“There’s my girl,” Rix muttered, and as I lowered my wineglass, I saw his amused gaze on me.
“Stop being adjusted,” I complained.
“You want me to get up and throw my deck furniture around?”
“Can I?” I asked.
“No,” he answered, lips twitching.
“I don’t have anything deep like that to share,” I admitted.
“I’m glad, though your sister’s a bitch, and that couldn’t have been fun.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Everybody has their damage, babe,” he noted.
I then squinted my eyes at him and accused, “You’re being adjusted again.”
He grinned. “Sorry. Can’t help it. That’s just me.”
“Though, my sister is very difficult to deal with,” I sniffed, and turned back to my plate. “And we haven’t gotten into Chad.”
“Chad? Who’s Chad?”
“Blake’s fiancé.”
“His name is Chad?”
Rix sounded like he was about to bust out laughing, at the same time hurl.
And yes, that was precisely where it was with Chad.
I nodded. “Think of everything that defines a Chad and then multiply that by a thousand,” I said. “That’s Blake’s Chad.”
He was smiling. “Well, fuck, baby.”
“Exactly.”
He started chuckling.
“Warning, if Chad manages to form a coherent thought outside wondering where his next drink or good time is going to come from, he’s going to hate you,” I told him.
He chewed some chicken, swallowed, and asked, “Why’s that?”
“Because, and excuse me for being vulgar, but my guess is, the size of his penis is not all that much to write home about. However, the second he sees you, it’ll shrink an inch he can’t afford to lose.”
At that, Rix didn’t bust out laughing.
He roared with it.
Only minutes after he told his story, hearing that laughter, watching it, I knew it was the crowning achievement of my life until that point.
That feeling was addictive.
So I went for more.
“I’d ask you to tamp down your natural magnetism and virility for Chad’s sake, but it’s going to be too fun to watch him visibly not measure up, so you have my permission to open the floodgates.”
His hilarity had quieted down, but it was not gone when he said, “Thanks for permission.”
I swallowed some couscous and replied, “You’re welcome.”
He lifted his brows. “Natural magnetism?”
“Like you don’t know,” I mumbled.
“Virility?” he teased.
“Shut up, Rix,” I ordered, fighting the heat coming to my cheeks.
“Okay, baby,” he murmured, and shoveled couscous into his mouth, but his eyes didn’t leave me.
We ate for a while without talking.
“Wanna hit Marino’s for a sundae before we crash in front of the TV?” he asked.
I had a life canon.
I never said no to ice cream.
Therefore, I answered, “Totally.”
“Yeah,” he said softly, his gaze still stuck on me. “That’s my girl.”
That didn’t warm my cheeks.
But it did warm everything else.
Chapter 11
The Reveal
Elsa Cohen
“The Elsa Exchange”
Celebrity News and Interviews
YouTube Channel
* * *
“Oh, my wonderful watchers, I’m so pleased to report that love clearly fills the air in the mountains of Arizona. Yes, it’s true. After the surprising reunion of one Ms. Swan and one Mr. Holloway, which fed into the exceptional pairing of one Mr. Oakley and one Ms. Pierce, we have even more news of loved-up bliss heading out of the southwest.”
Picture on screen of John “Rix” Hendrix in a faded navy firefighter’s T-shirt and Alexandra Margaret Sharp in a pair of skinny jeans with distressing close to the frayed hems that hit a few inches above her ankles, a white, short-sleeved blouse up top that was knotted at the front and rolled at the wide sleeves. Alexandra also had a layered anklet on her left ankle above her sand-colored Rothy’s slip-on sneakers. Further a layered necklace at her neck made of tiny wood beads and silver chains with some miniscule dangling pendants.
The couple was walking out of what appeared to be a casual restaurant, not holding hands, but they were close, Hendrix’s hand on the small of Alexandra’s back.
She had her eyes aimed to the sidewalk.
He had his head turned toward the road, stubbled, square jaw naturally jutting. He was walking on the street side, sheltering Alexandra on the inside.
Cut to another picture of the couple, same night, moments later, Hendrix standing in the street, holding the door, eyes aimed to Alexandra’s derriere as she climbs into his truck.
Cut back to Elsa.
“You may remember the rugged, heroic, ex-firefighter, current do-gooder John Hendrix who stood by his best friend, an Elsa Exchange regular, the handsome Judge Oakley, during the terrible loss Judge suffered when his mother passed this past summer.”
Photo on screen of Hendrix and Oakley standing with heads bent together, both wearing somber expressions and dark suits.
Cut back to Elsa.
“Well, when you’re in the presence of greatness, you brush shoulders with greatness, so it probably should be no surprise this handsome specimen caught the eye of Alexandra Sharp. Yes, that’s Alexandra Sharp of the Coddington-Sharps. And yes, I mean those Sharps whose name is synonymous with Rockefeller, Morgan, Astor and Carnegie. And yes, I mean those Coddingtons, as in, the Marquess of Norton, whose family seat in Somerset…a seat that once was a castle but eventually became a sprawling manor…a seat that was a favored place for King John, the real one, not the one of the Robin Hood legend, to sup when he was out west participating in one of his favored pastimes back in the early 1200s, hunting…that seat is Alexandra’s family home.”
Picture on screen of tall, large, boxy but understatedly elegant mansion with numerous chimneys made of mellow creamy-yellow stone, its grandeur rising above a nest of trees high on a green hill.
Cut back to Elsa.
“And yes, that would be the Alexandra Sharp, who might have to don the crown should some horrendously tragic event happen to wipe out forty or fifty members of the peerage before her, but nevertheless, the case remains, she stands in line for the British throne.”
Photo on screen of a teenage Alexandra wearing a fluffy white gown of yards and yards of tulle, in full curtsy, head bowed, who, exactly, she’s curtsying to is cropped from the picture. But whoever it was had a hand lifted Alexandra’s way, it was wearing a white glove, and around the wrist, there were diamonds.
Cut back to Elsa.
“Though, Ms. Sharp likely isn’t holding her breath for a residency at Buckingham Palace. And she doesn’t need to, considering the amalgamated trust fund that found itself under her discretion on her twenty-first birthday. Funds that included entitlements from the Sharp and Coddington lines, not to mention what came to her through her paternal grandmother.”