by Amy Brent
“You really can be a pain in the ass sometimes.”
“Some things never change.”
“Saturday at seven it is. Now I have to go. Bye.”
“Can’t wait. I’ve really missed you, Ana.”
“Yeah, you too. Bye, Tyler!”
She hung up the phone and I leaned back in the seat of my car and closed my eyes. She’d been pretty dismissive, and I didn’t like that, either. I didn’t know what to think. Ana was all over the place. It was as if I was getting to know an entirely different person. I mean, I had known things would be different than eight years ago if I ran into her coming home, but this was a ballgame I hadn’t prepared for.
I slid my hands down my face and groaned. On the one hand, I had a date with her. A date that would require further communication in order to set up. So she was guaranteed to take my call unless she decided to blow me off. On the other hand, there was a chance she would cancel altogether. There was a chance she had agreed just to get me off the phone and would send me a text message to cancel.
Damn it. Why did things have to be so complicated?
Ana
“I know you are new to the store and were anxious to work here, but you can’t give out my business number to total strangers. That’s a business line only, for emergencies and whoever is working behind the register that day.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Price, but he said it was an emergency.”
“What?” I asked.
“The man who came in. He said he was a lawyer and that he needed to speak with you because it was urgent.”
“He what?”
“I can show you his business card.”
“I would like to see that, please.”
The young woman I had hired a little while back reached down into the drawer and pulled out a small rectangular card. I flipped it over and shook my head as the name Tyler Browning popped into my vision. Anger filled my bones. Not at the young girl. She had done what she’d needed to do. If someone had come up to me spouting off that they were a lawyer looking for the owner, I would’ve given them the fast track to getting in touch with them as well.
What pissed me off was that Tyler had thought he could waltz into my store and pull his career out of his back pocket to get to me.
I took the card and stuck it in my back pocket before I walked into the stockroom. I pulled out my phone and called Tyler back, ready to confirm our date for Saturday. It would give me the perfect opportunity to confront him about all this. If he thought he could manipulate whatever game he was playing into his favor, he had another thing coming.
“Well hello there, gorgeous.”
“Hey, Tyler. I know things were pretty short yesterday on the phone, but I wanted to call and confirm for Saturday,” I said.
“Sounds wonderful. Where would you like to go? Is seven o’clock still all right?”
“Could we make it six again? That’s a much better time.”
“Works for me. Gives me more time with you anyway. Do you have a place in mind you want to venture to this time?”
“I picked last time, so you pick this time,” I said.
“Ah, the old switching-off plan. All right. There’s this new place that’s opened up. It’s a sushi joint called Roll’d Up.”
“I haven’t heard of it.”
“The grand opening is Friday, but I figure there will be a massive rush then. I could get us a couple chairs for Saturday?” he asked.
“That sounds great. I love sushi. Do they have sake there?”
“Warm or cold?”
“Warm, of course,” I said.
“Then I’ll get us a nice table with some warm sake waiting for us. Do you want me to pick you up this time?”
“Nope. I’ll meet you there.”
“That your whole ‘independent woman’ thing?”
“Not at all. That’s my whole ‘if things go wrong I have a way to get out’ thing.”
“Oh, you wound me, Ana.”
“I do what I can,” I said, grinning.
“Then I’ll see you Saturday at six o’clock at a new place called Roll’d Up. If it doesn’t pop up on your GPS or whatever you use to get around, it’s on the other side of the main drag that runs straight through L.A.—about two blocks down from the Taco Hut.”
“Ah, the good old Taco Hut. Got it.” I decided to milk the moment, schmooze him up a little before I got onto him for the way he was forcing himself back into my world. “I can’t wait to see you,” I said.
“I can’t wait to see you either, Ana.”
The warmth in his voice gave me pause, and for a second I felt guilty for what I was doing. I could simply talk to him about what had happened now. I had him on the phone. But the angry part of me wanted to talk with him face-to-face. I wanted him to know that what he had done was unacceptable. Mostly because it was, and partially because if he came back into the store, there was a chance he would encounter Brody.
And there was no mistaking whose child Brody was.
I hung up the phone with Tyler just as the stockroom door slammed behind me. I jumped and whipped around, finding Kristi grinning as she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Who can’t you wait to see?” she asked.
“None of your business.”
“Is this Mr. Monday Night Date? Because if we’re doing a second round, you know the deal. You spill now.”
“Kristi, don’t make me do this. It isn’t what you think.”
“All I know is you came into the store Tuesday morning with a very big smile on your face.”
“Kristi, it really isn’t what you think.”
“Then tell me what I’m supposed to think and I’ll stop.”
“I saw Tyler Monday night.”
Her jaw dropped in shock before she leapt toward me.
“What? And you didn’t tell me? What did you guys do? How did it go? Was that him on the phone?”
“I saw him Monday night to hash some things out and have dinner. I’m seeing him again Saturday night to hash out something else I just found out.”
“You just told him you couldn’t wait to see him.”
