Smoke and Mirrors - Hollywood Knights One (7 page)

He made a ‘follow me’ gesture and led me out of the
kitchen. We crossed the living room and headed down a hallway that
dead-ended into a wall covered by a very nice piece of abstract,
nonobjective art. Seth glanced back and smirked at me and then
reached
into
the painting.

He grasped a well-hidden handle and slid the door to
one side, revealing a dark, cavernous room beyond. For a few
seconds he felt around on the wall, and then lights flickered
on

I couldn’t hold back a gasp. Or the “Oh my God” that
followed.

“Welcome to my playroom,” he said. “I had to hide it
to keep out the riffraff. We’ll move your bike in tomorrow.”

I padded out into the biggest garage I’d ever seen to
inspect everything more closely. The side nearest us had been
carpeted, and in the middle of the carpet sat a regulation-sized
pool table with felt the color of the Caribbean Sea. A narrow shelf
ran the length of the nearest wall. Chalk, talc, and coasters
dotted the shelf, and a couple of barstools sat beneath it. Farther
down, a dart board hung on the wall. There was a photograph of a
smarmy-looking man taped over the dartboard at the moment, and
someone had stuck a dart in his eye.

“Charming. Who’s the lucky guy?”

“Shithead from the label.”

I nodded and drifted past the half wall to the
‘business’ side of the garage which housed Seth’s Daytona Blue 1963
split-window Corvette Stingray—my dream car—and a late-model Indian
motorcycle that was a study in black and chrome. I stroked a single
finger down the car’s fender and then straddled the bike without a
thought for my current attire. The bike felt good, right. Almost as
good as my own.

I looked up and smiled at Seth. “I taught you well,
Grasshopper.”

My smile was wasted on him, though. He was staring at
my legs. Or maybe something a little higher. I tugged my shirt down
to cover my half-exposed, half-covered ass. He looked up then and
gave me a devilish grin, clearly not bothered that I’d caught him
looking.

“Maybe we can get a ride in tomorrow,” he said.

“That’d be awesome.”

“Like old times.”

I smiled again, and this time he returned it. We
stayed like that for a moment, and then he waved his arms in a
dramatic flourish and pointed to the big chest freezer sitting
beside him.

“Deep freeze,” he announced.

“Anything in it?”

Seth crouched down and lifted the lid a little to
peek inside, like something might jump out and grab him.

“Aha!” he shouted, jerking upright and opening the
lid wide. He reached inside and pulled out a box. “We have achieved
pizza!”

“No, we have found pizza. Achieving pizza involves
the oven.”

“We have achieved
acquiring
pizza,” Seth said,
dropping the lid. “You haven’t become a vegetarian or anything have
you?”

I cocked my head to the side and gave him a look that
said, “Do I look like I’ve lost my mind?”

He grinned. “Sorry. Forgot who I was talking to.
C’mon. Food.”

I started to get off the bike, and then I remembered
the way he’d been staring. I decided to give him a little show,
just to be mean, and kept my movements deliberate and a little
suggestive. I guess it worked, because he was practically drooling
by the time I walked past him into the house…and I’m pretty sure it
had nothing to do with the pizza.

Chapter Fifteen

“Which one goes with pizza?” Seth asked, pulling two
bottles out of his wine cabinet. “White or red?”

“Beer,” I said.

“Beer it is,” Seth said, grinning.

Seth pulled out one of the beers I’d bought and read
the label. Then he turned to me with an incredulous expression.
“Clown Shoes Hoppy Feet?”

I bit back a giggle. “I liked the name. It’s pretty
damn good, though.”

Seth held the bottle to his forehead and closed his
eyes, like he was trying to ward off a headache. Then he grabbed a
second bottle, popped the tops, and brought me one.

“Cheers,” he said, tapping his bottle against mine.
Then he wandered through the living room to his private theater to
dig through his movie collection.

After a minute or two he called, “What are you in the
mood for?” He held up one Blu-ray. “Action-adventure?” Then
another. “Stupid comedy?”

“Something fun,” I answered. “Preferably one where a
bunch of shit blows up.”

He put back the movies in his hands and scanned the
shelves, looking thoughtful. After a minute or two, he selected a
disc and popped it in the player.

