Chapter 16
16
J ulia had sure been right about this beach. Those women recognized Grant and clearly planned to use him to get their pictures all over social media. They’d obviously seen her too, but probably didn’t recognize her in her weird outfit and heavy slather of zinc cream. Still, from Julia’s description of Be-Seen, Sadie had imagined flirting, not scantily clad assassins dragging men into the Pacific. Their tactics were so crude that Sadie was tempted to help Grant escape their sunscreen-slimy clutches, but she had promised Julia she would storm off in a pouty huff whenever Grant became “distracted,” and this moment had to qualify. Letting out an exaggerated “harrumph,” she stood and gathered her towel, all the while scanning the area surreptitiously for anyone with a camera.
That was the other strange thing about this date, because ever since she’d arrived, all she saw around her were people fully absorbed in their own efforts to be photographed. No one was looking at her or Grant, let alone pointing a phone or other device their way. And if her fake indignant exit wouldn’t be noticed, let alone digitally memorialized, what was the point? To be honest, she’d much rather stuff her face with delicious-looking California rolls and fall asleep on those pretty pillows under the lemony, lacy shade.
The moment she’d spotted their romantic beach set up, an arrow of longing pierced Sadie’s heart—a longing for someone to love her so much and know her so well they would create something like this for her. The depth of that longing caught her unawares, and she’d needed an embarrassing several seconds to regain her powers of speech.
Grant claimed he’d created it specially for her but, given his relationship with Julia, he’d obviously only said that for the benefit of whomever around them might be listening…or recording. Probably Julia or Ronny had provided the umbrella, pillows, and snacks, because it all made for perfect photos. She rolled her eyes anew at the memory of Grant calling her the most beautiful woman there, despite her having shown up in the beach fashion equivalent of a snowsuit. That was the thing about fake dates—you couldn’t trust a single thing that happened in them.
And thank goodness date three would soon be over because, frankly, she was exhausted—exhausted by the planning, exhausted by her sisters’ teasing and suspicions, and exhausted at Grant always, always outmaneuvering her with his stubborn, clueless optimism and sense of adventure!
It didn’t help that she’d hardly slept. Vague, terrible dreams involving witches and spies who looked like Great Aunt Lydia had tortured her all night long. The worst nightmare of all was a reliving of her parents’ death in the car accident. She hadn’t had one of those dreams in nearly a year, and she always woke from them shaking and drenched in sweat.
Well, if she couldn’t enjoy this umbrella, her couch was the next best option. Maybe she’d stop at the corner grocery store first for some dried-out, made-yesterday California rolls plopped onto a flimsy plastic tray.
Towel in hand, she lined up her sandals, readying to put them on. Grant still struggled to escape, but if he could vanquish Slinger, surely he could get away from the Buxom Threesome. Just as she turned and faced the row of mansions, eager to retrace her steps to the South entrance, someone ran up behind her.
“Sadie, wait. Please, don’t go,” Grant said in a raspy voice.
She spun to look at him, and that was her mistake. There had never been a more dejected-looking human since humans climbed down from the trees. Sun and surf were supposed to make a person look younger, but the drawn down corners of his mouth and the pools of sadness in his eyes added twenty years to the twenty-five she assumed they both were.
Wow. He actually is a good actor.
“Can we…can we…” he said, “just have a seltzer and a few California rolls? Just that. Then you can go. I…I…” He paused, swallowed hard, and then prattled off, as if by rote, “We need to give the paparazzi a chance to get some photos of the third date.”
“I don’t see anyone with a phone or camera in the vicinity though, do you?” she said, gesturing around them.
His head swiveled as he turned in a three-sixty. “I don’t either, but they’ve got to be here, or they’re on their way. Maybe they got held up.”
This was a possibility, but truly, she did not care. Erasing this entire day from human history would be the best outcome for Sadie. But just as she spun to commence the sandy trudge to her waiting car, his hand connected briefly with hers. The heat, her exhaustion—something—caused his touch to send a zing up her arm. She rubbed at the spot with the towel still in her other hand.
