And Playing the Role of Herself... (15 page)

Her eyes fluttered open as I drew back, and she frowned. "What do you mean, almost two years? I haven't even known you for two years. We only met…"
"September 14th, 2002," I interrupted matter-of-factly. "At ten twenty-three in the morning. You had on jeans, a rust-colored tank, and tennis shoes. You smiled and I nearly passed out." She blinked in surprise and I smiled slightly. "You're not the only one who started wanting that day. In fact, I wanted so much that I acted like a complete moron whenever you were around. Hence the giggling and saying really bizarre things."
"Oh," she said faintly.
"Now…" I nibbled at her lower lip. "Will I see you before you leave?"
Her smile was slow and sweet. "You'd better."
##
I stepped out onto the large wooden deck of Liz's Malibu beach home, taking a deep breath of moist ocean air. The sun was dipping low in the west, just kissing the watery expanse of Pacific that stretched to the horizon, turning the sky gold and the water a deep purple. The sound of the surf, gently breaking on the beach below, was soothing and I leaned against the deck railing with a sigh, resting pleasantly tired muscles and enjoying a bit of relaxation after a hectic day.
Showing two college-aged men the exciting sights of greater Los Angeles had turned out to be a full-time job. Mann's Chinese Theater and Liz's star on the Walk of Fame, dinner at Spago's, clubbing on The Strip, and now a day at the beach with private surfing lessons…I was wiped, and we still had a movie premiere that I'd talked my way into tonight, and tomorrow a tour of the network studio and a couple hours on the set of a currently shooting movie before finally dropping them off at the airport for an afternoon flight back to Madison.
Maybe after all that, I'd finally have a chance to see Robyn. I hadn't seen her in over twenty-four hours, and now that I'd felt what it was like to touch her, I couldn't wait for my next touch. But Robyn's pre-filming preparations and my hectic schedule with Perry and James were combining to make it very possible that we wouldn't see each other before she left, and that was frustrating the hell out of me.
The sound of the door sliding open and closed behind me brought me out of my thoughts, and I glanced over as a glass was placed on the railing beside me.
"I…uh…I asked Perry, and he said you liked scotch…" James said, picking nervously at the label of the bottle of beer in his hand.
"I do," I said with a smile, picking up the glass and swirling it a few times before taking a sip. "Thanks, James."
He watched me drink and, apparently satisfied that I did indeed like scotch, leaned against the railing and faced the water, mimicking my position. We leaned in silence for a few minutes, drinking and watching the sun dip lower. "It's beautiful here," he said eventually. "It was really nice of Liz to let us use it."
"Yeah." I took in another deep lungful of air. "I love it here. I think she's crazy not to use it more. It's a great place to get away."
"Is it…" he paused, and looked over at me, "is it like that a lot? All those photographers?"
He was talking about the scene that greeted us when we returned to my house after dropping Robyn off the day before - a herd of photographers and news vans blocking my drive, surrounding the limo as we pulled up, making it nearly impossible for us to get to the house. Liz had offered the beach house immediately, knowing how much I hated that kind of attention.
"No, it's not usually like that for me. It's just fallout from my supposed disappearance…it'll die down in a couple of days. It's like that for Liz, almost everywhere she goes, and for Robyn sometimes…but no, I don't usually rate that kind of attention."
He glanced away when I looked over at him. "I don't know why," he said quietly. "You're just as pretty as they are."
I laughed, but quieted quickly when I noticed his wounded expression. "Thank you, that's sweet of you to say."
"Well it's true," he mumbled.
I smiled and sipped at my drink. "You did great out there today - a real natural," I commented, wanting to change the subject. The day we'd just spent surfing seemed like a safe enough topic.
He smiled shyly. "You too. You're really…uh…athletic. And you…um…look great in a swimsuit."
Perhaps not such a safe topic after all. I think it was time to have a little talk with James about how he had absolutely no chance with his best friend's much older, probably a lesbian, sister.
I put my drink on the rail and turned to face him, but before I could say anything, he quickly lunged forward and planted his lips on mine.
To say I was startled would be an understatement, and it took me a moment to react. I put my hands on his shoulders and pushed him away, annoyed that he tried something and annoyed with myself for not nipping this in the bud.
"James, no," I said firmly. He cringed like a kicked puppy, and I stifled my annoyance with a sigh. "James, this is not happening."
"But," he started.
I shook my head, stopping him. "But nothing. You're a nice guy, James, but this isn't happening. I'm practically old enough to be your mother, for one thing, and honestly, you're not my type."
"What is your type? I'm not tall enough? Not famous enough?" he asked, sulking now.
