19. Alyssa
19
ALYSSA
“You look better,” Sierra said the next morning when we video chatted. Raphael had left my room a few hours ago, but not before giving me a long hug and thanking me for inviting him to stay. As if I’d been doing a favor for him, instead of the other way around.
“I got some new dresses. And thanks for that lingerie.” I didn’t tell her that I’d nearly corrupted a minor by opening it in front of her.
“The dress is pretty, but it’s not that.” Sierra peered into the screen, looking as beautiful as ever, but something was different about her. I couldn’t figure out what, though. “You’ve got some color in your cheeks. Were you just outside?”
Uh-oh. “No, I guess I’m just flushed from the warmth. It doesn’t get very cold here, you know.” Hopefully she wouldn’t call my bluff.
“No, that’s not it.”
Damn it.
“You look all cheerful, and excited, and—oh my god!”
“What?” I said, trying to look curious.
“Something’s happened, hasn’t it, between you and one of the guys. Which one was it?”
“No, of course not.”
Unfortunately, my acting skills weren’t on par with Sierra’s, and she didn’t believe me. “Let me guess. Was it the grumpy one from next door? Did he finally come to his senses, put a rose between his teeth, climb up the window, and ravish you?”
“No. No ravishing.” I couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of Flynn doing that. He definitely didn’t seem the type.
“Come on, tell me,” Sierra pleaded. “I’m in between films and my screenplay is going horribly. I need something else to think about.”
All right, that part I could understand. I looked around the deck to make sure no one was in earshot. Spencer was at work, Raphael was teaching a class, and I’d heard Flynn drive off early this morning. Spencer had said something about a sick mule at breakfast. “Okay, don’t freak out, but I slept with one of them.”
Sierra’s eyes practically bulged out of her head. “Which one?”
“The brother-in-law.”
Her jaw dropped. “Mr. Zen? Really?”
“Yes. But we didn’t have sex, he just slept next to me. It was really nice, actually. We talked, and he kind of spooned me so that my cast wouldn’t make me overbalance when I slept on my side. It was the best I’ve slept in days.”
“That actually does sound nice.”
She looked like she understood, but I wasn’t sure. From what I’d heard from Kylie, Sierra was skittish about men. Though with her looks she could have her pick of them, she didn’t date much. Kylie had even said that Sierra’s issues with men had hurt her career at times. I supposed it was hard to do a love scene if you jumped every time the guy touched you.
“Are you going to do that with him again?”
“If he’ll let me.” I hesitated, not sure if she’d understand. She was becoming a good friend, but we hadn’t known each other that long, and we’d only met in person one time. “It’s just… I get pretty lonely being in my room by myself so much. I know I have calls with you and Mason and Kylie, and the kids come into play after school some days, but sometimes I just feel so isolated."
“Huh. It’s funny you should say that.”
“Why?”
“Because I have some news.”
“What’s that?” Then my powers of observation kicked in. “You changed your hair color!” It seemed to be a light brown color like Charlotte and Lucas’s instead of blonde, like before. I probably would’ve noticed sooner if I’d been on my laptop instead of using my small phone screen.
“That’s not the news, but yeah, I did.” She slid her hand under a curtain of hair and made it fan out. Her hair was so shiny she looked like she was doing a shampoo commercial. “This is closer to my natural color, although it’s been so long I barely remember it. I’ll have to change it back or wear a wig for the publicity campaign a few months, but for now, I’m happy with it.”
“It looks great,” I said quite honestly. “But if that’s not your news, what is?”
She hesitated. “I feel a little weird telling you now after what you just said.”
“That your hair looks great?”
She laughed. “No, not that. Okay, here’s the deal. You know how I’ve been having so much trouble writing my screenplay?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I think the problem is that there are too many distractions here. I found this place that does retreats for artistic types, where they hole up in a cabin in the woods. It’s awesome. They drop you off and you’re by yourself, but you have food and electricity and internet and everything you need except distractions.”
For a moment, I stared at the screen, wondering how isolation could sound so good to her and so bad to me. “That sounds perfect for finishing your screenplay. When do you go there?”
“Next month. The cabins are up in the mountains outside of Denver — not too far from your old territory.”
Unease filled me. “You’re going to stay in the mountains by yourself in Colorado? In the winter?”
“Yes.” She nodded enthusiastically, clearly thinking that was a feature, not a bug. “But they’ve prepared for everything. There are two backup generators and enough food and water to last for months. So it doesn’t matter if you get cut off from civilization—that’s kind of the point.”
“Sounds great,” I said, though I wasn’t certain it did. With the kind of money Sierra had, couldn’t she rent a cabin in the Bahamas?