“Please. One California roll,” he begged. “I’ve got pickled ginger and tamari—you like it better than regular soy sauce, right?”
She blinked at him. He’d remembered that? She pressed a hand against her forehead trying to massage away a sharp pain igniting behind her right eye, but the stupid, ugly frog baseball cap was in the way. It was too tight, too. “Fine, one roll,” she said as she reached up and tugged off the hat. She sent it straight down into the sand and gave it a solid stomping to make sure it stayed there. “And make mine iced coffee. I didn’t have any yet today, and I’m getting a roaring headache.”
“Do you still want me to take down the umbrella?” he asked.
“No. The shade is nice. Screw the paparazzi.”
Grant grinned, and Sadie felt a little piece of her disdain for him melt away, but only a little piece.
“Best three words I’ve ever heard,” he said. He rounded the umbrella so fast that, by the time Sadie allowed herself a deep breath before ducking underneath, the California rolls were set out and ice cubes were plink-plonking into glasses.
Sadie arranged a few of the softest-looking pillows into a backrest. She sat with her knees up and her arms loose around them, watching Grant pour the coffee. “You have a good memory. Sushi is my favorite, and I do prefer tamari.”
“At least now I can tell my parents I learned something in college,” Grant said and, once again, she laughed a little.
He poured two tall glasses and handed her one. She lifted hers back toward his, and they clinked a toast. “To the third and final date,” she said.
He looked confused for a second, then said, “To the third date.”
The iced coffee went down cold, creamy, and sweet. Her lack of sleep, the craziness of this day so far, and the perfection of their beach hideaway were all combining to make her a little giddy. Even the nearness of her sworn nemesis was starting to barely register. It was as if the golden, be-pillowed circle they inhabited formed its own little reality, far from the world where spinster pacts and roommate revenge had meaning.
After swallowing her first avocado-creamy, seaweed-salty, and wasabi-sharp mouthful, she sent Grant a sideways, guilty smile. “There was mud under my toenail this morning.”
Grant slapped a hand down onto the blanket, making sand grains dance. “I knew it!”
“That mud wrestling was pretty fun,” she said before popping a second California roll into her mouth.
He smiled so deeply it coaxed a dimple into one cheek. “It was! Even better than playing dodgeball with cow patties.”
He leaned back on the blanket, facing her, his muscled legs stretched toward the sea and his upper body propped on his left elbow. She’d been grateful his eyes were shut when she’d spotted him leaning against that rock at the South entrance, because she’d taken a cartoon-worthy double-take at the sight of him. In his swim shorts and with the sun highlighting every curve of his toned chest and runner’s calves, his boy-next-door charm turned into testosterone-oozing hotness. She’d had to forcibly keep herself from cat whistling him. Now, thank goodness, she could pretend to be mesmerized by the waves while actually enjoying a close-up view of his chiseledness.
“So, you really grew up on a farm? With cows?” she asked him.
“Really did,” Grant said, with a cowboy wink that highlighted the plush thickness of his eyelashes. “Why is that so impossible for anyone from LA to understand? Didn’t you take field trips to farms as kids?”
“They took us to museums and construction sites. Basically…I thought bread loaves grew on trees.”
He shook his head but let out a laugh. “My parents grow corn, wheat, and soybeans.”
“But farming isn’t for you?”
He crunched quietly on an ice cube for a few seconds. “I like the work, but the daily routine is too predictable for me. I can’t see spending fifty years doing the same things day after day. I don’t know if you remember, but I started off as a business major.”
“I remember,” she said, selecting her next California roll and slathering it with extra wasabi.
“I was going to go into banking, hoping I could help small farmers, but then I saw the stage performances you were in at Cal U, and my mind was blown. My high school had eighty students total. We didn’t have a theater program.”
