Explicitly Yours Series

by Jessica Hawkins

  “Mulholland Drive?” she asked. “I thought you knew a place.”

  “I do. This is it.”

  “Every Angeleno worth his salt knows about Mulholland.”

  He laughed loudly and looked up past the open roof. “So much for trying to impress you.”

  “If you’re trying to impress me, you’re going to have to do better than a stunning view and some orgasms.”

  He made a noise and raised an eyebrow at her. “Careful or you’ll wake the beast again.”

  “By saying ‘orgasm’?”

  “He’s easily aroused.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “I saw that,” he said.

  “How?” she exclaimed. “It’s nighttime.”

  “Not all of night is dark. There’s the moon, the stars.”

  “Just like even dark people have light, right? Is that what you’re getting at?”

  “You think everything I say has another meaning.”

  She turned in her seat to face him. “I thought to make an offer like you did that you must be a monster. Now I don’t know what to think.”

  “I appreciate your candor,” he said dryly.

  “I’m just trying to figure this out. Figure you out. How can someone be anything other than morally bankrupt and vile to pay another man’s girlfriend for sex?”

  He dropped his hands along the curves of the steering wheel. “You’re looking at it from the wrong angle, Lola. I’m a man who doesn’t let anything get in the way of what I want. If my bank account had a zero balance and I wanted you badly enough…I wouldn’t let that stop me. I’d find a way to get you.”

  “You make it sound so simple—like people are commodities.” She paused, waiting for a response. She supposed maybe he had thought of her that way once. “By your own logic, there’s nothing you can’t have.”

  “I like to believe that.” He looked over at her. “Why?”

  Deep inside her not hours ago, he’d said he wouldn’t let her go. Lola had made her own heated promises—why? To get to the finish line? Or because they were true and nothing counted in those lust-fogged moments? Beau had said if he wanted something badly enough, he’d go after it. It knotted her stomach to think of a Johnny-Beau showdown in which she’d have to choose between them. “Never mind.”

  Beau glanced over his shoulder and back at her. “I’ve never been here at night, but I should’ve guessed it would be closed.”

  Just behind him was a lookout point with a view of downtown Los Angeles. Lola had been going there since she was a teenager, often at night. Sometimes to drink with her friends, which seemed reckless now.

  “There are ways around the gate,” she said.

  He arched an eyebrow at her. “You want to sneak in?”

  “Would you?”

  “We drove all the way up here.” He went to open his door, but Lola put her hand on his forearm. He turned back.

  “I don’t need it,” she said. “I’ve seen it. Let’s just sit together.”

  He settled back into his seat. “Describe it to me.”

  “The sky is black, but the lights glow. Orange, green, yellow.” She wiggled her pointer finger in the air. “Little dots. The buildings are like music bars of light and dark.” She glanced up. “More often than you’d think, you can catch a shooting star. But right now, everything is mostly…still.”

  “Sounds almost perfect. But we’re missing something.” He shifted in his seat to dig in his pocket. “Vodka and Cheez-Its.”

  She half smiled. “What?”

  “From the minibar.” He held up a tiny bottle between two fingers and a bag in his palm. “I also brought tequila—if you’re feeling adventurous.”

  “A surprise picnic under the stars? You’re really clueless when it comes to wooing women, aren’t you?”

  “Take that back or you get no tequila.” He twisted off the cap, took a sip and quickly shook his head. His thick hair, relaxed for once because of their shower, took a moment to settle. He blew out a breath. “Jesus. Now I remember why I don’t drink tequila straight anymore.”

  Lola grinned. “Suck it up, pretty boy.”

  “Pretty boy? I take offense to that.”

  “It was intended to offend.”

  He laughed and passed the bottle. She finished it off as Beau watched her.

  “And that’s how it’s done,” she declared right before turning her face away to cringe.

  “Busted,” he said.

  “I was just clearing my throat.”

  “Seriously? I know what I saw.”

