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“Of course I remember. Changed my life.” He moved toward her, and she saw the hot intent in his eyes.
“This is the same thing. I’ve been to LA. I have a friend who lives there. I can be your guide.”
“Do you think I can’t handle a big city? I used to live in Minneapolis.”
“That was a long time ago. And LA is much bigger and more sprawling.”
He shook his head firmly as he reached the couch. “I need to go alone. I don’t know what I’m going to find. I don’t even know if I’ll find him.” Bracing his powerful arms on either side of her, he brushed his lips against hers. The scent of pine needles and sap flooded her senses. “But there’s something else I can’t do alone.”
Liquid heat rose within her. “Technically, you can,” she murmured.
“Not the things I’m planning.”
twenty-three
Brenda insisted on driving him to the regional airport, which was an hour and a half drive. She also helped him pack, making sure he brought the new clothes he’d picked up at the thrift store in Braddock. She even lent him her own rolling suitcase, much better than the grungy, stained duffel bag he’d planned to bring.
She gave him her friend’s phone number, booked him a room in a hotel with a pool—which apparently in LA didn’t mean expensive, necessarily. It was called the Safari Inn, located not far from some of the studios. If he couldn’t find his father’s address, he’d try to track him down during one of his auditions.
“Call any time,” she kept emphasizing as he hugged her goodbye at the curb. “Day, night, school hours. Just leave a message and I’ll call as soon as I can.”
“You’re such an angel. I’ll be fine.”
He had no idea if he was going to be fine. All he knew was that he was going, and that for some reason, it had to do with her. He needed to settle some scores with his past before he could truly have a future.
He would have loved to have her with him, but he refused to let her shift her focus from her own stuff. Her book release was a big deal, and she needed to give all the pre-release promotion her full attention. Besides, he didn’t intend to stay long. In and out, bing and boom.
Still, he soaked in every bit of her sweetness during those last moments at the airport. Her tartness, too, which was every bit as much of her as the angelic side.
On the plane, he fell asleep dreaming of her, watching her float across the water like the lady of the lake, until a shark surfaced and dragged her underwater with his teeth against her neck.
He woke up, gasping, to find the plane cruising in for a landing over an endless expanse of buildings. So many buildings. Covering so much territory, as far as he could see.
Jesus. Maybe he was in over his head.
Since he’d spent the first fifteen years of his life in the Twin Cities, he considered himself savvy to city ways. But he’d lived in one particular neighborhood in South Minneapolis and never strayed far. Coming into a new city the size of LA…that was a very different story.
Okay, Brenda, maybe you were right.
After landing, he remembered just in time that she’d downloaded the Lyft app onto his phone so he could catch a ride to his hotel. Which she’d booked for him.
Thank you, Brenda.
So far he’d communicated more with the Brenda in his head than he had with anyone in LA. That changed when he reached the Safari Inn and got checked in by a bored teenager with one side of her head shaved and the other bright pink. And was that a tattoo on her scalp?
She scowled at him. “What are you looking at?”
“Your tattoo. It looks like a coyote.”
“It is a coyote. How’d you know?”
“I know a lot of coyotes.”
“Like, the animals?”
He blinked at her, confused. “Yes?”
“A coyote brought me and mi papi here and stole all our money. The tat is for revenge, so I never forget.”
