Belonging (5 page)

“So, since you’re out of
the running, do you know any women we could fix him up with?
Ideally, they should be like...like a sexy Mary
Poppins.”

Yosh chuckled at that.
“Gross!”

“You know what I mean. He
needs someone wholesome who’s all about kids, but still has some
sex appeal.”

“And the example you came up with was
Mary Poppins. That’s just not right.”

“Okay, maybe not.” I
thought for a minute and asked, “What about your cousin
Stacey?”

“The lawyer? Ew, no. I
thought you liked your brother!”

“Didn’t you say there’s a
new female dentist that opened a practice near your studio? Is she
cute?”

“A dentist? You do hate him! What’s
Mikey ever done to you?”

“What’s wrong with a dentist? It means
she’s intelligent, educated, probably has nice
teeth....”

“Loves inflicting pain,” Yosh
added.

“Fine, scratch the dentist. I’m
determined to help Mikey find someone great, though. It’s time. He
really needs to—”

“For the love of God,
don’t say ‘get back in the saddle’. It conjures way too vivid an
image of straight people having sex.”

I smiled at that. “You
have issues, Yosh. You know this, right?”

“Possibly.”

“I was going to say he
really needs to get back out there, sooner rather than later. He’s
not the most confident guy in the world, and I don’t want tonight’s
misfire to completely discourage him.” We’d reached Yosh’s sleek,
black truck and I turned to look at him.

“You’re right,” he said as
he unlocked the passenger door, “I’ll try to think of someone
Mikey-worthy. It shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Theoretically.” We got in
the truck and as he started the engine, I changed the subject by
saying, “So, let’s review. What are you not going to do at the
party?”

Yosh shot me a look, then
pulled away from the curb. “I’m not going to let Miles get me alone
in the bedroom.”

“Or the bathroom, or the
hall closet, or the garage, or any of the places you’ve messed
around with him in the past.” He sighed and I added, “I’m saying
this for your own good. Every time you give in, you end up feeling
like shit afterwards. But he’s like your own, personal brand of
catnip! You keep going back for more, with the same
results.”

“I know.”

“We should blow off this
party. It’s irresponsible to throw you directly into the field of
catnip.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said.
“Tonight’s interaction with Miles will consist of saying hello,
that’s it. Nothing will be fondled, sucked, or inserted.” I
chuckled at that and he added, “Meanwhile, you have a celebrity
crush to impress with your considerable charms.”

“A probably straight celebrity
crush.”

“Only one way to find
out.”

Chapter
Three

Miles Harken had done well
for himself. The model-turned-actor’s penthouse apartment on Nob
Hill was spacious and showy with drop-dead gorgeous views of the
city. Somehow, the entire place served as a foil for the handsome
blond, as if he’d told his interior designer to plan the entire
color palette to complement him.

The apartment was full of
beautiful people, many of whom were fawning over Miles. In return,
he was acting charming, playing to his audience. Acting being the
key word.

“Yoshiro!” Miles exclaimed
when he spotted us, applying far more accent than was necessary to
the word. I fought back an eye roll. My friend was
second-generation Japanese-American and about as exotic as I was,
which is to say, not at all. Miles always played up Yosh’s
ethnicity though, as if that made my friend more interesting and
made Miles seem cooler for having something other than strictly
WASPy friends.

“Hey,” Yosh said levelly
as Miles grabbed his shoulders and kissed both cheeks. Ugh,
everything that guy did was annoying. “You remember my friend
Gianni Dombruso.”

“Of course. Lovely to see
you again, Gianni,” Miles said with
such
a fake smile, holding his hand
out to me palm-down, as if I was expected to kiss it.

I shook it awkwardly as I
said, “Miles,” and we both did a quick head-to-toe assessment of
each other. I had to admit he looked good. His hair was artfully
highlighted, his teeth so white it made me want to squint when he
smiled at me and his clothes were both perfect and expensive. But
then, so were mine. I stopped just short of smirking at him and
managed a little grin instead.

