3. To a… woman?
To a… woman?
Leandra came home a little after four-thirty in the morning.
Hunter heard her key in the lock because he was wide awake, listening to the thin windowpanes rattle and waiting patiently until it was time to wake Colby again.
He bolted out of their bed and rushed into the living room to greet her so she wouldn’t freak out.
She jumped as she stepped into the apartment and came face-to-face with Hunter.
“Hunter, what—” He held a finger to his lips and widened his eyes in urgency, silencing her. Then he pointed at the couch. Her brown eyes followed, and then her eyebrows pinched. “Who the fuck is that?”
“A… friend. He was in an accident,” Hunter whispered.
“You don’t have to whisper. I’m awake,” Colby said from the couch.
“Sorry,” Hunter replied.
“Dude, it’s your house. Don’t apologize,” Colby said, and then he was sitting up.
Leandra stared between them, reached for the wall where she had blindly hung her keys, and then flipped the switch for the overhead light. Colby blinked as his eyes adjusted to the light, and Hunter stepped closer to him. “How are you feeling?”
“Headache still, but fine. Honestly,” Colby replied.
“The cut isn’t bleeding through the bandage, which is good.”
Leandra stared between them, and eventually they both turned and looked at her. “Hi.” She waved at Colby. “I’m Leandra. I live here with Hunter.”
“Yeah, he mentioned a girlfriend.” Colby smiled. “I’m Colby Keaton. I was in my van—”
“That mangled thing outside? You were in that?” Leandra’s mouth dropped into an O for a second. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah.” Hunter nodded. “I heard the tree fall and I helped him get out. He was stuck in the back.”
“The back?” Leandra blinked. “You were sleeping on the street?”
“In my van. There’s a bed. It’s a camper van. Basically,” Colby explained. “I’m a musician.”
She seemed to think about that for much longer than required, Hunter thought. Then she nodded at their guest and turned to Hunter. “I thought you knew him. You said he was a friend.”
“He is,” Hunter said, and he felt absurdly awkward, like the time he’d been forced to ask a girl to the Sadie Hawkins dance in ninth grade, long before he felt like talking to girls. He’d been a late bloomer. “We met before tonight.”
Not a lie, Hunter reassured himself. “He happened to be sleeping in his home in front of the house. By random coincidence. Anyway, he can’t sleep there now, and because he’s injured and the van’s fucked I offered him the couch. Someone needs to check on him every hour with the concussion.”
“My friends mostly live in the Valley or Malibu, so I really appreciated the help,” Colby said to Leandra, and he smiled again.
He did look very sweet when he smiled. Charming really.
“I can be out of your hair tomorrow. I’ll call someone while I’m at work and figure out how to deal with the van.
Then figure out a temporary living thing. ”
“Where does a musician work during the day?”
“Trader Joe’s,” Colby admitted sheepishly.
“Okay…” She nodded slowly, then turned her attention to Hunter. He stood beside her, feeling weirdly on edge. Like she was his mom and he was trying to convince her to let him have a sleepover on a school night. “FYI, you don’t have to wake concussed people every hour anymore. That’s old protocol.”
“Leandra is a nurse and a yoga instructor,” Hunter told Colby, which made Leandra frown for some reason.
She looked at Colby again. “Have you been nauseous?”
“No.”
“Double vision?”
“No.”
She turned back to Hunter. “You should have kept him awake for the first four hours, and after that, if there is no dizziness, double vision, or nausea, he can sleep.”
Hunter scratched his head and shot an embarrassed smile at Colby. “Sorry dude. I didn’t do it right.”
“I’ve got none of those things, so no harm, no foul.” He pulled back the blanket Hunter had given him and started to stand up. He was still only in his underwear, but Leandra didn’t seem to care. “I can leave you. Sleep in the van. Not like another tree limb is going to land on me.”
“Just stay. It’s fine.”
“Really?” Hunter croaked, and she frowned at him.
“I’m not a fucking monster, Hunter,” Leandra snapped and then turned to Colby and threw a tight smile at him. “Rest up. I can take a look at whatever the hell happened to your forehead if you want.”
“I cleaned it and put two butterfly Band-Aids on it,” Hunter told her. “It was a cut.”
She nodded. “When was your last tetanus?”
“Shot? Like two years ago, because I stepped on a nail trying to build the platform for the van bed,” Colby answered.
“Okay, then you’re probably good. I mean, if you won’t go to a real doctor, which I’m betting you won’t…” She eyed him, waiting for an answer.