“Yes, to make sure he shows up. Kristi, he came in here and used the possibility of a lawsuit to get my information. That’s fraud. What if I would have been here? What if Brody had been here?”
“Ana, what did the two of you talk about Monday night?”
“About the fight we had that led to our breakup,” I said.
“And you didn’t tell him about Brody?”
“No, I didn’t. And I don’t intend to Saturday night either. I intend to sit down with him, tell him exactly what I think of this nonsense he pulled with my employee, and then tell him to stay the fuck away with his shenanigans.”
“You’ve got to realize how insane you sound right now. I know you still care about him.”
“I don’t even sort of care about him.”
“Bullshit. I heard the warmth in your voice when you said you couldn’t wait to see him. That isn’t something people can fake—not even you, Ana. You’ve always been a shit liar. And if you spend any amount of time with Tyler, he’ll know you’re hiding something from him.”
“He doesn’t know, and he won’t.”
“But you know he should, right?” she asked.
“Kristi, I don’t need you breathing down my back about this, okay? I got to tell him what I thought about our fight all those years ago and he got to talk to me about it a little. We got some closure, we had dinner, and that was it.”
“That was it?”
“Yep, that was it.”
I looked into Kristi’s eyes and tried to hold my ground as long as I could. But I could tell she wasn’t buying the shit I was selling.
“I still call bullshit.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “This is ridiculous.”
“What’s ridiculous is doing this angry tango with Tyler and not admitting to yourself that you're using your anger as a way to be around him. Reall
y, you could use your son as an excuse to do that.”
“Brody. Oh my gosh. I need to go—”
“Nope. Stop right now. I set him up with his iPad and he’s sitting in his favorite chair and playing,” she said as she grabbed my arm.
“Let me go.”
“We’re not done here. You know I’ll always have your back—even now—but you’re being ridiculous. Now I admit, what he did in here was squirrely at best. You’re not considering why he did it, though.”
“I don’t care why he did it,” I said. I wrenched my arm from her grasp and went to push the stockroom door open.
“He did it because he still cares about you.”
I froze at her words, my shoulder against the door.
“Tyler still cares. I saw it on his face at the bar, and I’m seeing it in his actions to get closer to you. And you know that won’t change once you tell him about Brody. It’ll only make him care for you more.”
I closed my eyes and fought back tears as I shook the thought away. It wasn’t possible. Too much time had passed. I had raised Brody all on my own and his time to father up had passed.
“I’ll let you know how Saturday goes,” I said.
Then I pushed out the door, Kristi’s heavy sigh following me out onto the main floor.
Tyler
“Hey, Tyler.”
“Ana? Everything okay?” I asked.
“Depends on how you define okay, I guess.”
“Where are you? What do you need?”
“I haven’t left my house yet. My car has a flat tire and I don’t have a spare to slap on it.”
“That’s fine. I’ll call you a tow truck and come get you for dinner.”
“We can reschedule dinner. It’s fine. I really need to get this car thing resolved before tomorrow anyway. Work and all.”
“Ana, don’t be silly. You can still do dinner and get your car fixed. I’ll call a tow truck. What’s your address?”
“Tyler, it’s nothing to reschedule. We can even do it tomorrow night.”
“Is there a reason you don’t want me to pick you up?”
“Because I’m perfectly capable of driving myself?”
“Not currently. Your car has a flat,” I said.
“I knew this was going to be an issue before I called.”
“Ana, I’m offering to help you. Why are you not taking it?”
“Because I don’t need your handout, Tyler.”
I drew in a deep breath as I pulled over to the side of the road.
“It’s not a handout, Ana. This isn’t a question of how strong or intelligent you are. You need a tire and you don’t have one. All you need is a tow truck, a garage, and a tire. I can make that happen. In the meantime, while your car is being worked on, why can’t we go get dinner? We don’t have to do Roll’d Up. We can go anywhere.”
“I’m not really dressed for fast food.”
“And neither am I. Ana, it’s not the situation. It’s the person. I don’t want to take you somewhere. I want to be with you somewhere.”
She sighed on the other end of the line before she groaned.
“Okay. Sure. Let me text you my address. I’ll be the one standing in a white and gold dress with grease on her hands.”
“I’ll come ready to clean you up,” I said.
I hung up and whipped my car around, downloading her address from the text message as soon as she sent it through. My car’s map popped up and guided me straight to her, and fifteen minutes later I pulled into a quaint little townhouse complex in a decent spot in Los Angeles. There she was by the end unit, trying to wipe the grease off her hands with what looked like Clorox wipes. Or baby wipes. Some kind of wipes.
“Goin’ my way, pretty lady?” I asked.
Ana shot me a glare before a giggle fell from her lips.
“I look crazy.”
“You look like someone who got surprised by a flat tire. The tow truck is five minutes out. Care to give me the grand tour while we wait?” I asked.