  “I’ll prove it,” she said. “Pass the vodka.”

  He surrendered it to her with one palm in the air. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She opened it, downed half of it easily and offered him the rest.

  He shook his head. “No more while I’m driving precious cargo.”

  Her eyebrows furrowed. “Precious—?”

  There was that laugh again, deeper this time from the bottom of his throat. She wanted to bottle that sound and save it for later. For when they’d parted ways. She had to push the thought away quickly to stay in their moment.

  “God, you’re cute,” he said. “You, Lola. You’re the precious cargo.”

  “Oh,” she said, warm in the face. “Got it.”

  “Just don’t get sick in my car, all right?”

  “It’d take a lot more than a mini-bottle to make me sick. Vodka’s like water for me.” She drained the bottle. “Been drinking it since I was thirteen.”

  He opened the Cheez-Its and ate some. “I want to hear more about this rebel-teenager Lola.”

  “She’s still around, so don’t provoke her,” she said.

  “I know you meant that as a threat, but I’m only more intrigued.”

  She turned her head toward the windshield. Everywhere she looked, there was something to see—a distant view of Los Angeles, the Big Dipper, the small one, the sandpaper mountains behind her. Beau.

  “Maybe intrigued was too casual of a word,” Beau teased. “Don’t make me beg for more.”

  “I’m the same person I was then, just older. And maybe a little wiser.”

  “I may be older, but I don’t feel any wiser,” Beau said.

  “Me neither,” she said. “That was a lie.” At the time, no matter how lost she’d been, she’d always thought she’d had it figured out. “What about you? Were you rebellious?”

  “Nah. I was consumed by other things, like work, family and survival. Growing up poor really lights a fire under your ass. At least it did for me.”

  “I think everyone handles it differently. Your way of dealing was to take on all the responsibility. My mom was like that too, saddling the load on her back. Being poor was tough, but it made me stronger. I didn’t let it rule my life.”

  “I bet you, Lola, were already strong to begin with.”

  “I was by myself a lot.” She glanced over at him. Maybe it was the vodka, though she doubted it, but she was okay going places with him she hadn’t been in a while. It was their space, like he’d said. “My mom wouldn’t even take my birthdays off. Her reasoning was I’d only get a present if she had a job and she wouldn’t have a job if she gave away shifts. When I said presents didn’t matter, she asked me how I felt about food. For weeks I ate one meal a day because I was worried we’d run out.”

  Beau looked at the steering wheel. His hands balled and flexed against his thighs. “I wish you hadn’t told me that. Things weren’t that bad for us.”

  “They weren’t for us either.” They truly hadn’t been, but she also had the urge to comfort him. “Looking back, it was never as dire as she made it seem. She hustled for her tips, and she never spent a dime on anything frivolous. The manager worshipped her, so she was never in jeopardy of losing her job. Our situation and our relationship fluctuated, but the one thing that stayed the same was that she thought there was never enough money. I couldn’t do anything because there was no money. My father left because we—meaning I—cost him
too much money.”

  “Is that true?” Beau asked.

  “It’s what she told me.”

  “He didn’t explain to you why he left?”

  “He went on a work trip and never came back. I don’t think he was planning it because he left a lot of his stuff. I was too young to remember much anyway.”

  “Haven’t seen him since?”

  “No. So, like I said, alone a lot. Except at school. I didn’t participate in a lot of stuff, but I had friends whether I wanted them or not. Then when I got home, it was silent. Nobody around. Except for Barbie fucker across the street.”

  “I’m not sure I like you hanging around with that girl.”

  Lola shook her head, smiling. “She was all right. Sometimes I wished I’d had a brother or sister, though. At least you had that.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you’d had Brigitte.”

  “Why not?”

