The Love Square (5 page)

“What?”

“I love shutting my eyes and listening to the waves, smelling the ocean, feeling the moisture in the air, the heat of the sun, the taste of the salt. All my senses working. Some of the best naps I’ve ever had were here, lying on this very beach.”

“Is that a hint? You know, you’re pretty laid-back for a movie star, Lusty,” Clare said.

“I’m hardly a movie star, Nebraska.”

Clare snickered at her new nickname. “You almost are. You will be in a couple of months when your gladiator movie starts.”

“How do you know about my gladiator stuff?”

“I Googled you, of course.”

“Great,” Dylan said sarcastically. “What else did you find out?”

“Not too much I didn’t know. I read about you dating your
Sunrise, Sunset
costar. You said she broke your heart.”

“Oh yeah. That would be Maggie. She did. I’m over it now.”

“She looked like a bitch.”

Dylan shook his head.

“What?”

“She wasn’t a bitch, Nebraska. Don’t believe everything you see on the Internet. I’m shocked you even said
bitch
.”

Clare raised her eyebrows, and Dylan stared out into the ocean. After a moment, he said, “Okay, she was. Totally a bitch. Soured me on the whole relationship thing.” He hated talking about his ex.

Clare stared at him in her innocent way. “You’re way too good-looking to be off the market.”

Clare’s comments embarrassed him, but he wasn’t sure why. “Settle down, Nebraska. I’m going to take a nap. Don’t drown.”

“I’m serious,” she said. She picked up the camera and snapped a picture of him. “You really are beautiful. Breathtaking. Like the ocean.”

“Cut it out, Clare.” Dylan felt like a thirteen-year-old again with his sisters picking on him.

“You could say thank you.”

“Thank you. Now quit taking my picture.”

Clare put the camera down and leaned back on her elbows. “It’s nice to talk to someone. Everyone at work hates me.”

“How can they hate you? When you aren’t being a smartass, you seem pretty decent.” Dylan flipped onto his side to face Clare and propped himself up on his elbow.

“Thanks, I think.”

“Why did you come here? The real reason, please,” Dylan asked. The sea breeze blew his hair into his mouth. His agent forbade him from cutting it until the movie premiere, but the day after, he planned on shaving it all off. He tucked it behind his ear.

Clare looked serious for the first time since Dylan had met her. “I ran away.”

“From what? Mafia?”

“Ha. Spoken like a true New Yorker. I ran away from my life. And my mama. And a boy.” Clare squinted at him. “Dumb, right?”

“Well, that’s one way to break up with someone,” Dylan said. “Move across the country.”

“He’s still hanging around. He runs my family’s stables. I’ve known him since I was thirteen, and he’s kind of hard to run away from. His name is Lucas, and we’re engaged. Sort of.”

“Sort of?” Dylan asked.
Engaged?

“Long story.”

“Relationships suck,” Dylan mumbled, suddenly cranky.

“Not friendships, though,” Clare said. “Will you be my friend? Can I take one more picture of you?”

“Yes to friend, no to pictures.”

“You’re a model, Lusty. Aren’t you used to the camera?” Clare leaned into Dylan and turned the camera to face them. She snapped a selfie before putting it down again. “It’s probably better if I don’t take your picture now, anyway. At least until you get your pores cleaned out.”

Clare took another swig of her water as Dylan gave her his best dirty look. “You are so snarky,” he said. “You remind me of my annoying sisters.”

“You are so sensitive for a movie star.”

“I’m not—”

“—a movie star,” Clare finished. “I know. You just play one on TV. What would you be if you weren’t a non-movie star?”

“I’m not telling you. You’ll make fun of me.”

“Me?” Clare asked sarcastically. “I would never.”

“Yes, you would.”

“You have really low self-esteem for a movie—” Dylan squinted at her, and she corrected herself, “I mean, a Californian.”

Dylan shook his head. “If you must know—”

“I must.”

“I would have gone to college and then maybe, perhaps, been a physical therapist. Maybe a sports trainer.” Dylan waited for her to bust out laughing, but she didn’t.

“You could still,” she said. “You seem serious about your Lusty body.”

“What about you, if you weren’t a bookstore guru?”

“A bookstore guru? I like that. Sounds very California. Hmm. Since we are being honest here, I would go to art school and study photography.”

“For real?”

