Connected (Connections, #1)(67)

“Look over there,” River says, pointing to Pac-Man. “How about it?” he asks with a twinkle in his green eyes.

“Game on, hot stuff,” I answer as I head toward the machine.

We stay here, playing different games for hours. Challenging each other, I sometimes win, but he mostly wins. I have no idea how. I decide to try my luck, solo, at the Drive My Course game while River goes to get more quarters. When I finish, I look around the room and spot him walking his sway of a walk my way. I melt.

“Close your eyes,” he says as he comes to stand in front of me.

“Why?”

“Just close them.”

Closing my eyes, I feel him take my hand and attach something around my wrist. It’s the same wrist where my Cartier LOVE bangle sits.

“Okay, you can open now.”

Staring down at my wrist, I can’t believe what I’m looking at. This adorably sweet and sexy man has just placed a very colorful linked bracelet of the cutest Pac-Man on my wrist. It has a yellow Pac-Man with the blue, red, pink, and orange monsters on it.

“I love it!” I manage as I swallow back my tears of joy. I throw myself around him and say, “Thank you.”

He lifts me up and twirls me just once before setting me down. “Happy?”

Smiling up at him, I respond, “More than happy.”





THE SECRET IS IN THE TELLING



There is something you don’t know

I don’t want to tell you

But tonight somebody else will

So please understand why

Just remember the secret is in the telling.





Every town and every city has something that makes it a little unique. For Brentwood, it must be the beautiful white Dogwood trees that line its streets and the serendipity of the quaint shops, all very different but co-mingling so well. Downtown Brentwood is a small but trendy area. Its old fashioned streetlights display banners, its stores are covered with different colored awnings, and its Main Street sidewalks are even paved in bricks.

Having left the car in a small parking garage on a side street, we’re walking through the town where River grew up. We walk, with his one arm slung around my shoulder and my hand in his back pocket; he’s carrying ‘Stella’ on his other shoulder. We are on our way to what River described as his local neighborhood bar. It’s dusk, but light enough that I can see the town. It doesn’t look like an area where the word local seems to be the best description, but I’ll go with it. It’s actually very upscale. There’s a movie theater, a florist, retail shops, galleries, and many restaurants and bars. People are walking like they don’t have a care in the world, just browsing, talking, and laughing; just like us.

One place in particular catches my eye; it’s a bookstore named Fiction Vixen. My love for literature draws my attention toward the two piles of books in the large windows located on both sides of its front door. The books are displayed in a Christmas tree-like fashion with lights wrapping them. Pointing the store out to River, he laughs softly and tells me his mother’s friend, Vicki Mixen, owns it. He goes on to say that she has always been crazy about books and that when he was fourteen she decided to open a bookstore. He spent that whole summer helping her get it ready to open for business. It was his first job. He tells me that he hauled and stacked so many books that he never wanted to look at another book again. Then he jokes that it’s why he opted not to go to college. Again we both laugh and continue toward the bar.

I take in all the splendors that surround us. The visual makes me think of the Entertainment Complex at the Grove. I can’t help but smile at the memory of the wonderful day we had there, along with everything else we did. After the arcade we stopped at Whole Foods to purchase a few items, my priority being coffee and creamer. Picking up a late lunch from the deli, we made it back to the house in time for the prearranged delivery of all the items River purchased earlier today.

Throughout our day, we talked about our lives and I discovered so much more about him that I didn’t know. When he asked me questions about USC and I asked him how he knew the campus so well, he told me he visited his brother and sister there many times. He also told me his brother was in the Kappa Sigma Fraternity, but lived off campus. I mentioned that Ben was in the same fraternity, but skirted the topic. He told me he went to a few parties at the frat house and then crashed at either his brother or sister's place. I got the impression that who he stayed with depended on which sibling took someone else home with them. Funny, we only saw each other that one night, but good I guess.

I found out River’s mother moved out of Brentwood a couple of years ago when she got remarried; she and her husband actually live in River’s neighborhood. His sister lives with them, and his brother lives in what used to be their grandparents’ condo in downtown Beverly Hills. His grandparents both died within six months of each other last year and left a sizable inheritance to River and his brother and sister. Xander inherited their condo. I learned his grandfather was a silent partner in one of the first and most successful retail stores on Rodeo Drive and was extremely wealthy. I also found out there is another wing to River’s house. It’s located behind the garage and that is where the laundry room is. I laughed that he had no idea if there actually was a washer and dryer at the house, but we discovered, once we returned, that there is. I also laughed, because just like him, laundry is not something I actually think about or even do for myself. Since we hadn’t bought laundry detergent we couldn’t wash the new sheets. Instead we put the sheet from the air mattress on the new bed and proceeded to christen it.