18. Ashton
ASHTON
A nd surprise me he does.
Griffin orders just about everything on the menu from some local Chinese restaurant he claims is the best in town. He opens every container, creating a huge spread across his living room coffee table.
“I’m not sure you ordered enough.”
Without taking his eyes off the food, he replies, “Right? I’m starving.”
I laugh. There is no way this man eats this kind of food on the regular and stays as fit as he does for Malibu Shores .
“Griffin, I was kidding. There’s enough food here to feed a team of teenage basketball players.”
His head pops up.
“How can you eat all this and—” I gesture with my finger from his head to his torso —“look like that?”
He shovels a mound of noodles onto a plate. “Look like what?”
Is he serious right now?
He smirks, his dimple showing.
I narrow my eyes and stick out my tongue.
He chuckles, and I’m grateful he doesn’t make me spell out the fact that I noticed his well-sculpted build. Because boy, did I notice. The fitted Henley shirt he’s wearing hugs snugly in all the right places.
While I appreciate watching Griffin on screen, I definitely favor the real-life version more—along with the version of him and Scarlet I saw tonight.
On Malibu Shores , their chemistry is palpable; but tonight, they seemed…
awkward. Disjointed. Not like a couple at all.
Selfishly, their uncomfortable interaction made me do a backflip internally.
If being plastered in the media for most of my teenage years taught me anything, it’s that you can’t believe everything you read in a tabloid.
The truth comes out when the cameras are off.
He holds up an empty plate. “Do you like chicken or beef with your chow mein?”
“Chicken.”
“Eggroll?”
“I can make my own plate, you know. The coffee table isn’t that far away.” I wiggle from my propped-foot position to lean forward.
“Get back on that couch, woman.” He stands, towering over the food-laden coffee table.
My body recoils.
His expression softens. “Please.” He comes around the table and places the overloaded plate onto my lap. “You’re my patient tonight. Let me take care of you. Okay?”
The earnestness of his words takes my breath away.
No one’s taken care of me since the short stint I stayed with Lynn.
Even then, it was foreign. I’m so used to doing everything myself.
I even learned how to cook alongside Cecily at the age of nine.
Mom was always so self-absorbed, she rarely remembered to feed us.
The one perk of her fame was hiring a personal chef so we ate more nutritional meals that didn’t come from a bag or a box.
I nod, unable to formulate a response.
Satisfied, he sits next to the coffee table, this time with his back resting against the couch near my legs. His nearness doesn’t make me uncomfortable in the slightest. If anything, his subtle cedar scent makes me want to inch closer.
I’m afraid to question that too deeply.
Caution is my friend. I need to keep it close. It doesn’t matter how weak his relationship with Scarlet appears; he’s taken. I certainly don’t want to make that mistake twice.
My loyal companion has abandoned me to snooze next to Roxy’s bed.
The two puppies already ate their dinner while we waited for our food to be delivered and had played for a few minutes in the backyard before coming back inside to rest. Griffin ordered a portable playpen for the puppies that arrived before our dinner, giving him enough time to set it up for the dogs.
I can hear their contented, soft snores from across the living room.
“Where’s Luke? Did you tell him we ordered food? Won’t he want some too?” I look toward the kitchen, where he always seems to appear.
Griffin wipes his fingers on a napkin. “The guest house has its own kitchen. He tends to prefer cooking for himself rather than eating out. I also try not to bother him too much. You know, give him his own space and whatnot.” He sips from his water.
“I texted him about dinner, but he said he’s tucked in for the night. ”
“Not much of a night owl, I guess?”
“Nope. Military trained that out of him.”
“He was in the military? What branch?”
“Army. Served for ten years before being honorably discharged.”
“Wow.”
“He doesn’t talk about it much. It wasn’t so much of his thing as it was his dad’s. His dad retired from the military after a thirty-year career.”
“What’s Luke hoping to do next?”
“Don’t know yet. I think he’s still figuring that out.”
“So, he decided to come to live with you for a while?”
“When he returned stateside, I offered him the job. I knew being a personal assistant wasn’t his dream job by any means, but it’ll allow him to earn some money until he decides what he really wants to do.
Plus, I like having him here. He’s like a brother.
” Griffin pushes his empty plate further onto the coffee table.