“Yep. I’d get a big camera, take some classes. I love thinking about composition, color, setting up shots. Even with my little point-and-shoot. I took the picture of my family’s farm you saw in my office,” she said proudly.

“That’s a great shot. You’re already a good photographer.”

“Thanks.”

Dylan laid back on the blanket and pretended to nap but watched Clare instead. His crankiness dissipated and he felt content. Like himself, for the first time in a long time.

“I don’t think I can sleep with this in front of me,” Clare said, more to herself than Dylan.

After watching the sunset through the cloudy sky, they left the beach. He took her to dinner, where they ate and compared their pre-California lives.

“What about your parents?” Clare asked after Dylan told her about his three sisters scattered around the nation.

“My mother died of breast cancer, and my dad died about three months after. My sisters think from a broken heart.”

“They loved each other,” Clare said, looking up at the sky.

“Very much.” Dylan knew no relationship he could dream up would live up to the love his parents had for each other.

“My parents too,” Clare said. “It used to annoy me. Now I think I’m just jealous.”

Dylan knew the feeling. “My parents are Jack and Diane.”

“Like the eighties song? That’s perfect,” she said, and the conversation turned to music.

When Dylan dropped Clare off that night, he felt good, mostly because he thought he’d shown her a nice time and that California wasn’t all evil. He also felt as if he had made a real friend for the first time since arriving in California. Dylan told her he had other places to show her, and they made a date to hang out on her next day off.

During the week, Dylan and Clare texted and talked on the phone when they could. Dylan also came to the bookstore one night and drank coffee with Clare during her break. She gave him the picture she had taken of the two of them on the beach, and he stuck it on his dresser mirror at home. He looked annoyed in the picture, but she looked happy, so he liked it.

Hanging around Clare also made Dylan miss New York and his family and friends, so late one night he grabbed his phone and searched his contacts. First, he spoke to his sisters. Then he called Alex.

“D-Barnes!” Alex answered. “What’s up? How’s Cali?”

“It’s great. You have to come visit me some time,” Dylan said. “How’s New York?”

“I don’t know. I’m in Pittsburgh. Three-game series.”

“Oh yeah? How you doing with everything?”

Alex told Dylan about his stats, the team, his coach. They talked about Steve and Long Island, and their high school days. Alex asked him about the California girls and was disappointed when Dylan had no good stories for him. Dylan wasn’t into sleeping around like Alex. He was over that.
Done with women for now. Well, except for Clare.

“Listen,” Dylan said, “I’m going to a movie premiere this summer in the city. Middle of July, I think. Maybe we can hang out together? Steve too? I miss you idiots.”

“The gladiator thing already?” Alex asked.

“No. A small role I had in a rom-com, but the studio wants me to start hamming it up for the gladiator thing, so I kind of have to go.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” Alex joked. “You seem so miserable about it.”

“It’s not as fun as it looks.”

“I have no sympathy. But yeah, of course. Let me know as it gets closer.”

They hung up and Dylan went to sleep. The next morning he had an early meeting with his publicist and then headed out to buy Clare a gift.

He couldn’t wait to see her again to give it to her.

Chapter 4

Alex

“Why are you being such a bitch?” Alex asked Jenna as she threw her work bag on the floor and pulled off her shoes.

“Because, Alex, this isn’t a restaurant, and that was totally disrespectful.” She slammed her bedroom door and disappeared.

“What was?” he asked through the door.

“You text me you’re starving, and I tell you to come eat my leftovers. I get home, and you and some random chick are here feeding each other my food? Were you going to have sex on my bed too?” she yelled from her room.

“We already had sex upstairs, and we were hungry. I asked you first,” he yelled back.

When Jenna reappeared, Alex blatantly checked out her jeans and the tight V-neck Brooklyn Beasts T-shirt. As she walked past, she shoved him with her shoulder.

“Hey,” he whined, rubbing his arm.

She moved toward her bookcase and rummaged around the shelves. He knew she was searching for her keys. They’d spent more time in the past few weeks looking for her keys than using them. He remembered his promise to hang a hook for her.

She turned and jutted out a hip. “I don’t mind feeding you. You can come and go whenever you’d like. But please, please don’t bring your skanky girlfriends into my home.”

“That’s not nice to say about Marcy,” he said in an attempt to lighten her mood.

Jenna took a book from the shelf. She couldn’t throw to save her life, so he didn’t bother moving out of the way when she threw it at him. “Out,” she said, pointing to the door. “Get out.”

