m. again.
I never thought love would look like this: a guy who’s been everywhere, knows everyone and has stories tucked into every bar and theater in L.A.; and me, someone who has mostly kept her head down, trying to just get through it all. But somehow, we found a rhythm. A quiet, steady beat underneath the noise of this city.
Love didn’t arrive in Los Angeles the way I expected it to. But it arrived anyway.
The author is studying for the July California bar exam and is a certified Pilates instructor. She lives in Hollywood. She’s on Instagram: @ehhhriqua
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This story originally appeared on LA Times