  “She was only fifteen when she moved here and had just lost her only family. She was so insecure about not belonging to anyone. She called me her brother from day one, and my mom ‘Mom.’ Unless she was angry, and then it was Pam. Looking back, it was something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. She didn’t believe she deserved our love on top of our hospitality, and my mom already thought she was doing Brigitte this enormous favor by taking her in when we didn’t have much to spare.”

  “No wonder she’s a handful,” Lola said.

  He rested his head against the seat and looked up. “She was even before the accident. I didn’t have to know her long to get that. Everything is extreme for Brigitte. Life. Love. Hate. She doesn’t know who she is without that, and she thrives on the attention it gets her.”

  Lola frowned. “You’re very close, aren’t you?”

  “She only has me. That’s all she wants, though. Sometimes I give her projects at the office, and she usually does fine. I could never hire her fulltime, though—she’s too volatile. I’m afraid others won’t either. That’s part of why I continue to help her. It’s not a financial burden for me to take care of her when she has no one else. And after what my mom did, she has trust issues on top of that.”

  Lola peered at him in the dark. It was becoming clear that Beau had one sure way of showing he cared—his money. Earlier he’d said he’d given up years of his life to work, hoping one day he could provide for his family. The price didn’t seem worth it, but she didn’t think he felt the same.

  “Your relationship doesn’t sound healthy,” Lola said. “For either of you.”

  “It’s exhausting sometimes. She knows it is.”

  “Is she why you took me to a hotel rather than your house?”

  He was silent a moment. “I’ve tried to get her a place of her own, but she cries and begs me not to. She says she’d rather one of us leave the house when she gets to be too much. As long as I don’t go far. She gets more put out than I do, so I go through periods where I stay at the hotel.”

  Lola was instantly alarmed. If she hadn’t known better, she would’ve thought Beau was describing a possessive girlfriend. “That’s why you have the room? Jesus.”

  “I know. She just has two levels—low or high.”

  “Tonight was high?”

  “Yes. She sniffed you out like a dog. Put her in a crowd, especially where men are involved, and she shines. One-on-one is more difficult. In case it’s not obvious, she gets jealous of my attention.”

  Lola looked up at the stars. “I can understand that.”

  “Can you? You don’t seem like the jealous type.”

  When Beau’s attention was on her, Lola wasn’t just the only girl in the room—she was the only girl in the world. It was intense—unnerving—but in an addictive way. She was warm when his eyes were on her, cold when they weren’t. She shuddered.

  He glanced at her. “Would you be jealous of my attention?”

  Beau could most likely make any girl feel that way if he wanted. She squinted at nothing. “That would require thinking past tonight, and I don’t want to.”

  “I’ll be out there with other women, Lola. You’ll be with Johnny. Everything will be normal again.”

  Things would never be normal again. Even if Johnny thought they were, or if she faked it until things were as close to normal as they’d get—no, they’d never truly be normal again. The question was whether Lola could live with that. “I don’t know,” she said. “All this has given me a lot to think about.”

  “Will I be there in those thoughts?”

  He already was. She blinked a few times. “How could you not be? You started all of this.”

  “So what’re you saying, Lola? You’re going to go home and still be thinking about me?”

  “Johnny and I…we’re supposed to get through this on our love alone. On nine years’ history. I think I knew we might not, but I called you anyway. When your limo pulled up tonight, it was as if Johnny and I had made some fatal mistake.” She paused. “But I still went through with it.”

  Beau cleared his throat.

  Lola noticed a symphony of crickets she hadn’t before. She looked at him. “I mean, don’t get the wrong idea,” she said, flustered by his silence. This from the man who’d been so vocal, she’d wondered if he was considering going to battle with Johnny over her. “I’m not suggesting I leave him for you. It’s just, the fact that Johnny and I even went through with this means something. Somebody owes somebody an explanation, I just don’t know which one of us is at fault.”

  “I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault,” Beau said. “Not even mine.”

