Chapter 2
KENSEY
Itipped my head back and the sun warmed my cheeks and painted the inside of my eyelids bright red.
Grinning at the sky like a maniac with my eyes closed, I took a deep breath of air.
Southern California always made me forget how cold and gray the east coast was nine months out of the year. I wasn’t built for gray skies.
But I am built for this. I opened my eyes and carried on my way down the sidewalk, a Tupperware container balanced in one hand. LA was home. Always would be.
Three days ago I’d been sitting at my desk at Crestwood Academy, submitting final grades into a portal that always glitched right when you needed it most. Two days ago I’d been packing.
Yesterday I’d been on a plane. And today, here I was, walking down a street in Beverly Hills like I hadn’t spent the last nine months wearing ugly cardigans and sensible shoes.
Somehow, two years had passed since the last time I was in LA.
I knew we all lived under the same sun, but it was different on the west coast. The last two summers I’d signed up for the summer school program at Crestwood, partly because the extra pay was good and partly because it was easier to stay busy.
This summer would be different. I was taking time off.
Mom’s accident had made it impossible for me to ignore the passing of time. She’d broken her arm recently. Nothing dramatic, but it was a reminder she wasn’t as young as she once was. It had rattled something in me.
My parents weren’t getting any younger. I wasn’t going to get a lot more summers with them. And if I kept my distance too long, I’d find myself looking back at all my missed chances to spend time with them. No way. Not happening.
So here I was. No summer school. No lesson plans.
Just three months stretching out in front of me with nothing but sun, sand, and sea on my mind.
Well, that and my best friend in the whole world who I hadn’t seen in too long.
Drew didn’t even know I was coming. I grinned like an idiot thinking about his stupid face when he saw me.
He was going to be so surprised I’d made the trip home.
Finally, just as the morning temperature was becoming a little too warm, the store came into view.
I stopped and took it in. Or attempted to.
It was huge, dominating the retail plaza and dwarfing the stores on either side of it.
Drew had sent me a few pictures but he wasn’t the type to brag.
Never had been, which was why I liked his rich ass.
He didn’t act like the other rich kids in the exclusive private school we had attended.
I knew his cousins were in fashion. Vaguely. The way you know things about people you grew up near but didn’t really track closely. Surface-level facts about his family. They were fine, but he was the only one I really associated with.
Blackwell was a name that meant something in this city, had for as long as I could remember. Drew’s father was one of the movers and shakers in the movie business. And his mother was an A-list actress. She worked more behind the scenes these days, but every so often, I would see her in a new movie.
Drew had never been part of any of that.
Not really. When we were younger, Drew was the guy with the boat and the easy laugh and absolutely no life plan.
He played the stock market and drifted. His investments always seemed to hit, and the man never needed to work a day in his life if he didn’t want to.
Drew had confided to me that it got boring to just sit around without any direction.
He was looking for projects to sink his teeth into, and that was how he had ended up running the Blackwell store for his cousins.
The storefront alone told me this wasn’t some side project.
Brushed gold lettering on the glass, the kind of understated signage that screamed luxury without beating you over the head with it.
I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The air-conditioning hit me first, followed by the scent of eucalyptus.
It felt like walking into a spa. My shoulders dropped of their own volition and the crease in my forehead from squinting in the sun relaxed.
“Holy effing crap,” I breathed.
I turned from left to right, trying to soak it all in, but I couldn’t decide where to look. There was a literal bartender in here tossing shakers and pouring colorful drinks like this was a five-star luxury hotel lobby.
And then I spotted Drew.
My gaping mouth slapped closed and my grin bloomed anew.
He stood near the center of the sales floor in a blue suit and white shirt.
I was pretty sure it was custom. Duh, it’s a Blackwell suit.
He’s got to promote the clothes they sell.
And his cousins should be paying him for looking that good in one of their designs.
His shirt was open at the collar, no tie.
His hair was styled, shorter on the sides than I remembered, the shaggy mess I used to tease him about now actually styled.
But the stubble was still there, the same five-o’clock shadow he never quite got rid of, and it grounded him, made him recognizable even with everything else dialed up a notch I hadn’t been braced for.
He spoke with a man in a polo shirt holding a clipboard. Drew had one hand on his hip, the other rubbing at the back of his neck. The muscle in his jaw worked overtime while the man in the polo let out an exasperated sigh.
