LOL: Laugh Out Loud (After Oscar, #2)(11)

“Right. Let me call my attorney real quick.” He patted at his pockets like he was looking for something. “Oh wait, I don’t have one. Oh wait, I don’t even have a phone anymore to make that call with.”

My stomach dropped. “You don’t have a phone?”

Scotty barked out a laugh. “Why do you sound more surprised about that than me being hungry?”

“Everyone gets hungry,” I said before realizing he hadn’t meant hungry. He’d meant hunger. As in, can’t eat, not didn’t eat. “Oh.”

He flapped his hand at me. “Go back to your Nebraska naiveté and eat your damned pancakes.”

With that he snatched the bottle of syrup, pouring it liberally over his plate. As I watched him return to his own food, I realized how far apart our lives were. My biggest problem right now was my reputation. Sure I had a small army of paparazzi waiting outside my door for me every morning, but I also had millions of dollars in the bank and a staggeringly successful career in film.

This guy didn’t have a phone or even food, and here I was worried about a little celebrity gossip? It wasn’t fair. Especially since I’d been responsible for him ending up in this situation.

“What do you need?” I asked as gently as I could. “I’d like to help you.”

Scotty took a breath and looked over at me. I expected him to refuse the offer out of some misplaced sense of machoism or something and that I was then going to have to convince him. But he surprised me by saying, “I need somewhere safe to put my horse. And I need another job so I can find a place to live and afford feed and hay for Nugget.”

His honesty was refreshing. Even if the vulnerability in his eyes twisted at my heart.

I frowned. “Wait. I assumed the horse was owned by your boss. But you’re saying it’s yours?”

“She is mine. Yes. It’s a long story, but she’s mine.” He blew out a long breath. “And as of last night, we’re both homeless. Being homeless in the city is one thing. Being homeless on horseback in the city is another.”

I bit my tongue hard to keep from laughing. It wasn’t funny, but the image of him wandering the streets on a horse with bags and ratty sleeping bags hanging off the saddle horn made me want to chuckle.

As if to hit home the point that his situation wasn’t funny, Scotty added, “If they catch her, they’re going to take her away from me, Roman. She’s all I have left.”

Those words, the way his voice cracked saying them, the pain in his expression, it was like he was laying himself bare to me, right there in my kitchen. He was desperate, that much was obvious. And he’d come to me for help. Probably because he had no other options, but still.

The way Scotty held his chin in a defiant tilt made it clear he wasn’t a man who asked for help often or easily. But he was asking me. Somehow, that he was willing to entrust me with this part of himself felt like a rare gift.

I placed a hand on his arm. “I’ll figure something out,” I told him. “I’m not going to let you lose your horse.”

His chin wobbled and he glanced away for a long moment before clearing his throat and looking down at his empty plate. “Can you make some more pancakes first?”

I laughed and whipped up another batch. As he ate I cleaned the dishes, trying my hardest not to notice the faint smell of horse poop wafting up from downstairs. I was going to have to find another place for that horse to stay sooner rather than later.

When Scotty finished devouring his fourth stack of pancakes—even though he was small, the man could eat—I suggested he take a shower upstairs while I researched nearby stables.

“Yeah, okay,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the stairs. “You’re not, like, going to call the police and have them come arrest me while I’m naked in the shower, are you?”

I pictured him naked in the shower. I couldn’t help it. I imagined the water hitting his shoulders and sluicing down his slim, naked body. Curving around lithe muscles and catching in hair as it traveled lower and lower and—

“Dammit, Roman.” He snapped his fingers in my face, bringing me back to reality. “Are you going to report me the minute I’m out of your sight?”

I shook my head and blinked at him, realizing I must have taken an unusually long pause while considering what it would feel like to rub the soap between my palms and then slide them down his bare back, how they would curve just perfectly over his ass. Ungh.

“Roman. Focus.”

“Huh? No. No. Of course not.” I cleared my throat and gestured vaguely toward the stairs leading to the entry. “I’m going to try and find somewhere for the horse.”

“Nugget,” Scotty corrected.

“Nugget. For Nugget. Yes.”

Scotty narrowed his eyes at me again and crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t fuck me over, Roman Burke. I have friends at the Wall Street Journal.”

He was so obviously lying, I almost laughed. For some reason, this little street urchin made me feel a strange kind of bubbly giddiness. Just having him feisty and real here in my house made me want to shout with joy. Finally, something besides the depressing situation with Polly and the paparazzi and my career to concentrate on.

“I’m not going to fuck you over, Scotty,” I assured him. “Lord knows I can’t handle the Wall Street Journal coming at me with… what? Accusations of horse thievery? Of feeding the homeless?”