Page 15 of Endeavor

I point out to the beach.

“Oh, yeah, it’s an awesome stretch of beach.”

She starts to talk about some filming that just finished in the area, but my attention is drawn to Grady as he steps inside the house. He doesn’t look in my direction because a few people are calling his name in the living room. I glance over to see that his bandmates are here. I do love their music, and for a brief moment, I’m starstruck.

Then I refocus on Quinlan because the more mature, less-attracted-to-bad-boys part of my brain says I’m being irrational and should stay here by my boy-next-door date and my mentor.

“What?” Quinlan asks, clearly catching my eye movement. She turns her head. “Oh, I didn’t see Rhett and Max come in. Have you met them before? The band is super cool. They opened for Bent last year.”

“That’s cool.” I internally am yet again amused by how everyone knows everyone here. Kate used to say this about the political world too. It’s like celebrities are all part of one giant famous people’s club.

Quinlan pulls me away from Will, who’s chatting with Trevor about some professor at the film school. “So, what’s up with you and Grady?”

My eyes widen at her question. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I’ve seen you two staring at each other all night. What did he say to you?”

I laugh off her presumption so that she doesn’t know I’ve been mentally undressing the asshole all night. “Nothing. He’s actually kind of a dick.” I cover my mouth with my hand because I don’t know if calling Grady, a dick is a no-no in front of my mentor.

She shrugs and nods. “Yeah”—she looks over her shoulder—“but a hot dick. I should introduce you to some more people.” She looks around the room to see if there’s anyone I haven’t met.

I smile at her. Quinlan has been great at helping me network since Will and I arrived. I’m thankful to Dr. Stevens for setting her up as my mentor. In addition to showing me the ropes, she also seems like someone that I would genuinely want to be friends with outside of school. I glance back over to Grady and shiver, remembering the heat of his body against mine as we sat on the beach and his shoulder brushed mine.

I look over to see Will is glancing in my direction. He gives me a smile.

Hawke comes up behind Quinlan and kisses her shoulder. She glances behind her and grins as he lays a kiss on her lips.

“You two are ridiculously adorable,” I groan.

Quinlan giggles. “Come on, you want to play pool?”

I shrug. “Why not?”

I tell Will, who’s still deep in conversation with Trevor. He says he’ll come to find me in a minute.

I sort of like that he’s not super alpha and up my grill about going to other parts of the house. My mind momentarily wanders to my last boyfriend who had to know my whereabouts at all times as I follow Quinlan into a game room that has me wanting to move into the house.

It’s a giant room with a cathedral ceiling. There’s a billiard table, foosball table, a card table, and two other game tables set up in corners. There are shelves of board games. A small chess table sits in a snug corner by the window and it looks like it’s being played as it is set up and pieces have been moved.

“Wow!” I manage to say.

There are already people at the pool table.

“How about a game of Monopoly?” Quinlan suggests as she runs her fingers over the board game boxes.

“Really? That game takes a while,” I point out to her. She glances over at me. I’m momentarily jealous of the comfy shirt and shorts she changed into at some point this evening.

“You should change into something comfortable.”

“I didn’t bring any clothes,” I reply as I straighten out the skirt of my dress.

“Come on, let’s get you something to wear first.” She takes my hand and leads me down a hallway, knocking on a door before opening it.

It’s a bedroom. She leads me to a walk-in closet. It’s stuffed full of promotional t-shirts, shorts, running shoes, sweatshirts. She twirls around, throwing her hands up in the air.

“Help yourself,” she says with a grin.

“Wait. What?”

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