A faint voice at the back of Sadie’s brain suggested that she be annoyed by the direction of this conversation, but the wasabi chose that moment to light up her sinuses with searing pain. “Ah!” she said, waving her hands over her face in a thoroughly futile gesture at dousing the heat.
He sat up, his tone soaked with concern. “Need some water?”
She blew out a relieved breath as the pain eased. “Not unless I pour it up my nose. Wasabi heat is different.” She looked at the roll in his hand to find it conspicuously wasabi-free. “Haven’t you tried it?”
He slid a doubt-filled glance toward the little pile of pastel green paste at the center of the tray. “Ummmm…no.”
She gave him a playful squeeze. His arm felt solid and warm and fuzzy like a summer peach, and she fought the urge to squeeze it again, a little longer and harder this time. “C’mon. Take a little. You’ll never understand the phrase ‘mind blown’ till you’ve had wasabi.” She leaned forward and opened her mouth, motioning for him to do the same.
The request had felt innocent enough, but as they each leaned in close, his scent enveloped her—fresh cut grass and a musky spice. She thought at first that the umbrella fabric must be magnifying his heartbeat too, then realized that insistent chest thumping was her own. The space under the umbrella shrank to become her world, and him the only thing in it. Warm light filtered through the umbrella fabric, highlighting the silvery flecks swimming in the sea of his eyes. By the time she placed the California roll onto his waiting tongue, the nerve endings all over her body were igniting. Their gazes tangled and held as he slowly closed his mouth around the bite and chewed.
“Hawwwwww!” Grant rocketed up from the blanket and disappeared from sight.
Sadie, startled from her reverie, barked out a laugh that was part genuine humor, part relief. She laughed harder still as he twice circled their umbrella at a run, his screams and grunts giving away his position in the loop.
“Whew!” he said, crashing back onto the blanket, his face aglow with sweat and wasabi warmth.
“Surest way to clear the sinuses,” she said, her side aching from laughter.
“You eat that voluntarily? That’s the meanest thing anyone’s ever done to me.”
Sadie’s laughter died in her throat. She, of all people, knew exactly how false that statement was. She had been attempting to torpedo his career for weeks now. She mustered a flaccid smile. “Some of us are masochists.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure it’s a requirement for becoming an actor,” Grant said.
“Then I’m pretty sure I’ve met that requirement!”
“Oh, c’mon, were our fake dates that bad?” Grant said.
Sadie startled anew. She’d been referring to the unpleasantness of her work at the studio deli, not the dates. The dates hadn’t been that bad. The Indian festival, the wrestling, and now their romantic beach hideaway complete with her favorite foods? She hated to admit it, but these dates had been the most fun she’d had since…since…
She lost track of time until Grant grimaced and said, softly, “I guess they were that bad.”
She reached out and touched his shoulder. “No, no. The fake dates have been fine, really. I meant my job at the deli. It seemed like a good way for me to get noticed, but instead I became invisible. Some days, I’m ready to give up.”
Grant’s eyebrows hitched up. “Are you kidding? You’re the most talented actress I’ve ever seen, let alone known.”
Sadie absorbed the compliment like a dry sponge takes in water. No one had said anything that nice to her since college graduation. “Right now, my talents lie in making egg sandwiches.”
“And I bet they’re delicious, but you just need your big break so the whole world will see what I’ve seen. I could always ask Ronny if he’d be your agent?”
She pulled her chin back in surprise. “Is he your agent now?”
“Yeah. These dates have raised my profile so much he offered to be my agent. Can you believe that?”
If she weren’t under the spell of this umbrella with its magical placating powers, Sadie knew this comment would have sent her through the roof—dude gets world’s leading agent just by existing, yada yada, film at eleven—but she had no indignance left to give. She was fresh out of caring. Besides, he’d offered to help her get taken on by Ronny too. “You’d ask him that for me?”
“Of course! Heck, you’re the reason my social media presence is what it is now. It’s nothing I did. I don’t know if he’ll agree right away, but I promise to keep at him till he caves, even if it’s just to stop me from bringing it up.”