“Nope. Didn’t budget for it.”
“Artists,” she sighed, rolled her eyes, then breezed past them both and disappeared into the bedroom.
Hunter and Colby stared at each other. “I don’t think she’s a monster,” Hunter told Colby because it felt like he had to clarify. “She’s my girlfriend. I think she’s great. Anyway. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“I’ll be out of here by nine,” Colby promised. “Thanks again.”
“No problem.” Hunter headed back to the bedroom.
He found Leandra had already changed into a tank top and shorts. She was pulling her long dark hair out of the ponytail she’d had it in and reached for a makeup-removing wipe on her dresser. “He seems nice.”
“He is,” Hunter said, but honestly, for all he knew, Colby could be a psychopath. They could both be gutted with knives from their kitchen drawer by morning. He really didn’t think so, though, especially because he had to convince Colby to spend the night, but… “Thanks for letting him stay.”
She sighed and glared at him through the mirror above the dresser as she wiped off the minimal makeup she wore. “As I said, I’m not an asshole. He’s in a pinch. It happens.”
Hunter got back into bed as she tossed the used wipe into the trash and turned to face him.
“So, was it a good time?”
“What?”
“Your night out. With Cass.”
“It was a night in. Just the girls because Byron is at a conference in Hawaii,” Leandra said. “She was going to go too, but she has a movie campaign launching and couldn’t get away. She’ll fly out on Friday and join him for the weekend.”
“Nice,” Hunter said, but honestly? He didn’t give a fuck what Cass and her boyfriend Byron were doing.
Leandra made them sound way more interesting than they were with Hawaii conferences and movie launches.
In reality, Byron was a junior accountant with Warner Brothers, and Cass was the second assistant to an executive with the same company.
It wasn’t her movie launch, and it wasn’t his conference.
They were both just assisting higher-up people, Hunter was sure.
She walked to her side of the bed but hesitated. Her dark eyes shot to the door. “I was going to take a shower. It was muggy by the beach, and I feel gross.”
Hunter’s eyebrows pinched. “Doesn’t Cass live in the Valley?”
“Yeah, but the girls’ night was at Beth’s. Her sister. In Santa Monica,” she muttered and sighed. “Anyway, I’ll skip the shower.”
She got into bed. Hunter reached up and turned off his bedside light as Leandra flopped down on her side, facing away from him.
As he settled into his own pillow, she spoke again.
“Byron is taking night classes for some advanced certification on his accounting degree. They offer them at USC. And they have a night school program for an accounting certificate.”
“Okay.” He was about to ask her why she was telling him this when she flat-out explained herself, and he immediately wished she hadn’t.
“You could get one, and then you wouldn’t have to wait tables.”
“Numbers make my brain melt,” Hunter replied. “It’s what I hated about architecture when I was taking that in Canada. The math.”
She sighed heavily. “What about landscape architecture then? I bet there isn’t a lot of math in that. You like plants. You’re always helping Bob with his, and you saved Mrs. Yoon’s lime tree last year.”
“What the fuck is landscape architecture?”
“A course offered at UCLA Extension.”
“I already have a diploma from UCLA Extension. In acting.” Hunter clocked that his tone was slightly harsh, but he didn’t even want to change it, which said a lot because he was never one to show anger. He kept it bottled up and tamped down, usually telling himself he was wrong.
“Right. Yeah.” She exhales again. “Night.”
“Night.” Hunter swallowed down all the uncomfortable feelings.
He didn’t ask her what happened to coming home early or what the fuck she and Cass were doing until four in the morning or why she suddenly hated his career.
She knew his parents weren’t really behind him and that he hated it.
She also knew Hunter was serious about acting.
Always had been and always would be. She came to the small play Hunter was doing when they met and raved about how good he was.
She used to ask about the roles he was auditioning for, and even helped him run lines for auditions, but now she never asked, and even when Hunter told her, she seemed bored.
He closed his eyes and rolled away from her.
Not that she would notice. He told himself they’d both feel better in the morning.
And it was nice of her not to freak out over Colby.
It would all be fine. It had to be fine.
He really didn’t want to look for a new place or a new set of friends.
He’d lost touch with a lot of the people he’d met in LA pre-Leandra, and he didn’t like the people at his serving job enough to hang with them outside of work.
Oh, and he liked Leandra. He loved her, probably. Yeah. He did.
So it had to work out.