Chapter Thirty-Two
Once we’re in the back of the limo with a camera pointed at us from the other end, Javier turns to me. “You look great by the way. I like the red.”
I give him a quiet thanks, which might be interpreted as shy but is solidly guilty, then sit back and look out the window as we pull away.
The longer we drive toward whatever contrived date Kristina has planned, the more I begin to relax and the less I notice the incriminating cameras.
Javier must feel the same way. “I wasn’t expecting you to pick me,” he admits quietly.
Then he whispers so the cameras can’t hear, “I kinda thought something might be going on between you and the lawyer.”
I laugh as if that’s preposterous but don’t trust my acting skills enough to actually deny it.
My stomach churns as I give the canned response.
“I’m excited to go out with you, Javi. I’ll understand if you and Ciara are serious, but I was hoping you might give me another chance.
At least for tonight, to see if there’s anything between us,” I say, hating myself even more than the time I accidentally ran over a common gray squirrel.
Javier looks conflicted. Of course, he does.
He’s a good guy. And he has every right to be confused by my sudden change of heart.
Finally, he says, “You know I had feelings for you in the beginning, Grace. But it seemed like you only wanted to be friends. And then I got to know Ciara and started liking her.” I nod, giving an internal sigh of relief, and wonder if I can get away with telling Kristina I tried and failed.
But then Javier keeps talking. “But I think you’re right. We owe it to ourselves to see if there’s something here before things get too far along with other people and feelings get hurt.” Fuck. He’s kind and rational.
“Okay, great,” I hear myself say. If I believed in the concept of hell, I’d know that’s where I’m headed, because when he puts his hand out for me to hold, I take it and smile at him like I’m smitten.
We make small talk the rest of the way to dinner, and I’m grateful that Javier is so easy to talk to and that I really do enjoy his company. It’s making the lead in my stomach start to dissipate.
As we pull into a parking lot off of PCH, Javi tells me about his three sisters and how close he is with his mom. “Ahh, now I get why you’re so sweet but also so good with the ladies,” I tell him.
He flashes his dimples. “Who, me?” With a debonair flourish, he kisses my hand.
I laugh as we stop in front of a fancy seafood restaurant on the water. I’ve never been here before, but thanks to my mom, I know it’s popular with the rich and famous and impossible to get a reservation.
“What about you?” Javi asks. “You mentioned a brother the other day at lunch.”
“Yeah, I have two younger brothers, which is why I get annoyed so easily.”
Javier chuckles. “That’s fair.” Then he helps me out of the limo like a true gentleman and we walk inside, arm in arm.
The moment I look around the empty restaurant, I gasp. “They closed the whole place for us?”
“Que romántico!” Javier exclaims and winks at me.
If this place wasn’t romantic to begin with, it certainly is now, with lit candles on every table, soft music playing, and sweeping views of the sun setting over the Pacific. Kristina isn’t messing around.
The ma?tre d’ leads us down three steps to a row of tables set against floor-to-ceiling windows. He stops at what is clearly the best table in the restaurant, with unobstructed views of the waves crashing onto the rocks below us. “Have a wonderful evening,” he says, bowing deeply.
I almost don’t notice Javier pulling my chair out for me because I’m so taken with the view and the restaurant’s elegant decor. “Thank you,” I say, sitting down. “This place is incredible. The only thing missing is a private concert.”
Javier laughs. “You joke, but they really do that on reality shows.”
“Oh, I know. They sent some musicians to my one-on-none date.” As I say it, I think about Andrew and my heart squeezes simultaneously with affection and guilt.
“No, they didn’t!” Javier exclaims. “Now that’s just cruel.”
I shrug as a waitress comes over and hands us menus. “They actually grew on me,” I say, trying to shake off the memory of slow-dancing with Andrew. I owe it to Javier to at least stay present.
“Do you have any vegan specials?” Javier asks the waitress.
“You remembered,” I say, sincerely touched that he’d be so thoughtful.
“We have a seasonal vegetable plate,” the waiter answers, and I smile politely.
When she leaves, Javier whispers conspiratorially, “Have you heard that Anthony Bourdain quote about throwing some slices of vegetables onto a plate and overcharging for it?”
I laugh. “Yeah, he wasn’t a fan of vegetarians.”
“You come to my place sometime and I’ll grill you some veggies for free,” he says with boyish charm.
I smile, mentally comparing my horrible dinner with Bill to Javier offering to cook veggies for me. But my smile fades when I remember I’m not going to Javier’s place when the show is over. I doubt he’ll ever want to talk to me again.
I sit there staring at my menu, lost in depressing thoughts, until Javier squeezes my hand. “Thank you for inviting me. It’s nice being on this side of the table.”
“Tell me about the restaurant where you work,” I prompt.
Javier launches into entertaining stories about waiting tables at a trendy steak house with impossible regulars and a clumsy bartender who breaks at least three glasses a shift but can’t be fired because he’s the owner’s nephew.
The conversation flows easily between us as a sommelier stops by to open a fancy-looking bottle of wine.
After the waitress takes our order, Javi peppers me with questions about my job and genuinely seems interested in my answers. He especially likes my story of the time I got bit by an endangered alligator snapping turtle but couldn’t scream because I didn’t want to cause it any emotional distress.
“For such a smart and beautiful woman, you sure get hurt a lot,” he laughs.
“Okay, now you have to tell me an embarrassing story to make up for all the times you’ve seen me make a fool of myself.”
He laughs and pretends to think long and hard. “I forgot my lines in the middle of an audition once.”
“What? That’s nothing! I’m sure that happens all the time. I once forgot the binomial name of the axolotl in the middle of a lecture. In front of five hundred people. Now that’s embarrassing!”
