Tyler’s smirk was good-natured. “You should come on in. The water’s warm. Maybe you could marry that little roommate Mom has you shacking up with. Carl says she’s cute.”
It wasn’t manly to feel light-headed, but Grant couldn’t help it. Maybe it was from the coughing fit. Maybe it wasn’t. “She is cute, and she does yoga. Lots of yoga.”
There was only so much yoga a person could do before it transitioned from being soothingly meditative into being mind-numbingly monotonous. Delaney had passed that point an hour ago. She was antsy as hell stuck inside this claustrophobia-inducing house. The snow was drifting up past the windowsills, blocking what little light there was outside, and the baby hats were proving far trickier to make than the online video suggested. Oh, and her roommate seemed a little too interested in her silk panties.
This morning he’d bumped up against her in the kitchen, pretending to reach for something. Yeah, he was reaching for something all right. Her boob. She’d nearly let him catch it too. In spite of his Scruffy McScruff beard and his unkempt hair, she had noticed those tasty bits of his in the shower. But fooling around with Grant, the cinematographer/landlord who wasn’t really her landlord but who had the power to kick her out at any moment, was a terrible idea. She was already on the run from the damage Boyd had done. The last thing she needed was a romantic entanglement in Bell Harbor—especially a romantic entanglement with a man who made videos for a living. That would be an epic disaster.
She needed her rent money back soon, like tomorrow, or she needed to kiss it good-bye and move on without it, because she couldn’t stay here. Grant Connelly might be a little lazy in the grooming department, but he was sexy, in a rustic way. Too sexy, and definitely too available. And if the paparazzi somehow found out she was living here with a man, it would be all over the interwebz in an instant. That would be a disaster on an even grander scale of epicness. So as soon as the weather was decent enough to drive, she was leaving. Not to go back home. She wasn’t ready for that, yet, but she’d at least head south toward warmer climates.
Delaney took a long, hot shower, trying to wash her troubles away, then plopped down on her bed wearing an LA Lakers sweatshirt and her pink flamingo pajama pants. Her outfit wasn’t stylish but it was comfortable. That was one advantage of hiding from the world and not being on a reality show. She could wear whatever the hell she wanted with no fear that one of the two dozen cameras in her house would catch a shot of her scratching her ass in saggy pants.
When she’d agreed to do a season of Pop Rocks, she’d had no idea what she was signing on for. Parts of it were fun, of course. The money was definitely nice, along with the invitations to movie premiers and parties, but the complete sacrifice of her privacy was a downside that far outweighed the positive. Maybe she’d feel differently if Boyd hadn’t released that video, but the truth was, she didn’t like people in her business. She liked privacy, and she wanted hers back.
She opened her laptop and set it on her legs. It took a moment to boot up, but soon she was clicking over the keys, surfing for a new hideaway location. That was another advantage of running away from home. She could go anywhere she wanted.
As long as no one recognized her.
And she could find a place that wasn’t too expensive.
And no one needed to see her identification.
And it wasn’t so far from here that her rattletrap car would never make it.
Come to think of it, maybe she should just stay in Bell Harbor.
A wave of homesickness passed over, pricking pins into her heart. She set the computer on the bed and took her phone from the nightstand to call her sister.
“Hey, how’s the frozen tundra?” Melody asked without saying hello.
“Frozen. How are things there?” She settled in against the pillows.
“Insane as usual. Roxanne says you’re just doing this for attention, Mom is putting all her nervous energy into driving us crazy, and Dad says if you come back home, he’ll introduce you to George Michael.”
“Since when does Dad know George Michael?”
“Since never, he’s just trying to trick you. Oh, but I do have some good news. Our producers have agreed to start taping the next season of Pop Rocks without you. We’re all pretending like you’re out scouting locations where Mom can open another soap boutique.”
Delaney should feel relieved, but the victory was oddly hollow. “Is anyone buying that story?”
“I don’t think so. Rumors abound, but so far no one has suggested that you’re cowering inside of an abandoned lighthouse in Michigan knitting baby hats.”