We talked for a bit more after that, but then she had to go. I really was happy for her, and I knew how important her screenplay was to her, but her proposed trip to the wilderness sounded like a be careful what you wish for kind of thing to me.
Raphael came home for lunch, which we ate out on the deck. If I actually lived here, I’d probably spent ninety percent of my waking hours there. It really was amazing.
It turned out to be one of those days when I couldn’t complain much about being by myself, because half an hour before dinner, Spencer came to talk to me in my room. I scooted over so that he’d have more space to sit at the foot of the bed, and then made sure my loose, stretchy dress was covering everything it was supposed to.
“I wanted to talk to you about tomorrow night,” he said after we exchanged greetings.
“What’s up?”
“I’ve got a PTA thing at school, so I won’t be home until after the twins are in bed. That would be fine, but Raphael and I got our dates mixed up, and he’s got something tomorrow, too. It’s some kind of special event with guest lecturers and a series of demonstrations for his Aikido students.”
“Ah. That’s a problem—one I wish I could help with.”
“Me too. Normally, I wouldn’t have a problem leaving the kids with you if you were willing, but all things being equal, I prefer a babysitter who can fight off marauders, put an alligator in a chokehold, or, you know, be able to stand for more than a few minutes at a time.”
“So that’s definitely a no for me.” Personally, I was flattered that he thought I’d be able to handle the twins if I were at full strength. “Do you have a regular babysitter?”
He sighed. “Yeah, I do. He does an okay job, and he doesn’t charge much, but he can be rather immature at times.”
I grinned. “You’re talking about Flynn, right?”
“Yep. And actually, he’s great with the twins, and he could probably fight off marauders and alligators while delivering a premature calf, but he’s not really good with the other side of things.”
“What other side?”
“Like remembering to tell them when it’s time for bath and for bed. Or warming up their dinner in the oven for twenty minutes.”
“If I tried to bend over to put something in the oven, I might fall in, Hansel and Gretel style.”
“You don’t have to do it yourself, you just have to make Flynn do it.”
“Oh.” To be honest, that sounded equally hard.
“Do you think you can do that?”
“Maybe?”
Spencer laughed. “Are you at least willing to try?”
“Sure.”
“Great. Thank you. Dinner’s in a half hour.”
I sighed, glancing at my crutches. “I’d better start making my way out to the deck now.”
The next evening, I made my debut as Assistant Babysitter. It actually went pretty well. Flynn was the fun one—or at least he was with the kids. He was still a bit grumpy with me. And I was the organized one who supervised heating up dinner, bath time, and bedtime. Oh, and story time. That was the part I was most used to, but it had a different feel with Flynn in the room.
He'd commandeered a recliner in the living room that Spencer normally used, and he listened to every word of the two chapters I read to the kids. At least I think he did. He had his forearm over his eyes as he lay back in the recliner, but he didn’t appear to be asleep. Plus, Lucas kept pestering him with questions, so I didn’t see how he could sleep.
Flynn didn’t participate much until it was time for us to talk about our dream treehouse. Then, prompted by Lucas’s super long commentary about how awesome our treehouse was, he came over to take a look at the sketches on the pad he’d gotten me.
“That’s really good.” When he leaned over, I noticed his fresh, masculine scent. He smelled like the outdoors—and also like a shower product or two. “You really drew those floorplans?”
“I am but a humble scribe,” I said with a wink at the twins. “These two are the genius architects.”
“Not bad at all.” He gave each twin a high five.
His admiration for the sketches made me feel good. However, he didn’t say anything else about it, not that the twins gave him much of a chance to as they eagerly shared all the latest details. By this time, our dream treehouse—treamhouse?—had four secret rooms, a restaurant, a shopping mall, a video arcade, a bowling alley and, for some reason, a coal mine at the base of the trunk.
Getting the kids ready for bed wasn’t too difficult. They knew the routine, of course, but like all kids, they used a variety of stalling tactics. Flynn dealt with most of those.
And then it was over. The kids were in their beds, possibly with visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads. Flynn had his leather jacket on when I crutched my way back to the living room. “Can you take it from here?” he asked.
“Sure.” As long as those bandits and alligators stayed away.
“Take my number just in case something comes up.”
“Good idea.” I fished my phone out of the pocket of the sweater I wore over my dress. Flynn dictated his number, and I entered it into my phone. “Thanks.”
“It’s probably a good idea for you to have it,” he said with a charming smile. That should’ve been my first clue right there—as far as I knew, Flynn didn’t do charming. “That way, you can give me a call directly the next time you pretend to fall.”
And with that, he strode out the back door and left.