Page 47 of Marlowe Banks, Redesigned
“If Lex could see us now.” He flashed her a teasing smile as he settled back in his chair, lacing his hands over his stomach. “Do your worst. What do you want to know?”
Marlowe considered asking him about his dating history but she suspected he’d long since grown tired of answering questions about who he was or wasn’t with and why. She’d even read some of those articles, though she put a lot less stock in them now.
“You said you had a big family. Can you tell me more about them?”
“ThatI can do.” He started with descriptions of his seven siblings. Most were living nearby, or at least somewhere on the West Coast. One of his sisters was a doctor in San Diego. Another was a tattoo artist in the Bay Area. Two of his brothers had recently launched a tech start-up together while another was training to become a pastry chef. His dad worked at the same farm that’d employed him when Angus was a kid, though he’d taken on a management role several years ago. His mom had left her factory job to run a foundation that helped immigrant laborers find employment.They lived about an hour north of L.A. in a bright white ranch they referred to as “The House that Disney Built,” a piece of information that made Angus redden slightly as he related it.
As he unfolded tales of raucous childhood antics and recent family get-togethers, he got out his phone and scrolled through photos, pausing to describe the people or events within. Marlowe’s favorite shot was one of his whole family, taken on Halloween about twenty years ago. Angus was about eight at the time, the second youngest in the family. All eight kids had reddish hair, ranging from the full ginger of his younger brother to the dark auburn of his oldest sister. The kids were dressed in a motley assortment of plaid wraps and peasant shirts. Angus’s dad stood beside them, dressed as William Wallace while the rest of the family played his band of rebels, blue faces and all. Apparently he spoke with a heavy Scottish brogue that elicited countless references toBraveheart. Though it annoyed him in general, he’d decided to embrace the association for a night.
Following that image was a sweet photo of Angus with his maternal grandmother in front of a little stone house in the harbor village of Avoch, just north of Inverness. Their arms were wrapped around each other while the wind whipped their clothes and hair. Angus also showed Marlowe shots of weddings, Thanksgiving feasts, backyard barbecues, family hikes, and vacations he’d taken with one or more of his siblings. Together the photos and stories painted a picture of a loving family that teased each other mercilessly—the source of Angus’s sarcasm—but still gathered at holidays and kept in close touch. That picture helped Marlowe round out her idea of who Angus Gordon was, not the haughty TV star in the tabloids, but the thoughtful, understated guy who was sitting across from her with his cowlicks askew and his flip-flops kicked off.
The stories also shed an interesting light on her own quiet upbringing, being shuttled between her always-preoccupied parents, with no siblings or relatives around. She’d often worried about her tendency to attach so strongly to others, blurting outI love yous to boys who didn’t feel the same way, urging her three best friends to room with her after grad school, and staying with Kelvin despite a hundred warning signs. But no wonder she got so attached to the people she cared about, and no wonder she’d gravitated to a collaborative industry. She was trying to build the family she didn’t grow up with.
“I thought you were going to ask me the same question I asked you,” Angus said as he wedged his phone into the back pocket of his frayed and faded jeans.
“You mean you also ditched your fiancée in a freak panic about your future?”
“No fiancée. No freak panic.” He gestured for Marlowe’s plate as he stood and started clearing the table. “My last relationship is a pretty ordinary tale. We met through work. She was a director. Did a couple of episodes on season two, even though pulpy, serial dramas weren’t really her thing. Our relationship was good for about six months, or as good as a relationship can be when both people are working crazy hours and barely see each other. Then she left to shoot a BBC series that was basically her dream job. I stayed in L.A. After a while, the calls weren’t enough.”
Marlowe followed Angus into his kitchen with the empty juice glasses.
“So if you guys didn’t have jobs in different cities, you might still be together?”
“Maybe, but I doubt it.” He rinsed each dish before setting it in a fancy-looking dishwasher. Marlowe didn’t currently have adishwasher, but for some reason she liked knowing that Angus was also a pre-rinser. “I blamed everything on the distance at the time. We both did. It was easier than blaming each other, or blaming ourselves, but we had other issues. For one, she thoughtHeart’s Dinerwas total crap and she wasn’t shy spouting off about it. I know it’s not high art, but audiences enjoy watching it, and I like the people I work with. It’s a good job. I don’t want to feel ashamed of what I do because Richard Attenborough isn’t narrating my show and no one’s wearing a frock coat.”
Marlowe bit back a smile. “You know what a frock coat is?”
He fluttered a hand by his hip. “Whatever those fancy dudes wear.”
“Close enough.” She grabbed a washcloth and wiped the granite counters while he scrubbed the frying pan, falling into an easy cooperation as they cleaned up. She’d never minded cleaning, not like this, not after making a meal together. Even assembling simple omelets was a form of collaboration, an act of joint creation. The thought made her miss designing. It also made her miss sharing a home. The movie nights, the quickly drained bottles of wine divided four ways, the rotation of shoulders to cry on, the near-constant bustle of activity. Clearly, she should stop stalling and read Chloe’s script. Soon.
The clatter of the frying pan being stowed in a cabinet renewed Marlowe’s attention to the conversation—and the company—at hand.
“Season two,” she said as the detail registered. “That was a few years ago now.”
“Three and a half.” Angus glanced over his shoulder as though he was expecting her to express astonishment. Admittedly, she was surprised he’d been single for so long, not because being singlefor a few years was that unusual, but because she’d seen him in so many tabloids, working through a parade of hot actresses, though she had a different perspective about those photos now. Despite her not speaking those thoughts aloud, he caught something in her expression that made his brow furrow. “This industry is hard on relationships. The hours, the travel, the media exposure. Then there’s the inevitable disappointment when a girl realizes I’m not Jake Hatchet, gunning a motorcycle and lighting shit on fire, but boring, hides-in-his-trailer-and-reads-a-book Angus Gordon.”
Marlowe couldn’t help but laugh.
“That’swhy you keep a guard posted? So you can read without interruption?”
“Don’t even tell me what you thought the guard was there for.”
“To keep your precious towels from being stolen. Obviously.”
He whisked a hand towel off the counter and flicked it at her hip. She darted out of reach, laughing. Soon he was laughing, too, flashing her the grin she liked so much. It wasn’t fair. He had to have a flaw somewhere. A mole or pock mark? A fungal toe?
“God, I was a dick to you that day,” he said.
“Yeah, but not as much of a dick as I thought you were.”
He pressed a hand to his heart. “Wow. Youalmostadmitted you like me.”
“Almost. Though you should be highly skeptical of any flattery I offer you. I may have ulterior motives, like finagling another offer to sleep in your bed.”
His brows shot up. “Oh, really?”
“Notthatbed.” She rolled her eyes while cursing her persistent blushing habit. “I should. Laundry. Check. Done. Probably. Yeah. Okay.” Swearing under her breath, she spun away and fled down the stairs to the lower floor, trailed by Angus’s laughter.
