Night Call (Night Fever Serial Book 2) (14 page)

She mostly remembered it because it was right before he’d shifted from a mysterious, attractive man to a man who’d thought she could be bought. A lifetime had happened since then. “We’d been flirting,” she said. “You asked me if I was attracted to you, and I was, but I couldn’t say it. When you tried to give me that much money, it seemed somehow connected to that. Like you were cheapening our time together.”

“I wasn’t. I genuinely meant it to be nice.”

“‘Nice’ isn’t giving people money. It’s giving them things money can’t buy, like how you took me to that speakeasy because you thought I’d like it. Or letting me get syrup on your bed because it made me happy.” She paused. “I don’t care about your money.”

His entire body tensed around her.

“But I know you worked hard for it. That’s what I—” She caught herself before she could say it was what she loved about him. “It’s what I care about. Your passion and drive, and that you love to help people create.”

“You’re reading too much into what I do.”

“No, I’m not. I see you, Beau.” She saw him, but she couldn’t have him. Not when she and Johnny had given each other nine years of their lives, and not when she owed him more. “Why’d you ask about the tip?”

He shook his head on her shoulder. “Never mind.”

“Beau—”

“Stop looking over the balcony. You’re making me nervous.” There was an edge to his voice, even though he held her tightly enough that she wasn’t going anywhere. He hadn’t answered her question, but she didn’t want to spend what little time they had left arguing.

She blinked her eyes to the sky again. “All right. Is up okay?”

“Up is okay.”

“You asked what I wanted to do tonight,” she said. “I’d like to see the stars with you.”

Beau’s chin remained on her shoulder, and
he
was still looking over the balcony. “Can’t see them now?”

“Not enough of them. I want to see them all.”

He kissed the side of her head over her hair. “Go get dressed.”

“Really?”

“I can do spontaneous. I know a place. I have to make a call, but I’ll only be a moment.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“Business overseas.”

“Oh.” She nodded. “Wait, what about—”

“In the closet,” he said. “I have some things in there you can wear.”

Things
she could wear? Her jaw set. “If you think I’m wearing another woman’s clothes—”

“They’ve never been worn,” he said. “They’re yours. I can be spontaneous—rarely—but I am also always prepared if I can help it.”

That certainly sounded like him. She extricated herself from his grasp, went inside and found a couple plain, jersey women’s T-shirts hanging in the closet. She chose one the muted color of raw clay. The jeans were almost equally as soft, and on the floor sat a pair of brilliant-white Chucks in her size.

She was dressed and combing her damp hair when Beau came into the bathroom. He also wore a T-shirt and jeans.

“We almost look like a normal couple,” Lola said to his reflection in the mirror.

He frowned, watching her.

“Is everything okay?”

“Fine,” he said. “Everything’s fine. You ready?”

The look on his face matched his cross voice on the balcony. She’d seen him that way before—and since it was on her mind, she realized one of those times was right after she’d refused his tip. Before she could think anything of it, his face relaxed with a smile.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m ready.”

Downstairs, the valet ran for Beau’s car, seeming eager for something to do in the middle of the night.

Beau took her hand as if it were the most natural thing. “I’ve been riding without the top lately,” he said when the valet pulled the car up. “You’ve liberated me.”

She smiled. “That’s a nice thing to do to someone.”

The roads were relatively quiet at that hour, and Beau took advantage of it. He turned up the music. The drive was all at once fast and slow, the speedometer needle climbing to sixty, seventy, eighty before Beau would let up on the gas. The wind had a way of soothing her conscience and wiping her clean, as if she were moving into a new state of awareness. She could no longer hide the truth about her feelings for Beau from herself. It was past midnight—the end of one day, the start of another.

They climbed the Santa Monica Mountains. Beau hugged each curve and took the sharp ones without flinching, anticipating them like he’d laid the pavement himself.

Neither of them spoke, but once in a while, Beau would look over at her and she couldn’t help looking back. Then he’d return his eyes to the precarious, winding road, and she’d allow herself a few more seconds of Beau’s hair, disheveled by the wind, and the stubble that had tickled her earlier. She hoped she’d get to feel the same burn as their first night together when he hadn’t shaved—how long would it take for it to grow a little longer? Did they have that much time? To feel that kind of thing over her lips, along her jaw, between her legs—it was ownership.

