Page 37 of Sapphire Storm

Then he started typing.

We should have sex just once to get it of our

Then his fingers froze and began backspacing against hiswill, mainly because the next words he’d planned to type werebut not in agetting you fired kind of way.

What would Rachel say if he told her about all of this?

She might suggest he was trying to compete with his own dadin some weird way.

She might also start screaming at the top of her lungs if heincluded the detail about how he’d planned to falsely accuse Ethan ofassaulting him the night before.

As he suffered the nightmare traffic on the way toVictorville, he told himself he had to do something with this burning urgeinside of him. Every second since he’d left Ethan’s apartment, he still feltlike he was curled up in the man’s powerful arms on his sofa. No man had evermade him feel that way before. And that meant hehadto do somethingabout it, right?

A few hours later, he was moving boxes under the kind ofbaking desert sun he’d grown used to as a boy, but which after years of livingcloser to the coast he found oppressive again. He’d known it would be punishingwork and dressed accordingly, but his tank top and workout pants were almostsoaked through. He could use a shower. Or two.

With Ethan. Maybe I could use his sexy mustache as aloofah.

Romy, honey,he heard Rachel’s voice say,youare ob-sessed!

He stopped working when a growling Ford F-150 started nosingits way down the alleyway between storage units. It rolled to a stop severalfeet from the spot where Roman had parked Diana’s Bentley Bentayga, with itsopen cargo door a few feet from the storage unit’s gaping entrance.

Andy Rosales stepped from behind the truck’s wheel,rosy-cheeked and smelling of Old Spice, his shoulder-length black hair pulled backin a ponytail and still damp from the shower. He was a tank of a man, anold-school body builder turned auto mechanic who thought Roman’s holisticapproach to fitness was a lot of witchcraft and nonsense. Watching the sheerbulk of him as he approached the open door to the storage unit reminded Romanof all those pleasant nights when he’d come across his mother safely snuggledinside the guy’s giant arms on the living room sofa and thought,Good, she’sgot someone.Of the two men she’d dated seriously after divorcing Roman’sdad, Andy was the one his mom actually let in. Maybe because he was a gentlegiant who listened more than he lectured. He’d entered the picture too late tobe the father figure Roman had always craved, but he’d made his mother happy,and that had made Roman happy.

The fact that he’d dropped everything on a Sunday afternoonto respond to Roman’s request for help made Roman happy now.

“You sure you’ve got the room?” Roman asked.

Andy nodded, but he was nosing his way into the storage unitand surveying what was still packed inside. “Yeah, I moved the home gym intothe yard from the garage ’cause I was fixing up this old MG roadster. ’63.Cherry red convertible. Total beaut. But I sold the thing so I’ve got space.”Andy turned suddenly and gave Roman a once-over. Thanks to knife slashes foreyes beneath bushy, black eyebrows, he always looked suspicious of everything,but in this moment, the curiosity seemed genuine. “Trouble with Boss Lady?She’s footing the bill for the unit, right?”

“Top secret, but I might be looking at other options.”

“Will they come with a beach house in Laguna, though?”

“Doubt it.”

“You want your car back?”

When he’d started working for her full-time, Diana hadinformed him in no uncertain terms she didn’t want him driving his dark greenChevy Spark on errands. At the time, giving him the use of one of her Bentleyshad been her way of pampering him. But maybe the thought of one of heremployees driving a cheap car embarrassed her.

“Not yet, but maybe soon.”

“And your mom’s old place? She’s gutted the thing, you know.I drive by every now and then. Contractors have been going nonstop.”

Roman’s stomach soured. “I’ll figure it out.”

Andy nodded, as if he thought there was more to the storybut didn’t want to pry. He went to his truck, reached into the space behind thedriver’s seat, and returned with two cold bottles of water, still dripping fromthe ice chest.

As they worked, Roman pondered how to phrase the question hewas dying to ask. By then, his mother’s last boyfriend had loaded a bunch ofboxes into the cab of his truck, and Roman had practically filled the four-doorBentley to bursting. Neither one of them, it seemed, had the strength to gothrough the boxes and deal with the layers of memories within. It was a strangesight, the expensive, impeccably designed luxury car filled with worn cardboardsidewalls. Like they’d stuffed Cinderella’s carriage full of old shoes.

Once they’d nearly exhausted themselves, Andy clapped Romanon the back and announced it was time to eat. In Andy Rosales’s house,timeto eatusually meant one thing—giant steaks from his backyard grill.

As Roman and Andy dined in satisfied silence, the afternoonsun lanced Andy’s dry, dusty backyard with rosy light. A few years of living atthe coast and Roman had forgotten how quiet the desert could get, especiallywhen you were far from the highway. No surf sounds, few birds. Just open spaceand light and the occasional woosh of a passing car down Andy’s street.

He felt more relaxed than he had in days. His mother’spossessions, as well as a big chunk of his own, had been moved out of Diana’sgrip.

“Did my mom ever talk about what happened with my dad?” hefinally asked.

“All the time, yeah.” Andy licked steak sauce off hisfingers, but he watched Roman closely. The topic clearly made him nervous.

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