  She shook her head. “It isn’t your fault.” She couldn’t pinpoint when she’d changed over the years, but she had. She’d thought putting her sordid past behind her meant she’d matured. Now she was beginning to question what part of the life she had now she’d chosen. Johnny had become her priority, and his hobbies, friends and work had become her hobbies, friends and work. She wanted more from herself and for herself, except that Johnny, with the greatest opportunity of his life ahead of him, still wasn’t stepping up to the plate. “If things were right between Johnny and me, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

  “I thought you were happy with him,” Beau said. “At least it seemed that way from afar.”

  “I was,” she said. “God, I am—I thought so. I had no idea anything was wrong. But you shook us up like a snow globe.”

  “If you’re expecting an apology—”

  “I’m not.” She glanced at him and away.

  “Lola,” he called her attention back. “Come here.”

  She leaned across the console. He put an arm around her, pulling her close so their mouths nearly touched.

  “Was I a fatal mistake?” he whispered.

  “No.” She shook her head slowly, holding his gaze. “Maybe.”

  He chuckled quietly.

  “But don’t think I’m going all psycho and dumping my boyfriend because of a couple nights of good sex.”

  Beau jerked his head back. “Good? Fuck. That hurts.”

  She rolled her eyes but smiled. “You know what I mean. Amazing.”

  “You can do better than that.”

  “You’ll hold it against me.”

  “Probably.”

  Her smile widened. “Fine. Sex so good I think I went blind for a few seconds. Unparalleled sex.”

  “Unparalleled,” he mused. “Meaning unmatched. Nobody can match it. Meaning…the best sex you’ve ever had.”

  She wriggled in his arms. “Don’t get cocky on me.”

  “Hmm. I’d like to get cocky all over you,” he muttered, brushing hair from her forehead. “Should we go back? Have you had your fill of stars?”

  “Never,” she said. “But it’s not like we have eternity.”

  She went to pull away, but Beau’s arm tightened as he kept her there.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I just wanted to say…I don’t know what’ll happen when the sun comes up—”

  “I go home,” she said,
“is what happens.”

  He searched her face. “You should know how real this is for me.” He took her cheek with his other hand. “If ever there were a prize worth winning, you are it. Just know that these stars, this moment—it’s real. Everything I’m experiencing is real.”

  She looked back and forth between his eyes, trying to read him. There was truth there, but it wasn’t the only thing. Something else brewed deeper. Something she didn’t recognize. What did he want to tell her? To leave Johnny for him? He couldn’t ask her to do it, but it was written on his face, woven in his touch.

  “You don’t have to say anything,” Beau said. “We both knew what we were getting into. I just hope we each find what we need come sunrise.”

  What we need. Foolishly, she rarely considered what Beau needed, because he was always a pillar of strength. Maybe that was how Johnny saw her. Someone strong who didn’t need much, and who was better at taking care of herself than anyone else would ever be.

  She pushed Beau gently back against the driver’s seat, keeping her eyes on his face. She felt under his T-shirt and up his flat stomach. He was warm and hard under her hand. His head fell back, and his eyes closed. His Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed. “When’s the last time someone touched you like this?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Not to get anything,” she said. “Just to feel.”

  “A while,” he said. The gravel in his voice made his answer almost unintelligible. “Maybe never.”

  She caressed his chest. To hear him say never made her heart sink, made her feel lucky for the years of tenderness Johnny had given her. “Let’s go back to the hotel, Beau.”

  He blinked his eyes open, looking up for a minute. “We have a few hours. Maybe we can get some sleep.”

  “That’d be nice,” she said.

  He started the car.

  She didn’t tell him that she had no plans to sleep. That all she wanted to do was lie in his arms and try to stay awake.

  12

  The drive back to Beau’s hotel went quickly with the absence of traffic. On their way to Mulholland, there had been promise in the wind—now, just finality.

  They took the exit for the hotel, and Beau pulled into a gas station and up to a pump. “I didn’t feed you tonight,” he said through her window once the tank was filling. “I’d planned on room service again.”