Chapter 13
When the door to Sex on the Beach opened, Des was leaning against his motorcycle, thumbing through the business section of the Washington Post on his phone.
He caught the swish of Lenny’s skirt from the corner of his eye, and glanced up just as she noticed him.
He stuffed his phone into his pocket and crossed the parking lot to her side as she locked the door.
“If you’re looking for Cami, she headed upstairs.”
While he’d been waiting for Lenny, the lights in the apartment above the store had flickered on.
Once, he’d seen the shadow of Cami’s now-familiar body through the thin curtain as she gathered her hair into a ponytail.
He hadn’t been able to tell if she’d been wearing something form-fitting or if she was naked, and that question had taken over his imagination until a burgeoning erection necessitated a distraction.
That’s when he’d turned to the news. He doubted Lenny would be keen to talk shop with someone sporting a hard-on.
“I’m here to see you.”
Lenny hefted the long strap of her purse over her head. “Is that so.” She didn’t sound surprised, but she had been ducking his daytime visits for weeks now, so maybe she’d been expecting a stunt like this. “In that case, you can walk me home.”
“I could give you a ride.” He gestured to his bike.
She snorted. “Hell, no. The last thing this city needs is more pollution from your damn noisy motorcycle. Come on.”
He fell into step beside her, their steps punctuated by the soft slapping of Lenny’s flip-flops against the sidewalk as they headed out of the store’s plaza and onto Sixth.
This part of town was well-lit at this time of the evening, because many of the local businesses didn’t close until after dark.
But not all of the streets were so bright.
While Lenny was spunky, she didn’t cut the most imposing figure.
“Do you live nearby?” he asked, trying for a nonchalance he didn’t think he pulled off.
She shrugged. “Close enough. A twenty minute walk or so.”
“And you walk home by yourself?”
Her posture straightened, and though she wasn’t looking at him, she side-eyed him. “I do.”
“Are you sure that’s safe?”
“Well, I haven’t been mugged yet,” she sassed. “Besides, what are they gonna take? The purse with no money in it?” They headed toward Colorado Ave, which meant Lenny probably lived on the other side of the Santa Monica Freeway.
“You wouldn’t have to worry about money if you sold the store.” He slid his hands into his pockets. “You could move closer to downtown and to the beach.” He didn’t know Lenny well, but she screamed beach bum. Many of the people who lived in Santa Monica did.
“I like where I live. I’ve got a place on the ground floor so I can let my dog out easy.” Ah, the dog. Des had forgotten about him. Occasionally, he’d come into the store to find a hulking gray monster flopped behind the counter, snoring quietly. “What’s it to you, anyway?”
“The client I’m working with is interested in purchasing the plaza as a whole. The other shop owners have all agreed to sell. You’re the only holdout.”
“They have, huh? So that old coot Rodger caved?”
“Is there a reason why you don’t want to sell?”
In previous deals, he’d come across store owners who’d had shop fronts in their family for generations and were reluctant to sell for that reason.
He didn’t bother going after them, knowing how strong family ties rarely wavered even in the face of millions of dollars.
But Lenny had owned Sex on the Beach for only five years, and she’d purchased it by herself.
She didn’t have that deeply ingrained connection to it, so try as he might, he’d never been able to comprehend her hesitation.
“Well, gee, that store is just my livelihood,” she drolled.
He stepped aside as a woman on roller skates flew past them, heading away from the conspicuous fifties diner at the corner of the block.
“The sale would give you more than enough to live off for a long while. And let’s face it, you’re no spring chicken.”
Lenny wound up and socked him in the shoulder.
The sting radiated out from the muscle. He flinched, rubbing it as he chuckled. “I’m just saying.”
“It’s not just me.” She sighed, turning her gaze across the road as a raccoon scuttled into an alley. “Other people work there. It might just be a paycheck, but a paycheck is important to most people.”
There was a vague accusation in her tone, as though she were implying he didn’t know the value of a paycheck, but her heart wasn’t exactly in the insult.
“You’re worried about Cami,” he surmised.
“She works at the store, yeah. But she lives there, too.”
He nodded.
