3. EASTON
EASTON
Paparazzied
It’s five-forty a.m. when my eyes open. My body has been operating on this schedule for so long that it no longer needs an alarm.
For a second, I lie there and run a quick inventory the way I do every morning. Lower back, manageable. Shoulder, fine. Hip flexors are still complaining about Coach Brennan’s Friday session, which they’re going to keep complaining about until Monday at the earliest. Standard.
Then I remember.
There is a woman in my guest room. A bride, technically. Was a bride.
Sixteen hours ago, she was a bride, and now she's a woman in my guest room, asleep in my t-shirt, and I'm lying on my back staring at the ceiling, trying not to think too hard about which of those words is doing the most damage in my chest right now.
I get up.
I do the routine on autopilot. Shower, not cold this time, because I’m fully awake now. I brush my teeth, pull on sweats, and the gray wife-beater I left on the chair. Run a hand through my hair and decide that is as good as it's getting before coffee.
The hallway is quiet, and with her door still closed, I figure she must be asleep.
Then I notice the light on downstairs.
I stop on the bottom stair.
She's on the couch. Knees pulled up. My hoodie, the navy one, swallowing her down to mid-thigh. A mug in her hands.
Her hair is in a loose knot at the back of her head, the kind that looks like it took thirty seconds, and she's looking out the window at the canyon with her chin propped on her knee and an expression I can't read.
She’s fucking beautiful, and the sight of her curled up on my couch makes my anger at Preston Sinclair flare hot and ugly all over again.
The kitchen light is on, and so is the machine.
The espresso machine I bought because the realtor’s designer included it on a list, and I don't know how to operate the steam wand, but apparently Riley Brooks does, because there is a saucer beside her on the coffee table and the unmistakable smell of a properly pulled shot in the air.
She has been in my kitchen.
She has figured out my kitchen, in a house I don't really live in, with an espresso machine I have used exactly twice, and she did it before six in the morning in clothes that are not hers, and something about that small fact lands sideways in me in a way I don't have a name for.
She turns her head.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
We look at each other for a second. I realize I’m still at the foot of the stairs. I walk into the living room, and her eyes follow me.
“I made coffee,” she says, lifting the mug as evidence. “I hope that was okay. I mean, we’re basically housemates now. I might as well pull my weight around here.”
“There’s no need to feel obligated. You’re a guest.”
“Who’s trying to earn her stay.”
I have a reply ready to go but I figure she won’t let me have this one, so I sit it out.
I cross to the kitchen.
There is a fresh cup waiting next to the machine. She set it out for me. Black, just how I like it.
“You got it right.”
“You did not strike me as an oat milk man.”
“Astute.”
“So I’ve been told.” She laughs, and hearing that melodious sound so early in the day, as opposed to the state she was in last night, it has me laughing along.
I pick up the cup. It’s the perfect temperature, which means she heard me upstairs and timed it. I don't know what to do with the part of me that has gone quiet about that.
I lean a hip against the counter. She's still on the couch with her chin on her knee, watching me.
“Slept well?”
“Like a corpse.” She makes a face. “Sorry. Like someone deeply, restoratively unconscious. Better?”
“Marginally.”
She looks like she’s about to say something but chooses to stay quiet.
I take my eyes off her and drink my coffee instead.
“Okay,” she says, after a beat. “Logistics.”
“Logistics?” My brows are raised, and my eyes are back to her.
“I have a wedding dress, one shoe, and approximately zero of the things a person needs to live.” She lifts a hand and ticks them off. “Toothbrush. Underwear. Clothes that are not a wedding dress, nor yours…”
I make a face. “Too bad. My clothes look great on you, if you ask me.”
“And Lord knows I appreciate the kindness. But thank you, kind Sir, I’d rather find something that doesn’t dwarf me.
” She places a palm on her chest, mimicking a poorly done British accent.
Then she continues with her list. “A phone charger. Some kind of moisturizer because my face is a few hours from looking crusty. A toothbrush… oh, wait. I said that already. Well that tells you how desperately I need one.”
“We can get you those things. And I can give you a new toothbrush right now. I always have new ones lying around.”
She blinks. “Great, but we? As in you and I?”
“Unless you’ve suddenly decided you don’t need them anymore. You’ll need a ride, and seeing as you’ve sanctioned me to be your driver for the time being, it’s only right, don’t you think?”
