“Oh, is that the rule?” She dug her toes into the sand and quickly said, “Don’t answer that.”
He sat up, gently taking her chin between his finger and thumb and drawing her face toward his. The intimacy of that touch made her heart race.
“Yes, that’s the rule,” he said with a gently authoritative tone. “They weren’t you, and I never thought about them again, so they didn’t count. Whereas you count very, very much.”
The look in his eyes was so intense, she looked away before she could follow her thundering heart and do something she couldn’t take back. “Anyway,” she said a little breathlessly, “it turned out he was engaged. His fiancée caught us together at his place. I have never been so mortified or felt so awful.” She looked at Gavin to try to read his expression and was glad to see concern rather than judgment. “That poor woman called me horrible names, and I couldn’t even defend myself because I had no idea who she was or what was going on. I’d never intentionally be with a guy who was involved with someone else. She must have told everyone she knew, because rumors spread through the set, and my reputation was ruined. Then my show wasn’t picked up, and my agent dropped me, and I just lied to my friends about all of it. I’ve never lied to my friends. I’m not a liar. I despise liars. But I managed to look them in the eyes and tell them tales of a fabulous life I never led.”
“Technically speaking, you didn’t look them in the eyes when you lied.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
“Maybe not,” he said carefully. “But it’s how I knew you were hiding something.”
She looked out at the moonlight reflecting off the water. It was so easy to be honest with Gavin. “I went to LA thinking I was making a name for myself. I was starry-eyed and proud. Beyond proud. Most producers and directors have their own writers for script modifications and that sort of thing. But they’d hired me to not only help tweak the scripts, but also to give my input during production. That’s huge, and I know the producer I worked with wasn’t a big-time guy or anything, but I’m just a small-town nobody. So to me it was huge.”
“I doubt you’ve ever been a nobody, Harper.”
“Thank you.” She felt a little better having shared her burden. “A couple summers ago I was hired to write a racy sitcom for cable. I worked from home or in coffee shops and only went to New York for meetings. That experience was so different from this last one. I went to LA thinking I was making it big, making my parents and my friends proud.” She shrugged as if it were easy to admit, but the pain in her chest was excruciating. “I was the girl who obeyed all the rules and did everything right. I studied hard through college, didn’t party too much, have had exactly one fling, thank you very much, and still I managed to ruin my life.”
“You’ve only ruined your life if you give those experiences that much power. And if it counts for anything, we had one hell of a fling. Not a day has passed that I haven’t thought about you.”
Her heart squeezed, realizing he’d thought about her as much as she’d thought about him. “Really? You’re not just saying that?”
He nodded. “I’ve got no reason to lie, and I’d like to pick up where we left off.”
“Gavin, I can’t. I don’t trust myself with guys right now.”
“I hear that. It’s okay. Eventually you’ll be able to, and I’m a patient guy.”
“Confident is probably a better word,” she said, feeling happier than she had in a long time. “I’m sorry my life is so messed up. I haven’t been able to write anything good since they canceled the show, and now here I am, lying to my friends and avoiding my family. I haven’t even told my family I’m back in town.”
“Why not?”
“Because I already lied to them, too. My brothers and sister called and texted all the time just to make sure I was okay. I didn’t want them to worry, so I let them believe things were great, even when it looked like the show was falling apart. I was at the high point of my career, and I swear being out there, away from the people who know me best, made me feel like I was drifting. I don’t know how to recover from it. I’m ashamed of everything that went on. Even though my family doesn’t need to know about all of the personal stuff, I know it. The thing is, they knew I wasn’t an LA type of girl, and they were there for me, holding my hand from thousands of miles away. Just last week I told them things were going well.” She shook her head. “Ugh. I’m such a loser. Jana would have done great out there, but I’m not her any more than I am the fling girl I pretended to be with you.”
“I’ve got news for you, Harp. You didn’t do a very good job of pretending with me, either.”
“But you just said you thought about me every day since we were together.”
He held her gaze and said, “Exactly.”
He didn’t say anything more. She’d forgotten how good a listener he was and how the long pauses between them hadn’t felt uncomfortable or like they needed to be filled. They felt natural. He was a careful thinker, and now she remembered how he’d taken his time before speaking, like he was now, and how much she liked that about him.
After a while he said, “Have you forgotten how we opened up to each other? You told me I was your first one-night stand, and I told you I wasn’t a sleeping-around kind of guy. You tried to come across like you were cool with the one-night-stand idea, but I don’t think either of us really was.”
He paused again, as if he knew she was remembering each and every detail he’d just mentioned.
“When you have a meaningless one-night stand, the person you choose to have it with is usually forgettable.” He moved his hand closer to hers, brushing his fingers over the back of her hand as he said, “I knew before we went back to my room that you were special, but I never imagined just how impossible it would be to stop thinking about you.”
“Now you’re embarrassing me, and my broken guy radar is telling me that you might be really good at picking up girls and not to fall for all your best lines.”
He smiled. “Your guy radar is off, because these aren’t my best lines, Harp.”
“I’m so not ready for this. I need practice before I’m ready for a guy like you. I might never be ready for a guy like you, because you seem open and honest, but my instincts suck right now.”
“Then let’s fix that.” His expression turned serious and he said, “I’ll set you up on practice dates.”
“Oh, no.” She waved her hand. “I’ve practiced and failed enough.” She yawned. “Sorry. It’s been a long day. I chewed out this guy on the plane, lied to my friends, and now you’re making me wish I trusted my instincts.”
“Because you should.” He stood, reaching for her hand. “Come on, I’ll walk you back to your car and tell you about this friend of mine.”
“No friends,” she said as she pushed to her feet.
He draped an arm over her shoulder, keeping her close. “I said I was a patient guy, but I’m no fool. If you need to rebuild your man-confidence, there’s no way you’re doing it with just any old guy.”