And emotionally . . . “Yes. Kurt and Kent are twenty-three. The Peter Pan years, as it turns out. They don’t want to grow up, a syndrome that’s been ramped up since their twenty-first birthday.”
“I remember being twenty-one,” he said. “I’d just graduated Caltech with my master’s degree in mechanical engineering. I had enough debt to sink an entire country and about twenty bucks to my name.”
A mechanical engineer. That . . . fit him. Perfectly. “But you made something of yourself,” she said, gesturing around her. “Kent always says he’d be more inclined to grow up if he saw that it actually worked out for anyone.”
Spence smiled. “I just got lucky.”
“I think I call BS on that. You worked your ass off doing . . .” she raised a brow “. . . mechanical engineering? Whatever that is?”
He smiled. “Still curious, huh?”
“Yes! Of course I am!”
He tugged a loose strand of her hair. “I ran a startup with Caleb, my business partner. We created some technical back-end apps that Google found useful and when it suited us, we sold to them. That’s when I bought this building.”
She sucked in a breath. “Did you just kind of tell me what you do for a living?”
“It was never really a secret. I just liked hearing your guesses.”
She laughed. “It’s actually a relief to know. My next guess was going to be either a spy or a supervillain.” Then his words sank in and she felt her eyes bug out of her head. “You own this whole building?”
Something shifted in his eyes. He wasn’t comfortable telling her all this, but he nodded and she felt something shift inside her too, but in a good way. Because she realized that he too knew exactly what it was like to go from having nothing to extreme success.
She’d felt alone in this for so long she almost didn’t recognize the emotion tumbling through her.
Relief.
Chapter 9
#SonOfABeach
“So other than being a real estate mogul,” Colbie teased Spence, giving him a little hip bump at his sink, wanting to lighten the mood, “what else do you do these days?”
“I still do the app’s updates as needed, but I’m also working on something new.”
“The drones on your coffee table?” she asked.
“They’re part of a big project that’s due in January.”
“How’s it going?”
His gaze met hers. “I don’t know. There’s been a beautiful stranger tossed into the mix and I’m having trouble focusing.”
The air between them seemed to crackle and she got the tummy flutter again. “You . . . think I’m beautiful?”
“I do.”
The air crackled some more and then he stepped into her and then there seemed to be no air at all. He reached for her and . . . from deep in her pocket, her phone vibrated twice in quick succession.
“Son of a beach,” she muttered.
He laughed. “You ever going to answer any of those texts or calls you’ve been getting all night?”
“No.” She hesitated, conflicted, worried. Everyone knew she was on a break, even her brothers. She’d checked in with Janeen and Tracy. She’d spoken briefly to her mom and Jackson when she’d been out in the city earlier, both of whom had wanted the usual. Her mom to complain about her life, and Jackson to get her to agree to some public appearances—an ongoing bone of contention between them because she tried to do the bare minimum when it came to those things.
Part of what had drawn her to writing—besides the fact that she absolutely loved the actual writing—was the simplicity of the life. She didn’t want to be a public figure. She wasn’t good at it, as proven by what had happened the last time she’d reluctantly agreed. She’d been sent to do the Late Night show and had tripped coming out onstage. On camera.
The YouTube video of her revealing her black lace thong had seven million views.
But that her phone kept going off made her worry that maybe there’d been some kind of emergency.
“There’s this little thing called the power-off button,” Spence said. “Works like a charm.”
“I thought about turning it off,” she admitted. “But I’d know the messages were still there and worry about missing an emergency.”
“Feel free to check in,” he said easily.
“I know I shouldn’t keep it on me like this, but I’m a hopeless control freak, apparently. Old habit from when the twins were minors and capable of unbelievable stupidity.”
“It’s okay, Colbie.”
Reluctantly, she pulled the phone from her pocket. One look at the screen had her taking a deep breath. Kurt. No surprise there. And . . . Jackson. There’d been a time when just seeing his name would’ve made her heart leap like she was a teenager with a silly crush.
But he’d fixed that for her with one shockingly hurtful event, eradicating any romantic feelings she’d had in a blink, which didn’t mean that she was ready to face him.
She pushed the thoughts aside and called Kurt back first. He was always the easiest to get things out of. “Hey,” she said when he picked up. “What’s wrong?”
Except she could hear what was wrong. “Why is the smoke detector going off?”
“Because I was making a cheeseburger and set off the alarm,” he yelled.
“Again?” she asked, putting her finger in her other ear, as if that could help her hear past the wailing alarm. “Seriously? How hard is it to turn the vent to high when you’re cooking burgers on the range?”
“What?”
“Turn on the vent!” she yelled.
“I can’t hear you!”
She closed her eyes and shook her head.
“I can’t remember how to get it to turn off!” her brother yelled.
“The broom! It’s in the corner by the trash. Wave it at the smoke detector and then call the security company to let them know it’s a false alarm—” She broke off. “Are you eating in my ear?”
“Hey, gotta eat the burgers while they’re hot.”
She pulled the phone from her ear and stared at it before punching disconnect and shaking her head. “I’m sorry.”
“How old is he again?” Spence asked.
“Twenty-three going on twelve.” Since she had the phone out, she went ahead and flipped through the unread texts. Kurt from earlier, wanting to know where her car keys were. Jackson wanting to know when she was sending a chunk of her manuscript. Kent wanting to know if she’d send him some money because he forgot to pay the electric like she’d asked and now there were extra fees to turn it back on.
She stopped and transferred some money but by then Kurt was contacting her again, wanting to know if she could get him tickets to Hamilton to impress a date. And last but not least, her mom wanting her to bring her some soup from her favorite deli, even though the deli was literally half a block from her mom and three thousand miles from Colbie.
Did no one read her texts? “I know you said the chef doesn’t do dishes but I’d really like to,” she said. “It calms my brain.”
“How is that even possible?”
“I’ll show you.” She turned to the sink.
“Uh . . .”
She paused and he grimaced. “You should know something,” he said.
“Okay. What?”
He grimaced again. “I’ve never done dishes in this place.”
“Never?”
“I’m not even sure I have dish soap.”