I walked up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. “Did someone order a muffin?”
Drew turned around fast, already half-annoyed, like he expected one more problem to add to whatever pile he was currently balancing. And then his eyes landed on me, and the annoyance evaporated.
“No way!” He grabbed me and pulled me into a hug so hard he lifted me clean off the floor, spinning me half a step.
I laughed into his shoulder and held on to my Tupperware for dear life.
His arms were strong around me, stronger than I remembered, and for one disorienting second I forgot we were standing in the middle of his very fancy store with strangers definitely watching.
He smelled like cedar and something minty.
Shamelessly, I took a sniff and tried not to let my eyes roll into the back of my head.
God, I’d missed this. Missed him. Two years was a long time to go without one of his amazing hugs.
He set me back down, hands still on my shoulders like he needed to confirm I was actually there. “Kensey Blake. What the hell are you doing here?”
“Surprising you, apparently. Is it working?”
“Yes.” He laughed, shaking his head. “Yes, it’s working. I had no idea you were coming home. You didn’t say anything! How long are you here? When did you get here? Why didn’t you call me?”
“I’m here for the summer. Figured I’d come bother my parents for a few months. And you, of course. Can’t let you dodge me for another summer.” I held up the container. “And I wanted to bring you some muffins.”
“You’re staying the whole summer?”
“Yep.”
He looked at the container in my hand. “Please tell me those are blueberry.”
“Is there any other kind?”
He pulled the lid off, reached in, grabbed one, and took a bite in the middle of the showroom floor like he hadn’t eaten in days.
Crumbs rained down on his white shirt. I stared at the exposed inch of the top of his chest, where a crumb disappeared, and swallowed hard.
Maybe bringing a home-baked treat into a place like this was a dumb move on my part.
“Oh my God,” he said around the mouthful, completely unbothered by how undignified that was. “Kensey, you have no idea how badly I needed this muffin.”
I laughed. “You make it sound orgasmic.”
He waggled his brows. “It is.” He took another bite.
He gestured vaguely toward the front of the store with the muffin.
“Everyone brings me a problem. Lighting issue. Vendor issue. Somebody’s mother wants a discount because her daughter’s spending ten grand.
It’s nonstop. And you walk in here and the first thing you give me is a muffin.
” He took another bite, shaking his head.
“My favorite muffin. You have no idea what this means to me right now.”
I chomped down on the inside of my cheek to stop myself from smiling at him like a doe-eyed schoolgirl. Keep it together, Kensey.
“I figured you could use it.” I glanced around the store again. “This is a lot, Drew. You’re running this?”
“I know.” He said it almost sheepishly, like even he still hadn’t fully wrapped his head around it.
“It happened kind of fast. My cousins built it, I helped out, and then they needed somebody to actually run the place day to day while they’re all back in New York having babies.
” He shrugged, like that explained everything.
“It suits you,” I said, and meant it. There was something different in the way he stood here, something steadier than the Drew I remembered. “You look good. Like, really good. The suit is a whole thing.”
“Yeah, well.” He glanced down at himself like he’d forgotten what he was wearing. “Comes with the job. I miss board shorts, not gonna lie.”
I laughed, and for a second it felt like no time had passed at all. Like we’d just picked the conversation back up exactly where we’d left it two years ago. Well, we talked on the phone, but it just wasn’t the same as being face to face.
Judging by what I was seeing, his life wasn’t as low stress as I remembered. He looked like a businessman. All grown up. All… Blackwelled.
“So, do you have time to grab lunch or something?” I asked. “Or coffee. I’ll take whatever. I can see you’re busy. I won’t take much of your time.”
He grimaced and I could tell he needed to say no.
“I would love that,” Drew said. “I really would. But I’ve got a meeting in twenty minutes I can’t push.
” He glanced toward the door, then back at me.
I watched him actually wrestle with it for a second, like leaving me standing there was physically paining him.
“Beach site walkthrough. For an event we’re doing in a couple weeks. ”
“Oh.” I tried not to let my face fall too much. “That’s okay. Call me when you have a chance. I’ll be here all summer.”
He looked torn. I forced a bright smile.
“Wait.” He held up a hand, like an idea had just landed on him. “You want to come with me?”