Sadie sent him a warm, genuine smile, not only for the kind offer, but for not taking all the credit for the online success of the dates. “Thanks. I’d appreciate that.”
Grant picked up a tiny, delicate shell from the nearby sand and rotated it in his fingers. After a few seconds, he asked, “How did you end up in theater?”
“I’ve wanted to be an actress as long as I can remember. I worked so hard to get into Cal U, and then I almost changed careers my senior year of high school.”
“Why?”
“It’s kind of embarrassing.”
He chuckled. “You’re talking to the guy who fell off the stage in our final performance of Oedipus , remember?”
Sadie did. He’d been doing an admirable job, too, before getting carried away with his sword play. “We all thought you were going to skewer that guy in the front row,” she said, and laughed at the memory.
“’That guy was my father, so, ironically, it would have fit the piece perfectly.”
A laugh bubbled up from deep inside Sadie. “No!”
“Oh, yes. Fortunately, he’s also the person I get my quick reflexes from. But you still haven’t answered my question. Why did you almost deprive the world of your beauty and talent?”
She had laughed at his awkward stage moment, so it seemed only fair to share hers. And, anyway, why should she care if he knew? “The summer before my senior year, my boyfriend and I were playing opposite as Romeo and Juliet in a community theater group when he cheated on me with the girl playing Juliet’s nurse. I had to express my undying love for him night after night in front of her and sold-out audiences. It nearly soured me on the whole thing.”
“Ugh. It’s bad enough to be cheated on, but to have to keep acting with the jerk? At that age, I never would’ve wanted to see another script.”
“I didn’t, but my sisters convinced me to give the Cal U program a chance, and as soon as I sat in my first theater class, I was so glad they did.”
“Thank goodness for your sisters.”
They were silent for several minutes as they gazed out at the water. The waves had gradually picked up in size and strength as the day lengthened, and few people were venturing into the crashing surf. The sound lulled Sadie. She closed her eyes as she felt her exhaustion returning.
“Tired?” Grant said quietly.
“I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“Why don’t you take a rest?”
She let out a sigh. “You don’t mind?”
“Of course not. What’s a warm, seaside afternoon for if not the perfect nap?”
She dipped her lids, and the darkness was so inviting. “Okay. I think I will. Not to nap, but just to rest.”
She turned over on her side, facing away from him and the sun, and lay down. As soon as she settled down, she felt him ever so gently placing pillows around her, making a Sadie-sized nest. He even handed her a super squishy cushion, which she pulled to her chest and hugged.
“Okay if we keep talking a bit longer?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said as she snuggled her head a little deeper into a blue velvet pillow. She was so, so tired, and the pillows were so, so comfy. A seagull flew near them, cawing loudly, but her awareness of her surroundings was already dulling at the edges.
“Do you remember the first time we saw each other?” he asked, his voice quiet.
“Mmmm,” she mumbled. “I walked into your dorm room on freshman move-in day.”
They’d never acknowledged that moment to each other before. The diminishing part of her that was still awake waited for his next response, but none came. Her senses relaxed into the rhythm of the waves and the soft whoosh of the salty breeze skittling past her ear.
“Sadie?” she heard finally in an almost whisper.
“Mmmm.” Had she ever been this cozy before in all her life? She drifted a little deeper.
“Why don’t you like me? What did I do?”
The question came as if from far away. It took a while to get her sleepy brain to fully understand it. Once she did, she couldn’t find a reason not to answer. There were no more dates, her revenge plan had failed, and they’d both already been sharing personal things.
“You dated and dumped all my roommates,” she said. With no energy to add condemnation to her voice, she ended up sounding like a parent explaining to a curious child why mice don’t much care for snakes. Simple. Matter of fact. “You kept breaking their hearts, and I had to keep picking up the pieces.”
And that was all Sadie remembered of their conversation—until sometime later when excited voices woke her.