“Has the guest of honor
arrived yet?” Yosh asked as I dropped Miles’ hand.

“Not yet,” our host said.
“But, you know, Jason is probably still on New York time. I don’t
think he ever really adapts when he’s on location.” I didn’t bother
to point out that it would be three hours
later
to someone on east coast time,
making it well past midnight on their clock. Trying to explain time
zones to the very blond Miles might actually cause him to
short-circuit though, so I kept that observation to
myself.

A group of people came
into the apartment, and Miles shrieked, “Mona Lange! Look at you
girl, you look gorgeous!” To us he said, “Excuse me, won’t you? The
bar is set up in the library. See you later, Yoshiro.” He grinned
at my friend before breezing away to suck up to the soap opera
actress and her entourage. Ugh.

“Why does Miles have a
library?” I whispered as we made our way through the big living
room. “I’ll bet the only thing he reads are gossip magazines, and
then only if he’s in them.”

Yosh chuckled and said, “If only you
didn’t like him.”

“He’s a vacuous
doucheberry.”

“You’re not
wrong.”

“I just don’t get it,” I
said. “He’s not even your type! You’re all about beefy jocks, not
pretty boys.”

“Honestly? I don’t know
what it is about him. I totally get that he just uses me for sex,
and I even get that he’s kind of a jerk. But then, I get a booty
call from him and my rational brain clicks off.”

“Pretty much.”

“It wouldn’t be so bad if
I was just using him for sex, too. I really wish I could develop a
totally cavalier attitude about it, like he has.”

“But that’s not you.”

“It should be, though,”
Yosh said, pushing his hair back from his eyes as he turned to face
me in the hallway. “It’s stupid that I’ve gotten attached to him,
and it’s pathetic that I sit around waiting for him to text me,
especially because I know how it’ll turn out if he
does.”

“And now here you are, at a party in
his apartment.”

“But we’re only here so you can get in
the pants of your celebrity crush.”

“If Jax even shows up, if
he’s gay, and if he finds me even remotely appealing. That’s a lot
of ifs. You and I would have been better off going to a club
tonight.”

“
I’m so over the club
scene. I’ve been over it since I was twenty-five, and now I’m
thirty. Can we please just never go to a club again? I’m starting
to feel like a chaperone.”

“Oh man, this is a sad, sad state of
affairs.”

“What is?”

“You feel old, I think I’m
about to have a midlife crisis because I’m turning thirty, we’re
both single, and we’re in the apartment of a total doucheberry so I
can try to hit on some celebrity I’ve had a crush on since I was a
teen,” I told Yosh. “At what point do we give up, buy a condo
together and spend the rest of our lives on the couch with a dozen
cats, watching reruns of the Golden Girls?”

“Well, now we can never
give up, not if that’s what’s waiting for us!”

“Really, though. This is all more than
a little discouraging.”

“It doesn’t have to be,”
he said. “We can have fun tonight. I’ll find someone to hit on that
isn’t Miles, you’ll work your magic on Jax, and the cats and Bea
Arthur can get pushed to the back burner.”

“Come on. I really need to
drink all of Harken’s liquor.”

Miles had in all
likelihood told the bartenders to set up in that room simply to
show off the fact that he had a library. I was willing to bet he’d
never even read any of the books that lined the mahogany shelves.
When I whispered that to Yosh and he disagreed with me, I said,
“Watch.”

I randomly pulled a copy
of Great Expectations off the shelf beside me and opened it. The
stiff, never-before-handled binding crackled in my hand and I
chuckled as I slid it back in place. “See? It’s a prop. His real
library is probably a stack of gossip magazines with his face on
the cover next to the shitter.”

