Chapter 7 #2
When I’d first started acting, I’d been a mess—going the wrong way, standing on the wrong mark, looking at the camera.
My first movie had been a crash course, and luckily, I’d had a good tutor in Laurelin, my manager.
She’d given up acting to become a manager and had taken me under her wing.
So had the producer, director and the cast and crew members.
Not a single person on that set had given me shit when I’d screwed up early on.
After that project, I’d walked into the next with more confidence and it had shown on screen.
“Have you lived here long?” I asked, changing the subject.
If we kept on this path, I feared we’d begin talking about the movie, but I was saving that for Friday. I wasn’t going to deviate from the plan. Once we were done discussing Dark Paradise, I’d have to come up with yet another excuse to spend time with Presley. This bought me a few days.
“Almost ten years,” she answered.
“Ten?” Presley wasn’t old enough to have lived here that long. “Did you grow up in this house or something?”
“I moved in when I was eighteen. I rented the guest bedroom from the lady who owns this place. She was looking for a roommate to take care of the place while she was gone because she worked for the railroad and traveled a lot. So I took care of her cat and made sure the house was clean. When she moved a few years later, she was going to sell but I asked her if I could rent it instead.”
“So you’re twenty-eight?” She did not look twenty-eight.
“Twenty-seven. My birthday is in August. You?”
“Thirty-four.”
Presley stepped across the kitchen, passing me by. I followed, stopping by her side as she looked down the entryway to the front door. “Thanks for your help.”
“No problem. Are you sure I can’t convince you to help unpack boxes?”
“I’ve had enough unpacking for a while,” she muttered.
“Huh?” Hadn’t she lived here for ten years?
“Nothing.” She waved me off, then looked once more to the door.
But she wasn’t getting rid of me that easily. I strolled past her into the living room, ignoring the grumble that came from her mouth.
“No picture?” I picked up an empty frame from a table beside the couch.
“No.” She yanked it from my hand, laying it facedown.
I walked to the TV, crouching down to examine the row of movies stacked neatly on the stand’s shelves. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a horror fan.”
“I’m not,” she muttered. “Those aren’t mine.”
“Oh, do you have a roommate?”
“Not anymore.”
That distant tone I’d gotten the first day at the garage was back. I stood, the chill in her voice setting the hairs on my arms on end. What was I missing? What picture had been in that frame? Who had left the Saw movies behind?
She tapped her foot, reminding me it was time to leave.
I ignored that too and kept searching for clues.
When I’d been a cop, I’d walk into a room and catalog everything within the first minute. I’d gotten out of that habit since changing careers, and it took me longer than it would have back then to pick up on the details in Presley’s home.
The empty frame. The People magazine turned upside down on the coffee table. The cushion on the left side of the leather couch that looked slightly more worn than any other seat.
There was an entire row of photographs hanging on one wall and I moved in to get a closer look. The largest in the center was of Presley and Draven. He had his arm around her and his cheek bent low, pressing into her hair. She was hugging his waist and smiling wide.
“You two were close.”
“Very.” There was longing in her voice. Heartache. She joined me in front of the photo, staring at it hard, like she was wishing she could hop inside and go back to that moment.
That same nostalgia hit me whenever I saw a photo of myself in uniform, standing beside my dad wearing the same.
There were days when I wished we could leap into the past, to relive the moments when he was my hero and the notion of giving up the police force for some action movies would have made us both laugh hysterically.
The longer she stared at Draven, the more it began to sink in. Presley’s defense of his character. Her constant reminders that he’d been a good man.
Draven had been a father figure for her. She longed to be his daughter.
She tore her gaze away from the photo. “You’d better go.”
“Okay.” There’d be no breaking down that wall of hers tonight. “Are we still on for Friday?”
She nodded and led me to the door, her spine stiff and shoulders pinned as she opened it wide.
I followed but didn’t leave. Instead, I leaned against the frame and let the warm air seep past us both. “I don’t know which box my dishes are in.”
“Probably the one marked dishes.”
I grinned. Everything in the boxes was brand new. I doubted there’d be many items labeled. “I’m ordering pizza. Want to share?”
“I’m eating in tonight.”
“That’s right. You’ve got all your carrots.”
“I have bad eyes,” she snapped. It sure was fun to irritate her.
“When I was a kid, the eye doctor warned me I’d probably need glasses.
I didn’t want glasses because what already tiny first grader wants to stand out more than she already does?
So I ate a ton of carrots. I still had to get glasses, but . . .”
“The carrots stuck.”
She nodded.
“Do you wear glasses?”
She nodded again.
I bet glasses would only make her blue eyes bigger. They’d be sexy on the thin bridge of her nose. They’d accentuate the daintiness of her chin. I’d have to come over one night, surprise her with something neighborly—carrot cake maybe—just to see if I could catch her in glasses.
“What else do you like to eat?”
“Go away, Shaw.”
I chuckled but didn’t move. “Tell me.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know about you.”
“You’re leaving in six weeks. Doesn’t this feel like wasted effort?”
“Not at all.” These questions felt like some of the best I’d asked in a long, long time.
“I like pasta. And bread. And chips. And cereal. And all the things that come in a box because even though they’re supposed to be bad for you, I love them anyway.”
“A box? Like a pizza box? Because I’m ordering pizza for dinner tonight. Want some?”
“You’re impossible. Go. Home.” She planted one of her delicate hands on my arm and gave me a not so delicate shove.
I didn’t budge.
She growled.
“Fine.” I pushed off the door and winked as I walked down the steps.
I didn’t rush my steps but I kept my eyes forward, waiting for the sound of her closing door. When I hit the driveway, I still hadn’t heard it, so I glanced back.
And fuck yeah, Presley’s eyes darted up from my ass.
She could pretend she didn’t like me all she wanted, but we both knew there was something here. Something worth exploring for six weeks.
How convenient, since Presley was my new neighbor.
I whistled as I crossed my yard and waved to the woman across the street watching her daughter play in a splash pool.
Goddamn, I loved my new yellow house.