31. Renee

When you live in Los Angeles, days spent indoors are wasted days. Unfortunately, all the photo editing software I have at work is on a desktop computer. So I spend an entire day marooned in the office, watching the sunshine through the window and wishing I’d waited for a storm to start my edits. But the printer needs them ASAP if we’re going to get the calendar out before the new year.

Plus—not to belabor the point—it’s L.A. If I wait for a rainy day, I might be old and gray with my boobs drooping to my knees before we get one of those.

It’s a ho-hum kind of situation and nothing I can do about it but do my job. Especially since they’re paying me for it.

But damn, it feels like torture right now.

Why does Weston have to be so photogenic? The man knows how to fill the frame. It’s not like he’s even trying to be a good subject. The photos where he caught me aiming my camera at him are all serious, scowling mugshots, if I’m being honest.

But the ones where he’s just playing the game with his friends are my favorite. He looks happy. That isn’t something I’ve seen much of from him.

Which is a pity. For a man with such a nice smile, he doesn’t use it very often.

By the end of the day, when I press Send on a .zip file to the printer, I’m weary. I’m ready to go home, turn on some mind-numbing reality TV, and call Sutton. It’s been a few days since we chatted and she’s going to be so proud of me for telling Weston that we need to keep everything strictly professional.

After I told her about the pool, she warned me away from him. She said he’s a guy who doesn’t get attached and since she knows I’m looking for a future, she told me to keep my distance.

It’s good advice and I know it—but if she was going to warn me away from her neighbors, the least she could do is have a couple who don’t look like—or actually are, in Jackson’s case—fashion magazine models.

By the time I walk through the lobby at the apartment building, the second shift doorman is on duty. “Hey, Paolo.”

He gives me a friendly wink. Even the doorman in this building is gorgeous. Either that, or I am badly in need of some sex.

Paolo is my age-ish, with long ombre hair—I suspect he’s an aspiring actor or model because those highlights are of the three-hundred-dollar variety—and a smile meant to melt hearts.

“Ciao, bella.” The Italian accent is to die for. “You have a package upstairs from Miss Sutton.”

That’s enough to put a spring in my step. “Thanks, Paolo.”

“If she sends wine from Paris, don’t forget your old friend Paolo!” He shoots me another wink as I breeze inside.

I hit the elevator right as the first call comes in, vibrating my cell phone like a ticking time bomb. I take one look at the caller ID and ignore it.

Then a second comes right on its heels.

By the time I’m at the penthouse floor, she’s called a third and a fourth time and I finally shut the phone off. I’ll call Sutton once Satan’s Mistress—A.K.A., my mother—figures out that I’m never going to answer.

I’m not going to talk to her. Not now for sure.

Probably not ever again, if I can help it.

I walk out of the elevator to see the box waiting on my doorstep. I tear it open like a cavewoman, and when I see what’s nestled inside the lavender tissue paper, I pump my fist. “Jackpot!”

Sutton is the queen of giving gifts and this is some of her best work to date. Parisian chocolate. A scented candle. Bath beads. A vibrator.

Wait—a vibrator?

I bark out an unladylike laugh when I see her handwritten note tucked away at the bottom. Here’s a little something to help work out your tension, babe. Don’t let that asshole dim your light.

She always says things like that. I find comfort in the words even if she sometimes sounds a bit like a fortune cookie on a yoga retreat.

Then something else occurs to me. My skin flushes and I look around. The very last thing I need is for Weston to walk out of his place and find me crouched on the hallway floor holding a hot pink vibrator with ten modes of clit suction.

I drop it—gently—back into the box, then stand and lift the whole thing, take it into the apartment, and dial Sutton. I make sure to shut the door firmly behind me and throw the deadbolt.

“You got my present!” she squeals when she picks up. She never answers like a normal person.

“I did. You sent me a vibrator.”

“Yes, because you haven’t gotten laid since Felix and I think you shouldn’t be tempted to jump on the first dick that presents himself. Or itself. Whatever. Anyway, this handles that.”

“God, girl. Do you know me or what?” I set the box on the coffee table and flop onto the couch with an exhausted sigh. “How is the movie going?”

“It’s so great. I have so much dialogue and it’s hard, but I think it’s going to be incredible.”

“Tell me more. I’m gonna close my eyes and pretend I’m you for a while.”

She launches into a story about a makeup assistant who thinks he knows better than she does how to do her face. “… so I told him I’ve been looking at this face for thirty years and no one is going to tell me to contour differently. No man is going to tell me I need less eyelashes, that’s for damn sure. And I’m almost positive I heard him call me a ‘diva’ the other day.”

“Did you tell him to kiss your ass?”

“Of course I did.” She chuckles. “Have you ever known me to keep quiet when I’m pissed off?”

“Not even once in all the time we’ve been friends. Good. I’m glad you stood up for yourself.”

“Oh, you know I did.” I hear her clinking something in the background, along with the gentle hubbub of city life. I imagine her sitting outside a cute Parisian café in a wrought iron chair, sipping cappuccino with one hand and rosé with the other. “Do you remember last year when we went to O’George’s?”

“That sandwich shop?” Oh, yeah. I remember. For weeks after, I’d had dreams about that BLT sandwich. I legitimately considered bathing in the chicken noodle soup that came with it, too.

“Yeah. The guy I’m working with looks just like that guy who served us that day. What was his name?” She has a mind like that. I remember the sandwich and she remembers the guy who served it. That’s probably why she’s the one in front of the camera and I’m the one behind it.

“I have no idea. Want me to go see if he still works there?” My stomach rumbles unexpectedly. “Actually, now, you’ve got me starving. I might have to go pick some up.”

We chat for a while longer. I’m tired, but I like listening to her stories of film set feuds and life cosplaying as a French sophisticate. I’m in a better mood by the time we hang up.

But thoughts of that sandwich are still lingering. I decide I’ll go take a walk. It’s not far from here, if I recall. A little pre-dinner stroll with a sandwich at the finish like the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow will do me some good.

I walk out of Sutton’s apartment and am in the hallway waiting for the elevator—when Weston’s door creaks open.

I’m braced for the worst as Hunter strolls out, pulls it shut behind him, and then startles when he looks at me. He shifts his duffel bag to the other shoulder. It’s oddly bulky.

“Oh. Uh, hey,” he says in a weirdly subdued voice.

I brighten. Mostly because I’m relieved it’s not Weston, but also because I genuinely do like Hunter. “Hey! How are you? How are things?”

Hunter glances at me then away again. “Things are, uh… fine.”

He’s in a strange mood. Usually, he’s flirty as hell. Right now, he looks more than a little bit constipated. Cagey, almost.

The elevator arrives and the door whooshes open. I step in first and wait for him. “You coming?” It takes him a few seconds to walk into the car. When he does, he stands as far away from me as possible.

He doesn’t say a word the whole way down. When we reach the bottom, he brushes out first and leaves with a muttered “Catch you later” thrown over his shoulder. By the time I make it to the street, he and his duffel bag are already gone.

Weird.