“Have you ever gone somewhere with four kids before? Trust me, it’s all necessary.”
I grabbed Zia’s and Zelda’s car seats and turned toward the driveway, surprised by what I saw. “You own a minivan?”
“I don’t own a minivan,” he responded, sounding offended. “I have many beautiful pieces of machinery, and I would not insult them by bringing something like that into my garage. I rented it. By myself. It was easier than I thought it would be. And I even remembered your tip about the gas icon and the arrow so I know the gas tank is on the driver’s side.” Now he sounded proud of himself, and I guessed he’d never rented a car on his own before.
It reminded me that despite my decade-long belief that I knew him, all those articles I’d read and interviews I’d devoured, none of the things he’d said were true. I didn’t know him.
But I would get to know him as he was getting to know me.
“Is it locked?” I asked.
Chase pushed a button on his key ring, and the doors on both sides of the minivan opened, allowing me to buckle in the car seats. I felt a bit bad about installing those seats, encrusted with hardened liquids, gum, and what looked like melted crayons, into this pristine car. At least it had captains’ chairs instead of a long row, like my mom’s minivan. It would keep the girls from smacking each other when they were tired at the end of the day.
“Zo, can I bring my iPad?”
“No!” I called back. “You’re getting some fresh air today. Leave it here.”
Zander bore a mutinous look until I reminded him that if he accidentally dropped it in the ocean, it would be ruined.
Chase then corralled the boys into helping him bring everything out to the minivan while I got Zelda and Zia buckled into their seats. As Chase arranged things in the back of the car, I told Zane and Zander to get in. I went in the house to make sure we had everything and then locked the front door behind me. Chase and I got into the van at the same time, and we smiled at each other.
It almost felt like we were playing house.
“Everybody ready?” he asked, and the kids let out a chorus of yeses.
My siblings had the ability to make any car ride, no matter how short, totally miserable if they decided to. Fortunately, today they were all in a good mood and looking forward to spending time in the water. It probably also helped that the beach was only a ten-minute drive from our house.
When we arrived, I helped the kids get out of their seats and turned them loose. They had grown up going to the beach almost every weekend during good weather, so they knew to stay clear of the waves unless they had an adult with them.
I went to help Chase with all the gear, including the lunch he’d brought, and when I realized there was too much, I said, “We can make a couple of trips.”
“No way. I got this.” And in true male fashion, he loaded himself with so much stuff I worried he might fall over. “Lead the way.”
With my own arms full, I decided to pick a spot not too far from the car. It was a good thing I’d brought a couple of blankets, as I discovered Chase hadn’t brought one. He dumped everything in a pile, unloading bags, towels, and toys.
Wondering what a movie star thought constituted a picnic lunch, I peeked inside the basket as Chase set up our family’s massive beach umbrella. I was pleasantly surprised to see fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and biscuits from a chain restaurant. “Huh.”
“What?” he asked, turning the umbrella to keep the sun’s rays off the blanket.
“I’m just surprised. I thought I’d find, like, caviar and capers in here.”
“Caviar is disgusting,” he said, plopping down next to me with a grin. “Capers aren’t much better.”
He smelled so nice. Like sunshine and oranges and sea breezes.
“Your hair looks red in the sun.”
“That’s why they call it strawberry blonde,” I said, ignoring the way his observation made my heart skip a beat. It was like he was making this list about me, noticing all these little things that nobody else had ever bothered to see.
I cleared my throat and called for the kids to leave their sand castles to have lunch. Zane tore into the food like he hadn’t eaten in a month. Zander was uncharacteristically not hungry, and I wondered if his cold was worse than Mom had let on. Zelda wanted only mashed potatoes, and Zia had three bites before she was ready to dash out and play. I made them all line up for sunscreen when they decided they were finished. Chase offered to help, which made it go twice as fast.
The kids scampered off to play, and Chase stood up to remove his T-shirt. I was so glad I was wearing sunglasses and could watch the interplay of his muscles as he stretched and tossed his shirt to one side. Then it got even better as he began to apply sunscreen in smooth, hypnotic motions over parts of his body I wished I could run my own hands over.
“Can you get my back?” He handed me the bottle.
OMG, OMG, OMG. Chase Covington wanted me to put sunscreen on his back. His very beautiful, well-defined back. He sat down and leaned forward, giving me full access to his sun-kissed skin.
I sat there for too long, overwhelmed and freaking out about what he wanted me to do. It wasn’t until he looked over his shoulder that I squeezed some sunscreen into my hand and tentatively applied it to his back. His skin felt warm under my fingertips.
It didn’t help matters when he sighed with pleasure and said, “That feels good.” His shoulders lowered slightly, and his head drooped, as if he was relaxing.
It gave me a sense of feminine power that I could touch him and make him feel that way. It emboldened my moves, and I spread my palms flat against his back as I rubbed lotion all over. I probably applied more than was necessary.
“My turn.” His voice was low and seductive, and I had never been so aware of the blood pulsing through my veins. He stood up and held his hand out for the sunscreen bottle. Aware that I still had a shirt and shorts on, I did my best to take them off without making eye contact. He sat behind me on the blanket, and I had to fight the instinct to lean back against him.