She looked nervous as she shook her head. She plucked her purse off the hood of her car and scurried to the passenger’s side of my vehicle. I watched her closely as she slid in. Her beautiful body filled the seat wonderfully as her legs stretched out. She closed the door and fiddled with her hands, looking in the rearview mirror while we sat there in silence.
What was she hiding in that home of hers? A husband? A boyfriend? A girlfriend perhaps?
The idea of Ana cheating was beyond my comprehension. She could never do something like that. But as her leg jiggled and she chewed on her lower lip, I knew something was bothering her.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Just wondering how much this tire will cost me.”
“If you need me to pay—”
“No,” she said curtly.
I held my hands up before placing them back on the wheel of the car. The second the tow truck pulled up, she breathed a heavy sigh of relief. She got out of the car and badgered the poor man trying to buckle her car down and haul it away as much as she could. The vehicle wasn’t the nicest thing alive, but I could tell she had taken great care of it over the years. Though it seemed a little big for only one woman.
Once the vehicle was secured to the tow truck, Ana came back over and got in my car.
“The garage isn’t far from here,” she said. “Only ten minutes or so. He said we didn’t need to follow him—”
“But you want to. I know. Hang on. We’ll make sure your car gets there safely.”
She threw me a relieved smile and I grinned back at her. As we traveled behind her car, I could tell the tow truck driver was perturbed. I chuckled to myself as we sat at the garage, watching him back up her car into an open stall.
“Satisfied?” I asked once it was in.
“Maybe I should—”
I reached over and put my hand on Ana’s knee. She looked at me with those beautiful blue eyes of hers, and my heart slammed against my chest. I squeezed her knee before I removed my hand, and she slowly sat back in her seat.
“Let me take you out to dinner. These men have it. They can get your car back up and running, and then we’ll come back and pick it up.”
“I probably won’t be able to get to it until tomorrow with what time it is,” she said.
“Then you can get it tomorrow. Right now, however, we need to eat.”
“I’m not really hungry, honestly.”
“Then you’ll sit with me while I eat.”
“You always pulled that trick in high school.”
“Because it always worked.”
I threw the car into reverse and we headed back in the other direction. Our table at Roll’d Up had been given away, but it didn’t take much time for me to come up with something else. While Ana bombarded me with questions about what we were going to do, I swung us through the Taco Hut we always ate at during high school.
“Tacos in your car? How romantic.”
“Nope. We aren’t eating them in my car,” I said, grinning.
“Then where are we eating them?”
“You’ll see.”
I drove us out of L.A. and started up a hill. Not just any hill, but the hill. The winding trail that led to a small patch of grass behind the Hollywood sign. I wound us back and climbed us up the mountain as Ana held our food in her lap. After winding up the roads and taking the dirt road that was usually closed off, we came to the restricted patch of land we always snuck off to when things got to be too much in our teenage years.
“Remember this place?” I asked.
“There’s nowhere to sit,” she said flatly.
“So you do remember it. Come on. I’ve got a blanket in my trunk.”
“You planned this, didn’t you? You flattened my tire so we would miss our reservation and we could eat in the dirt.”
“You really think too highly of me sometimes.”
“I’m not dressed to sit on the ground, Tyler.”
“You’re complaining, b
ut I see that light in your eyes. You stared at that sign a little too long when we approached.”
“It’s a pretty sign. What can I say?”
“And you’re a pretty woman who deserves a pretty sign.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere, Mr. Browning.”
“Then how about food, Miss Price?”
She tried to be upset. She really did try her best. It was cute to watch. She glared, but her lips pursed as if she were attempting to bury a smirk. She looked adorable with the lights of the Hollywood sign behind her.
I pulled the blanket from my trunk as she dipped into the car to grab the food and drinks. I spread it out on the ground and the two of us sat.
Tacos were inhaled and many gulps of soda were consumed. I stole glances at Ana, watching the lights of the valley below twinkle in the beauty of her stare. She looked relaxed with her legs spread out and crossed at her ankles. She wiped away a bit of salsa that dripped down her chin and sucked it off her finger.
Heat rose up my neck as she slowly pulled her finger out of her mouth.
“So, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about,” Ana said.
I knew it. Here it came, the thing she was hiding.
“You can talk to me about anything; you know that. No matter what it is, I’ll never look at you any differently for it.”
She furrowed her brow and panned her gaze over to me before she nodded.
“Thanks. I think. Anyway, I talked to a certain employee of mine who said you came by saying there was an urgent matter a lawyer needed to discuss with me.”
Ah, so this wasn’t about what she was hiding.
“Yes?” I asked.
“Why did you do that? Tyler, you can’t come into my place of work just to track me down.”
“How else was I supposed to get your number after you brushed me off at the bar with Brandon?”
“You weren’t supposed to. That was the point,” she said.
“Are you regretting this?”
“What?”
“Dinner. And this, tacos and our sign.”
“It’s not our sign.”
“You know it’s our sign. I gave myself fully to you behind this sign when we were sixteen years old, Ana.”