Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
“You have got to be shitting me. Your orgasm-burgle victim was Danny Kekoa?” On the phone, Maya is ecstatic. “Oh my god, you lucky bitch. He looks like Jason Momoa if the Queer Eye boys ever got ahold of him. Do you know what this means?”
“God hates me?”
“It means she loves you! She’s so sick of you dragging your feet, she’s positively hurling you out of your comfort zone, right into the arms of the Lothario of Lahaina. You are so about to get laid.”
“Just stop. This is a disaster. I can’t coach this guy! He’s seen my horny face. Also, he’s super salty about the orgasm-burgle thing.”
I sit down on my bed next to my open suitcase filled with rolled turtlenecks.
I’m supposed to meet Danny back at the Live by Design office in an hour.
He should be done filling out his intake paperwork by then.
If I pack quickly enough, I might have time to pop by Casey’s first. The girls are always leaving things at my loft, so it’s easy to find an excuse to see him.
“If he’s so terrible, just tell Belinda you can’t do it,” Maya says. “I’m surprised she’s on board with you chasing Casey anyway.”
My silence gives me away.
“Wait.” Maya’s voice is a yellow caution sign. “Belinda does know you only want this job to follow Casey, right?”
“I may have omitted that part.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t stand by while Helena steals Casey away from me. And weren’t you the one who begged me to take the Malibu contract when it first came up?”
“That’s when I thought a summer away would sever this weird hold Casey has on you. Not so you could stalk him and his hot new girlfriend in LA traffic.”
“He has no idea what he’s in for. Helena will be in trial.
She won’t have any time for him or the girls.
It’s like my own childhood all over again—Dad in the war room, prepping his brilliant legal strategy, and me home alone with Bagel Bites.
Trust me, he’s going to need me. My only concern is being so far away from you. ”
Maya sighs. “It’s like a three-hour flight, babes, and I’m Delta Diamond.
They always upgrade me to comfy plus. And I’d never hold you up like that.
But just ask yourself one thing—if you had taken the job in California first, do you think Casey would say, ‘Hey, let me uproot my whole summer to follow Lauren’? ”
She says my name with a clunky weight to it, so it sounds like burden. Her point is made too well, because tears prick my eyes, and I put my head between my legs and breathe deeply.
“Stop hyperventilating. No one is there to give you attention for it.”
I sit back up but continue breathing deeply. “What am I even doing?”
“Look, LA aside, you coaching this guy is a good thing. A real thing. You may be an unmitigated disaster when it comes to your own life, but you are brilliant at telling other people what to do. With you in his corner, Danny Kekoa can’t lose.
Things are about to change for both of you, and I am so here for it. ”
“Shall we?” I say, rolling my bag into the office. Danny is sprawled on the lobby furniture and doesn’t bother looking up from his phone.
Is he scrolling and swiping right?
“Sure,” Danny grunts, getting up and wandering toward the elevator bank. “Whatever you say, Theranos.”
“My name is Lauren.”
“Really? Are you sure it isn’t Elizabeth Holmes? Former founder and CEO of the fraudulent blood testing company Theranos? I Googled you after you left. Imagine my surprise to find the woman in my bed hours earlier was currently serving a hefty prison sentence.”
A pleasant little zip of energy vibrates up my spine at the mention of us being in bed together. It intensifies when the elevator doors close, isolating us in close proximity.
“I’m sorry about the fake name. Old habit. But I can assure you, my real name is Lauren.”
“I believe nothing until I see a birth certificate.”
So he’s a birther now. Great.
We exit the building onto the city streets, new skyscrapers and the cranes that spawned them looming overhead. He says little as we walk, and I match his energy, giving him furtive looks from the corner of my eye.
When we arrive at the glossy exterior of the Met, I put my hand on his arm at the breezeway door.
“Look, I’m sorry I lied about my name,” I say quietly, “and I’m completely mortified by this whole situation. Considering we’re stuck together for the next three weeks, can we please start over on more professional footing?”
Danny thinks for a moment before giving me his answer.
“No.”
He lumbers through the door, leaving me to yank my luggage after him.
“Your anger is valid,” I say, my suitcase bouncing behind me, “but a small part might be misdirected. You may actually be mad at your own actions. But don’t worry, treating negative behavior patterns is what I do for a living. If you cooperate, I can really help you.”
“You’re pretty insightful for someone convicted of defrauding the entire medical community.”
