Just One Wish Part 11

"Well, people who record videos of themselves rolling around in the sand with an entire platoon of lifeguards generally aren't very literary."

"Lifeguards don't come in platoons."

"You didn't answer my question about the books."

He looked out at traffic and not at me. "History books, mostly."

"Impressive. I take back everything I said about her."

The corners of his mouth lifted. "Well, it might have been impressive if she ever read them, but she didn't."

I smiled because I'd been right. "I'm still impressed you read them."

"Don't be. I started reading up on the Middle Ages to prepare for my role, then found I liked history." He glanced down at the car clock and grimaced. It read five o'clock. "I'm going to be ten minutes late."

"Sorry." I felt a stab of guilt for taking him away, and then a worse thought came to me. "You were trying to work things out with her, weren't you?"

He turned to look at me. "No. Why would you think that?"

"Usually if you've broken up with someone and then you want to get together with them for dinner, there are ulterior motives."

He shook his head. "Not this time. In fact, she's the one who suggested we meet for dinner."

"Oh, no." I put my fingers over my mouth. "That's even worse. She wants to get back together with you, and I'm ruining it."

His eyebrows drew together. "No, she's just returning my books. It's a friendly, clear-the-air sort of dinner."

This didn't relieve my guilt, as he was obviously ignorant about how women tried to recapture men. "You could offer to bring her with us. On the drive you'd have plenty of time to reconnect."

"We're not reconnecting," he said firmly. "You shouldn't jump to conclusions." And then he didn't say much for the rest of the drive to the restaurant.

Every once in a while I sneaked a look at him, at his tan hands resting on the steering wheel, his muscled arms, his faultless profile. It seemed unfair to the rest of humanity that his features should be so perfect. It was especially annoying to me because my mind kept drifting in that direction and then it was hard to think about anything else. His looks could intoxicate even a rational girl, and the last thing I needed was to start having a crush on a guy I would never see again after a few hours.

I made myself look out the window and stop glancing at him. He didn't seem to notice.

We pulled up to the Holland Grill, a quaint sidewalk cafe with baskets of hanging flowers, large shuttered windows, and music drifting out onto the sidewalk. Several couples ate on a large patio, which was surrounded by a picket fence. Tablecloths fluttered in the breeze. It was a perfectly romantic setting, and I wondered if Karli had chosen the location.

Cars lined the road in front of the restaurant, so Steve parked on the other side of the street a little way down. Before he shut the door, he turned back toward me with serious eyes. "Don't get out of the car. I'll try to make this fast."

I leaned toward him. "At least reschedule with her so she knows you're not blowing her off."

"We are not reconnecting." As he shut the car door, he tilted his head down and gave me a half smile. "While you're waiting, you can work on that whole jumping-to-conclusions thing we talked about."

He turned away from me and strode across the street.

I watched him and had to admit he had a nice walk. Confident. Masculine. Poor Karli. I bet when she saw him she wished she had never broken up with him.

Karli stood waiting in front of the restaurant. I hadn't noticed her at first because she wore sungla.s.ses and, well, because she wore normal clothes-jeans and a blouse-as opposed to the black leather miniskirt and fishnet stockings sort of thing she'd taken to wearing since her last CD came out.

As Steve approached, Karli slipped her sungla.s.ses on top of her head and smiled at him. She walked toward him, and when they met she took hold of his hand and kissed him on the cheek. When she finished kissing him, she didn't let go of his hand. They stood talking, and her gaze ran up and down him. Her body language wasn't so much friendly as sultry. Plus, she wasn't carrying any books.

And he accused me of jumping to conclusions. Men can be so clueless at times. I turned away from the two of them, and that's when I saw a photographer hiding behind a convertible two cars in front of me.

I was pretty sure Steve-Mr. Nondisclosure, Mr. We're Just Having a Friendly Dinner-wouldn't appreciate this violation of his privacy. So I did the first thing that came to mind. I hit the horn.

This got Steve's attention. He looked over at our car. I used exaggerated arm motions to point ahead of me. Even from as far away as I sat, I saw his eyes turn cold, as though I'd overstepped my boundaries. He turned back to Karli with a shrug, like he didn't know who I was.