Lenny wasn’t finished. “I don’t charge her much. I could rent that little apartment for three times what I’m getting for it.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“She came to California with nothing but what she could haul onto the bus with her. She didn’t have much money and no way to earn any, nor a place to stay. Now she’s in school. She’s working to make a life for herself.”
“Cami can handle herself.” His tone was confident, but a niggling image in the back of his head appeared; Cami, eyes wide and vulnerable, asking why he’d taken her job from her.
“I don’t doubt that,” Lenny agreed. “But she’s been handling herself for a long time, and I’m not keen to make her life any harder. While she could get another job easily, she’ll never find a place as cheap as I can give her. Not in Santa Monica.”
He was quiet for a few long beats. The passion in her voice was undeniable. She liked Cami as a person, but she liked all her employees, even the lazy stoner kid. This went beyond that.
“You’re going out of your way for her.”
Beside him, Lenny stiffened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Just an observation. Most people wouldn’t give their employees heavily discounted rent in addition to a job that works with their school schedule.”
“I’d do the same for any of my employees.” In the dim light of the street lamp they were passing under, her fingers tightened around the strap of her purse.
“Would you?” He had to tread carefully here. She trusted him to a degree, but she was defensive about her relationship with Cami. If he pushed her, she’d tell him to get lost. “It seems like an awful lot of trouble.”
“We’re family,” she insisted. For a moment, she let that lie, then sighed.
“I know that’s what a lot of managers tell their employees to guilt them into accepting shitty work conditions, but it’s true.
I treat my employees like kin, because they may not be my kids, but they’re somebody’s.
I hope somebody out there would care for my son the same way. ”
“You have a son?”
She had never mentioned any family of her own, and if she was worried about having a legacy to leave to her kids, then that could be another obstacle to the sale. But if that were the case, he would have expected it to be her first objection, not an afterthought.
She drew to a halt on the sidewalk but didn’t face him. “I did. He was killed in Afghanistan back in ‘06. Helicopter crash.”
“Shit.” The word was out of his mouth before he could come up with something more appropriate to say. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
“No reason you would.” She shrugged, and she spoke evenly enough, but her voice had gone low and sad.
“Look, kid. This is me.” She gestured to a red brick building on the other side of the street, the corners of which looked like they were crumbling.
“I’ll give some thought to what you said, but don’t hold your breath. Now get outta my hair.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He waited as she crossed the road to her building and shuffled up the steps.
She rifled in her knitted messenger bag for her keys and unlocked the front door.
As she pushed open the door, a Great Dane nearly bowled her over, but she heartily shoved the dog off her and stepped inside.
When she closed the door behind her, she didn’t glance at Des, but the change in their relationship hung in the air between them.
Santa Monica College looked less like a college than a hotel.
Though the glassy, modern buildings made Cami think of business and academics, the campus was littered with tall, swaying palm trees and beautiful water features that lit up at night.
She’d never been to a tropical resort, but whenever she left an evening class, she liked to imagine she was leaving an all-inclusive bar with a sweating daiquiri in hand.
She doubted in-class daiquiris would help her GPA, but a girl could dream.
Mondays were busy days for her. Since she was working as well as going to school, she tried to schedule her classes to fall on certain days in specific time blocks so she could have full days of class on Mondays or Wednesdays, and be free to work Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.
It made for tiring weeks, but her scholarship only covered her tuition.
Rent, food, and school supplies all came out of her paycheck from Sex on the Beach.
She crammed the tail end of a bagel into her mouth as she exited one of the on-campus coffee shops.
She’d been scrolling through AncestryDNA for new matches while she caffeinated, but there was nothing identifiably Dad-related.
She reminded herself that plenty of people had tested with different companies that didn’t share databases, or hadn’t had their DNA tested at all, and that her lack of results right now didn’t mean a lack of results forever.
New people submitted their DNA all the time.
All it would take was an aunt, a cousin, a second cousin whose surname she didn’t recognize, and she could extrapolate from there.
But the constant failure to come up with anything useful was draining, least of all because all she could do about it was hurry up and wait.
She released a long breath and hurried to class, gathering her thoughts to focus on something she could control.