“He could have returned to his family’s ranch in Texas but decided against it. ”
I rest my fork on my plate. “I get that.”
“All done?”
“Yes, I’m stuffed. Thank you.”
He takes my plate and places it on top of his.
“What about you, did you always want a career in acting?”
He pauses for a moment. “I think so?”
“Is that a question or a statement?” I huff a laugh.
“It’s kind of hard to tell. It was so long ago.
I started acting in elementary school at a community theater.
My dad enrolled me. He’d done a few acting gigs here and there.
I guess he wanted me to follow his footsteps.
Once I showed some skill, he became more invested in me.
Both my parents did.” He walks into the kitchen and puts the plates in the sink and starts rinsing them.
“What about your mom? Where’s she?”
“My parents divorced just before my twelfth birthday. My dad wasn’t very devoted to their marriage.”
“As in, he didn’t spend much time with her?”
“That. And he preferred the company of other women. They did therapy and I thought things were good for a while. They both came to all my plays and the commercials I started doing. It was nice—something to bring them together. But just after I was cast for The Clubhouse , Mom left.”
“Like she moved out?”
He puts the dishes in the dishwasher, talking as if we are discussing the weather. “Moved out. Left the state. Eventually got remarried. Started a new life with a new family in Florida.”
“Oh.” As he walks back into the living room, I say, “I’m sorry.”
He shrugs. “It’s okay. She seems happier, I guess. My career took off, and my dad stuck around so things turned out okay.”
“Do you talk to your mom often?” I’m so full of questions, ones I don’t want to answer myself.
“Sometimes. Here and there. She’s busy with her other two kids. They’re in high school.” He sits next to the couch on the floor, facing me.
“Do you call her much?”
“Not really.”
I bite my lip, thinking of Cecily and how we probably could have mended things a long time ago with a simple phone call. “Maybe you should call her more. I’m pretty sure most mothers would love to hear from their children.” With the exception of mine.
“Yeah. I could.”
His fingers trace up and down the couch seam, inches from my thigh. Just the thought of him touching me sends goosebumps along my skin.
“What about you? Where are your parents?”
My insides tighten. I stall, taking a drink of water. I point to my mouth, expanding my cheeks.
He chuckles. “You don’t have to answer if it’s too personal.”
Is it too personal? I just asked him the same thing. It’s only fair I share too. We’re becoming friends after all, right? Isn’t that what friends do? Get to know one another?
I swallow hard. “My mom lives here in California, but we don’t talk much.”
He nods slowly. “And your dad?”
I lick my lips, uncomfortable talking about the business mogul who’d amassed such wealth that he secured a wife almost half his age. “He died shortly after I was born.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s okay. I was only a toddler. I don’t remember much about him, aside from a handful of pictures of us together.” I redirect the conversation, eager to shift away from me. “Since your dad’s your agent, I guess you get to see him pretty often?”
His arm lies on the couch cushion, resting against my bare leg. The touch isn’t uncomfortable. I withhold the desire to angle closer, leaning into his touch.
“I talk to my dad almost every day, but he speaks to me more as a client. Not so much as my father.”
I recall briefly meeting him at the shelter the day I met Griffin. “That’s right, the busy guy with a schedule to keep.”
He finger-guns me. “That’d be the one.”
“You’re not close, even though you work together?”
“We see each other often, but we never just talk. You know? Everything is always business—pushing me toward the next contract, the next big role, and making sure I’m following my health and fitness regimens, along with skin and hair care routines.
” He rests his forehead against his fist. “It can be…I don’t know… ”
“Stifling?” I finish for him.
“Exactly. I’ve been acting since I was eight and following whatever role my father deemed the right fit. I’ve never felt like I had complete control of my career.”
“You didn’t like being on Malibu Shores ?”
He takes a drink from his water bottle. “It’s not that I didn’t like it.” He sighs. “More like I felt stuck. I want to shift my career focus to film. I don’t want just any role anymore. I want the role.”
I nod. Since meeting him, I’ve recognized my own life has been in a frozen status.
Where he feels stuck, I’m immobilized by my own fears.
Fear Mom would find me, fear of tabloids remembering me, fear I’d fail at starting a rescue.
Griffin and I both want change. For the chance to choose —to grab—the life we really want.