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I guess something in my gut tells me he’s alright. An image of him helping me off of my stool last night, his hands careful and gentle as they cupped my elbows, flashes in my mind and I relax even more.
If he wanted to hurt me or take advantage of me, he would have done so last night when I was drunk. He didn’t, so he’s obviously not that kind of man.
I relax even more and head over to the kitchen. The kitchen counter has the food already laid out and when he sits down on one of the stools, I hesitate for only a moment before I take the one next to him.
“This looks delicious. Thank you.”
He grunts, nodding his head as he picks up his own fork.
Guess he isn’t much of a talker…
Why does that make me like him so much more? He’s cute in a rugged, rough around the edges way. His hair needs a trim, and I never thought that I would go for the big, bulky kind of guy, but something about those tree trunk legs and the way his biceps are testing the strength of his shirt sleeves has my whole body feeling warm.
“I’m Betty, by the way.”
“Hayes,” he says, his sharp blue eyes flashing over to me and then away again.
I decide not to force small talk. My head is pounding, so I just need to eat and then get the heck out of here.
I bet that my parents are worried sick about me. It was them telling me to stay home and asking if they could hire me another bodyguard that had me going out last night.
I know that they love me and that they just want me to be safe, but I’ve been kept in the tiny box that they made for me my whole life. I thought that it would get better at college until I saw the bodyguards following me the first day.
They promised that after I graduated, they would stop and so far I haven’t seen anyone watching me or wearing the usual bodyguard attire, so I think that they have.
My parents are famous. My dad is an actor that has starred in hundreds of action and romantic comedies, and my mom is a model. The story goes that they went to the same charity event, their eyes locked from across the room, and they’ve been together ever since.
They had me a few years later, and it’s been the three of us ever since. I grew up with security, nannies, and personal chefs. I never wanted for anything, except for maybe a little independence once I was older.
Now that I’m graduating and living on my own, I’m finally getting what I wanted. I moved to the tiny town of Redwood, in the northern part of California. It’s close to home, but no one here knows me or cares that my parents are celebrities.
I’m trying to be a screenwriter and I know that I’ll occasionally need to go to Los Angeles for business, but the writing part I can do in my tiny one-bedroom apartment.
My place is actually a lot like Hayes’s, except I have more color around the place.
“Did you just move in?” I ask and he shakes his head, giving me a side-eyed look.
Okay then.
My eyes go over to the clock on the microwave and my heart jumps into my throat. I’m supposed to meet my parents at my apartment for lunch in half an hour.
“I’ve got to go. I’m so late,” I say, jumping off of the stool.
I wobble in my high heels and Hayes reaches over, grabbing my elbow to steady me. Once I’m good, he grabs our plates and sets them in the sink.
“I’ll drive you back to your car,” he says and I nod.
I should probably ask him where my car is, but there’s no time right now for questions, so I just follow him out of his cute cabin and down the front porch steps to his truck.
ChapterTwo
Hayes
I should be used to feeling disappointed by now, but when Betty told me that she didn’t remember me or anything that happened last night, I was caught off guard.
I guess I had been hoping that she did. I knew that she had drunk quite a bit, but she still seemed coherent and with it last night when we were at On the Rocks. She was keeping up with our conversation just fine, seemed to be speaking normally, though it was kind of hard to hear her over the music, and was walking fine, but I guess she must have had more than I thought she did.
It was late when we left the bar and so I didn’t think that anything was wrong when she fell asleep on the way back to my place.