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Sometimes men were such babies. "I would hope you know me a little better than that, James. I'll tell you what my type isn't. It's not friends of my brother's who are barely twenty-one, okay?" This time I allowed a little of my annoyance to creep into my voice, and he slumped dejectedly against the rail. I softened my tone. "I'm sorry if I did something to give you a different impression…"
He shook his head. "No, you didn't…I was just…" He shrugged. "I dunno…hoping, I guess."
"I'm flattered, James. Truly. And some girl is going to be very lucky to get you someday."
Ugh. Did I just say that? Cheesy, cheesy, cheesy. After school specials, here I come.
"But not you, huh?" His tone was resigned.
I smiled slightly. "No, not me."
We both turned and watched the final rays of sun fade to purple, and the sun dip below the horizon. After a few minutes, I bumped him with my shoulder. "Piece of advice?"
He glanced over. "Sure."
"Next time, save the tongue for the second kiss."
He looked embarrassed for a moment, but saw that I was smiling. He laughed and clinked his bottle against my glass. "I'll try to remember that."

"Come on, Caid, four more. That's it, three…you've got it. Two…and one more…alright, nice job!"
Shawn plucked the twenty pound dumbbells from my hands as though they were toothpicks, smiling down at me with a practiced, encouraging smile. "Take a sixty second break and then we'll go for another fifteen."
I groaned and let my arms dangle behind my head, arching my back over the exercise ball I was laying on top of for my tricep curls. "You're evil, you know that, right?"
"That's what you pay me for." He smiled again, this time a little less professional and more genuine. "You're the one who wanted a last minute, butt-kicking workout. I'm just giving you what you wanted."
"Well, I'm an idiot," I mumbled, and I raised my hands up to receive the dumbbells again, blowing out a few deep breaths before lowering the weights behind my head slowly, and then raising them up again.
I was on my tenth rep when the muffled tones of my cell phone interrupted my concentration, and I paused.
"Oh no you don't. Five more, Caid, and then you can answer it," Shawn said, picking up the phone from where it sat on my towel and waving it enticingly in front of my face.
I scowled, too breathless to call him all the names running through my mind, and pushed out five more reps as fast as I could, my arms shaking crazily on the last two. He finally handed me the phone after taking the weights from my hands, and after a moment of fumbling, I finally got the thing open.
"Yeah," I gasped, closing my eyes and draping a sweaty arm across my face.
There was a moment of silence, and then a low, husky voice asked, "Am I interrupting something?"
I didn't think it was possible, but my heart rate picked up even more, and it took me a moment before I could respond. "I'm at the gym. Trying to work off some…frustration," I panted finally. I knew the smile on my face was giving Shawn some ideas, but I couldn't help it. "Where are you? I thought you had a dinner thing tonight."
Robyn had called while I was on my way to the airport with Perry and James, telling me the bad news that her presence was required tonight at a dinner party at her agent's house, and she didn't know when she would be home. Perry and James were in the car with me so I couldn't yell and scream in frustration as I'd wanted to, but the moment I'd dropped them off, I'd called Shawn and asked for a workout that would leave me exhausted and wanting my mommy.
I could hear the smile in her voice when she answered my question. "I told Mark I'm not feeling well. I think I might have gotten food poisoning this afternoon. So…I find myself suddenly free for the evening."
I sat up. "Tell me you're not kidding."
She laughed. "I'm not kidding. When can you get over here? I'll cook you dinner."
"Give me an hour," I said, reaching for my towel and ignoring Shawn's look of disapproval. "Tops."
She laughed again, low and breathless. The sound tickled down my spine as though she were here, touching me. "Hurry."
I snapped the phone shut and stood, giving Shawn a smile that made him blink. "Looks like I won't need that workout after all."
##
I slammed the car door and headed up the drive, forcing myself to walk instead of sprint like I wanted to. I felt giddy with anticipation, like a teenager with a first crush, and when Robyn opened the door in a sleeveless, button-down shirt, long denim shorts and no shoes, the smile I gave her made my face ache.
Her return smile was dazzling, her eyes shining with welcome. "Hey, you."
"Hey." I suddenly felt shy, wanting to hug her but not knowing if it would be welcome.
She put an end my wondering by tugging me into the house by the hand, shutting the door behind us, and pulling me tightly against her.
I sighed and wrapped my arms around her waist, burying face in her neck. "I missed you."
She tightened the embrace and rubbed her face against my hair. "I missed you too, baby," she whispered. "It's crazy how much."
