by Witt, L. A.
“She didn’t—” I paused. “Okay, at the risk of sounding completely stupid, since I used to watch gymnastics all the time but never really knew much; what exactly does that term mean?”
“Stick the landing?”
“Yeah.”
“Land perfectly.” She planted two fingers on the table as if to mimic a gymnast landing after a vault. “You know, not stumbling or wobbling.”
“Right. Got it.”
“You can have the best routine ever, but the second you land, if there’s even a hint that you’re not perfectly balanced, you’re fucked.” She rolled her eyes. “And it’s up to a bunch of judges who are usually more interested in how we look in our leotards anyway.”
Squirming a little, I wrinkled my nose. “I always wondered about that.”
“It’s . . .” She sighed. “All right, it isn’t that bad. But there are some who obviously don’t care about form and technique as long as they get to see Lycra stretched over teenage tits and ass.”
I made a gagging noise. “That’s why I always hated judged sports. My brother and I both rode dressage horses when we were kids, and I just couldn’t deal with everything being dependent on some asshole scoring us. Especially when the pretty girls always seemed to win as long as their horses behaved halfway decently.”
Natalya laughed, oblivious to what that did to my body temperature. “I know that much too well. And I was never judged on what an animal did, just what I did.” She picked up her drink and muttered around the straw, “Well, me, my looks, and the laws of physics.”
“Yeah, equestrian competition means you, the laws of physics, and the half ton of intent and intellect you’re sitting on.” I absently drew lines in the condensation on my glass and tried not to imagine Natalya on the mat or a horse. “Amazing how things fall apart when one of those things decides not to cooperate. Physics, I mean. Or the horse. Or—” You sound like an idiot. Stop. “You know what I mean.”
She nodded, her smile doing nothing to untie my tongue. “Mm-hmm. I do. So you stopped riding?”
“I don’t really have time anymore.” I kept dragging my thumbs through the sweat on my glass, just for something to occupy my hands. “My brother still rides, though. He trains warmbloods on the East Coast.”
“Doing what he loves, loving what he does?”
“Very much so.” I paused. “So when did you stop gymnastics?”
“When I was seventeen.” She shrugged. “My joints and my back were starting to have problems. Another year or two, and I’d have started getting hurt, so I retired while I was still on top.”
“Smart move.”
“Sometimes I wonder if I should’ve done it sooner.” She gestured at her back. “Did plenty of damage.”
I let go of my glass and wiped my damp hands on my napkin as I forced my brain to focus on the conversation. “I thought you hurt your back in a stunt.”
“I did.” She twisted a little, as if just talking about it made her hurt. “But there was damage long before. Stress fractures. Things like that. The one that ended my career just made it all worse.”
I shuddered, squirming in my seat. “My brother has the same problem with the horses. He says they’re aging him at twice the speed of time, especially in his back.”
Natalya laughed. “Sounds just like gymnastics. And stunts.”
“I’m sure. How did you get into that field, anyway?”
“Which one? Gymnastics or stunts?”
“Well, both.”
“I’ve been a gymnast since I could walk. I don’t remember ever not being one.” She paused, eyes growing distant for a moment, but then she shook herself and went on. “After I retired, I emigrated, and I was looking for work. Any kind of work. I hated everything I did—waitressing, working as a store clerk.” She scowled. “No money, either.”
“Ugh, I know the feeling.” I reached for my glass again. “I’ve waited many, many tables in my day.”
“Right, so you know.” She shifted in her chair. “Then I worked with a Cirque du Soleil show for a year, which was better than waiting tables.”
An image flashed through my mind of Natalya in one of those brightly colored skintight costumes, and I almost dropped my drink. Jesus fuck. So much for getting my brain back on the rails.
I shook myself, and when I met her gaze, a devilish smile curled the corners of her mouth. My cheeks burned—busted.
“So. Um.” I cleared my throat. “With your injuries, weren’t the acrobatics a problem?”