I sigh and quicken my pace, slowing down only when I register my surroundings.
In the light of day, the Met lobby is breathtaking.
Light marble with sparkling veins of gold and silver.
Pitchers of spa water with floating lemons and cucumbers wait on a long mahogany table with bowls of bright green apples so polished they look like decor.
On every surface are towering vases of fresh-cut peonies, dahlias, and hydrangeas.
“Your building is so beautiful.”
“You’d better let me go up first and clean up. I wasn’t expecting company,” Danny says, grabbing an apple and tossing it in the air.
“Don’t worry, I’m a professional. And I’m sure I’ve seen worse.”
“Suit yourself,” he says, taking a bite of the apple with pointed canines.
It draws my attention to his lips, and I have a flashback of him hovering over me, his eyes drinking me in, those lips exploring my body.
I blink twice to clear the image, hoping he doesn’t notice the flush tinting my cheeks.
We ride up the elevator in silence.
“You sure I can’t go in first to hide anything embarrassing?” he says when we arrive at his unit.
I shake my head. “It’s helpful to get a true sense of our starting point. Don’t worry, I promise not to judge.”
Danny shrugs and opens the door with a flourish, and I duck under his arm to enter.
The chic tidiness throws me. Damn. Was it this nice during my drunken visit? The memory is hazy. And Bill’s debriefing made it sound like there’d be beer-can towers, not crystal decanters on a West Elm bar cart.
The apartment is filled with natural light and has the distinct vibe of an upscale adult space.
Masculine and polished, like where rich men go for a straight-razor shave.
Dark-wood floors lead me to the living room, where a jewel-toned Persian rug is anchored by cognac leather furniture.
The live-edge coffee table is weighed down by thick books on architecture and, oddly, artisanal breadmaking.
Danny follows me in.
“So, what do we do now?” he asks, and the generous room feels smaller with him in it.
“I shadow you for the first day while you go about your business, and I take notes on any changes that could be helpful,” I say, entering the kitchen.
“Like on Supernanny.” Danny leans against the island, smirking.
“Exactly.”
Wait … did he just call me a babysitter again?
I open all his drawers and cabinets and stand back with my hands on my hips.
His dry goods are elegantly decanted into clear glass jars, although dry goods is a relative term.
What Danny Kekoa has in his pantry can only be described as what a ten-year-old would buy at a gas station during a family road trip.
Cookies of every flavor are towered into glass containers lined up meticulously next to clear mason jars of jellybeans, rosy licorice swizzles, and chocolate-covered pretzels.
I rub my hands together and get to work. It’s my favorite part of the job, that first step of the challenge. You aren’t exhausted yet. No roadblocks have stymied you. It’s just you, your goal, and the thousand steps it takes to get there.
First, I move his cutlery tray, placing it in a most inconvenient location above his toaster.
Then, I reorganize his coffee mugs, reaching up to move them behind his colorful cereal boxes full of sugar and red dye number five.
My sweater rides up a little, exposing a flash of abdomen when I reach overhead.
I notice that Danny looks away, pretending he doesn’t see.
“Why do you eat kids’ cereal?” I say, lining up the boxes again.
“Why are you messing up my kitchen?”
“I’m short-circuiting your brain,” I explain, hiding a bag of espresso under the sink.
“The idea being, if you break mundane habits like where you reach for your spoon each morning, it rewires your neurons and makes dismantling all your bad habits easier. I do it with all my smoking cessation clients.”
“But I don’t smoke.”
“The flight crew of a certain JetBlue flight beg to differ,” I say, my cheeks reddening.
“That wasn’t a cigarette.” He grins.
The appearance of his dimple makes my insides turn to jelly. I close the cupboard and try to squeeze past him, our bodies grazing because he doesn’t move out of the way.
“I’ll just go unpack,” I say, mostly because I need a minute alone.
Just a few seconds to close my eyes and do some positive affirmations without him looking at me.
To self-soothe by hanging my sweaters and lining up my travel toiletries and repeating my confidence mantra. “Can you please point me to my room?”
“You were here Saturday night,” Danny says, his voice full of false innocence. “You don’t remember?”
No. Just your fingertips on the nape of my neck.
Beads of shower water on your abdomen, steam from your body swirling around us and—god this keeps happening!
Constantly, and completely against my will.
And it really needs to stop right fucking now, because this man is my client and these fantasies are completely inappropriate.