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As soon as she was alone in her dressing room, she picked up the phone and texted her sister, who would be en route from Italy back to California with Jem, to let her know that there were more photos, that she was sorry, and would do whatever she could to make it right.
Not that the photos really affected Lacey. So far all of them had been of Kacey in Beverly Hills with full makeup. The liner that made her eyes seem bigger and a bit slanted, the face colors that made her cheekbones more pronounced, and the lip pencil that grew her lips an eighth of an inch.
No one in Santa Raquel seemed to know that Lacey had a famous sister. Or, probably more accurately, didn’t care that she did. It wasn’t like Kacey was the only famous or rich person who frequented the town. Or even the most famous. She was daytime TV. Didn’t rate nearly as high as nighttime or the big screen.
And that close to LA, Santa Raquel had several homes owned by stars.
Probably because everyone there respected their privacy and let them live their lives.
Maybe they really didn’t care. Not everyone went gaga over television stars. Especially on the California coast, where there were so many of them.
And she was stalling. Text sent, she called Michael. If he was busy, he wouldn’t pick up. She’d know it was no reflection on her—or their friendship.
Just as the fact that they hadn’t seen each other all weekend had nothing to do with how close they were.
Or weren’t.
If he’d introduce her to his family, she’d have been able to see him. The fact that he hadn’t was not a reflection on her, but somehow her head had managed to play that one up big.
Was Michael afraid that she’d be a bad influence on a family that had struggled so much? Or worse, did he think she’d look down on them?
He picked up as she was still entertaining the thought.
“Why won’t you introduce me to your family?” That hadn’t been what she’d called to talk about. But...she went with what was in front of her.
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve offered, several times, to cook so you can have them over. I’ve hinted that I’d like to join you when you’re with them sometime. And I’ve flat-out asked to meet them. This weekend I could have come over and watched you and Willie play video games for a while. But no. You ignore my offer. You stall. Or you point-blank tell me no. I need to know why.”
“Why do you think?”
Sitting in Doria’s slinky figure-hugging black dress, with a cleavage halfway down to her belly button, she didn’t care about wrinkles. The scene was done. The dress would be cleaned. “Okay, you want me to do this for you? Fine. You think I’m too full of myself. That I’ll look down on them and somehow make them feel small. Insignificant. That I’ll lord it over them.” She was convincing herself more with each word.
“No.”
She blinked. He wasn’t even going to discuss the viability of the theory with her?
“Then you think I’ll be a bad influence. You’re embarrassed by the fact that you’re friends with a woman from Tinseltown. You don’t want them to think you’re as shallow as I am. Or that you’ve crossed to the wild side.”
“I haven’t crossed to anything. I’ve never even seen you in makeup.”
True. At least not the Beverly Hills variety. She paused, noting that he hadn’t given her an unequivocal no. “Then you’re ashamed of me and...”
“I think that if my family met you they’d try to make something more of our relationship than is there, just as your sister and her husband would do if we started involving our families. That would result in pressure on us, which would eventually lead us to look at ourselves in different lights to defend why we aren’t more, which would inevitably create tension between us and ruin what we have.”
Her mouth hung open. She started to speak but was so stunned she couldn’t. She really needed to change the generic photos and old head shots of her and Lacey that were on her walls. Put up some pictures of Levi. Of the ocean during a Santa Raquel sunset, and her and Lacey at Lacey’s wedding.
“You still there?”
He knew she was. The call was still connected.
“You’ve given this a lot of thought,” she finally said.
“Not really. It’s a no-brainer.”
Not to her. And she didn’t know where to go with it. She wondered why the idea of his family thinking they’d be good together gave her butterflies. Lots of families had wanted their sons to date her since she’d bloomed in junior high.
And why did Michael automatically assume that they wouldn’t make it as anything other than friends? He was right, of course. She didn’t think of him that way. Because he didn’t think of her that way. Because their lives were so obviously not suited.