Well, that was grat.i.tude for you.

Unfortunately, it wasn't just Steve who had seen my hand motions, so had the photographer. Now he turned his camera on me. I slunk down in the seat, but that only encouraged him to come closer.

I noticed he wasn't the only photographer around. I saw one behind a tree. Another sat at a table on the patio, but ever so casually took pictures of Karli holding Steve's hand.

The photographer from down the street came right up to the BMW, his camera clicking in my direction. With his telephoto lens, I was pretty sure he could get a picture of the fillings in my teeth if I opened my mouth to say anything. He alternated his pictures of me with pictures of Karli, who now stood seductively close to Steve, her hand on his arm and her face raised in a pout.

I opened the car door, slammed it shut, and hurried across the street. Even as I walked up, Steve still faced Karli. He didn't even acknowledge he knew me. I went and stood right beside him. Karli sent me a scathing look, as though I had no right to approach them. Which is when I stopped feeling sorry for her.

"I hate to interrupt you," I said, "but the reason I tried to get your attention earlier was to tell you there are photographers all over the place." I motioned behind me. "See? There's one right over there by the car."

Steve's head spun around, for the first time taking in the cameras. At this point, they had all come out of hiding. One walked around the side of the building toward us, so close I could hear his shutter clicking.

Karli narrowed her eyes at me. "Who is this girl, and why is she with you?" Then she let out a gasp and took a step back. "And why is she wearing your clothes?"

She said this too loudly. The clicking of the shutters increased.

Steve grabbed hold of my arm, but kept his gaze on Karli. His expression darkened, and his voice dropped. "Where did all of these photographers come from? You set this up, didn't you?"

Karli's eyes glittered and she lifted her chin. "What if I did? It's no more than you deserve. I can't believe you broke off our dinner date while another girl waited for you in your car!" Her hand tightened into a fist, like she wanted to hit him-or me, but instead she turned on her heel and stormed away.

I didn't have time to see where she went because Steve took hold of my elbow and pulled me back across the street. The photographers preserved every footstep we took on film.

"Who's your new girlfriend?" one of them called out.

"Don't say anything," Steve said to me.

I didn't. I couldn't.

"What's your name?" the photographer called to me again.

Another one added, "Where did you meet?"

They stood in our way of getting to the car. Steve stopped in front of them but still held on to my arm. I wondered if he thought they might grab me away from him.

"Move away from my car," he told them.

But they didn't move, and the photographer that had been at the restaurant came up behind us. I felt surrounded, trapped. "Why did you come here to meet Karli if you've got another girlfriend?" he asked.

"Does Esme know about this?"

"Are those really your clothes she's wearing?"

The photographer from the tree had joined the others. "How old are you?" He took another photo of me, and lowered his camera. "You don't look older than fourteen."

I let out an insulted gasp. "I'm seventeen."

Steve flinched, and I remembered I wasn't supposed to say anything. He said, "She's just a friend. Now, would you all mind getting away from my car. We're about to go visit with her family."

They still didn't move. The sidewalk felt claustrophobic.

"If she's just a friend, why is she wearing your clothes?"

Steve didn't answer. Instead he turned and pulled me through the group back across the street and to the restaurant.

We went inside. The smell of food engulfed me, but didn't make me feel hungry. My stomach had tightened into a ball of nerves while I'd been jostled by the photographers. Steve asked the hostess if we could have a private room to make a phone call. Without questioning him, she led us to an office and told him to let her know if he needed anything else. She fluttered her eyelashes and smiled at him as she said this.

Only after the door shut did Steve let go of my arm. He pulled out his cell phone and glared at me. "Two minutes," he said. "I can't believe you didn't last two minutes before you told a group of reporters you were seventeen."

"I don't really look fourteen, do I?"

"No." He pressed speed dial and held the phone to his ear. "That guy tricked you into telling him how old you were and you fell for it. Now they're all going to report that-" The call went through and he stopped midsentence and started a new conversation.