“Sure.” She half shrugged. “It was only meant to be temporary. Something to keep me fed until I could find something permanent.”
“Which turned out to be stunt work?”
“Strangely enough, yes.” She laughed. “Wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but I liked it.”
“How’d you get started in it?”
“Another acrobat knew a stunt coordinator in LA and got me in touch with him. The guy kept trying to recruit me, but I wasn’t sure if that’s what I wanted to do. Then he got desperate because one of his stuntwomen broke her back.”
I blinked. “Did he tell you that in the interview?”
Laughing, she nodded. “He was quite honest. Said he needed someone who wasn’t scared of dangling off the same cliff where this girl had just fallen, and I said, ‘Scared? Pfft. I dangle from all kinds of shit during the Cirque shows.’ So, he told me to put my money where my mouth was. And I did. And he gave me more work. And . . . here I am.”
“Still in one piece.” Still pretty limber, too. I gulped and hoped she didn’t notice. “That, um, says something.”
She snorted. “One piece? Only because there are bolts and screws keeping me that way.”
“Could be worse, right?”
“Much.” She laughed. “So when was the last time you rode?”
Last time I— A horse. Right. Really, brain? I cleared my throat. “It’s been too long, actually. Don’t really have time to keep a horse, though, so . . .”
“You know, they have rides on the beach down in . . . Clay . . . Cal-lay . . .”
“Kalaloch?”
“I think?”
I smiled. “Took a while for me to learn to say it. It’s spelled completely differently, but they say it ‘clay-lock.’ And anyway, they have a place where people can ride?”
She nodded.
“That would be a blast.” I straightened. “Hey, maybe when we have an afternoon off, we should go!”
Her eyes lit up, sending electricity crackling down my spine. “We should!”
Her enthusiasm was contagious, and I grinned. “Yes! I’ll look around online. I could really, really go for a ride like that.”
“Me too.” She shrugged. “I mean, I’ve only ridden a few times, but I loved it. I’ve always wanted to try it again.”
“And riding on the beach would be a ton of fun.” I paused, and panic crept up my spine. Yeah. It’d be fun. And romantic. Was that too far? Oh hell, we were already on a date. Why not?
Natalya cocked her head. “Something wrong?”
“Well.” I took a drink to moisten my suddenly dry mouth. “I guess I’m . . .” I hesitated. “Okay, here’s the thing. I love this.” I gestured at us and the table between us. “Going riding? A blast. What we did in my office yesterday?”
She grinned, and we both shivered.
Squirming in my seat, I said, “I like it. All of it. But . . . what exactly are we doing?”
“Eating dinner. Talking about horseback riding.” She shrugged. “Sleeping together when we want to.” She leaned forward, eyes locked on mine. “You’re overthinking it. I can see it in your eyes.”
“I’m . . .” Guilty. Exhaling, I rubbed my neck and avoided her gaze. “I just don’t want to fuck this up.”
She laughed. “You’re such a director.”
“What?”
“There’s no script and no diagram, so you’re worried about it. Just like any director would be.”
I shifted in my s
eat. “Okay, I guess that is kind of . . . me.”
“Kind of?” She winked. “You’re not the first director I’ve worked with. Or the first producer.”
“Yeah?” I grimaced. “I’m not the worst, am I?”
Natalya burst out laughing so hard the other people in the restaurant—including Scott and Jeremy—turned toward us. “The worst? Oh no. No, no, no. Not even close.”
“Oh really?” I leaned forward, dropping my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Who was?”
“That’s easy—Sean Cromwell.” She covered her face and groaned before dropping her hands to the table. “God. If Scorch the Day had been a series, I’d have murdered the bastard.”
“What? Really? I always heard he was fine to work with.”
“Not for anyone with ovaries,” she grumbled.
“Oh. One of those.”
“Yeah. One of those.”
“I swear this business has asshole quotas that they have to fill in order to greenlight a project.”