Alex loved navigating Jenna’s fiery reactions to his stupidity. Still, he always apologized because he could never let her stay angry. “Out? Come on. Don’t be mad. I won’t bring anyone here again.” He glided to her and reached for her hands, flashing his best forgive-me face. “I promise.”

She sighed but let him hold them. “I don’t know these girls, Alex. I trust you but not them. Don’t bring strangers into my house. Do you understand? Do you get it?” She let go and grabbed a rubber band off her coffee table and pulled her hair into a ponytail. “Of all the ridiculous…” she murmured.

“I get it,” he said.

“Thank you.” She yanked her ponytail and continued her search, moving through her space like a beautiful tornado.

Alex recognized the exasperated tone.
Time for a topic change.
“You going out?”

“Scott and I
were
going to go to your game tonight, but since you’re being an ass, maybe we will skip it.” Jenna crossed her arms over her chest and glared through long lashes.

Alex loved when she came to his games. “Please come! I’m sorry. Really I am. I’ll never do it again. Scout’s honor.” He held up his fingers in a makeshift scout signal.

“You weren’t a scout, and I hate you,” Jenna said. She murmured insults as she checked her phone. “But Scott wants to go, and it’s a nice night for a ballgame. Even if it’s yours.”

“Want me to sign your shirt?” Alex teased. The groupies at the games always asked for an autograph.

“Ha,” she said flatly. He reached for her again, but she put up her hand. “You’re on thin ice. Don’t get near me unless you want me to strangle you.”

When Alex flashed Jenna his best grin, her features softened. “Do you still love me?” he asked.

She sighed. “I guess. It’s a curse.”

“I love you too,” he said, tugging her ponytail.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jenna murmured as she moved into her kitchen.

Jenna had thrown him a curveball the first time she told him she loved him. He had built a table for her, and she’d said, “You’re really handy to have around. I love you.” After, she’d pecked him on the cheek.

Initially, he’d panicked hearing those three words directed at him. He wanted to say them back since he did love her in a way that wasn’t scary to him. He loved her as his new best friend, confidante, and occasional date. So the next time she’d said it to him, he said it back. He’d never said those words to a woman. Oddly, it made him feel as though what they had was special.

It was special too, in a platonic way. Jenna was gorgeous, of course, but having sex would cheapen their relationship, not to mention ruin their friendship, and Alex didn’t want to do that. He loved their friendship. He loved having her downstairs, eating meals with her, and running errands together. He loved when they would sleep at each other’s apartments and watch movies all night, then go for an early morning run. He loved that she left a toothbrush at his place. He loved talking to her about everything—his major league dreams, his plans, her life. All of it gave him a warm, fuzzy feeling. Not to mention, she didn’t seem interested in sleeping with him anyway.

One late night she’d called him out on his lifestyle. “You know, Alex. You can’t go sleeping around upstairs and then come down here for pillow talk. That’s fucked up. Why don’t you talk to the women you sleep with? Maybe you would like one of them.”

“I thought you liked when I came over,” Alex countered.

“I do. Not after you had sex, though. It’s nasty. It’s like you have sex up there and then come here for intimacy.”

Alex thought about the word over and over.
Intimacy
. Was that what he was looking for from Jenna? He wasn’t sure he’d ever had it. Since his mother left, he made a point of keeping emotionally distant from the opposite sex.

Realizing their friendship had become all-consuming and scared of being in any so-called intimate relationship, Alex tried to pull away. He didn’t call Jenna for a few days, just to see what would happen. The days dragged until she left him a message, freaking out and asking him if he was dead. She pulled him to her, like a magnetic force, so he gave up trying to fight it and clung.

One night after a three-game sweep of their rivals, Alex joined the team to celebrate and came home drunk out of his mind. The details were fuzzy, but apparently he had gone to Jenna’s apartment instead of his, stripped down to his boxers, and hopped into bed with her. When he’d woken up the next morning in nothing but his underwear, he freaked out, thinking they had done it.

He’d jumped out of bed and run into her living room, where he saw Jenna sitting at her kitchen table drinking coffee in her robe.

“Hi, sexy,” she said.

“Uh, hi,” he said tentatively.

“I had a great time last night,” she said, seductively flipping her hair.

Alex squinted. “Me too?” He sat with her at the table, mortified, but also really turned on by her crooning voice and sexy stare.

Jenna put her arm around his neck and said, “Can we do it again sometime?”