"h.e.l.lo, Sergeant Garcia, this is Steve Raleigh. I'm down at the Holland Grill, and I have so many photographers blocking my car I can't get to it. Can you send an officer down to clear them out?" A short pause followed, then Steve said, "Great. I really appreciate it."

He said good-bye, flipped the phone shut, and slipped it back into his pocket.

"You have the police on your speed dial?" I asked.

He let out a grunt. "And you wouldn't believe how often it comes in handy." He went to the window and peered through one of the slits in the shutters. I stared at his profile, tracing the lines of his face with my eyes. He really was impossibly handsome.

"Are they still there?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah, and on their cell phones." He put one hand to his temple as though he'd developed a headache. "Why couldn't you have stayed in the car like I asked you to?"

"Because you seem so worried about your privacy-I thought you'd want to know about the photographers. It didn't look like just a friendly meeting between you and Karli, by the way."

"Yeah, she had some other ideas."

"I told you she wanted you back." The words p.r.i.c.kled me, although I knew they shouldn't. It shouldn't matter to me who he dated.

"More likely she wanted some publicity for her new alb.u.m." He shook his head. "I should have suspected something when she wanted to meet for dinner at five o'clock. Anytime a celebrity wants to meet you outside when the lighting is at its best, be suspicious."

"It doesn't make sense." I considered Karli for a moment: the bitter breakup songs she'd written, the way she'd lured him to the restaurant and draped her arms around him, how she'd yelled at me and stomped off. "She's acting more like you broke up with her and not the other way around."

He didn't say anything, just looked out the window again.

And then it made sense. "You did break up with her, didn't you?"

He turned back to me and I could tell from his expression I'd been right. He shrugged instead of admitting it, though. "That doesn't matter. What matters now is if we're going to spend several hours together, you've got to do a better job of listening to me. In the future, if I tell you not to get out of the car, don't get out of the car."

"I wouldn't have had to if you paid attention to me when I tried to tell you about the paparazzi the first time."

"I thought you were telling me to hurry so we could go."

I walked over to the desk and sat down on the chair with a thud. "I wouldn't be that rude."

He laughed, but I didn't see what was funny, so I arched my eyebrows at him.

He leaned against the wall and surveyed me. "You sneaked into a stadium and the studio lot, you pretended to be people you weren't, brought a snake into a place with horses, broke out of my trailer, and stole my lucky poker shirt-but you're offended that I might think you're rude?"

I leaned back in the chair and folded my arms. "There is a difference between being determined and being rude."

He laughed again.

"You out of all people should understand. Sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands. I'm just doing what Robin Hood would have done."

The amus.e.m.e.nt didn't leave his face. "Which is why many characters on the show want to string Robin Hood up."

"Don't give me a hard time. You'd do the exact same thing if it meant helping your little brother."

His expression momentarily tensed, and I remembered he was estranged from his family.

I tried to soften my last statement. "I mean, if you had a little brother. I don't know if you do."

"I do," he said. "He's your age."

"Oh." The room grew awkwardly quiet. It seemed like I should say something else. "Are you close?"

"We used to be, but my family lives in Apple Valley now." He must have seen my blank look because he added, "It's about ninety miles away, so I don't see him much anymore."

Ninety miles didn't seem that far away, but I didn't press the point.

After a few more minutes, a police car arrived and the paparazzi scattered. We walked back to the car, this time without Steve guiding me by the arm.

I shouldn't have missed it, but I did.

Chapter 12

We pulled away from the restaurant and made our way through the streets of Beverly Hills. Almost immediately, we hit rush-hour traffic. And not the normal rush-hour traffic I was used to. We hit insane, there-are-way-too-many-people-in-California traffic. It took us more than an hour to make it through LA and then it was stop-and-go all along I-15.

While we crept along the road, Steve asked me about Jeremy and what he expected Robin Hood to do. So I talked about Jeremy for a while. Then I alternated between staring at the cars around us, staring at the speedometer, and waiting for the digital clock to switch numbers: 6:37 . . . 6:38. . . .

"Tell me more about Jeremy," Steve said.