We stood, just holding each other and not speaking, as long minutes passed. Finally she pulled back, cradling my face in her hands, and placed a gentle kiss on my lips. I leaned into the kiss, savoring it for what it was; not a kiss for passion's sake, but rather a reconnection - an affirmation - of things already said.
"Come on," she said eventually, stepping away but not letting go of my hand. "Let me get you a glass of wine and you can watch me cook you something fabulous."
I followed her downstairs and into the kitchen where she seated me on a barstool along a counter in her kitchen and handed me a glass of white wine.
"Can I help?" I asked
"Nope…sorry, I'm a bit territorial about my kitchen," she answered with a smile that said she wasn't sorry at all.
I made a mental note to not mess about in her kitchen.
"You like shrimp, I hope?" At my nod she pulled a bowl of medium-sized shrimp out of the refrigerator and set it on the counter, then splashed olive oil into a pan, added a bowlful of sliced garlic and set it to heat.
We talked of random things as she pulled various cups of liquid out of the refrigerator, transferred the cooked garlic to a paper towel, and briskly tossed the shrimp with salt and pepper, moving with a confidence and economy of motion that nudged something in my memory.
When I was twenty, I spent the summer on the wait staff of an upscale resort outside Rice Lake, serving pricy dinners to sun burnt tourists. The overall atmosphere of the kitchen had been hectic and chaotic, but the area around the head chef, Jean-Marie, had always seemed calm, and I had admired the way he inhabited the space around him, as though the pots, pans, knives and other utensils were an extension of his person.
Robyn moved around her kitchen the same way; as though her actions were second nature, an extension of herself.
"You've done this before," I commented, and she raised an inquisitive eyebrow in my direction, not pausing in her preparations. I gestured at the sauté pan now filled with shrimp that she was absently shaking with casual flicks of her wrists. "Cooking. Where'd you learn?"
She smiled, her face softening. "My mom was a chef…still is, actually, although now she mostly handles front-of-the-house. She and my sister are both restaurateurs - they have restaurants in Santa Barbara and Santa Monica." She gave the shrimp another expert flip. "My sisters and I knew our way around a kitchen before we were out of elementary school."
"Tell me about your family," I requested, realizing that I knew almost nothing about her. We had talked, certainly, but never about our pasts or families.
She scooped the shrimp out onto a platter and placed the pan back on the burner, adding the garlic back into the pan along with a plateful of some kind of chilies and stirring absently. "My family." She smiled again with obvious fondness. "Well, I have three sisters - one older and two younger. Trish, that's the oldest, is part-owner of the restaurants with Mom. She runs the place in Santa Monica, and lives there with her boyfriend Enrique; Diane, she's two years younger than me - she works in a law firm in San Francisco, and Lori - the baby. She's a stay-at-home mom with two little boys and a third on the way. She and her husband Will live in Santa Barbara, near my parents."
A few cupfuls of liquid went into the pan, along with the already cooked shrimp and some spices. She turned the flame down a bit before turning to pull two plates out of a cupboard above her head and unplugging a rice cooker that had been quietly steaming away on the corner of the counter. "Mom…like I said, she's a chef and runs the restaurant in Santa Barbara, and my dad used to model - that's how I got into it - and now he plays a lot of golf and tennis and occasionally helps out at the restaurant."
"So that's where you grew up? Santa Barbara?" I asked, watching the play of muscles under the tan skin of her forearm as she flipped and stirred the contents of the pan a few more times before removing it from the heat. I let my eyes travel from her forearms up over the swell of breast, the long, elegant neck, sharp chin, full lips, straight nose, finally resting on obsidian eyes that stared at me with a heat that caused my breath to hitch.
We stared at each other, conversation forgotten, until finally Robyn blinked and looked away, drawing a shaky breath. "Christ, Caid…those eyes are lethal."
She stood for a moment more, staring at the stove, and then pulled a few large spoons out of a drawer and began doling out generous portions of brown rice topped with the shrimp and chili mixture, along with greens and cooked carrots, onto the two plates. Looking over her shoulder at me, her expression now bland, she picked up the two plates and nodded towards her wineglass on the counter. "Could you bring mine, and the bottle?"
I nodded and did as she asked, tucking the bottle under my arm and picking up her glass before following her out of the kitchen and into what I'd guess was the living room - the huge room with the wall of two story windows looking out over the flickering lights of the San Gabriele valley that were just starting to come on. A small table had been set up near the windows, with a deep burgundy tablecloth, two place settings, and two tall candles.