It was like every sense was heightened. The sound of the squawking seagulls overhead, the rhythmic ocean waves lapping against the shore, the sun overhead warming me, the coconut scent from the sunscreen, the taste of salt on the breeze. They were all magnified in a way I’d never experienced before.
I heard him squeeze the bottle, and my whole body tensed, waiting for the touch of his hand. The shock of the cold lotion against my hot skin made me gasp. I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. I needed something to hold on to.
He rubbed sunscreen on my shoulders first. And he didn’t quickly brush it on. He carefully massaged the lotion into every inch of exposed skin.
My unsteady breathing sounded harsh to my own ears; I hoped he hadn’t noticed. I tried to calm down, but his fingertips made that impossible. It was as if he possessed magic and was using his hands to cast a spell on me.
Hot, tingling pinpricks arose in every place he touched as my heart pounded in triple time. I was glad I didn’t have any pulse points in my back so he couldn’t see how hard it was beating. A pulsating pressure started deep in the pit of my stomach and spread throughout my body.
His movements felt hypnotic, tender, and sensual. I alternated between wanting to collapse into a gooey Zoe puddle and turning around and attacking him.
I’d known the tankini had a low back when I bought it, but I hadn’t realized how low until his hands dipped down farther than I was comfortable with, breaking the spell. I started to say something, but my sisters came to my rescue. Zia clocked Zelda over the head with a bucket, and Zelda started crying loudly.
“Should probably go take care of that,” I mumbled, pitching myself forward, grateful for the escape.
“I think you missed some spots!” he called after me, referencing the fact that the only parts of my body currently shielded from the sun were my shoulders and back.
“I’ll get it later!” I called over
my shoulder. Translation? I don’t trust myself to behave right now, and I’d rather not permanently traumatize my younger siblings. In fact, at this moment I would love to dig a deep hole in the sand, bury myself in it, and not come out until I can learn to control my reaction to you.
Something I feared might never come to pass.
I separated the girls, reminding Zia that it was never okay to hit. They both protested and argued about their actions, but my mind was back on that blanket with Chase. I could still feel his lotion-covered hands against my skin. It was a long time before I started to feel normal again.
By then Chase had taken the boys out into the waves on their boogie boards. Zia had started to tire, and I convinced both girls to lie down with me on the blanket under the umbrella. She immediately fell asleep in my arms, and even Zelda nodded off.
Chase returned with my brothers, and they toweled off. Chase’s wet hair reminded me of the day we’d met on set, and it put me back on edge.
He reached inside a bag he’d brought with him and pulled out what looked like a very expensive drone. “Do you guys want to try this out?”
“Yes!”
I had to remind them to be quiet, but neither of my sisters moved. Zander grabbed the remote and handed the drone to Zane.
“I hope you aren’t super attached to that. My guess is it’s not long for this world,” I said as my brothers ran off. That wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you should give to kids.
“I bought it just for today. I thought they might like playing with it. If they break it, they break it. Stuff happens.”
That caused a light, fluttery sensation that started in my heart and filled my whole soul. He was so thoughtful. And considerate. Which honestly surprised me. Living in Marabella, I had met a lot of rich people whose defining characteristic seemed to be selfishness.
Chase was not only rich but famous. A double whammy of personality wreckers. Add in the handsomeness, and he should have been vain, self-centered, and careless.
I noticed him staring at me with an amused expression. “What?” I asked.
“I’m wondering if you’ll still be as beautiful when you’re completely sunburned.”
“I’m not beautiful—”
“You are.” He stopped my denial. “Why would you say you’re not?”
His question stunned me into silence for a second. “Well, there’s the daddy issues. When your own father doesn’t want anything to do with you, you automatically win the lottery of insecurity, self-doubt, and trust issues.” I had meant it to sound light and breezy, but my voice caught at the end.
There was a long pause. “That’s not the only reason. Something happened to you.”
I wanted to protest that he didn’t know me, but he was right. I didn’t know how, but he was.
“Would you tell me? I’m a good listener. And I hope you know you can trust me.”
Trust had never been easy for me, but I realized, deep in my gut, I could trust him.
And maybe that was due in part to the exhaustion of running around for half the day or the heat of the late afternoon, but I felt that drugged tiredness that makes you let your guard down.
So I told him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“In sixth grade, phones weren’t allowed in class.” Not that I had even owned one. “So everybody went old school and passed paper notes. To stop that from being a distraction, our teacher, Ms. Ogata, put up a mail board on one wall. During breaks or lunch, anyone could thumbtack a note for someone else on the wall.”
Lexi left me daily notes about her love for Chase Covington, but that wasn’t pertinent to the story.
“One day I walked up and there was a note for me with handwriting I didn’t recognize. From someone who said they had a crush on me but were too shy to say so. It went on for weeks. I tried to catch whoever was doing it, but the board was always crowded so I never got to see who it was.”
Zia blinked drowsily in my arms and rolled over. I shifted as she repositioned herself and went back to sleep.