“Now or with dinner?”

“With dinner, I think. Otherwise, we’ll probably burn
the house down.”

“Good point.”

Seth rejoined me in the kitchen and we chatted and
sipped our beers until dinner was ready. I sliced and plated up the
pizza while Seth fetched us fresh beers and popped the caps. He
grabbed napkins and a package of Oreos and headed for the TV room,
and I followed, a plate in each hand.

We settled in with the movie and our grub, Seth in
one of the recliners and me on the loveseat, and spent a happy
half-hour or so making smart-ass comments and stuffing our faces.
Once the pizza and half the Oreos had disappeared, Seth paused the
movie long enough for us to ditch the trash and for him to grab a
third beer. Then he produced a hand-crocheted afghan from somewhere
beside him and made me scoot over so he could join me on the
loveseat. He hit a button somewhere, and a double-wide footrest
popped out.

“Huh. I had no idea it did that,” I said.

“C’mere.”

Seth held his arm up in an invitation for me to
snuggle, and I took him up on it. He kicked the recliner back a
little farther, slid his bare leg underneath mine so our legs were
kind of tangled together, settled the afghan over us, and started
the movie up again. It was cozy and comfy, and there was part of
me—the part that still had a humongo crush on Seth—that did a
joyous little dance.

I told it to shut up so I could hear the movie.

For a while we cuddled and watched the movie and
everything was great. I was vaguely aware of Seth’s fingertips
tracing lines up and down my arm and of his warmth against my side,
but I was pretty well distracted by Robert Downey Jr.’s…comedic
timing.

Then Seth did something that got my attention. He
stroked my hair back and brushed his lips against the most
sensitive part of my ear in a featherlight kiss. I shivered, and he
apparently took that as permission to do it again. And then nuzzle
behind me ear and press a kiss to the underside of my jaw.

I sat forward and grabbed the remote, pausing the
movie. Then I turned to Seth and said, “What the hell?”

“Um,” Seth replied. Eloquent.

“If I’d known you invited me to stay here because you
wanted a live-in fuck buddy, I’d have passed on the offer.”

Seth looked shocked. Not just surprised, but
honest-to-God shocked.

“Jenny, you know that’s not--”

“Do I?”

He sighed and dragged a hand through his damp hair.
“I wasn’t trying to…I was just fooling around, Jenny. Flirting.
That’s it.”

Something in me relaxed a little, but another part of
me got pissed off. The situation, and my reactions to it, confused
me, so I lashed out. “Oh so you were being a tease then.”

Seth’s mouth opened and closed. He seemed to be at a
loss for words. I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but that
wasn’t it.

“Fuck it,” I said, tossing the remote aside. “I’m
going to bed.”

I shoved myself off the couch and headed for the
door. I heard sounds behind me that told me that Seth had turned
off the Blu-ray and the TV, and then I was in the living room and
making a beeline for the stairs.

“Jenny, wait,” Seth said.

Something in his tone made me hesitate, one foot on
the bottom step, and turn to look at him.

He crossed the room to stand in front of me so he
could look me in the eye. “I’m sorry,” he said. He sounded like he
meant it. “Look, I know it doesn’t make it okay, but…I’m a guy. I’m
still kind of riding the high from the show, and you’re hot, and
you smell really damn good, and you felt amazing, and I guess my
brain just stopped working. I’m sorry.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then I
reached up to cup Seth’s cheek. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” he said, reaching up to cover my
hand with his own. “But are we okay?”

“You know we are.”

Seth gave me a little smile. “Good. Does that mean we
can finish our movie?”

I shook my head. “I think I really am going to bed.
I’m pretty tired.”

He looked down and then back up at me. Shook his head
like maybe he was having an internal debate. I turned away to let
him get on with it, but he caught my hand, and I turned toward him
again.

“If I promise to behave, will you sleep with me?”

I bit back a laugh, and he reached up to rub the
furrow between his brows.

“That didn’t come out right.”

“I think I know what you meant.” I gave his hand a
little squeeze. “You miss her, don’t you? Elizabeth, I mean.”

“More than you can imagine.”

