Chapter 12
California
I wasn’t the type to wait for men to call.
I didn’t date with visions of wedding photos overlaying the scene.
I didn’t pretend to want romance. The years I spent living with Delia had taught me better.
There was a world beyond white picket fences and joint bank accounts, a world that pulsed in full, vivid color, eclipsing the still-life photographs of my parents’ wedding day.
In contrast to my mother and father’s steady kind of love, Delia was of the mind that love was just for fun, and men were adrenaline rushes—quick and dirty ways to prove you were still alive.
“Everyone’s temporary anyway,” she would always say.
Her ethos made more sense than the ache I felt when I was lonely.
So the romantic promise of forever never tempted me—freedom did.
A feeling as sharp as the gin in the back of my throat when I’d sneak drinks at her parties.
And after standing in the middle of my parents’ estate sale, watching strangers haggle over the remnants of their lives, I decided the only thing worth craving was control.
Which is why it really made no sense that two weeks after giving him my business card, I was waiting for Beau Walker to call.
Glancing at my phone, thumbing the refresh button on my email to make sure the service wasn’t down, googling him in quiet moments to see if he’d fallen off the planet in some freak accident.
As far as I could tell, Beau Walker was alive and well.
But he hadn’t called or written. That didn’t stop him from living rent-free in my head.
This development proved particularly harrowing when I took a break from my usual activities—namely, spending my days yoked to Simon’s Outlook calendar—because Simon decided to spend the weekend on a ski trip with some of his friends.
With a long weekend of no work stretching out ahead of me, I decided to tick off some of my usual distractions with my lazy Friday afternoon.
I halfheartedly folded laundry. I went for a hike so I could say I had gotten some fresh air.
And then, I mindlessly scrolled through Zillow listings for sprawling houses with claw-foot tubs and infinity pools, daydreaming about someday being able to afford my own house.
At some point, I fell asleep on my couch watching a documentary about deep-sea jellyfish or Byzantine-era political conflicts—some nerd-core topic that my parents would have debated for days but I forgot as soon as I closed my eyes.
By Saturday afternoon, the unclaimed hours standing between me and Simon’s return on Monday felt less like a gift and more like a trapdoor, waiting to drop me straight into a sea of abject boredom.
Feeling my apartment walls starting to edge closer, I grabbed my phone and texted Gemma.
6:14 P.M.
Simon’s out of town, and I’m bored. What are you doing tonight?
She answered right away.
6:16 P.M.
Benedict Canyon. Crazy house party. You should come!
She sent me the address, and I threw on a lacy top and a pair of jeans before I took an Uber up the canyon, where a rambling Spanish mansion—red-tile roof and all—was waiting at the top.
Bougainvillea and wisteria climbed the balconies, curling around the second floor like something out of a movie set.
And in contrast to the classically picturesque architecture, the bass from the music playing inside thumped so hard I couldn’t tell if it was rattling the windows or just my own ribs.
As I wandered inside, the deep, pulsing music smothered every thought. Good. This was exactly what I needed.
As soon as I find the bar.
I scanned the edges of the crowd that filled the living room.
The house was packed with people dancing and talking under dim lighting.
All of them had that L.A. could-be-an-actor look—pretty, polished, vaguely familiar.
I didn’t recognize anyone I knew, though, and I didn’t see a bar.
So I slipped through the gaps of the crowd in the living room and out to the backyard.
The DJ’s music was echoing off the canyon.
The crowd inside spilled out onto the pool deck, where a stone-lined swimming pool glowed. Its underwater lights cycled through colors, slowly pulsing in time with the music, and I was relieved to find a bar set up on one side of the deck.
“Este!” I heard someone call. I half expected to see Gemma, but the voice was masculine. And as I spun back toward the house I had just exited, the Patron Saint of Bad Dates was loping toward me, shuffling his way through the crowd with a goofy grin.
My social life existed in two categories: Work-trauma-bonded friendships, like the one I had with Gemma.
And prior to my situationship with Simon, the men—a very carefully curated type of man—I casually dated.
These were not complicated people. They didn’t require the mental lock picking some men did.
In a world where my work life was complex enough, the men I let take me out were quite simple.
The trainer whose entire personality might be rooted in macros, a finance guy who spent more time talking about market trends than about the Midwestern town he hailed from.
