It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Bree in person, and a lifetime—it feels—since we were in a relationship, so it’s surprising she remembers my grandma lives in Bodega Bay. Italso occurs to me she thinks I’m in town temporarily. She doesn’t realize I live here. When I called this place my house, she must’ve thought I meant it like the place I’m staying, not the place I own.
I’m torn between informing her we’re about to be next-door neighbors for as long as she stays here and keeping her in the dark, but it’s late, the rain is soaking us both, and I need to decompress.
“Benny?”
“It’s Ben,” I correct her.
“Do you promise not to tell anyone?”
“Oh, yeah. Sure.”
Her eyes narrow. “That doesn’t sound like a promise.”
“I’m not spitting into my hand, Bree.”
“That wasone time,and I’ve outgrown it.” Bree pops a fist on her hip, making me think of her in my living room holding my sea lion sculpture.
I’m tempted to invite her back, to ask what she’s been up to—reallybeen up to.She televises so much of her life, but I’ve been there when the cameras were rolling for the reality show about her family,The Belacourts.It’s too scripted for me to believe much of what I saw on TV.
If she doesn’t want anyone to know she’s here, she’s in hiding. I’ve seen the headlines on social media. I know she’s running from a big breakup. What I don’t know is if the mascara running down her cheeks right now is from the rain or her heartache.
She wipes rain from her eyes and looks up, like it might help her gauge how much longer she’s going to be soaked. “Can I trust you, Benny?”
No one has called me Benny in years. Apparently, my initial correction went through one ear and out the other. I can’t really blame her. It’s the middle of the night, she broke into the wrong house, and now she’s dealing with a scraped elbow and isgetting drenched in cold rain. I need to let her go. Why is it so hard to do?
“Benny?”
“Yeah, you can trust me.” The fact that I’ve lived off the grid for so long should be proof enough I don’t have paps in my pocket. My connections to the Industry aren’t gone—it’s how I’ve kept such a healthy, quiet career over the last decade. But even if I did tell Chip or Justin about my run-in with my ex, they wouldn’t care enough to pass it on. Probably.
I won’t say anything, just to be safe.
But I need to say something to her. “I’m not really the one you have to worry about, though. There are two houses on this street with teenaged daughters. That alone is cause for concern.” Teenagers film and posteverything.
“That’s okay. I’m not planning on leaving the house too much.” She looks over her shoulder at my cousin’s Airbnb rental, then back at me. It might just be me, but she seems as hesitant to break the conversation as I do, like once she does, she might never see me again.
If she’s here for a month, she’ll have to leave the house at some point. Unless, of course, she has someone coming to meet her here. She probably has multiple assistants on payroll. “I don’t think they stock the fridges in these short-term rentals,” I say.
“That’s why we have grocery delivery.”
Delivery, which means she probably doesn’t have someone coming to meet her. “From Diekmann’s? I don’t think they do that.”
“I was thinking Amazon.”
Does she realize how long it takes to get anything delivered out here? I doubt groceries would be much different. If she’s wanting veggies, they might end up a pile of brown mush before they reach her porch. Does Amazon even deliver vegetables?
She seems to read my face. “Or a store in Santa Rosa. I can probably pay someone to bring me food.”
It’s a forty-minute drive, thirty if she orders from a closer town, but there are people willing to do that for cash. If she wants to remain in hiding, though, that’s probably not her best bet. Besides, if she doesn’t have a bodyguard—and given the events of the evening so far, she doesn’t—she shouldn’t be inviting strangers to her house for any reason. It’s too dangerous.
Bree scrubs a hand over her mascara-covered eyes and sighs. “I don’t know. I’ll figure it out tomorrow.”
“Okay. Well, if you need anything, I’m right here.”
Bree’s eyes snap to mine. Despite the blonde wig and abundance of mascara gone awry, her brown eyes look deep and dark and pull me in.
Since when did she have freckles?
I swallow hard. Why did I give her an open-ended offer? Should I have acted more aloof? Drawn a healthy boundary between us? I haven’t seen this woman in years. Itcan’tbe a coincidence that she’s literally standing in front of my door right now. But it’s too late—too early?—to get all analytical.