They were adorable, and Nicole hadn’t been out that late. Blakely wasn’t in the photos. I would have called the entire evening a success if he hadn’t shown up at my window in a wet tuxedo.
It was Blakely’s shift until after dinner. When I got back from the gym, Brad was working with Paula by the pool, doing whatever the thing was that they did. Nicole was underfoot with her toys; the space under the table was her own unique world. The ponies lay among Brad and Paula’s feet. Nicole made one of the ponies kick a ball, and it rolled out of the protection of the table. She went to get it. In the meantime, with the girl’s back turned and her father reciting a line, Paula lifted her leg and quietly crunched the Lego horse stable under her heel, dislodging the lilac plush pony that lived there. With a flick of her foot, she brushed it toward the wet drain on the other side of the table.
When Nicole got back she gasped in horror. She’d spent a ton of time on that stable.
“Hush,” her father said, oblivious.
Nicole had been well trained in hushing. From her days in the coffee shop cabinet, when her mother couldn’t get a sitter, she knew she had to stay quiet when a parent was working, so she did.
I stayed quiet too. For now.
When I got to the pool house, Blakely was curled up on the couch with an iPad. Her hair was cut short and dark brunette.
“Your hair,” I said.
“Like it? I look different, don’t I? Would you recognize me?”
“Yes. And Paula’s a bitch,” I said without preamble.
“You mean Miss Mint Julep Ladygirl Fiddle-dee-dee? Yeah. Screw her. Every time Brad wants his daughter around, she looks at me as if it’s my fault I have an hour off.”
“How was last night?” I asked.
“Boring. I was with her for an hour, then I stayed in the limo for the next two hours waiting for him to bring her back out.”
“Was she scared of the cameras?”
“A little. Not too bad.” She looked up at the clock. “I have to bring her to gymnastics at two. I’m testing the hair. See if the guy at the desk thinks I’m a stranger.”
We were interrupted by a knock on the front door.
“When you get back we’ll switch,” I said, opening the door. Brad was on the other side in aviators and a white T-shirt. The previous day came back in a flood of skin-tingling hormones. The shower, the fantasies, walking with his arm on my shoulder, me undressing him.
“I’m going to take Nicole,” he said without a greeting, then pointed to me. “You should come.”
It was Blakely’s shift, but she just shrugged.
“Okay,” I said. “Let me get my shoes on.”
CHAPTER 21
CARA
Celebrities living in Los Angeles drive more often than you think and do everything else less than you think. Driving is an entitlement. It means you have control. And Brad I-Didn’t-See-Anything Sinclair was trying to prove he was in control.
Nicole sat in the backseat humming. She had a book on her lap and her leotard under her summer dress.
Brad leaned on the wheel of the Range Rover, arms toned and tan, sunglasses glinting, looking disaffected and in charge. It was hot, but for my part he needed to cover himself all the time, every second of the day. With a tarp. Because the night before came back to me full force. Starting with the dream of him in the shower, the imagined feeling of his skin against mine. The erection on my soft bottom. His lips on the back of my neck . . . all the way up to his very real questions about how I like to fuck.
“Yesterday . . .” I started but couldn’t finish. I knew what I wanted to say, but the thought of him watching me froze my tongue.
“You know, the steam coming out of that bathroom, I thought the place was on fire.”
Jefferson Avenue at midday was clear, and we were going to be at the gym in ten minutes.
“Mr. Sinclair. Really?”
“Oh it’s Mr. Sinclair now? Listen. I didn’t see anything, ma’am.”
“I need you to really not just come in the back house again,” I said. “Where I’m from, when you come to someone’s house, you knock. You put your fingers together in a fist and—”
“Where I’m from,” he started with full good-old-boy accent, “we don’t leave the doors unlocked unless we want people running through.”
His tinge of Arkansas accent implied a superior upbringing with traditions buffed with time.
“Knock anyway.”
“Believe me,” he said, flipping his blinker and changing lanes for no apparent reason. “I’m never going in that house again without an engraved invitation.”
“Okay. Good. No more peeking.”
So. What do you remember?
“I wasn’t raised like that.”
“You keep saying that.”
“When did I say that?”
He’d said it last night, at my window. But if he didn’t remember, I didn’t want to remind him. We’d crossed a line. If he blacked out, then what had happened the night before was mine and mine alone. If he remembered, then between the shower and the fantasies? I’d have to resign.
“Some interview, I think. Did you have fun last night?”
He smiled and made a pfft sound. “Sure. After I sent Nicole home I had a few drinks and woke up in the guest room.”
Did he remember the water and aspirin? Did he assume Paula had left it? Or was it just an empty glass when he woke?
“Daddy told jokes the whole time!” Nicole chimed in. We both turned. She bounced her little light-up toes. “Like . . . Ask me if I’m a tree!”
I obeyed, reminding myself to keep it clean in the front seat. “Are you a tree?”
“No!” She laughed. “What’s brown and sticky?”
“I don’t know.”
She and Brad answered together, “A stick!”
Nicole was beside herself with laughter.
“Where are you from, anyway?” Brad asked me.
“Everywhere. Nowhere.”
“You trying to get mysterious with me?”
“I grew up on air force bases. Diplomat housing. That kind of thing. There really is no, ‘Where I’m from the gates are locked and the doors are open,’ because it changed all the time. But mostly we were behind big walls with guards. I needed an escort in some places. Pakistan. That was crazy.”
I shook my head and looked out the window.
“How crazy? You get kidnapped?”
“No. I wore a head scarf whenever we left the base because I wanted to fit in. There was no Lycée so I didn’t go to school. I had this nowhere feeling. I guess that doesn’t sound very crazy.”
“How old were you?”
“Twelve. I bet you were doing something completely different when you were twelve.”
He laughed to himself.
“Shit. Yeah. That was my first summer working at the lumberyard. Hot as f—heck. The sawdust stuck to me everywhere. Every night I had it in my butt crack.”
I laughed, but it was only to cover up the fact that I was envisioning his gorgeous ass filled with sawdust. Nicole had her own reasons for cracking up.
“Daddy said butt again!”
“Again?” I said. Brad shrugged and Nicole just kept laughing. At least they were getting along.
He pulled into the lot and put the car in park.
“I’ll get her,” I said, opening the door. “You lay low before the paps find you.”