They were elevator music—a fantastic diversion.
Pleasant when I was in need of filling the silence, but not substantial enough to evoke a real emotion.
Everyone is temporary.
And now, a guy named Dylan, who I had accidentally saved in my phone as Damon, was standing right in front of me.
Dylan-not-Damon and I had been on a handful of dates last year.
“I’m surprised that you’re at this party.” He was drunk; his speech carried a vaguely fluid quality that hinted he was surprised to be standing upright. And he was gripping a plastic cup, evidently determined to get more drunk.
“Da—Dylan, hi,” I said. “What party is this? I’m meeting a friend.” I looked past Dylan-not-Damon to see if I could spot Gemma.
“Good luck. This place is a madhouse. People everywhere.” Dylan leaned in so I could hear him over the roaring soundtrack. “How’s work? Last time we talked, you were slammed with a new project.”
Right. Work. My excuse for dodging a fourth date with Dylan last year.
“You’re in marketing, right?” Dylan said, as if trying to jog his memory. But his smile smugly said, You’re welcome, like he was sure he had nailed it.
“Not exactly,” I said, but there was no point in outright correcting him. There was a good chance a blackout was waiting for him at the bottom of the cup he was holding. “Where’d you find that?” I pointed to his drink.
“Oh!” He smacked his forehead. “I’m sorry. You want me to get you one?”
“That would be great,” I said. “Vodka soda.” He’d either successfully find me a beverage or fall into a shrub and forget this conversation entirely. A win either way.
As he walked away, Dylan bobbed his head to the music, a dopey, vacant look on his face. It was like watching a dog tied to a bike rack, waiting for his owner to return.
“Hey, Este.” Someone touched a hand to my elbow, pulling me out of my thoughts.
I turned to find Beau Walker, effortlessly put together in a button-down shirt and sports coat. He looked good. And that hum of attraction from the bar stirred low in my chest, unbidden but inevitable.
“Beau…” I stalled. I couldn’t think of anything past that to say. My brain glitched to a full blue screen.
“What brings Este Todd out this way?” he asked with a smile.
I stammered, “Y-you never called.”
Literally hundreds of thousands of words in the English language, and I choose those three. Awesome.
“I’ve been busy,” he answered, a little sheepishly. “But I kept your card. I even looked you up.”
I shouldn’t have liked hearing that. But I did. And Beau could tell—my cheeks flushed before I could think to hide it.
“Did you find my mug shot or my LinkedIn profile?” I joked, trying to shake off the pull between us.
“Better. Did you know there’s an article about your award-winning science fair project from middle school?”
I tried not to let him see my surprise. “That was a very good day for me. I wowed the judges with a fruit fly genetics experiment.”
“Sounds unforgettable.” He looked between me and the drink in his hand. “But your chief of staff to Simon Avery title is probably the detail you lead with.”
“Most days.” I nodded. “And since you’ve mentioned it, Simon would love to sit down with you to talk about InfoSynth.”
“Persistent.” He smiled.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Not at all.” He took a sip of his drink. “How about I have my office call on Monday and set it up.”
“Perfect.” I kept my face neutral as adrenaline curled hot in my stomach. Simon would want to hear this the second I could slip away, and I couldn’t wait to hear his reaction.
Beau didn’t respond right away, and it gave me a moment to notice how people brushed past him, trying to catch his eye or angling their bodies toward him. But Beau barely registered them. His gaze stayed locked on me—steady, deliberate—as if I were the only person in the room worth noticing.
Why does that feel so good?
“So what brings you to Harlan’s house?” he finally said.
“What do you mean?” A flicker of recognition sparked in my mind as I looked around at the palatial house again. “Wait. This is Harlan Nichols’s house?”
The crowd made perfect sense now. Harlan was exactly the type to want to be surrounded by these twentysomething, gormless, pretty people.
Hey, Siri, show me a billionaire with a debilitating case of Peter Pan syndrome.
Beau nodded. “He’s been lobbying pretty hard to acquire InfoSynth, too.”
That didn’t surprise me, but it would make things complicated for Simon. Simon and Harlan were bitter rivals, which meant this had the potential to become contentious.
“So this party is…for you?” I asked, keeping my reaction to myself.
“I don’t think so. I get the impression this is how he spends all of his Saturdays.”
“Still, aren’t you popular? Congratulations.”