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“I will be. Think I need a couple more minutes to clear my head.”
“Sure,” said Pepper. “Just giving you a hard time. But take your time. And if you need to head home, don’t even sweat it.”
“Thanks. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
One more smile and then she was gone, leaving me alone with my thoughts, mainly that I’d totally lied to my friend’s face.
Oh well. Nothing to do about it but, well, not do it again. I cradled the glass of wine in my hand as I turned back to the water, trying to let the steady crash of the waves calm my still-jangled nerves.
Another set of footsteps down the stairs snapped me out of it, though. I turned, half-expecting to see Pepper again.
But it wasn’t Pepper.
It was Sean.
“Hey!” he said, big smiles all around. “Need some company?”
Chapter Eleven
SHANIA
OK, right out of the frying pan and into the oven. Or wait—was that how the expression went? Watching Sean approach, looking hot as shit in his dark green button-up, undone enough that the first few inches of his pecs were showing, a gorgeous smile on his face, I could almost feel my brain turning to sludge.
“Out of the fire and into the…fryer?” I did not mean to be talking out loud. “That would be bad. But it sounds weird.”
“I think it’s, out of the frying pan and into the fire?” said Sean as he leaned against the door, his arm above his head against the frame in a super casual, effortlessly sexy way.
“What’s up? You out here going over figures of speech or something? I can help. I know a few.”
Great, and he’d come out right in the middle of me acting like a total weirdo. I mean, I was kind of one—no problems with that- but still.
“No. Just…um, sometimes when you’re trying to remember something it helps you, you know, to say it out loud.”
“Sure.” His tone suggested he didn’t really get it but was willing to let my weirdness slide. “You want some company?”
My eyes flicked down to his chest again before I forced them back up to his eyes.
Company? Did I want company?
It’s fine. I need to get back up to the party anyway, and talking to Sean will be a social thing to get me back to being in a social mood. Makes sense.
Of course, I saw through my own BS. Truth was I wanted to be around Sean. It was the opposite of the problem I was having with James—instead of not wanting him to find me because I didn’t want to see him, I didn’t want him to find me because I really, really did.
“Yeah. Company…company’s good.”
He gave me a little nod before stepping out onto the balcony. Like Pepper had only a few minutes ago, he stood by my side as we watched the waves come in.
“Were you looking for me?” I couldn’t hold back my curiosity.
“I mean, I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t curious where you were.” His eyes stayed fixed ahead, his profile looking really freaking good in the silver of the moonlight. “But the reason I came down here is for the same reason you did—a couple minutes to clear my head.”
“You having a hard time up there or something? That’s…kind of unlike you.”
“Not really a hard time,” he said. “More like I’m still trying to wrap my mind around everything that’s going on. Like with the wedding.”
“No kidding.” I was relieved to talk about the subject instead of the million other things on my mind. “Still can’t believe that all of them are getting married.”
He laughed.
“What?” .
“Nothing. Just the way you worded it. Makes it sound like they’re all getting married together.”
I grinned. “That would be a…very California thing to do.”
“Maybe more of a Northern California thing than a southern one,” he said. “Who knows what those hippies get up to on those pot farms.”
The same feeling from the last time I saw Sean soon returned, that mix of excitement and arousal and more than a little bit of anger at the fact that his chosen way of dealing with the history between us seemed to be papering over it with a combination of charm and pretending it didn’t happen.
It was so damn frustrating, too—not like I was thrilled about the idea of dredging up shit that had happened over ten years ago. But…ugh! Glancing over at him and seeing that stupidly handsome face, those gorgeous, dark, bedroom eyes, and that slight smile that made him always look like he was up to something that you most certainly weren’t in on.
Really, I was starting to remember why the hell I’d fallen for such an obvious ladykiller back in the day.
“True.” I was simply saying something, anything, to get out of my own head. “People definitely get up to saner stuff here in LA.”