Natalya threw her head back and laughed, and oh dear God, I loved the way she looked and sounded and made my pulse go haywire. She ran a hand through her hair, pulling it back and then letting it tumble onto her shoulders again, and . . . What were we talking about? Something about . . .
Right. I took a drink, which wasn’t nearly strong enough. “So, Cromwell. What did he do?”
She folded her hands on the table and leaned in closer. “Well, I knew it was going to suck because during preproduction, he was convinced I needed to be fired. Because I was a woman and a foreigner, he didn’t believe me when I said the stunts in the film needed a lot more safety equipment than he’d budgeted for. So he went and got Gary, the stunt coordinator, to look everything over.”
“And Gary agreed with you?”
“Of course he did.” She laughed. “Sean was a fucking moron. Gary told him people would die if we did things the way he’d planned.”
“Bet he was thrilled.”
“Mm-hmm. He was a dream to work with after that.” She rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue. “Fucking bastard spent the whole production waiting for me to fuck up.”
“Did you?”
She snorted. “Of course not.” She grinned and added, “My favorite thing in the world is usually watching my stunts go according to plan. With him?” The grin got even bigger. “It was seeing the look on his face when it all went off without a hitch.” She laughed wickedly. “Never got old.”
I laughed too. “Oh, I can imagine.”
“But you know, now that I think about it, there was one guy who was worse. Have you ever worked with Lance Hickman?”
My stomach lurched at the mention of that jerk’s name. “I can tell you some stories about him.”
“Me too. You won’t believe what he did while we were filming Stars Align . . .”
* * *
After dinner, dessert, and a million stories about the various dick-bags we’d worked with, it was almost closing time. So, finally, we paid our bill and made our way out to the dark parking lot with Scott and Jeremy strolling behind us, hand in hand. We stopped beside her car while they hung back by their cars, giving everyone a little bit of privacy but still keeping Jeremy reasonably close to me.
Natalya unlocked her car and opened the door, but didn’t get in yet. We locked eyes, and I couldn’t even pretend I didn’t have butterflies swarming in my stomach.
“I had a really nice time tonight,” she said.
“Me too.” I smiled despite my sudden nerves. “I’m still . . . you know, not quite sure what we’re doing, but—”
She cradled my face and kissed me gently. “It’s okay. We’re just hanging out and sleeping together. It doesn’t have to be anything more than that.”
But what else is there?
“It works,” I whispered. “I do like it.”
“So do I.” She kissed me again, then inched toward her car. “Let me know about going riding? I’m looking forward to it.”
“Me too.”
One more smile, and she got into her car. As she drove off, I stood there with my heart in my throat. I was overthinking this, wasn’t I? Just because she was interesting, and laid-back, and hot, and adventurous . . . that didn’t mean we couldn’t make this work as friends. It didn’t mean I’d get too emotionally tangled up in her for my own good.
But really, it was hard to imagine a woman who checked more boxes for me. Our relationship—whatever it was—hit all the right notes without all the migraine-inducing stress of my last relationship. It was . . . it was everything I’d been missing before.
And if I can have this with a friend, then I’ll definitely have it with my soul mate whenever she comes along. Doesn’t mean this is getting out of hand.
I watched until her taillights were gone, then headed back toward where my bodyguard and his boyfriend were saying good-bye. They glanced at me, then shared a long kiss. As Scott drove off, Jeremy met me beside his own car and unlocked the doors.
I scowled. “Sorry you couldn’t leave with him. Looked like the two of you would’ve preferred to keep your date going.”
“It’s okay,” he said as we got in the car. “We’ll meet up later.” He pulled the door shut and turned the key. “He can wait a little while.”
I scowled. “I’m sorry you can’t just—”
“Don’t worry about it.” He flashed me a smile. “This is the job I signed up for, and working for you is the reason I met him in the first place. Trust me—we can both cope with a few extra minutes before we see each other again tonight.”