She looks down at the t-shirt like she has forgotten she's wearing it. “Right. Yes. Okay. Except.” She bites her lip. “I can't use a card.”
I shrug but she continues.
“Every card I have access to is on a joint account. Or attached to one of my father’s. Either way, the second I run one, Preston knows where I am.”
Oh, that little fucker.
I keep that thought to myself.
She lifts her chin. There is something a little defiant in the line of it.
“I'm not asking you to pay for things. That’ll be terrible of me.
I'm telling you why I can't, so we can figure out a different solution that doesn't put me in the position of being a kept woman by a man I have known for less than twenty-four hours.”
“Noted,” I say as calmly as I can.
“I have money,” she adds. “Actual money. I'm not a freeloader, and would hate to be one. I just can't touch it for a few days without leaving a trail.”
“Noted,” I repeat.
What I don’t say is that I couldn’t give less of a fuck about paying for whatever she needs. Clothes, food, a new phone, whatever. I’d hand her my card right now and tell her to go nuts. But I’m starting to understand that saying it like that would only make this worse.
This matters to her, so I need to get the wording right.
“I’m serious, Easton.” She makes a frustrated face.
“So am I.” I set my cup down. “I’ll cover whatever you need for now, and you can pay me back once you can access your money without leaving a trail. We’ll call it a loan. No interest, no deadline, no strings attached.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Why are you being like this?”
“Like what?”
“Reasonable. It's unsettling.”
Jesus. What kind of men has she been dealing with if basic human decency makes her suspicious?
“I will work on being more difficult.”
“See, I can work with that.”
I let the laugh out this time. It's small and surprised, and I don't know what to do with the way she looks when I do it, like she has caught something she did not mean to.
My phone buzzes on the counter.
I glance at it without thinking and immediately regret it. The screen is face up. The preview is right there, two lines of it, the name at the top.
I flip the phone face down so fast I almost knock the coffee cup over.
When I look up, Riley is watching me. Her expression has not changed, exactly, but something behind her eyes has. She doesn't say anything but just watches me for one beat longer than is comfortable and then looks back down at her coffee.
I pick the phone up and pocket it without checking. The buzz happens again against my thigh. I ignore it.
“My mom,” I say, which is true, because there is also a text from my mother waiting underneath the other one. I open hers.
Mom:
Good morning, sweetheart. How are you holding up after that practice schedule? Tell Coach Brennan he's a tyrant for me.
I type back.
Me:
Tyrant confirmed. I'm fine, mom. I will call you on Sunday.
A reply comes within ten seconds.
Mom:
I love you. Get some real food in you. I know you skip breakfast.
I send back a heart. She sends one back, and then, because she can't help herself, the prayer-hands emoji she has been using since 2015.
I look up. Riley is still watching me.
“Mom?”
“Yeah.”
A sad expression crosses her face, and I can tell she’s thinking about her family. And it’s my cue to change the topic.
“So… when do we begin? Today? Tomorrow or whenever you’re ready to leave the house?”
She stares at me blankly.
“To get your essentials.”
“Oh… that…”
She slides off the couch, pads barefoot across the floor in my hoodie and my shorts pulled tight at the waist, and I make a point of looking at the espresso machine, because the sight of her approaching…
No. We’re not doing that. Not today, not ever.
“We could do today. I mean, if you’re free, and you don’t mind spending half your day chauffeuring a runaway bride around Los Angeles while she attempts to rebuild her life from scratch and...”
“Today is perfect.” I cut her off because she’s already spiraling.
This woman would shoot herself in the foot before thinking of inconveniencing a stranger. All of sixteen hours, and this is what I’ve learned about Riley Brooks.
Well, except for the moment she got into my car. But in her defense, desperate times require desperate measures.
“Great!”
It’s late morning when we finally head out. Riley has forced breakfast of pancakes and eggs down my throat because in her words, starting the day with food makes it better.
The boutique she lets me drive her to is one I picked because it's small and tucked off a side street in West Hollywood, with parking around the back and the kind of owner who has been discreet about every athlete and B-list actor in this city for twenty years. I have used her exactly once, two seasons ago, for a teammate’s sister who was in a bind.
The drive over is quiet, unlike the last time we were in the car together. Riley sits in the passenger seat in my hoodie and shorts with her hair still up and her hands wrapped around a travel mug, and she watches LA go by like she has not seen it in a while.