“I want to hang out with you,” he said. “All the rest is no big deal.”
With every day that passed, they managed to sneak in more and more time. He took photo after photo of her. By the pool, on the walking path, anywhere he could. Mostly, they talked incessantly, learning everything they could about each other. He learned she liked salted chocolate, but hated nuts. That she loved pink in her dance outfits, but hated it in her regular clothes. That her favorite author was Mark Twain, but that she had a weakness for Nancy Drew books, and that even though she stopped reading them years ago, she had her entire collection packed neatly in plastic boxes she kept stacked in her closet.
He confessed that he generally despised fast food but had a weakness for In-N-Out Burger. That he’d accidentally blown up the garden shed in middle school when he was trying to come up with a project for the science fair, and that he’d once played Pac-Man for twelve hours straight on the free-standing machine that his grandmother kept in the game room.
The last revelation led to an even bigger one, because he hadn’t realized that she knew about his family until she asked him, point blank, if it was hard growing up around so many famous people.
“Wow,” he said, thrown by the question. “I didn’t think you knew about my family.”
“I overheard Grace and Marsha talking that first day you came to the pool.”
“Really?” He cocked his head as he looked at her, then realized he was grinning so wide he must look like a fool.
She laughed. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“No reason.” He was still grinning, but how could he not? He thought back on all the days he’d been pursuing her, and it gave him a nice, warm feeling in his gut to know that all that time she knew who he was.
“No reason?” she repeated, then laughed. “Come on. Tell me.”
“Maybe I like you,” he said, though the simple words did nothing to capture the euphoria he felt from just being around her. From knowing that she wanted to be around him, and not the Segel boy. He reached out and took her hand, then twined his fingers with hers.
She ducked her head, then gently hip-butted him. “Maybe I like you, too.”
They walked, hands swinging, toward the little copse of trees between the eighth and ninth greens. Wyatt had discovered it when he was wandering the grounds taking landscape shots, and now they were heading that direction so that he could take photos of Kelsey sitting on the massive, low-lying limb.
“I felt a little sorry for you that day,” she said softly. “That first day, I mean.” She glanced up at him, then almost immediately back down at the grass.
“You did?” He couldn’t remember the last time someone said they felt sorry for him. Oh, wait. Yes, he could. That would have been the fourth of absolutely never ever. “Why?”
“I guess because it must be hard, and a little lonely, too. Because you never really know why someone wants to be your friend, do you?”
They were still walking, but now he tugged her to a stop. He wanted to tell her she was right. That he didn’t think anyone else understood that, at least not anyone who wasn’t born into a celebrity family. Mostly, he wanted to just look at her. To feel the warmth inside him turn into a raging blaze of longing for this girl who got him. Who really and truly got him.
“Wyatt?”
He blinked, realizing suddenly that he was staring. “Sorry. Sorry, it’s just—well, it’s just that you’re right. It is hard.”
She nodded, but frowned a bit, too.
“What?”
“I was thinking that your last name makes it even more hard. It’s so well known. But then I was wondering why it’s your name at all. Shouldn’t you have your father’s name?”
“You’ve obviously never met Anika Segel. My grandmother is the head of a wide and vast matriarchy. No way was my dad going to win that battle.”
Her mouth twisted a bit. “Guess it’s hard for your dad, too, huh?”
He nodded, thinking about the conversation he’d had with his father back when he was still trying to get Kelsey’s attention. “Yeah,” he admitted. “It is.”
She took his hand and they started walking again. They’d veered off the path and were now walking on the green toward the cluster of trees. “At least people see you and talk to you,” she said. “They notice you because of the name and your family. I’m invisible.”
He pulled her to a stop again, then searched her face, his heart breaking a little at the truth he saw there. A truth he didn’t understand, because she was amazing. Sweet and smart and funny and talented. He could spend days talking to her, sitting with her, or just quietly holding her hand. He could, and yet he couldn’t, because her parents kept her on such a tight leash.
“You’re not invisible to me,” he said, and he almost kissed her right then. Instead, he brushed her lips with the tip of his finger.
She sighed with more passion and longing than he’d ever heard from any of the girls he’d dated.
That’s when he knew. He wasn’t just Wyatt anymore. He was Wyatt and Kelsey.
And damned if that didn’t feel nice.
“Have you ever been kissed?”
Her eyes shot up to his, and he wasn’t sure if it was excitement he saw there, or terror.
She swallowed, then shook her head. “No,” she whispered.
That little word made him happier than it should. “I’m going to be your first, Kelsey Draper.”
“Oh.” A pink stain flooded her cheeks. “Okay.”
“But not today.”
“Oh.” Now the word was laced with disappointment, and damned if that didn’t make him feel good, too. “When?” she added.
But he only smiled, released her hand, and said, “Race you to the trees.”
The next day, he brought her tickets to the ballet. He pulled her around the rec center to the service doors because nobody ever went there, and handed her a small, flat box. Then he had to fight not to smile like an idiot as he watched the awe on her face when she opened it and drew out the two printed pieces of paper.
“Wyatt. This is amazing. You got me tickets to Swan Lake?”
“You like?”
“It’s one of my favorite ballets ever. This is incredible.”
“You’re incredible,” he said and was surprised when she frowned.
“It’s in Los Angeles,” she said. “My father’s never going to let me go.”
“Really? Not even to the ballet? It’s cultural.”
She lifted her shoulders, and it killed him the way she seemed to be sinking into herself. He hadn’t met her dad, but she’d told him enough. And Wyatt had seen the man, too. Leonard Draper worked ten-hour days at the club, so even though he was usually out on the golf course or overseeing the maintenance of the shrubs and flowers in the various public areas, he was around enough that Wyatt had managed to pick him out. A lean, lanky man with a hard face and the leathery skin of someone who’d worked outside his whole life.