Beau eventually slowed the car to a stop, pulling over to a lookout point.

“Mulholland Drive?” she asked. “I thought you knew a place.”

“I do. This is it.”

“Every Angeleno worth his salt knows about Mulholland.”

He laughed loudly and looked up past the open roof. “So much for trying to impress you.”

“If you’re trying to impress me, you’re going to have to do better than a stunning view and some orgasms.”

He made a noise and raised an eyebrow at her. “Careful or you’ll wake the beast again.”

“By saying ‘orgasm’?”

“He’s easily aroused.”

She rolled her eyes.

“I saw that,” he said.

“How?” she exclaimed. “It’s nighttime.”

“Not all of night is dark. There’s the moon, the stars.”

“Just like even dark people have light, right? Is that what you’re getting at?”

“You think everything I say has another meaning.”

She turned in her seat to face him. “I thought to make an offer like you did that you must be a monster. Now I don’t know what to think.”

“I appreciate your candor,” he said dryly.

“I’m just trying to figure this out. Figure you out. How can someone be anything other than morally bankrupt and vile to pay another man’s girlfriend for sex?”

He dropped his hands along the curves of the steering wheel. “You’re looking at it from the wrong angle, Lola. I’m a man who doesn’t let anything get in the way of what I want. If my bank account had a zero balance and I wanted you badly enough…I wouldn’t let that stop me. I’d find a way to get you.”

“You make it sound so simple—like people are commodities.” She paused, waiting for a response. She supposed maybe he had thought of her that way once. “By your own logic, there’s nothing you can’t have.”

“I like to believe that.” He looked over at her. “Why?”

Deep inside her not hours ago, he’d said he wouldn’t let her go. Lola had made her own heated promises—why? To get to the finish line? Or because they were true and nothing counted in those lust-fogged moments? Beau had said if he wanted something badly enough, he’d go after it. It knotted her stomach to think of a Johnny-Beau showdown in which she’d have to choose between them. “Never mind.”

Beau glanced over his shoulder and back at her. “I’ve never been here at night, but I should’ve guessed it would be closed.”

Just behind him was a lookout point with a view of downtown Los Angeles. Lola had been going there since she was a teenager, often at night. Sometimes to drink with her friends, which seemed reckless now.

“There are ways around the gate,” she said.

He arched an eyebrow at her. “You want to sneak in?”

“Would you?”

“We drove all the way up here.” He went to open his door, but Lola put her hand on his forearm. He turned back.

“I don’t need it,” she said. “I’ve seen it. Let’s just sit together.”

He settled back into his seat. “Describe it to me.”

“The sky is black, but the lights glow. Orange, green, yellow.” She wiggled her pointer finger in the air. “Little dots. The buildings are like music bars of light and dark.” She glanced up. “More often than you’d think, you can catch a shooting star. But right now, everything is mostly…still.”

“Sounds almost perfect. But we’re missing something.” He shifted in his seat to dig in his pocket. “Vodka and Cheez-Its.”

She half smiled. “What?”

“From the minibar.” He held up a tiny bottle between two fingers and a bag in his palm. “I also brought tequila—if you’re feeling adventurous.”

“A surprise picnic under the stars? You’re really clueless when it comes to wooing women, aren’t you?”

“Take that back or you get no tequila.” He twisted off the cap, took a sip and quickly shook his head. His thick hair, relaxed for once because of their shower, took a moment to settle. He blew out a breath. “Jesus. Now I remember why I don’t drink tequila straight anymore.”

Lola grinned. “Suck it up, pretty boy.”

“Pretty boy? I take offense to that.”

“It was intended to offend.”

He laughed and passed the bottle. She finished it off as Beau watched her.

“And that’s how it’s done,” she declared right before turning her face away to cringe.

“Busted,” he said.

“I was just clearing my throat.”

“Seriously? I know what I saw.”

“I’ll prove it,” she said. “Pass the vodka.”

He surrendered it to her with one palm in the air. “Yes, ma’am.”

She opened it, downed half of it easily and offered him the rest.