He laughs. “Okay, you win. I will never be as embarrassing as you.”
“Thank you.” I bow, accepting my victory. “So, did you always want to be an actor? Or did you just wake up one day, look in a mirror, and decide you should share your good looks with the world?”
He laughs at this. “Oh, I wish it were that easy.” Javier explains that his mom put him in theater when he was a hyperactive kid to give him a creative outlet and he’s loved it ever since.
I can tell how seriously he takes his craft when he talks about which plays he’s done and which ones he’d love to do one day.
But when he tells me his future goals, I get my first peek past the always-happy Javier.
Although he would never complain about it, I can tell he’s not happy with where he is with his career—but also that he’ll never give up on his dream, which I find relatable.
“It sounds like we have a similar work ethic.” I smile at him and find myself reflexively reaching out for his hand.
I confide in him that I’ve experienced some recent setbacks in my work as well.
It’s nice being able to commiserate with someone in a totally different field.
Maybe Javier and I do have more in common than I originally thought.
Even though there are cameras rolling somewhere and a million restaurant employees milling about, it really feels like it’s just the two of us.
Javier must feel the same way because his flirty machismo has completely fallen away.
It’s like getting a glimpse of what he’s normally like around people he’s comfortable with.
He’s sincere and funny and would honestly be an amazing boyfriend.
When I finally have to excuse myself to use the restroom, I’m intercepted near the front of the restaurant by Bruce, the camera operator who was on the hot-air balloon and one of the only people who knows I hooked up with Andrew two hours ago.
“Hey, Bruce, fancy seeing you here,” I say awkwardly.
“Kristina called. She wants me to get footage of you and Javier kissing,” he reports in what I would swear is a super-judgmental way.
My heart sinks. I knew Kristina wouldn’t drop her kiss agenda, but Bruce’s disapproval only adds to how shitty I feel about the whole situation.
I want to tell the world’s most critical cameraman that however harshly he’s judging me right now is nothing compared to how I’m judging myself.
Instead, I just mutter, “Okay,” then scurry off to the restroom.
Where I hide for ten minutes trying to compose myself.
I stare in the mirror and don’t like the person I see looking back.
Javier and I are really connecting tonight, and I’m genuinely having a great time with him.
But the closer we get, the crueler I feel for playing with his emotions.
I glance at the small bathroom window, wondering if I can squeeze out of it and swim back to Santa Monica.
I reach into my purse for my lipstick and another excuse to procrastinate when I touch something metal. Cassie’s frog pin. I pick it up and laugh at the irony of a scientist who doesn’t believe in signs from the universe receiving a pretty obvious one.
Granted, Javier is way more prince than frog, but this is a solid reminder that I’ve got to find a way to kiss him if I want to accomplish what I came here to do.
I rub the little metal frog and sigh, thinking about how hard I’ve worked to protect them.
We’re the only conservation team in the country that specializes in southern mountain yellow-legged frogs.
And my coworkers have all their hopes riding on me.
I drop the pin back into my purse, give myself a determined nod in the mirror, reapply my lipstick, and walk out of the bathroom.
When I get back to the table, I force a smile.
“Everything okay?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “I think I just ate too fast.”
“You want to go for a walk on the beach and digest a little before we head back?”
“You really know how to make a moonlit stroll sound romantic,” I tease.
He smiles and takes my hand. We thank the waitress and ma?tre d’ and walk out the back door that leads to a wooden staircase. When we get down to the private beach, I take off my heels and Javier offers to carry them for me.
The sand feels cool on my bare feet, but the night is still warm. It’s one of those perfect Los Angeles nights. There’s even a breeze blowing away some of the smog, so we can almost make out a star or two.
Despite the determination I felt in the bathroom, I still feel a pit in my stomach as I walk alongside Javi, because I know this is the perfect setting for a first kiss. Well, second kiss, I guess. I don’t know, does kissing someone in a game of Suck and Blow really count?
After a few minutes of walking hand in hand, I catch his eye and smile. He smiles back. “I had a—” I start to say at the same time Javi also starts talking.
I laugh. “Sorry, you first.”
“No, tell me what’s going through that big brain of yours.”
I take a deep breath, picture what Kristina would want me to say, and remind myself for the eight hundredth time that I’m doing this for a good reason.
“I just wanted to say I had a really great time tonight, and I’m glad you agreed to give me a second chance.”
He pulls me into him and says, “I’m glad I did too.”
I look up at him and smile shyly. Then I lean a little closer, and Javier meets me halfway. I make a silent wish that this kiss will rock my world, and I’ll become madly in love with Javier. Because maybe everything would be easier that way.
I take a deep breath and prepare to fall.
But instead, when our lips meet, it’s like it was the last time we kissed.
It’s . . . fine. It’s more enjoyable than when he ambushed me during the game, but it’s not giving me that full-body tingly feeling.
And it’s not making me forget that other men exist. Particularly one who wears the hell out of a suit and shares his granola bars with me.
I think I’ve known since the beginning that I don’t feel sparks with Javi.
I have so much fondness for him as a friend, but it’s impossible not to compare him to Andrew.
I feel the same level of comfort and ease with them both, but even when Javier and I have had a perfect date and are mid-kiss, there’s only one guy I’m wishing I were with.
After a respectable amount of time, I gently pull back.
I can’t help but check to make sure the cameras caught our kiss, then silently curse the reality TV gods that I’m even thinking this way.
Javier gives my hand a tender squeeze, while my heart squeezes with guilt over Andrew and Ciara.
And when I see the affection in Javier’s eyes, I feel like the worst person in the world for leading him on.
I was right to avoid dating. Except I thought I’d prevent myself from getting hurt. I never considered that I could hurt others.