Page 11 of Mess With Me

“Beats me, honey. I don’t even know what California food is.”

“Wheatgrass cocktails, probably.”

She screws up her face in the mirror. “What the hell is a wheatgrass? Sounds like cow food.”

I laugh out loud, even though, admittedly, I lived on wheatgrass after every late night in London.

My laughter dies as I glance down at my phone. My last text was from Sam, reminding me for the third time about this date.

My stomach churns, the annoyance about this date shifting into the worry I felt when he first texted, asking for the favor. Sam’s been making headlines again, and not the good kind. It was semi-amusing when he wasWall Street’s most eligible bachelor, because mostly, it was salacious headlines about which supermodel’s heart he’d broken this time.

Now that he’s in politics, not so much. Last week, after yet another alleged scandal broke, this one about his assistant abruptly quitting with rumors of sexual harassment floating around, a reporter somehow snuck past my doorman and got all the way up to my apartment. I opened the door in my sweats, thinking it was my doorman with my kung pao chicken delivery. Then cameras snapped in my face and a ballsy-AF reporter demanded to know whether the harassment rumors were true.

“No!” was all I managed to get out before slamming the door. But he’d already gotten his photo op.

Do I honestly believe if I help Sam, everything will turn around? When I asked him about the harassment rumors, he swore up and down they weren’t real. That he’d never do anything like that—I could ask any of his exes. It was true. He didn’t have a track record of anything like that. I want so badly to believe him. But I think that just makes me a sucker.

“Sorry, honey, this is as close as I can get,” Maria says, pulling to a stop. “Damn valet is hogging the whole street.”

I gather up my purse, but I don’t move to get out. “All good. I could use the fresh air.” I grip my purse against my chest. “I hope your daughter gets that acceptance letter soon.” Maria told me her daughter’s trying to get into some elite esthetician college. It sounds way smarter to me than what I did. Not many career paths from historical book porn.

In the mirror, Maria’s face beams with pride. “Me too.”

The clear abundance of love for her daughter radiating from Maria’s smile makes my chest hurt. It doesn’t matter if her daughter gets into that school. I know Maria’s expression won’t falter. She’ll just encourage her to keep going. If my mother had ever once looked at me like that, even for a fraction of a second, I’d be walking on sunshine for days.

A beat passes, then Maria eyes me over her glasses. “You know you gotta get out of the car if you want to go on this date, right?”

I finally force myself to bid a farewell to my driver and step out into the New York City evening. I make my way down the busy sidewalk, passing groups of friends laughing and couples with arms around each other. It reminds me of London. I miss being anonymous there. I miss Nora, too. Terribly. My friends here in New York all seem to have moved on to marriage and babies since I’ve been gone. Nora and I talked every day in London, but I haven’t seen her since that wedding.

God, that wedding. That paparazzo helicopter damn near sent me into a panic attack. I’d convinced myself they were there for me. I’d been looking over my shoulder for weeks. Sometimes they’d be there. Other times, I felt like people were watching me but there was no one there at all.

My heel slips on a grate, but I manage to catch myself, my heart skipping from nearly falling.

I’d been feeling so alone since returning from London, no matter how many friends I saw. The paparazzi situation just made everything worse.

But that day at the wedding, for the first time since I’d come home, there was one person who seemed to see me and get what was going on. One person who saw the panic in my eyes when the paparazzi appeared and wasn’t concerned for his own well-being.

It was Griffin Kelly. The most grumbly, cantankerous grump I’ve ever met. A man so starkly different from his brother, Nora’s boyfriend, Jude, that I would have been convinced they weren’t related if I hadn’t seen them side by side.

Griffin was this close to being an asshole, responding to my questions in grunts and barely acknowledging my presence while he stood around his brother’s wedding looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.

But the moment those rotors sounded and he saw the look on my face, he turned into someone completely different. His words may have been hard and commanding, but his tone screamed “I’ve got you.” And he tucked me behind him without a thought for himself. It made me feel like I was the most important person in the world. Like I needed to be protected at all costs.

Even now, I can’t help the little flutter of butterflies that reappears at the memory.

Then he reverted to grumbly dick again when the danger was over.

I’ve reached the restaurant. I stand outside, looking for any excuse not to open the giant glass door. But a couple leaving, chatting and holding hands, makes room for me. The man holds the door, his eyes on his wife in a way that makes my heart ache yet again.

I find myself saying thank you, which they don’t hear, and suddenly, I’m inside, whether I like it or not.

Please, Sash. I’ll owe you one.

Yeah, bro, you will.

The restaurant is minimalist, all white, with subtle lighting hidden behind the lines of the wall. Dozens of pale-wood tables dot the floor. It’s buzzing with people at nearly every table, but I don’t see any men on their own.

I move toward the small cluster of people waiting to be seated and pull out my phone.

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