He desperately searched his mind, trying to piece the night back together. “Oh…”

He knew he was being played when Jenna started laughing. Alex stared at her, confused. “We didn’t have sex last night?”

She sipped her coffee and tightened her robe around her chest. “No, Alex, you moron. You begged me, though. It was cute.”

“I begged you?”

“You did. You said the sweetest things to me. I told you off and suggested you call Yolanda or Marcy, or any of your harem, then you passed out.”

“You suck,” he said.

She laughed as he stormed out.

Since that morning, Alex constantly bothered Jenna about what he’d said to her that night, but she refused to tell him.

“You were drunk,” she always answered. “It doesn’t count.”

Not knowing made him crazy.

***

Clare

Clare twisted the wide-angle lens onto her new camera to take a picture of the rock formation in Joshua Tree National Park. She tried her best to capture the breathtaking colors of the rocks against the sky. As she did, she felt Dylan’s presence behind her.

The day he’d given her the camera, he’d found her in her apartment, red-eyed and teary.

“Clare? What’s wrong?” He’d studied her with those concerned, gold-flecked eyes.

“My mom just called. I’m a little homesick.” She’d picked up a tissue and sniffled into it.

“Why? What happened?”

“Nothing happened. It’s…” Clare could tell Dylan anything. He understood her, no matter what her mood, which she attributed to his childhood and growing up with three sisters.

“What?” he’d asked again.

She’d pouted. “It’s my birthday.”

“Your birthday! Why didn’t you tell me? Let’s celebrate!”

“Celebrate?”

“Would you rather sit here and cry?”

“Maybe,” she’d said defiantly as she took the tissue Dylan offered and wiped her nose.

“Maybe this will cheer you up. Ready?”

She’d nodded.

“I got you a present.”

Clare had gasped. She loved presents. “But you didn’t know! What is it?”

“Just something I wanted to get you, but I guess now it’s a birthday present. It’s in the car. There’s a special place I’ve been meaning to take you. Let’s go and you can open it there.”

“Where?” Clare had said, mirroring his smile.

“That’s a surprise too.”

“All these surprises.” Clare loved surprises as much as presents. “Okay, let me go freshen up.”

Dylan had taken her to an honest-to-goodness steakhouse. Not a fancy California steakhouse that served wacky spices and goofy sides, but a real steakhouse where the steaks were seasoned with salt and pepper, and a baked potato was the only side dish offered.

Clare had smiled from ear to ear as she slathered her potato in sour cream. “I haven’t had a meal this good since I moved here.”

“I thought you might like it. My agent brought me here last week, and I thought of you the whole time. I couldn’t wait to bring you.”

“Thanks, Dylan. You really made me feel better today. You always do.” Clare had blown him a kiss across the table. “You’re the best.”

“Do you want your present now?” he’d asked.

Today, standing there in the park with Dylan beside her, taking photos with the camera he’d given her for her birthday, Clare loved California for the first time, which freaked her out a bit because she knew she’d have to leave. She took off her wide-angled lens and checked the camera’s settings.

“Hey, Nebraska,” Dylan whispered from behind her.

Clare turned, and Dylan pointed to a tree. A giant bird sat on its branches, inspecting the park.

“An eagle?” Clare whispered.

“Pretty awesome, right?”

Clare watched Dylan stare up at the eagle, completely paralyzed for the first time since they’d met. Even with his hair tucked into a baseball cap to keep it out of his eyes, and his messy workout T-shirt and shorts, he was the most beautiful creature in the park. She pointed the lens at him and snapped his picture instead of the eagle’s, trying to capture the look of wonder in his eyes as he stood watching, face to the sky.

Later that night when Dylan dropped her off at her apartment, Clare noticed a missed call on her phone and a new voice mail. She ignored them and printed out the picture of Dylan. She put the print on her mantle, in the spot of honor she’d been saving for a true piece of art. Dylan was definitely that.

Clare forgot about the missed call until she snuggled into bed in her pajamas. She grabbed her phone off the nightstand and played the voice mail.

Lucas wished her a happy birthday and complained he hadn’t heard from her. “Darn,” she murmured to her cat, Angelica. Then she deleted the message and shut off the light. Her life in Nebraska seemed like the faraway past. Like something she had dreamed.

Somewhere along the way, distracted by the wonders of California and engrossed in the bookstore, Clare had stopped missing home.

“This could be a problem,” she said to Angelica.