I felt a hand on my lower
back just then and a deep voice said, “I know for a fact that Miles
read the Cliff’s Notes for Great Expectations when he was up for
the role of Pip a few years back. He was already in his twenties by
that point, so it’s probably good he didn’t get the part.” I turned
to look into Jason Jax’s amused brown eyes, and my heart did a
flip-flop in my chest.

“He usually does get cast
in much younger roles, though,” Yosh said as I tried to pull
together a shred of composure.

“He does, and it’s weird.
I was only twelve years older than him when I played his dad on
Randall’s Ridge. Explain that one.” Jason was still looking at me,
and flashed a dazzling smile before adding, “I’m sorry to interrupt
you and your boyfriend, by the way. I just thought that was funny
with the book. I think we’re all meant to be impressed by this
library.”

“Oh, he’s not my
boyfriend. We’re both single. And gay. Just FYI,” my friend
blurted. I shot him a look but Yosh ignored it. Just then the
people ahead of us at the bar cleared out, and my friend executed a
pivot and hip check worthy of an NBA player. It put him out of the
way and pushed me right up against Jason Jax, all in one smooth
move.

“Can I buy you a free
drink?” Jason asked as I quickly stepped back from him.

“Sure, thanks,” I mumbled.

“What would you like?”

“Oh...um....” Those brown
eyes were focused on me like a laser. My mind completely went
blank. It was just absolutely surreal to be standing inches away
from Jason Jax. Jason freaking Jax! He needed an answer though, or
else he was going to think I was a complete moron. I blurted,
“Beer?” Ugh, I hated beer. Why did I say that?

“Two beers and whatever our
friend is having,” he told the bartender, then melted her into a
puddle by unleashing that smile. I wondered if she even heard
Yosh’s order, since she actually got giggly and almost knocked over
some glasses. That made me feel a bit better. Jason Jax was
probably used to people acting totally star-struck when they met
him, so maybe I wasn’t coming across as stupidly as I feared. Well,
okay, I
was
, but
maybe he was used to idiots.

When he handed me the beer, he said,
“I didn’t catch your name.”

“Gianni.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet
you, Gianni. You too, friend of Gianni,” he said to Yosh. “I’d
better get back to our host, I made a beeline for the bar as soon
as I walked in the door. Bad form, I know.” His gaze lingered on me
for a moment before he turned and left the library.

“Holy crap,” I mumbled after he’d
gone. “Did that really just happen? And if so, on a scale of one to
Kardashian, how dumb did I seem?”

Yosh grinned at me. “You were clearly
awe-struck, but I’m sure he’s used to that.”

“That’s just what I was thinking, that
people must fall over themselves all the time around
him.”

“Throwing yourself at him
wasn’t even required, he’s totally into you,” Yosh said as we left
the library. The bartender had managed to give him the right drink,
a jack and diet Coke, which was what I usually ordered when my
brain cells were functioning.

“What are you basing that
on?”

“The way he stared at you.
He also asked your name and made a point of finding out if you and
I were dating.”

“That was super smooth, by
the way. ‘We’re both single and gay.’ Thank you for that,
match-dot-com.”

“Just trying to be
helpful.”

When we returned to the
living room, we ended up chatting with a group of guys that Yosh
knew a little. Jason Jax was all the way across the room, sitting
with Miles and a couple older men. Every ninety seconds or so,
someone would come up to Jason and introduce themselves. At least
half the time, they asked to take a selfie with him. He remained
cheerful and charming throughout all of that, even though it had to
get old.

More than once, he looked
up and caught me staring at him. It always resulted in him smiling
at me across the room. “He’s so into you,” Yosh whispered when he
noticed that.

“If he was, he’d come talk
to me,” I countered.

“He can’t, he’s busy holding court.
His adoring public demands his attention.”

Maybe an hour later, I
excused myself and went in search of the bathroom. The one in the
hall was occupied, so I moved on to one attached to a guest room.
After using the facilities and washing up, I spent a couple extra
minutes in there, staring at myself in the mirror and trying to
give my reflection a pep talk. It didn’t work.