Page 32 of Base Block

“I’m glad you did.”

“Me too.” He reached over and picked up my hand. “Does this hurt your scratches? Now you know that you can tell me.”

It felt great. My life had changed so much that I couldn’t imagine how anything would ever hurt me, ever again.

Chapter 7

“Hi Roxy! What’s new girl. LA isn’t the same w/o you here girl. See ya.”

That was all it said and it would have been easy to ignore that message and block her. “See ya?” Sage wouldn’t see me because she’d ditched me in Indianapolis without a word.

And now she was messaging me on the account that was supposed to promote Callum and she was calling me the name that I didn’t even use anymore. I wasn’t Roxy now. She had a lot of nerve to jump in from the past and do this! She hadn’t used her own account to DM me but I could tell it was her from how it was written, because she called everyone “girl” so many—

“Ready, Rainey?”

I looked up at Victoria and nodded. I had been surprised when she’d texted me, since we hadn’t been in contact since we’d gone to Roy’s Tavern and I’d had the skinny White Russian. When I’d first seen her name pop up on my screen, I had been worried that there was something wrong with Callum’s Woodsmen paychecks (she did work for their accounting department, after all).

But there wasn’t any problem. She’d wanted to present an offer, and I was here because of it. She smiled and gestured at me to follow her into the office that belonged to Beau Gowan, her son’s father.

I hadn’t really understood her text, so she had ended up calling to explain it fully. “Beau was always really into fashion,” she’d told me. “That was the first thing I noticed about him. He dresses so well…also, he’s cute. Older, but cute,” she had continued. “Anyway, that’s not the point. He used to work for the Woodsmen but he decided that he wanted to try being a stylist.”

“For hair?”

“For clothes and houses. Like, he picks outfits and he picks furniture stuff. I think I’m explaining this badly,” she’d confessed. “I mean that he dresses a lot of the Woodsmen, choosing their wardrobes and helping them decide on hairstyles and facial hair, manscaping, and products. He also helps decorate, if they need that.”

I wasn’t sure if she was trying to hint that Callum needed to look better? He was practically perfect exactly like he was. But I didn’t show that I was offended and did my mask of calm instead. “Mmhm,” I had murmured.

“But it’s not just the football team. Beau has a lot of different clients, here and in Detroit. A few in Chicago, too.” She had sounded proud. “He started off with men because, well, he’s obviously a man himself. But now he wants to expand his business to women. He mentioned that to me and then I met you,” she’d continued. “He’s on his own and it took him a while to set aside time, but he wants to meet.”

“Me? Me,” I’d questioned and then stated, and she had confirmed it.

So, here I was, for what felt like a job interview. I’d had two more of those after I’d talked to the guy about the stocker position in the warehouse store. One had gone ok, I had thought, but they’d never contacted me again—so I guessed that it had actually been bad. The other interview had been awful from start to finish, with the woman showing up late, then telling me that she didn’t want to hire me because her sister was perfect for the job, but her supervisor had forced her to talk someone else so there we were. Then she had opened her lunch bag and started to eat, and she hadn’t asked me one, single question. After a minute, I had gotten up and left.

I hoped this meeting with Beau Gowan would go better. Heidi had recommended that I research him so I knew what I was walking into, and Anara had agreed. So I’d checked him out.

“He went to college,” I had reported to Callum when we’d talked on the phone the night before. “He has a great website but his business hasn’t been around for very long.”

“Is it legitimate? He’s not trying to get you in there to…I don’t know.”

He had said that last part in a low voice, but I had heard him clearly. There were no guys yelling in the background and insulting both me and his old phone, because he had been in his own room in a hotel in Ohio that he said was really nice. They would play there tonight, a midweek game.

I had believed that Beau Gowan was legitimate and Victoria also seemed to think so, but Callum’s question had made me feel uncertain. How had this Gowan guy managed to set himself up with what seemed like the ideal business? I had known plenty of people in Los Angeles who had ideas for different companies and schemes to make it big, but none of those plans had actually worked out. They’d had to return to their jobs in retail, as dogwalkers, or whatever else they’d been doing before in order to pay their rent.

Then I had looked at Beau Gowan’s personal social media. I’d seen exactly how he had managed to start his business and make it grow enough that he already needed to hire someone: either he was rich himself, or he had connections. There were pictures of him on what was obviously a private plane (a nice one), taking vacations on tropical beaches, and skiing where the signs behind him were in a different language (not Latin, as far as I could tell). This could have been a vanity project for him, if he was personally wealthy, or one of his friends had paid for his success. It was just like how actors financed their kids’ albums and music industry people bankrolled their friends’ movie ideas. The entertainment industry was all about who you knew, not if you were good.

But that wasn’t true about Callum. He was good and he was in Ohio right now to play because he deserved it. I wanted to get a job that I deserved, too, so I could start contributing more. I was getting some money from the social media stuff, little payments that I used to buy groceries and also was hoarding to (someday) get my own car. That had been an argument we’d had—

But here I was in Beau Gowan’s office with Victoria introducing me, and he stood up from his desk, smiling solemnly. “Hi, Rainey. It’s nice to meet you,” he said. She mentioned something about the dress I currently wore, and how I had made it myself out of a tablecloth.

“Can you believe that, Beau?” She nodded at me, encouraging.

He looked a little disgusted, but then returned to pleasantries. “Yellow is great on you. Let’s take a look at your résumé,” he suggested. Victoria showed herself out and we examined the document that Heidi had helped me to create on her computer. It was so empty that it looked silly, but she’d said that I needed to have one. She had obviously asked about the big gap when I had been at Damian’s in LA, and I had told her a little about my life there. Together, we’d figured out how to explain it.

“You worked as a social media and brand consultant,” Beau Gowan now read out loud. “You were a professional hostess and you helped to style Damian.” He squinted. “I don’t know who that is. Does he have a last name?”

“No, just the one. He wants to be the only Damian,” I explained. “I have pictures of some of the looks I created for him.” I showed him those on my phone, then showed him another post of Sage wearing stuff that I’d chosen, complete with hair and makeup done by me. Sage, the woman who had just randomly messaged me…

I focused. “I also make a lot of my own wardrobe,” I said. “I’ve been consulting with some of the Woodsmen WAGs on their clothes, too.”