“Okay. But if it gets to be a hassle, I can try to talk the studio into hiring someone for the evenings. Even if it means he stays overnight at the house or something to justify having him on the clock all night.”
Jeremy’s lips quirked. “Well, I did already put in for them to bring in someone else while my son’s in town starting in July. Maybe that could just segue into the other guard working nights while I work days.” He studied me in the light from the streetlamps. “You don’t mind someone else?”
“I’ve made do whenever you’re out of town or on vacation.”
“True.”
“It’s fine. I want you to have a life too, you know. We’ll talk to the studio and the security company and see what happens.”
“Sounds good.”
As he cruised up the highway toward Bluewater Bay, I said, “So, how would you feel about going horseback riding on the beach?”
Jeremy’s brow creased. “Come again?”
“If Natalya and I go riding. Out on the beach. I’m, um, assuming you’d have to do it too.”
“Uh, well . . .” He shifted. “I’ve never ridden a horse in my life, but I don’t think the studio would accept me hanging back at the barn until you all get back.”
“We could get you a Segway or something.”
He rolled his eyes. “A horse will be fine, thank you very much.”
“Good.” I paused. “And, um, if Scott wants to come along, he’s more than welcome.”
“Hmm. Well, I can ask him. But I’ll be there, of course.” He glanced at me and drummed his fingers on the wheel. “So, things are going okay with her?”
“So far so good.”
He gave a slight nod. “That’s great. Glad to hear it.”
I just smiled. Yeah, I was glad to hear it too. Still didn’t quite know what to make of us—of where the hell this might go—but considering the rough start we’d had, I’d take it. Taking things slow worked.
What do I do if she does want more, though?
What do I do if I want more?
Chapter 13
Naturally, the first day Natalya and I could have gone down to Kalaloch for a ride was also the day the skies opened up and dumped on the Olympic Peninsula. The coast was drenched, and although Bluewater Bay was in a rain shadow that kept us dry most of the time, it didn’t stop us from getting the occasional torrential downpour. Like this one. Lucky us.
Since riding on the beach wasn’t in the cards today, we opted for the second best thing—hunkering down and watching movies with Levi and Carter.
As an added bonus, Levi’s house was one of the few places where we weren’t required to have our personal security on hand. Our bodyguards were thrilled—as soon as they found out what our plans were for the day, Alfonse headed to Portland to see his girlfriend and Jeremy took off somewhere with Scott.
Shortly after Jeremy dropped me off at the guys’ house, Natalya arrived. Hopefully the guys didn’t notice my nerves—this would be the first time we’d socialized with them as a couple, and I was a nervous wreck. Would they all get along? Would someone say something that rubbed someone the wrong way and turn the whole visit into an awkward nightmare of nightmarish awkwardness?
Oh God, I need a drink.
The rain was coming down in buckets, so Levi went out to offer Natalya an umbrella, but she was already halfway to the front door.
“I was going to help you stay dry,” he said, chuckling as we both stood aside to let her in.
“Pfft.” She shrugged off her wet jacket. “It’s just rain. Never hurt anyone.”
“Suit yourself.” He put the umbrella aside and took her coat.
I put an arm around Natalya. “Not everyone melts from a little rain, Levi.”
Natalya laughed, brushing a few damp strands of hair behind her ear.
He rolled his eyes. “This is what I get for trying to be a gentleman?”
Snickering, I said, “It’s going to take a lot more than an umbrella for—”
“Yeah, yeah. Get in there.” He herded me toward the kitchen, and I smothered a giggle as I led Natalya down the hall with him on our heels.
In the kitchen, Carter was balancing Zelda on his shoulders as he poured some chips into a bowl. He looked up and smiled. “Hey, Natalya. How are you?”
“Hi. I’m well.” She cocked her head. “The cat . . . why is she . . .?”
Right then, Link trotted out from behind the kitchen island and right up to her. His tail was straight in the air, and he made soft chirping noises at Natalya.