She set the two plates down and took the wine bottle from under my arm, placing it in a ceramic wine cooler on one end of the table. Then she took her wine glass from my hand and placed it on the table, gesturing for me to sit down while she lit the candles. Finally she sat down across from me and put her napkin in her lap, meeting my gaze for the first time in several minutes.
"This is nice, Robyn. Thank you," I offered, trying to get us back to the ease we shared in the kitchen before she caught me staring.
"I hope you like it - it's something my mom was tweaking for the restaurant last time I went home. Please," she waved at my plate, "eat."
I leaned over the plate, breathing in deeply, and grinned. "If the smell is anything to go by, it'll be fabulous, as promised." I picked up my fork and took a bite. "Oh, God." I closed my eyes and chewed slowly, savoring the heat of the chilies along with the sweet of the shrimp. It was, indeed, fabulous. "This is wonderful."
I opened my eyes and found her leaning back in her chair, watching me with a slight smile on her face.
I paused mid-chew and swallowed. "Aren't you eating?"
She smiled fully now, teasing and light. "It's more fun to watch you. Most people I cook for don't appreciate it quite as much as you seem to. Nice to see so much enthusiasm."
"Well," I speared another piece of shrimp, "then the people you've cooked for are idiots. Honestly, Robyn, this is fantastic." I put the shrimp in my mouth and again closed my eyes at the burst of flavor. I chewed for a moment, and swallowed. "You can cook for me anytime."
She gave me a delighted smile and picked up her fork.
I learned more about Robyn over dinner; I'd always been good at getting people to talk to me, and Robyn, it turned out, liked to talk. She grew up in Santa Barbara and had a dizzying number of aunts, uncles and cousins still in the area; she was close with all her sisters but from how she spoke about Diane, the two of them were especially close; she broke her arm and three ribs falling out of a tree when she was seven, lost her virginity to Duane Resin on prom night when she was seventeen, and most of her family, like the rest of the world, had no idea that she was gay.
I'd practically licked my plate clean while she talked, and I picked up my wine and leaned back in my chair, pleasantly full. "So only Diane knows?"
She nodded, playing with her food. "I know…sounds strange, doesn't it? It just always seemed easier not to say anything…and it never really mattered. I never wanted to bring anyone home to meet the family, I guess."
I digested that, wondering what it meant for us. The fear that I was going to end up being just another "thing" in an apparently long list of things once again surfaced, and I squashed it as best I could.
"There's a little more, if you'd like it," Robyn said finally, after a long silence.
I shook my head and smiled. "I'm stuffed, thank you. That was great."
I followed her into the kitchen with my plate and silverware; she took the items out of my hands and turned to put them in the sink with hers. I'd wanted to touch her all through dinner, and I finally gave in to temptation, stepping up behind her and snaking my arms loosely around her slim waist, resting my chin on her shoulder.
"Dinner was wonderful," I murmured in her ear, closing my eyes and breathing in the scent of her hair. "And so are you." She leaned back against me, placing her hands over mine. I kissed her cheek, and then trailed my lips to her ear, nibbling gently. "You taste good, too."
I could feel her smile, and she turned in my embrace, settling her arms on my shoulders, her hands joined behind my head. "How do you manage to be so sweet," she said, kissing me softly before pulling back, "and so goddamn sexy at the same time?"
I gave her a pleased smile and leaned in to brush our lips together again, meaning for the kiss to be brief but quickly losing myself in the softness of her lips and the feel of her tongue stroking hesitantly against mine. Her hands went into my hair, encouraging me, and she purred deep in her throat when I pushed her hips against the counter and deepened the kiss. We kissed for several long moments before pulling apart, breathing heavily.
I leaned into her, touching our foreheads together as I caught my breath. "You're one hell of a kisser, Ms. Ward."
She gave a breathy laugh and ran long fingers through the hair at the nape of my neck. "Oh, honey…I'd say you have some skills of your own."
We stood quietly against each other for a few moments more, and then she grasped my hand and slid out from between the counter and me, leading me into the other room and gesturing for me to sit on a large leather couch in front of the fireplace. I sat down and watched as she put on some soft, instrumental guitar music and turned on the gas fireplace before retrieving our wineglasses and coming back to the couch.
"A fire when it's eighty degrees outside?" I teased, and she paused as she handed me my wine.
"Do you mind? It doesn't put out that much heat and I like watching it…"
"I was just teasing," I interrupted her. "It's nice."
She smiled, and lowered herself onto the other end of the couch, tucking her feet under her.
I hid a frown at her being so far away - I wanted to touch her, but if she felt the need for some distance, I didn't want to push. We watched the fire for a while, and I had to agree with her; it was nice to watch a fire, regardless of the time of year.