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“Maybe that’s part of the problem. You haven’t faced the demons. I know I wasn’t there, that what you endured—”
“Christ.” I stand, wiping the sand off my ass, and head toward the road. There has to be a bus stop around here somewhere.
Jimmy’s on my heels. “Stop.” He touches my arm to stop me.
A couple of girls’ eyes stay on him as they walk by. I can’t be the reason he gets recognized.
I lower my voice. “You make it sound like I’m on death’s doorstep. Give me a break. I’m young and I’m having fun. It’s not a big deal.”
The girls are farther down, but one keeps looking back.
“You were fired this morning. You finally have everything you wanted and you’re throwing it all away.” Cue his judgmental tone. He’s trying to disguise it, but I’m not stupid.
He doesn’t understand why I can’t be like him. Forget where we came from or what we experienced for the majority of our lives. The itch surfaces again. The need to remove myself from this situation beats on me like a drum, but I owe Jimmy so much, and I force myself to sit back down next to him.
“I’ll totally stop, okay?”
He leans into me and cups my cheek, brushing his thumb lightly across my skin. “Maybe you should talk to someone?”
That’s not going to happen. I’d rather stay clean than tell someone what my father did to me.
He never holds out his pinkie, because we’re on the same page. We’ve had this conversation before. He tells me to slow down. I say I’ll stop. Deep down we both know it won’t happen. If we pinkie swear, that would put our friendship to the test.
I nod, staring into his brown eyes. I desperately want to quit the drugs, but even I know I won’t. Once the anxiety inside me returns, I’ll find the lure of nothingness too hard to resist.
He presses his lips to mine in a chaste kiss. I close my eyes and enjoy the sensation, wrapping my arms around his neck. When his tongue glides across the seam of my lips, I open for him and I’m met with his familiar taste. He moans when our tongues meet, and we languidly kiss while the sun warms our skin and the ocean air blows around us.
This should be enough to bring me happiness. There’s no threat of my dad coming for me. Jimmy’s right; if I got my act together, I’d have a growing modeling career. Which makes the fact that all I can think of right now is where to score my next bag of coke sick and fucked up.
* * *
We spendthe rest of the day strolling the pier, going on a few rides, and playing some of the stupid games rigged so that you can’t win until you’ve dropped a few Benjamins. As night falls, we notice a few people giving us double-takes, their focus lingering a little too long. We’re out of time. If we don’t leave now, we risk being recognized, then we’ll have a mob—or worse, the paparazzi—surrounding us and we’ll never be able to leave.
“I had fun today, thank you,” I say as Jimmy leads his car onto the onramp of the freeway.
“You’re welcome. I thought we could both use the reminder of how far we’ve come.” He glances at me and smiles. He’s happy. I love seeing Jimmy happy.
It’s no wonder he’s a movie star. Even if he wasn’t ridiculously beautiful, charisma oozes out of his pores. If James Crawford is in a room, it’s difficult, if not near impossible, not to be drawn to him.
I return his smile and lean my head against the window.
Sometime later, I wake up in Jimmy’s arms as he carries me into his house.
“I fell asleep?” I yawn, shaking off the lingering tiredness from the night before.
“Yeah. You’re always so peaceful when you’re sleeping.”
That amazing true smile of his warms me, and I wish I could be who he wants me to be. “You can put me down now. I can walk.”
“Let me?” He asks so nicely there’s no way I can argue.
I relax my head into his chest while he brings us inside and deposits me on his couch.
“Are you hungry?” The way he’s looking at me, I can tell that he has things other than food on his mind.
I shake my head, smiling, and bite my bottom lip to test my theory. His nostrils flare and his Adam’s apple bobs. Thought so. Even so, I’ve been humiliated the last few times I initiated anything with him, so he’ll have to be the one to bridge the gap between us this time.
“Are you hungry?” I tilt my head, giving him the same look I do the camera when a photographer asks for sexy with a side of innocence.
