Page 37 of Making the Save
“I figured salad was your favorite food,” I said, embarrassed because it was such a cliché. “That’s why I made the comment about the ranch dressing. I just assumed all thin women only ever eat salad, which probably makes me an asshole.”
She closed her notebook and smiled. A real smile. My Vegas girl smile.
“You getting unblocked?” I asked, looking over at the guitar.
“No…. I mean, maybe. One chorus doesn’t make a song. But I wrote something and it felt good.”
“I’m happy for you,” I said, and we both stared out at the Pacific, letting those waves and the sunlight work their magic.
“You want to know a secret?” she said.
“Of course.”
“I actually hate vegetables. I know they’re good for me. I know I have to eat them. I know they’re the best option for health and everything else. So I eat them. But I hate them. Sometimes Beatrice will make me these super charged smoothies where I can get them all in at once.”
“That is the lamest secret I have ever heard in my life.”
She laughed again and I could get addicted to the sound of it.
“You got a better one?” She asked.
“Doesn’t everybody?” I said. It was an invitation to tell her my secrets. Nick and my mom. The R word I couldn’t say out loud but kept thinking about.
A fake marriage didn’t need all that.
I lifted the Gatorade bottle. “So Beatrice is what, exactly? Like a personal assistant combo house maid?”
“Oh please, don’t ever call her that,” Sydney said with a quirk of her lips. “Beatrice simply…anticipates. She excels at it.”
“You’ve been with her a long time?”
Syd nodded. “Since I was seventeen. My agent at the time, who had encouraged the emancipation from my mother, thought I needed a steadying influence. Beatrice actually worked for the Royal Family before she worked for me.”
“She left a job like that to come work for you?”
“At her interview I’d just come from my lawyer’s office. My debut album had gone platinum. The court case was all over the press and my mom was suing me for support. I was just frozen inside. Locked down. I couldn’t make a decision. I walked into that interview and burst into tears. She handed me a Kleenex and asked when she could start.”
“That is very cool of her.”
“I don’t know how cool it was, but she definitely took pity on me. Does that ever happen to you? With all the pressure of your career?”
“Do I cry? No. Not ever.”
“No,” she smiled. “Do you ever freeze up?”
I laughed. “Uh, no. I’m not saying that to be a dick either. It’s just what I do. On the ice, off the ice, my special skill set is instant decision making.”
“Wow. I bet you don’t take too long to order at restaurants.”
I laughed again and thought how easy it felt to sit on this deck and just talk.
Her short cropped hair blew in the breeze and her skin seemed too fine to be real.
Damn, she was beautiful. Beautiful and sweet and there it was again…that pull inside me. Something between desire and need. I wanted her. On her back, on her knees.
On my face.
I groaned. Involuntarily. Relaxed by the run and the sunshine, it just came out.