I freed my hand from his so that I could wrap my arms
around him. He rested his forehead against mine and hugged me back.
I let him hold me for a minute or two and then pulled away with a
little smile.

“Take me to bed or lose me forever,” I said.

Laughing, Seth wrapped an arm around my neck and
escorted me up the stairs.

Chapter Sixteen

My cell phone’s obnoxious ringtone jerked me awake
the next morning at an hour inhabited only by old people and
roosters. I didn’t recognize the number, but I answered it anyway,
mumbling a barely coherent ‘hello’ into the phone as I kicked my
way out of the tumbled covers on Seth’s bed. He was out cold, of
course, and neither my struggle with the duvet nor my phone changed
that. He looked almost angelic, lying there with all the stress he
seemed to always carry washed away, leaving him more peaceful than
I’d seen him in years.

I pretty much hated him right then. I flipped him off
as I wandered toward the bedroom door.

Then
what the nice lady on the phone
was saying clicked. The prodigal co-worker had surfaced.

“I really meant to return your calls before now,”
she said, “but I’ve just been so busy.”

“I understand,” I said. “Would it be possible for us
to meet today?”

“You said you had questions about Sarah. Can’t you
just ask me on the phone?”

I held the phone away from my face while I let out a
deep breath. I raised the phone again and said, “I’d really prefer
to meet in person.”

There was silence for a moment, and then she said,
“We could meet at lunchtime, I guess.”

We set a time and place for our meeting. If I
hurried, I would have just enough time to dress and drive all the
way across the city to meet her.

I sped through getting dressed and ready for the
interview, inched my way through traffic to the café near her
office, and then waited forever and a day to get a table. The
prodigal co-worker buzzed in a few minutes later, and we introduced
ourselves, ordered lunch, and settled in to talk.

I walked out of the café forty-five minutes later
wishing I’d stayed curled up in bed with Seth. I had no new
information. The restaurant’s food had been crappy and their coffee
even worse. The entire interview had been a waste of time.

Since I was already up, dressed, and on the other
side of the sprawl, I went ahead and stopped by a couple of shops
that bought and sold jewelry to find out if they’d seen anything
matching the description of the missing ring. That turned out to be
a waste of time, too.

I finished up at the second shop and decided to call
it a day, pointing my Nissan toward home just in time to catch
rush-hour traffic. The drive back home took even longer than the
drive out had, and by the time I got back to Seth’s, I was tired,
hungry, and angry.

As I let myself in the front door, I remembered that
we didn’t have any food in the house. With a growl and a few choice
swear words, I slammed the front door shut behind me.

“The door talking shit about you again?” Seth asked,
peering at me from over the back of the couch.

“Shit day,” I replied, heading for the stairs. “And
I still need to go buy groceries.”

“Done,” Seth said. “My personal shopper should be
here shortly.”

I stopped in my tracks, turned, and stared at him.
“You have a personal shopper?”

He grinned. “Not really, no. But Elizabeth wants to
feed everyone tonight. She’s maxing out one of my credit cards and
then coming over here to use my kitchen since she hates hers.”

“Oh. Cool.”

I’d forgotten that Seth had invited all of our
mutual friends in the area to come to the house. I wasn’t in the
mood to socialize. Elizabeth’s cooking might make it worthwhile,
though.

“How pissed are you going to be if I end up going to
bed early again?”

“A lot,” Seth said. He set aside the e-reader he had
in his hand and got up to come around the couch and hug me. “Go
have some cookies and milk, take yourself a nice, hot shower, and
then get a nap. You should have a couple of hours at least before
everyone’s here and dinner’s ready.”

I sighed. “Fine. But I’m having coffee with my
cookies, dammit.”

Seth’s suggestion turned out to be a really good
one. By the time I got out of the shower, I had shaken off a lot of
my anger and frustration. I didn’t think I’d be able to nap,
though, so I skipped that part in favor of crawling inside a good
book.

A couple of hours later, just when I was certain my
stomach was going to gnaw its way out of my body, someone knocked
on my bedroom door.

“Go away; I’m naked!” I called.

The door opened and London said, “You are not.” At
the same time, I jerked the sheets up to cover the fact that I was,
indeed, naked. “Uh. Sorry,” he stammered.