“In the notes, he said all the things he loved about me. How beautiful I was, how smart and nice, and at first I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was a joke, but after a while it felt real, and I looked forward every day to a new note. I remember watching the boys in my class, trying to guess who it was. To see if anyone would sneak glances at me or give me a secretive smile. Something that would indicate who was responsible. It didn’t happen.”
As I got to the hard part of the story, I had to swallow down the lump in my throat. “The notes indicated that he would tell me his name on the last day of school, that he still felt too shy. I actually started a countdown, excited that somebody thought I was pretty enough and special enough to pay this kind of attention to. But on the last day of school, as I took my letter off the wall, that all changed. It told me how stupid I was. That all my classmates had spent the entire year laughing at me. Who would ever want somebody as ugly and stupid as me? He said he wasn’t even human but a dog who had learned how to write because only a dog could ever be attracted to me.”
I didn’t start sobbing, which I counted as a victory. I did squeeze my sister a little too tightly, and she quietly protested until I eased up. “I cried for three days. Not just because everyone made fun of me but because I had let myself hope and believe. And my trust had been shattered. It made me question everyone’s motives ever since. I never did find out who did it. And I’ve never told anyone this story. Not even my best friend.”
Because if I had, Lexi would have pitied me, and then she would have punched people until someone confessed and she forced them to apologize. I had just wanted everything to go away. I didn’t want to keep dealing with it and dragging it out.
But there was power in confessing. I experienced relief when I put down the burden of this secret and Chase picked up part of it so it no longer sat solely on my shoulders.
“I don’t know if there’s a right thing to say here, but I understand how the things that happen to us as kids can affect us our whole lives. I’m really sorry that happened to you. But whoever did that was an idiot. And completely wrong. And if you knew who it was, I would probably jump in that uncool minivan, find him, and kick his a—” He glanced at the sleeping girls. “Kick his butt.”
I knew I was supposed to be opposed to violence, but the thought that he wanted to avenge my honor thrilled me in a way I didn’t quite understand.
“That is a pretty uncool car,” I agreed. “Even my Honda is better.”
“So what you’re saying is that you’re cooler than me?”
I shrugged, which was not easy with Zia’s weight pulling my arms down. “I didn’t say it.”
That wolfish, predatory grin was back. The one that sent fizzy bubbles of desire rocketing through my bloodstream. “If you’re cooler than me, does that mean I’m hotter than you?”
Um, most definitely.
We were interrupted by Zane and Zander, who had returned because they couldn’t agree on whose turn it was next. Their arguing woke up the girls, and everybody was grouchy and annoyed.
Everybody but me. This was the lightest I had felt in a long time.
As I tried to sort out my brothers’ disagreement fairly, Zelda asked, “Where are the cookies?”
“Cookies?” Chase’s blue eyes sparkled with excitement. “Did you finally make me cookies?”
What was his deal? “I made some this morning, yes.”
I started looking through bags, and after a minute, Chase helped me. But we couldn’t find them anywhere.
“I remember wrapping them up and putting them on the kitchen table. I must have forgotten them.”
He shook his head. “I can’t believe you made cookies and I don’t even get to have any. I feel so cheated.”
“If you want them that badly, I can come over and make you some.” He was really hung up on this.
“Tomorrow? My place?”
“Sure.”
“But I wanted dessert, Zo,�
�� Zelda complained, clutching her sandy Mr. Wriggles closer. He probably had another visit to the washing machine in his near future.
“We could go to the ice cream shop on the boardwalk,” Zander suggested, and that made even Zia throw off her tiredness.
She crawled off my lap and stood in front of me, her big gray eyes pleading and her hands clasped together. “I want isacheme, Zo-Zo. Please.”
“I don’t know, you guys. It’s getting late, and it’s almost dinnertime. Mom will kill me for getting you all hopped up on sugar this late.”
“C’mon, Zo,” Chase said, mimicking Zia’s expression. “It won’t hurt just this once. Let’s get ice cream.”
“Your puppy-dog charm is not going to work,” I told him. Even though it totally was.
“Oh, a compliment. You just called me charming.”
“Did not. And if you weren’t listening, I compared you to a manipulative puppy.” One using his cuteness to get what he wants.
“All I heard was charming.” He stood up, offering me his hand. “And if you keep saying no, we might have a mutiny on our hands.”
“Okay, fine. We can have ice cream.”
Amid their cheers, and Zelda making up a song about how much she loved ice cream, I made everyone put on their flip-flops. I took Chase’s hand, and it was just like I remembered. Warm, strong, and completely electric. I quickly let go. I grabbed my sunglasses, grateful to hide behind them. I slipped into my clothes and shoes. Chase put on his shirt, a ball cap, and sunglasses, and I wondered if he was covertly watching me the same way I was watching him.
As we headed for the boardwalk, Zelda asked, “Can I get chocolate ice cream?”
Both Chase and I exclaimed, “No!” at the same time, which cracked us up. The kids joined in, even though I don’t think they understood why we were laughing.
Zia grabbed my hand and demanded, “Hold hands, Cheese.” She wanted us to swing her as we walked. We counted to three and swung her high in the air, and she laughed hysterically each time.
#Starstruck Page 10