He shook his head. “No more while I’m driving precious cargo.”

Her eyebrows furrowed. “Precious—?”

There was that laugh again, deeper this time from the bottom of his throat. She wanted to bottle that sound and save it for later. For when they’d parted ways. She had to push the thought away quickly to stay in their moment.

“God, you’re cute,” he said. “
You
, Lola. You’re the precious cargo.”

“Oh,” she said, warm in the face. “Got it.”

“Just don’t get sick in my car, all right?”

“It’d take a lot more than a mini-bottle to make me sick. Vodka’s like water for me.” She drained the bottle. “Been drinking it since I was thirteen.”

He opened the Cheez-Its and ate some. “I want to hear more about this rebel-teenager Lola.”

“She’s still around, so don’t provoke her,” she said.

“I know you meant that as a threat, but I’m only more intrigued.”

She turned her head toward the windshield. Everywhere she looked, there was something to see—a distant view of Los Angeles, the Big Dipper, the small one, the sandpaper mountains behind her. Beau.

“Maybe intrigued was too casual of a word,” Beau teased. “Don’t make me beg for more.”

“I’m the same person I was then, just older. And maybe a little wiser.”

“I may be older, but I don’t feel any wiser,” Beau said.

“Me neither,” she said. “That was a lie.” At the time, no matter how lost she’d been, she’d always thought she’d had it figured out. “What about you? Were you rebellious?”

“Nah. I was consumed by other things, like work, family and survival. Growing up poor really lights a fire under your ass. At least it did for me.”

“I think everyone handles it differently. Your way of dealing was to take on all the responsibility. My mom was like that too, saddling the load on her back. Being poor was tough, but it made me stronger. I didn’t let it rule my life.”

“I bet you, Lola, were already strong to begin with.”

“I was by myself a lot.” She glanced over at him. Maybe it was the vodka, though she doubted it, but she was okay going places with him she hadn’t been in a while. It was their space, like he’d said. “My mom wouldn’t even take my birthdays off. Her reasoning was I’d only get a present if she had a job and she wouldn’t have a job if she gave away shifts. When I said presents didn’t matter, she asked me how I felt about food. For weeks I ate one meal a day because I was worried we’d run out.”

Beau looked at the steering wheel. His hands balled and flexed against his thighs. “I wish you hadn’t told me that. Things weren’t that bad for us.”

“They weren’t for us either.” They truly hadn’t been, but she also had the urge to comfort him. “Looking back, it was never as dire as she made it seem. She hustled for her tips, and she never spent a dime on anything frivolous. The manager worshipped her, so she was never in jeopardy of losing her job. Our situation and our relationship fluctuated, but the one thing that stayed the same was that
she
thought there was never enough money. I couldn’t do anything because there was no money. My father left because we—meaning I—cost him too much money.”

“Is that true?” Beau asked.

“It’s what she told me.”

“He didn’t explain to you why he left?”

“He went on a work trip and never came back. I don’t think he was planning it because he left a lot of his stuff. I was too young to remember much anyway.”

“Haven’t seen him since?”

“No. So, like I said, alone a lot. Except at school. I didn’t participate in a lot of stuff, but I had friends whether I wanted them or not. Then when I got home, it was silent. Nobody around. Except for Barbie fucker across the street.”

“I’m not sure I like you hanging around with that girl.”

Lola shook her head, smiling. “She was all right. Sometimes I wished I’d had a brother or sister, though. At least you had that.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you’d had Brigitte.”

“Why not?”

“She was only fifteen when she moved here and had just lost her only family. She was so insecure about not belonging to anyone. She called me her brother from day one, and my mom ‘Mom.’ Unless she was angry, and then it was Pam. Looking back, it was something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. She didn’t believe she deserved our love on top of our hospitality, and my mom already thought she was doing Brigitte this enormous favor by taking her in when we didn’t have much to spare.”

“No wonder she’s a handful,” Lola said.

He rested his head against the seat and looked up. “She was even before the accident. I didn’t have to know her long to get that. Everything is extreme for Brigitte. Life. Love. Hate. She doesn’t know who she is without that, and she thrives on the attention it gets her.”